Bubonic Plague Dbq

Black death was a bubonic plague, which took the lives of millions of people in the mid 1300s. This plague was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which lived in fleas. Therefore, transmitting the bacteria to its rodent hosts every time they would feed. The bacteria then killed the rodents leaving the fleas without hosts to feed on and in result they would feed on the humans. (Bailey 7-12) Most people who were infected would last two to three days before they died, no longer than two to three weeks. The plague moved rapidly, medical researchers believe it could have moved as fast as eight to twelve miles a day. The plague was first encountered in China and it spread through Asia and into Europe in a

I was observing the spread of the plague right before my eyes. I knew how the three types of plague were transmitted but the humans did not. The three types were the Bubonic, Pneumonic and Septicemic plague. The Bubonic plague was the most common plague in medieval Europe. It was transmitted by infected fleas that were carried by rats, when the rat died the flea would jump to a human to feed from their blood. The human bitten by the flea, was then infected and faced certain death, the flea would then find a new human to feed off. The Pneumonic plague, being the second most common type in medieval Europe, was far more deadly and contagious than the Bubonic plague. The Plague would attack a human's respiratory system and was spread through the air by a victim's cough. The last type of plague was the Septicemic, it was the rarest and deadliest form of the Black Death. The Septicemic plague was also spread by fleas, like the Bubonic plague, but moved directly to a human's

The roots of this fearsome plague are very chilling to think about knowing that a mere flea can be the cause of the bubonic plagues epidemic. The more specific medical or scientific term for this disease is Yersinia Pestis. This was named after the doctor, Alexandre Yersin, who isolated the bacteria in 1894 during the pandemic that began in China in the 1860’s. The earliest traces of Y Pestis can be found all the way back to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in the 1320’s. The cause of the sudden eruption is yet to be solved but the earliest major toll it has taken in our history books is in China in the 1330’s during the expansion of trade in the middle and high

The carriers of this disease were rats and fleas. It first started off with fleas, then fleas would then jump on rats and the rats would give the disease to humans. The disease didn 't harm the fleas and the rats could only take so much without showing ill effects. Rats would get on ships and make everyone on the ships sick. This is how the Plague traveled.

What is the plague? The plague or referred to as the Black Death, according to the CDC (2015), “is a disease that affects humans and other mammals and caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. Humans usually get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague”. There are three categories of a plague. There is the bubonic plague, which is the most common form. With this form bacteria infects the lymph system and causes it to become inflamed. Symptoms of this type of plague are fever, headache, chills, and swollen and tender lymph nodes, which are called buboes. Then there is the Septicemic, which occurs when the bacteria multiply in the blood. Symptoms of this type of plague are fever, chills, extreme weakness, abdominal pain, shock, and possibly bleeding into the skin and other organs. Also, skin and other tissues may turn black and die, especially fingers, toes and the nose (CDC, 2015). Then there is the Pneumonic Plague, which is the most serious form of plague and occurs when Y. pestis bacteria infect the lungs and cause pneumonia (NIH, 2015). This is the only form of the plague that can be transmitted human to human. Symptoms of this form of the plague are ever, headache, weakness, and a rapidly

In the 14th century the Black Death engulfed Europe killing an estimated 50 million people. The pandemic is considered extraordinary because it did so in a matter of months. This disease was carried by fleas, the Bubonic Plague is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis, found mainly in rodents, in this case in rats, and the fleas that feed on them.

Beginning in the mid-fourteenth century, a plague swept the world like no other. It struck in a series of waves that continued into the eighteenth century. The first wave was estimated to have killed twenty-five million people, about a third of the Western Europe population at that time. Throughout the different outbreaks, the plague, also known as the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death, caused people to react in several ways. Some people believed the plague was a medical problem that can be treated, some found themselves concerned only with their own greed, still others believed there was nothing they could do and reacted in fear, and most people believed it was a form of divine

Why was the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) so Devastating to European Society? The Bubonic Plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, was a huge epidemic in the mid-1300s. It killed off about 20 million Europeans within 1348 and 1351and was thought to originate from China and move westwards through means of infected fleas and rats through shipping and trade (Document 1).

