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naturally occurring epidemics. It has been suggested in recent years that the fifth and sixth plagues of Egypt, affecting live- stock and people, respectively, might have been outbreaks of anthrax , which takes both animal and human victims. We tend to think of any major epidemic as a plague, but strictly speaking, the term applies only to the disease that is caused by Yersinia pestis , a microbe found on fleas infest- ing an urban rat population. The Black Death was one such epidemic, and between 1347 and 1350, it killed fully one-third of the population of Europe. The Black Bane of 17th-century Europe is thought by modern scholars to have been anthrax, but the Great Plague that rav- aged England around the same time is now considered to have been the last important eruption of true plague.

The Black Death killed fully a third of Europe’s population.

P rotecting against B iological and C hemical A ttack

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