From the Black Death to the American Prairie: A Global History of Plague

The Black Death never really disappeared.

In this episode of Beyond Ether Dome, Dr. Lane and Dr. Patenaude follow plague from the great pandemics of the ancient and medieval world to the American West, where Yersinia pestis still survives in wild rodent populations today.

Topics include:

• The Plague of Justinian and the medieval Black Death
• How ancient DNA finally proved that Yersinia pestis caused the Black Death
• The 2022 Nature study tracing its origins to Central Asia
• Alexandre Yersin and the discovery of the plague bacillus
• British investigations of rats and fleas during the Third Pandemic
• The arrival of plague in San Francisco in 1900
• Joseph Kinyoun, Chinatown quarantines, racism, and political denial
• Rupert Blue and the campaign to control rats and rebuild San Francisco
• The 1906 earthquake and the second San Francisco outbreak
• The discovery of plague in California ground squirrels
• The spread of plague into prairie dogs and other western wildlife
• The ecological consequences for the endangered black-footed ferret
• How cloning is now being used to restore genetic diversity to the species

From medieval graveyards and early bacteriology to San Francisco, prairie dog towns, and modern conservation genetics, this episode traces the remarkable journey of a disease that helped reshape human history and then became permanently established in the American West.