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Bubonic Plague Paragraph

Decent Essays

Avery Whitbeck
Hour 7
2.11.17
R&J Research Paragraph
Bubonic Plague The Bubonic Plague has existed for thousands of years and causes horrific symptoms. According to “Bubonic Plague” by Kathleen Scogna, the first documented outbreak was in 430 BC which hit Athens, Greece, while the second and most famous outbreak was in London in 1346 killing one-third of the population of Europe. The Bubonic Plague swept across the rest of the world with new epidemics from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries then died down and yet there are still small outbreaks in less developed countries. In the article “Bubonic Plague” by The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, the writer states the bacteria formerly known as Yersinia Pestis enters the bloodstream and travels to various organs including the brain. There are two forms of the plague, the first form called the Bubonic form, is where the infected lymph nodes drain through the area where the flea …show more content…

The other form is the Pneumonic form where the bacteria infect the lungs which is highly contagious and can kill in the matter of 2 days. Some symptoms include fever, congestion of eye vessels, seizures, headaches, and severe swelling of the lymph nodes. Towards the end of the nineteenth century a few scientists made findings that made it easier to control the plague. A man named Robert Koch figured out that the bacteria lives in the bloodstream of a rat then, in the stomach of a flea and is transferred when a flea bites a rat and then bites a human (Scogna). Considering the Plague existed in Shakespearean times, obviously Shakespeare used it in his writing.
The Bubonic Plague has had a major effect on “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”, it could be said that the Bubonic Plague caused the death of Romeo, Juliet. In Act V, Friar John states, “Here in this city visiting the sick,

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