Editing Flea (section)

===Carriers of plague===
[[File:Great plague of london-1665.jpg|thumb|upright|[[The Great Plague of London]], in 1665, killed up to 100,000 people.]]

[[Oriental rat flea]]s, ''Xenopsylla cheopis'', can carry the [[coccobacillus]] ''[[Yersinia pestis]].'' The infected fleas feed on rodent vectors of this bacterium, such as the [[black rat]], ''Rattus rattus'', and then infect human populations with the [[Plague (disease)|plague]], as has happened repeatedly from ancient times, as in the [[Plague of Justinian]] in 541–542.<ref>{{cite book |author=Rosen, William |date=2007 |url=https://archive.org/details/justiniansfleapl00rose/page/3 |title=Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe |publisher=Viking Adult |page=[https://archive.org/details/justiniansfleapl00rose/page/3 3] |isbn=978-0-670-03855-8 |url-access=registration }}</ref>  Outbreaks killed up to 200 million people across Europe between 1346 and 1671.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hays |first=J. N. |title=The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History |url=https://archive.org/details/burdensofdisease0000hays |url-access=registration |year=1998 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-2528-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/burdensofdisease0000hays/page/58 58] and following}}</ref> The [[Black Death]] pandemic between 1346 and 1353 likely killed over a third of the population of Europe.<ref>{{cite book | last=Austin Alchon | first=Suzanne | title=A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YiHHnV08ebkC&pg=PA21 | publisher=University of New Mexico Press | year=2003 | page=21 | isbn=978-0-8263-2871-7 }}</ref>

Because fleas carry plague, they have seen service as a [[biological weapon]]. During [[World War II]], the [[Kaimingjie germ weapon attack|Japanese army dropped fleas]] infested with ''Y. pestis'' in China. The [[Bubonic plague|bubonic]] and [[Septicemic plague|septicaemic plagues]] are the most probable form of the plague that would spread as a result of a [[bioterrorism]] attack that used fleas as a vector.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bossi |first=P. |display-authors=etal |date=2004 |title=Bichat guidelines for the clinical management of plague and bioterrorism-related plague |journal=Eurosurveillance |volume=9 |issue=12 |page=Article 12 |url=http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=501}}</ref>