Black Death In The 19th Century

When many people think of the Black Death they only think of the aspect of sick people dying. Although that was the tragedy that occurred, the whole picture includes social and economic changes within Europe. Since the population rapidly decreased due to the disease causing many to perish, the aftermath involved population regrowth, which also brought many changes along with it. Although a time of great loss, the Black Death allowed for the laboring class to financially benefit, causing financial distinctions amongst social classes to diminish. It also allowed for the rights of the lower class to increase and financial suffering for the middle class. The Black Death resulted in a push in the direction of modern Europe.

In the year 1348 the world changed forever. The Black Death, which is another name for the Bubonic Plague, laid havoc on the entire world. “The plague chases the screaming without pity and does not accept a treasure for a ransom. Its engine is far-reaching. The plague enters into the house and swears it will not leave except with all of its inhabitants…” (Al-Wardi, #29, 113). The plague did not care if the people were rich, poor, white, black, Muslim or Catholic, it would kill whomever it could. The plague brought out the worst in people because people acted selfishly, people were completely inhumane, and there was no peace.

The Black Death was one of the most life-changing pandemics in history. It was first discovered 550 years later in the 1800s by Alexandre Yersin, a french biologist. In his honor, the plague was named Yersinia Pestis. The plague traveled in two major ways. Yersin discovered that it traveled by infected fleas; the flea would attempt to feed on a human or animal and would then regurgitate the disease into the new host, further spreading the illness. Urban areas across Europe were populous with rats, which were one of the main hosts of the plague. These rodents spread the Black Death throughout cities in days. The unaffected still were not safe if they did not come in contact with an infected flea or rat. The plague also traveled pneumonically, or through the air. It caused large boils full of blood and pus, which would pop and spread. Another symptom was coughing, which was one of the many ways of proliferation. The disease eventually spread throughout Europe and killed a third of it’s population. It’s wrath caused many shortages, loss in hope, riots, and even some good things, such as many changes in art, science, and education. Therefore, the Black Death was one of the most life-changing pandemics in history.

The black death arrived in Europe in October of 1347. It was brought by twelve Genoese trading ships that docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a lengthy expedition through the Black Sea. The people that were gathered on the docks to meet the twelve ships were greeted with a terrifying surprise: the majority of the sailors that were on they ship were dead, and the ones that were still alive were somberly ill. They had fevers, were unable to hold down food, and were delirious from pain. They were covered with big black boils that oozed pus and blood. The illness was named the “Black Death” because of the black boils.

They sang nursery rhymes about The Black Death, the most popular being “Ring Around the Rosie”. The rhyme references “rosy” which most likely means rosary beads, as well as “posies”, a type of flower which was used to stop the scent of death and decay. The final line of this well known rhyme is “We all fall down”. This implies the bleak and dismal outcome of the plague. The outcome was almost always the same due to the limited amount of medical research from this period in

The Black Death, another name for the Bubonic Plague, was one of the worst pandemics in the world. Sweeping through middle age Eurasia, it killed over two thirds of the population. This plague spread from the fleas burrowed on rats, and was overall a terrible and fatal disease. There were many practices that were to believed to help cure it, but panic was still induced because of the fatality rate. In addition, there were also nuances brought in by different religious groups, including Christianity and Islam, to take precautions for this plague. However, these two groups had different approaches to the Black Death. Views on why God was causing it, ways to prevent against it, and overall actions towards the plague itself were a few differences between how Christians and Muslims dealt with the Black Death.

The plague was a disease that devastated Europe and the Christian population. Christians handled the plague very differently than the other groups it affected. The mortality rate for European Christians was an estimated 31%. (Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death, New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1983.) They believed the plague was a cruel and horrible punishment on the men, women, and children of their society brought upon them by God.

Christianity took the Black Death in a different approach. They believed that the plague was a result for all the sins you done on earth.. The death rate for Christians was about a third of the population. There were 75,000,000 people living in Europe at that time and reduced to about 51,600,000 people during the

The responses to the Black Death were very different between Christians and Muslims. The two groups had opposite views of the Black Death. The Muslims had a much more positive outlook than the Christians. The Muslims viewed the plague as a blessing from God.Conversely the Christians viewed it as punishment (DBQ: The Black Death, 2010).

Imagine living in a time filled with nothing but fear. The thing you fear cannot be touched or seen but will put you to a slow miserable death. In the 1300s people were struck with a great plague, which has now been named “The Black Death”. The Black Death killed off populations with just one sweep. Historians call this the biggest tragedy of all time. The question is what caused this plague and how does something like this happen? Overtime historians have boiled it down to 2 and some may say 3 explanations, which are religion, science, and humans. With the help of a book The Black Death by Rosemary Horrox I was able to find explanations of them all. Who may know which is the correct reason for such a thing but what your think caused it

Medical conditions were lacking throughout this period of time. Not to mention the doctors would not want to jeopardize their own health to help people during the time of the Black Death. With no help from the doctors this left the disease to continue to run rapidly and people continuing to die. If a doctor did help they wore outfits made of leather to protect themselves from the plague and they wore a mask (DOC. 6).Treatments of this time included a variety of options.

The people of the town would throw food at you if they saw you in town and you were ill with the Plague. No one in the towns wanted the Plague so they thought if they killed the people that had it; the dieses would eventually go away. Some people would steal the cloths off the dead people and sell it just to make a little money, even if thought that would help spread the Black Plague.

During the mid-thirteenth century to the fourteenth century, an outbreak of a disease called the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, occurred. It was a very deadly disease that killed approximately one-third of the population of both Europe and the Middle East based on the Student Guide Sheet. It was spread by black rats to fleas then to humans. The infected fleas from the rats would land on the humans, causing them to get the disease. It was spread across the world from China to Europe based on Document One. When the disease struck, it questioned followers of both Christianity and Islam. How would their followers deal with this deadly disease? Each religion looked at the disease differently. This paper will inform you of how differently the Christians

Knowing that the Church couldn’t provide answers to their questions, people started developing their own methods of coping with the Black Death. For example, the Flagellant movement emerged soon after the first breakout of the Black Death. Flagellants were men who travelled to different cities and beat themselves with a whip that had a piece of sharp metal knotted at the end (Constitutional Rights Foundations, 2016). The bleeding Flagellants would fall down and make the shape of the cross. A Heavenly letter was read to God at the end of a procession, pleading for forgiveness and asking to end the plague.

The Black Death was a very lethal and deadly epidemic. It has been widely debated years ago what the black plague really was, how the epidemic had spread, why and how were the Jewish people were responsible for the outbreak or not, and how people attempted to put a halt to the plague. Even up to this day scientists are still observing the DNA of the infected people found at mass burials . It was such a complex and widespread disease that no one can stop it and it killed a large amount of Europe’s population. It wasn’t one simple disease; there were many mutations and adaptation to it that the thought of treatment was just outrageous. Many Christians and other religions blamed the Jews for the events that had occurred even when they had no considerable evidence that is was the Jewish people who started this outbreak.