Learning about the Middle Ages in school, many of us thanked our lucky stars that the “ Black Death ” was no longer a thing.
The pandemic ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, killing between 75 and 200 million people – 30 to 50 per cent of the continent’s entire population – in a hideously painful way.
The most famous symptom was large sores caused by swollen lymph nodes, known as “buboes”, hence the name: the bubonic plague.
And whilst people no longer carry around pockets full of posies in a misguided bid to ward off the disease, we can’t resign it to the annals of history just yet.
Indeed, this is a lesson one person in Oregon learned the hard way.
The patient was left “very sick” after contracting the illness from their pet cat, a health officer in the US state, Richard Fawcett, told NBC .
Officials have not confirmed how the infection spread from the cat to its owner, but it’s possible that the animal was bitten by infected fleas, which may have then jumped onto the unsuspecting human.