The most common one was the Bubonic Variant type of plague because it was inflected by fleas that attached themselves to rats and then to humans. Its symptoms were swellings or buboes that appeared on the victims neck, armpits or groin. People with this kind of plague live up to a week. One of the other types of plague is Pneumonic plague which wasn’t that common would but if you did get it you would die in a day or two because if it got to your bloodstream you would die. It spread by merely breathing the exhaled air of a victim. The last type of plague is the Septicemic plague. The Septicemic plague would attack your bloodstream and you would bleed out. For the Septicemic plague there was no definite

The Plague was a severe outbreak of bacterium Yersinia pestis in the 1300’s and the 1800’s. Killing 25 million people in the 14th century alone it became one of Europe's most grim times in history. The Plague caused people to flee their homes in fear of catching the Black Death. The outbreak began in Peking, China otherwise known as modern day Beijing, capital of China. The disease ended out around 1350, but still had no medically accurate way of treating the disease.

The causes of the Black Death – the flea, the rat, and the bacillus Yersinia pestis– have been labeled the “unholy trinity” (Boeckl). The flea is able to live in environmental conditions of about 74° Fahrenheit and 60% humidity (Ibid). Before the Black Death reached Europe, they were experiencing those same types of weather conditions. The rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis and the human flea, Pulex irritans, are both capable of transmitting plague (Boeckl). Sometimes, an infected flea cannot ingest blood because Yersinia pestis obstructs its digestive tract. The blockage causes a flea to regurgitate into a bitten host rather than ingest the host’s blood, thereby infecting the host with plague (Boeckl). Unable to eat, the famished flea will bite with more frequency, accelerating the spread of plague. A flea can be carrying Yersinia pestis without it blocking the flea’s digestive tract, in which case the flea does not transmit plague when it bites a host. Also, Yersinia pestis can only enter a victim through a bite, as the bacilli cannot pass through intact skin (Gottfried).

Historians began referring to the plague by the name of “The Black Death” after a 1631 publication on Danish History, after which the term “Black Death” spread from that one usage across Europe. However, it was not until 1823 that the mid-fourteenth century epidemic was called the “Black Death” in England, and it is an error to believe that the term “Black Death” was used in contemporary accounts. In those ages, medieval knowledge and medical ability was very shallow compared to modern abilities, and the theories surrounding the plague’s cause were misguided, and it was not even known until recently that it was caused by a bacterium, an infection causing a plague. I will cover this in more depth later, but for now it suffices to know that in late medieval periods, physicians did not realize it was a bacterium, and had varying theories around the

It spread from here to insects such as fleas and ticks which spread to what rats which many believe is the leading factor which brought upon the plague. The symptoms of the plague were many but most experienced a growth or boil somewhere upon there body, roughly the size of nut which gave the disease its name and was very painful to the inflicted. If procedures were taken to clean the boil quickly victims were said to have a better chance at survival. The second stage was that of black spots appearing on the skin and the final stage was the coughing of blood which usually was a clear cue that the person had days to live. The old rhyme "Ring around the Rosie" Is said to have come from the symptoms endured by the people during the plague but is not according to one of the readings historically correct. Many historians believe that rats are the reason the disease was able to spread so fast and far but that the disease began in the

According to an article in History Today, “The Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague…” (Benedictow). The bubonic plague was referred to as the Black Death because the skin was blackened due to blood drying under the skin’s surface (Scogna). Bubonic

The great plague came in three different forms. The types of illness differed in symptoms, spread and sufferings. The bubonic plague was the diseases most common form. It was named this due to swelling called “buboes” of the victim’s lymph nodes. “These tumors could range in size from that of an egg to that of an apple” (The Black Death). The longest expectancy with this form of illness didn’t often exceed one week. The second variation of plague was known as the “pneumatic