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# The 1900 bubonic plague outbreak in Glasgow and a new inquiry into the role of rats
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/chuma-xx-veka/
- Published: 2019-01-18T13:57:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:54:46.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Science, Society, Nature

The Plague of the Twentieth Century.

The Third Pandemic flared up in Asia in 1855 and claimed millions of lives; several decades later it found an echo in Europe: in 1900, in Glasgow, 48 recorded cases of bubonic plague led to at least 16 deaths.

Only a couple of years before the dreadful return of the plague, it had been proved that the plague bacillus is carried by fleas from rats, so that the extermination of an entire army of rodents was not merely a fashionable measure but also quieted the mass hysteria. The disease was held to be spread by rats that had sailed in from China: in ports, warehouses and cellars, hordes of rodents were wiped out. As part of the disinfection, attempts were even made to treat banknotes and coins.

But an investigation published recently has rehabilitated the rats: they have been declared innocent of spreading the epidemic, and the cause lay with people themselves. It was the circle of the first victims that suffered: a fishwife and her granddaughters in one of the most crowded of the city's poor districts.