Scanning electron micrograph of Yersinia pestis, which causes bubonic plague, on proventricular spines of a Xenopsylla cheopis flea.
Human Y. pestis infection takes three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic, and bubonic plagues. All three forms were responsible for a number of high-mortality epidemics throughout human history, including the sixth century's Plague of Justinian, the Black Death, which accounted for the death of at least one-third of the European population between 1347 and 1353, and the 19th century's Third Pandemic.
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