Spread by fleas, the bubonic plague, also called the Black Plague, raged through Europe, Asia, and North Africa between the years 1346 and 1350. Though cities attempted to curb the spread of this highly infectious disease by quarantining cities, the fleas easily spread from city to city. Estimates of those killed reach into the tens of millions. In Europe and Asia, more than half of the population died of the Black Plague during those four years. Many more died of starvation in the famine that followed because of the staggering depletion of the work force.