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Abstract
For the whole of the 20th century it was believed that the Black Death and all the
plagues of Europe (1347-1670) were epidemics of bubonic plague. This review presents
evidence that this view is incorrect and that the disease was a viral haemorrhagic
fever, characterised by a long incubation period of 32 days, which allowed it to be
spread widely even with the limited transport of the Middle Ages. It is suggested
that haemorrhagic plague emerged from its animal host in Ethiopia and struck repeatedly
at European/Asian civilisations, before appearing as the Black Death. The CCR5-Delta32
mutation confers protection against HIV-1 in an average of 10% of the people of European
origin today. It is suggested that all the Deltaccr5 alleles originated from a single
mutation event that occurred before 1000 BC and the subsequent epidemics of haemorrhagic
plague gently forced up its frequency to 5 x 10(-5) at the time of the Black Death.
Epidemics of haemorrhagic plague over the next three centuries then steadily raised
the frequency in Europe (but not elsewhere) to present day values.