Epidemic Disease

sci:bio:epidemic_disease

Epidemics are the work of microbes that leap from animals to people and spread unseen; ancient DNA has now named the killers — the bacterium Yersinia pestis behind both the Black Death and the Plague of Justinian. The arrows of a plague-god, and the stalking figure of Death, were the face a people gave to a contagion they could not see. — biology / history