Was Ebola Behind the Black Death?

L O N D O N, July 30 -- Controversial new research suggests that contrary to the history books, the "Black Death" that devastated medieval Europe was not the bubonic plague, but rather an Ebola-like virus.

History books have long taught the Black Death, which wiped out a quarter of Europe's population in the Middle Ages, was caused by bubonic plague, spread by infected fleas that lived on black rats. But new research in England suggests the killer was actually an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.

The Black Death killed some 25 million Europeans in a devastating outbreak between 1347 and 1352, and then reappeared periodically for more than 300 years. Scholars had thought flea-infested rats living on ships brought the disease from China to Italy and then the rest of the continent.

But researchers Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott of the University of Liverpool say that the flea-borne bubonic plague could not have torn across Europe the way the Black Death did.

"If you look at the way it spreads, it was spreading at a rate of around 30 miles in two to three days," says Duncan. "Bubonic plague moves at a pace of around 100 yards a year."

Unlike the bubonic plague, a bacterial disease which still exists in parts of Asia, India and North America, viral diseases are passed on from person to person, usually by breath or touch.

Ebola-Like Symptoms Cited

In their new book Biology of Plagues: Evidence from Historical Populations, Duncan and Scott compare the signs and symptoms of the Black Death with modern-day viruses such as the Spanish flu, the West Nile virus and, most closely, Ebola.

Medieval descriptions of the Black Death sound like the hemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola-like virus, the authors say. Such fever strikes fast and causes blood vessels to burst underneath the skin, bringing out welts, similar to what British medical texts from the Middle Ages describe as "God's tokens."

The liquidization of internal organs that causes excruciating pain in Ebola victims matches the descriptions of historical autopsies on plague victims, which similarly describe internal organs being dissolved along with the appearance of a black liquid, according to the authors.