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Bubonic Plague Research Paper

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The Bubonic Plague is a deadly bacteria known as Yersinia Pestis. The bacteria infects the Lymphatic system and it becomes inflamed. The bacteria kills by cutting off a cell’s ability to communicate with other immune system cells. It is the most common form of plague in humans, characterized by fever, delirium, and the formation of buboes. It is a rare but serious bacterial infection transmitted usually from a flea feeding on an infected rodent that intern becomes infected and bites a human thereby transmitting the rodents blood.
The reason the plague had spread so quickly in Europe was because filth littered the streets and gave rats the perfect environment to breed and increase their number. On top of being a highly littered area, people would not bathe very often so they were very dirty. The people had a lack of medical knowledge so they did not know who to stop the disease from spreading, like using antibiotics. Also the church sent people on religious trips (pilgrimages), which was a bad idea because people that were infected were being put in the same area as people that were completely healthy causing it to spread even more. …show more content…

A month later volunteers at the Byculla jail were inoculated and all survived the epidemics except for seven of the inmates.The vaccine used a small amount of the bacteria to make an immune reaction. Like many other vaccines of its time the Haffkine vaccine had bad side effects, and was not completely safe, though it did reduce risk of infection by up to 50 percent. While Haffkine's vaccine was successful in fighting the plague, some officials still insisted on old methods like washing homes by fire hose with lime and restricting

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