An American Plague Summary

The book When Plague Strikes, is about 3 deadly diseases. It 's about the Black Death, Smallpox, and AIDS. Each of these diseases can cause a serious outrage of death. The book also tells about how doctors try to come up with treatments, medicines, and antibiotics to try and cure these diseases. All these diseases got the best out of everyone. Some people reacted differently than others with these diseases. All the diseases came in play in A. D. 1347, when the Black Death broke out for the first time in what’s today is know. As southern Ukraine.

Chapter One of of Jim Murphy’s book, An American Plague, opens with the quote, ‘About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us” (Murphy 1). This quote is accredited to Mathew Carey in November, 1793. The term scourge is defined as, “a person or thing that cause great trouble of suffering,” and the term malignant is defined as, “tending to produce death or deterioration.” These are very strong terms with extremely negative connotative meanings. The figurative language which is evident in the quote at the opening of Chapter One is personification. Carey’s quote give yellow fever an eerie, human-like quality when he writes, “the destroying scourge, the malignant fever, CREPT in among us” (Murphy 1). CArey’s word choices and use of personification help to create a powerful image in the reader’s mind of the threat looming over the city of Philadelphia.\

The plague, otherwise known as “the Black Death”, brought on much turmoil and suffering for the habitants of Pistoia. Numerous ordinances were put into effect with the primary goal of limiting the spread of the plague as well as to keep the city as healthy as possible. These ordinances typically focused on confinement, i.e. no one goes to Pisa and Luca and no one from Pisa and Luca is allowed to enter Pistoia (ordinance 1), how death and burials are to be processed (ordinances 3-12), and how butchers were to handle their animals and animal carcasses (ordinances 13-19). Essentially, confinement was targeted in hopes of stopping the spread of the infection while keeping the city isolated. Secondly, how the bodies of plague victims and their

From 1347 to 1352 a string of the bubonic plague lay waste to western Europe, killing millions. In Italy, nearly a third of the population died; in England, half. The plague was a looming presence, always in the back of people’s minds. The symptoms of the Black Death caused great strife for westerners. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet, described the symptoms he saw during the first outbreak of the plague: “Not such were they as in the East, where an issue of blood from the nose was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but in men a women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli.” Both Italy and England desperately searched for answers, claiming that the Black Death was the cause of a higher force, but realising that the squalor of their countries also played a part in spreading the illness. Although Italy and England both had a common explanation for the cause of the plague and they both implemented better public health standards, they adopted different public health practices after the plague.

While reading An American Plague, I noticed an interesting detail that Yellow Fever could actually be prevented. Murphy (2003) notes that doctors noted the symptoms of the sick patients from the disease Yellow Fever. Some of the symptoms were pain in the back and painful aching in the body. This detail led me to wonder if there was a way that you could prevent Yellow fever. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that wearing bug repellent will reduce the chances for getting bit by a mosquito and they also talk about having more clothing on your body will also help because then mosquito's can not bite you. The article also talks about vaccines because we know have a yellow fever vaccine and that will cure yellow fever.

The plague was a catastrophic time in history, and happened more than once. It took millions and millions of people’s lives. It destroyed cities and countries, and many people suffered from it.

There are many ways to explore any period in history. The period that we will look further into will be Medieval Europe. I found an academic article that explores deeper into that period, especially the Black plague. Assembling three primary sources of the black plague, each has a different perspective of what was portrayed in the academic article.

The American Plague was written by Molly C. Crosby, who is as much as a researcher as she is an author. In 1648, a slave ship returning from Africa carried a few mosquitoes infected with a deadly virus know as yellow fever. The ship landed in the New World and thrived in the hot wet climate and on the white settlers. The New World has never come in contact with yellow fever and as a result no immunities have been built up. The virus obtained its name from the way it turns the victim’s skin and eyes a golden yellow. Victims also suffer from very high fevers, external and internal bleeding, and blackish vomit. In America yellow fever killed thousands of peoples, halted trade, and disrupted the government. Although many

The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century will have the greatest impact on the 16th and 17th centuries. The plague caused the European population the drop by 25 to 50 percent, induced movements and many revolts, and prompted changes in urban life. The European population dropped by 25 to 50 percent between 1347 and 1351. So, if the European population was 75 million, this would mean the 18.75 to 37.5 million people died in four years. There were also major outbreaks that lasted many years until the end of the 15th century. Mortality figures were incredibly high. As a result, the European population did not begin to recover until the 16th century. It took many generations after that to achieve thirteenth-century levels. The plague induced movements and many revolts in Europe.

The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century will have the greatest impact on the 16th and 17th centuries. The plague caused the European population the drop by 25 to 50 percent, induced movements and many revolts, and prompted changes in urban life. The European population dropped by 25 to 50 percent between 1347 and 1351. So, if the European population was 75 million, this would mean the 18.75 to 37.5 million people died in four years. There were also major outbreaks that lasted many years until the end of the 15th century. Mortality figures were incredibly high. As a result, the European population did not begin to recover until the 16th century. It took many generations after that to achieve thirteenth-century levels. The plague induced

The Plague or ¨Black Death¨ was a virus that spread across Europe killing about 60% of the population. The plague's origin was at the time unknown and this brought about many questions. At this time, people did not have basic necessities such as proper hygiene and medicine. Therefore there was fear, superstitions as well as conspiracy, and there were also some who realized that they could gain from the deaths of those around them.

The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague.

Though this is not common knowledge, or “untold”, Molly Caldwell Crosby’s The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped our History is a resource that accounts it in its entirety. Its thorough account of medical and cultural history surrounding the virus is a guide through every part of the virus’s time in the United States, eradication, and eventual long term effects. The book is a paramount resource for anyone looking for a thorough knowledge of the subject of yellow fever, and shows that the United States, and the world, truly would not have been the same without the existence and manifestation of yellow fever in

There is a certin unsureness in the circulation and communication of information in A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. This instability of the language in this proto-novel is caused by the author citing two sides to every point or statement he makes causing contradictions. On top of this Defoe repeats the same points throughout the entire text. This uncertainty helps to make the reader believe the writing is an actual journal as opposed to an edited, actual non-fiction.

A Journal of the Plague Year is a first person account of what it was like living through the times of the plague. It recollects stories and other accounts of plague times heard by and collected by the Defoe from other involved individuals. Explains many aspects before, during, and after the plague of their ways of life and culture. Tells of tales of survivors of the plague but mostly off different tales of deaths and how they died in many outrageous and tragic ways of people killing their families, themselves, or masses of people. The whole journal is filled with collections of stories, but also with charts showing the deaths in different parishes and how they change as the plague raged on. In the end, it tells how life went back to normal for London and Defoe and his family.