Beneath Edinburgh, the air was damp and musty as we wound through the packed-dirt floors of an underground close—or narrow alleyway—branching off the Royal Mile. I could practically choke on the ghostly residues: the thick cloud of soot from torches and cooking fires, the stench of chamber pots emptied into the sloping alleyway, the dusty corners where rats once lurked, and most hauntingly, bunk beds stuffed with blankets, plastic rodents, and mannequins of a family dying of plague.
We were at the Real Mary King’s Close, a historical attraction nestled among the tweed and tourist shops of the Royal Mile. It is one of dozens of surviving closes that criss-cross the streets of Old Town Edinburgh. The Real Mary King’s Close is particularly famous because it features four preserved underground closes (in the 1700s, the Royal Exchange Building was built atop the tenement-lined alleys). We went on a plague tour to learn more about life in the cramped closes during the city’s worst outbreak of plague in 1645.
The Plague in Edinburgh
That summer, two types of plague spread through the city: pneumonic plague, which causes respiratory symptoms and internal bleeding (this led to patches of black skin, which may have contributed to the name “Black Death”), and bubonic plague, which causes the formation of massive, pus-filled boils. Both can be deadly, and roughly half the people who got sick died.
During the outbreak, no one was allowed to leave their homes. When someone caught the plague, they hung a white sheet from their window to signal for the plague doctor (who was allowed to roam freely) to come. If they had the boils from the bubonic plague, the doctor lanced it, allowed the pus to drain, and cauterized the wound with a hot iron.
Being a plague doctor was a risky business. After the city’s first plague doctor died of the disease, the new doctor, George Rae, donned the iconic “plague doctor” uniform: a black cloak, long sleeves, and a mask with a long, protruding beak. At the time, people thought sickness was caused by miasma, or bad air. The clothes were intended to keep miasmas from touching the skin, and the beak was filled with sweet-smelling flowers so that the doctor wouldn’t breathe in polluted air.
Today, we know that plague is a bacterial infection mainly spread by fleas, but also by contact with contaminated fluids or tissue (like blood) or by inhalation of droplets coughed out by sick patients. Rats and their fleas have carried this disease around the globe. Ironically, the plague doctor outfit worked—just not for the reasons people believed. The long clothes reduced exposure to flea bites, and the beak acted as a mask.
Rats Then, Rats Now
It may sound like a medieval nightmare, but plague still exists today, although it is now curable with antibiotics. Every year, one to two thousand people get it (including about seven in the United States), often from exposure to fleas carried by rural rodents like prairie dogs.
Just like in the old days, rodents can still spread the plague and other diseases. This month, a suspected hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship reminded the world that rodent-borne diseases are not confined to history books. Doctors believe that the disease was introduced to the boat by a Dutch couple who had recently traveled through Argentina and Chile. During their trip, they birdwatched in areas home to long-tailed pygmy rice rats, the species that carries the Andes strain of hantavirus. Unlike the plague, hantavirus is carried by the rat itself, not the fleas on the rat. People can become infected when they breathe in or come into contact with the poop, pee, or saliva of an infected rodent.
This type of hantavirus is unusual in that it also can spread between people, and that’s what may have happened aboard the ship. Public health officials are closely monitoring the people who were aboard the cruise and their close contacts. According to the World Health Organization, the risk to the public remains low.
Whether in the great outdoors or the attic, rodents and other animals can carry dangerous diseases. This outbreak is a reminder that even though we’ve come a long way in treating disease, prevention is still key. Simple actions like keeping backyards tidy and keeping our distance from wildlife aren’t just respectful toward nature, but are important for health. Rodents—and the diseases they carry—haven’t gone anywhere.
Walking through the Real Mary King’s Close, it was easy to imagine plague as a relic of a haunting past. But rodent-borne disease is no ghost story: the creatures that carry these infections are still very much with us. The same connections between humans, animals, and the environment that shaped outbreaks centuries ago still shape them today.
Publishing Updates:
I’ve had two articles published recently! You can find them here:
- Basalt: Planetary Destroyer…and Savior? (Great Lakes Rock Hunter Magazine)
- Bird Flu in the Wild (Bird Conservation)
Books I’m Reading:
- The Canterbury Tales
- Scotland the Strange: Weird Tales from Storied Lands
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