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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 4178413, member: 72790&quot;]Thanks for that story. Interesting and quite probable. I recall reading that the deadliest plagues known in history seem to have had their origins in China and then spread from there outward. But why China? If I recall correctly a theory has been advanced that China has historically been the region where these plagues originated because of the large, densely populated regions where humans lived in close habitation and proximity to their livestock. The deadliest plague illnesses are those that see the microbes pass from animals to humans, that they mutate to allow human to human transmission and then it&#039;s off to the rest of the world via international trade contact.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;I have read that this also explains why the European arrival to the New World in the Age of Discovery wound up killing off so much of the Amerindian population. In the Americas there was not the close living arrangements with livestock (cattle, horses, swine, chickens are not native to the New World) so when both they and the Europeans arrived they brought the kind of microbes with them that are associated with this dense human-livestock habitation most prevalent on the Eurasian landmass. In the case of the deadly plague epidemics of the Ancient World there are frequent references to the epidemic diseases coming from the &quot;East&quot; , though just how far east that was could not be known by the people of the Mediterranean region. Thanks again for that article.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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