The deadly and rapidly progressing disease known as the Great Plague of Europe or what is often referred to as the Black Death that affected the European population between 1347 and 1353 initially began in China. Throughout human discourse, all three forms of infectious disease played a devastating role in epidemics that resulted in high mortality rates in 14th-century Europe. The Black Death that occurred in Europe was the second of three great waves that struck throughout history. The first plague broke out in the 6th century during the reign of the Byzantines under Emperor Justinian, reaching his capital Constantinople. The third great wave of plague began in China's Yunnan province in 1894, emerging in Hong Kong and then spreading via sea routes around the world. The plague reached the United States from a ship containing rodents carrying the plague from Hong Kong that docked in Hawaii, where the plague broke out in December 1899, and then in San Francisco, whose plague epidemic began in the early 1900s. A team of medical geneticists led by Mark Achtman of University College Cork in Ireland concludes that all three major plague waves originated from China (Wade, 2010). The empirical evidence of their findings underlines that the plague would have reached Europe via the Silk Road. Although there were three major waves of plague, the Great Plague of Europe in the 14th century was the most devastating, violent, and viral of the three waves. The primary cause of the Great Plague of Europe came from a deadly bacterium known as Yersinia Pestis. A patch of bubonic plague escapes the human body and concentrates in the lymph node. The blood profile of a patient suffering from plague would contain either... in the center of the sheet... Diseases, 49(10), i.4. The Black Death, 1348," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2001).http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/westciv/blackdeath.html5. "The Black Death: A Plague That Brought change in Europe." Calliope May-June 2011: 42+. General OneFile. Web. 8 May 2012. Document URL http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA259679369&v=2.1 &u=nysl_sc_sshs&it= r&p=ITOF&sw=w6. “The Black Death.” Nationalgeographic.com, nd Web, May 19, 2012. http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases /plague. -article/7. “The Black Death Begins.” 2012. The History Channel website, May 19, 2012, 9:58 am http://www.history.com/videos/the-black-death- begins.8, Wade, European plagues come from China, Study Finds: np, 2010. Web. April 25. 2012. .