Our tour director walked us through a neighborhood close to the site of the Byzantine palace. The old neighborhood was once the earliest of the Muslim settlements in the Old City. After the Ottoman conquest waves of plagues swept through the neighborhood just about every decade, killing off the neighborhood time and time again.
Plague bacteria is carried in the guts of fleas that ride on rats. I asked the professor about the role of Istanbul cats in 15th century plague prevention. In that time, they didn’t have complete knowledge of the role of rats in the spread of the plague. If they had as many cats as Istanbul has now, they would not have had a problem. Perhaps this is a research project that I can work on for the next symposium in Istanbul!
I love it!
ReplyDeleteYou should check out "Classical Cats" by Donald Engels. It is a wonderful book that has some information about cats and the plague, along with other key reasons why there was not as much Plague in Roman times as in the "Dark" Ages. It turns out they may have been dark ages because they lost a respect for cats. :)
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