{"id":115126,"date":"2010-10-31T22:56:31","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T05:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=115126"},"modified":"2010-10-31T22:56:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-01T05:56:31","slug":"europe%e2%80%99s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/10\/europe%e2%80%99s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New research indicates that the three waves of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Plague\">plague<\/a> that struck Europe, the first in the 6th century, all originated in China, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/11\/01\/health\/01plague.html?partner=rssnyt&#038;emc=rss\">New York Times reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century. <\/p>\n<p>&#8230;The three plague waves have now been tied together in common family tree by a team of medical geneticists led by Mark Achtman of University College Cork in Ireland. By looking at genetic variations in living strains of Yersinia pestis, Dr. Achtman\u2019s team has reconstructed a family tree of the bacterium. By counting the number of genetic changes, which clock up at a generally steady rate, they have dated the branch points of the tree, which enables the major branches to be correlated with historical events.<\/p>\n<p>In the issue of Nature Genetics published online Sunday, they conclude that all three of the great waves of plague originated from China, where the root of their tree is situated. Plague would have reached Europe across the Silk Road, they say. An epidemic of plague that reached East Africa was probably spread by the voyages of the Chinese admiral<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zheng_He\"> Zheng He <\/a>who led a fleet of 300 ships to Africa in 1409.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s exciting is that we are able to reconstruct the historical routes of bacterial disease over centuries,\u201d Dr. Achtman said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New research indicates that the three waves of plague that struck Europe, the first in the 6th century, all originated in China, the New York Times reports: The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,6],"tags":[976,2883,1006],"class_list":["post-115126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-sci-tech","tag-history","tag-plague","tag-zheng-he","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Europe\u2019s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/10\/europe\u2019s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Europe\u2019s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New research indicates that the three waves of plague that struck Europe, the first in the 6th century, all originated in China, the New York Times reports: The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/10\/europe\u2019s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-01T05:56:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/10\/europe%e2%80%99s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/10\/europe%e2%80%99s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sophie Beach\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/7f19e31b674d57a7dc20aab8e908c663\"},\"headline\":\"Europe\u2019s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-11-01T05:56:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-11-01T05:56:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2010\/10\/europe%e2%80%99s-plagues-came-from-china-study-finds\/\"},\"wordCount\":255,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"history\",\"Plague\",\"zheng he\"],\"articleSection\":[\"China &amp; 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