Bubonic Plague vs Smallpox Essay

Variola major and Variola minor. Those are the names of the two viruses that causes people to get Smallpox. The reason Variola major is more life threatening because it has a higher fatality rate by 25 percent The variola virus minor is less life threatening but not as worse .

It was a type of plague that was spread via the bite of infected rat fleas. The initial cause of the plague was diseased rats, with the bacteria Yersinia pestis, in their bloodstream as seen in source 1. Fleas lived on rats and when a flea bit the infected rat, the bacteria would enter the fleas stomach and multiply as seen in source 1. Due to the sudden decrease in the rat population (from disease), many fleas needed a better source of food, so they jumped onto people and bit them. This in turn is how people caught the plague. In the 1320’s a great famine broke out in china, and this caused many rats to die, also resulting in the quick spread of the plague. The name black death came from the swollen buboes (glands) in the victim’s neck, arm pit, and inner thigh that turned black as they filled with blood. Victims often died within 12 hours to 7 days of being bitten. Due to lack of hygiene and living in close, dirty and crowded proximity, rats were very common, making the disease easily contagious. The black death was a combination of three different streams of plague – bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic. The bubonic plague was the most common form of the plague and was caused by infected fleas biting people. As seen in source 2, sufferers would have large lumps covering their body, as well as have a fever or headache. Soon after the victim would have slurred speech and vomit blood. Pneumonic was deadly

When Bubonic Plague visited England in 1348, it was called the Great Mortality. We know it as the Black Death that lasted until 1352 and killed vast populations in Asia , North Africa , Europe , Iceland , and Greenland . In total, it extinguished as much as fifty percent of the world's population.

What is smallpox? The internet has defined it as an “acute contagious immune disease, with fever and pustules (small bumps on the skin filled with pus) that will usually will leave scars.” Smallpox originated in India and Egypt over 3,000 years ago. After that it slowly started to progress to other areas across the world. It then started to show itself in places like Africa, Europe and then after a few years later, finally made it’s way into the Americas during the 1500’s.

The first symptoms of the bubonic plague are headache, vomiting, nausea, aching joints and a feeling of ill health. The lymph nodes of the groin or of the armpit or neck suddenly start to become swollen and painful. The pulse and respiration rate of a bubonic plague victim is increased, and the victim will become listless and exhausted. The buboes will swell until they are approximately the size of a chicken egg. If a case is nonfatal than the temperature will begin to fall in about five days, and approaches normal in about two weeks, but in fatal cases death will probably occur within four days.

Smallpox is a virus that was first founded in ancient times. The virus?s proper name is Variola rex, and it has various different forms as well as various symptoms. Among these forms are typical smallpox, hemorrhagic smallpox, and malignant smallpox, all of which usually always cause death in their victims. Some of the typical symptoms of smallpox include red vesicles and pustules all over, bleeding from all orifices of the body, swelling in the face, throat, and eyes, difficulty eating and swallowing, delirium, malaise, deterioration of the bone marrow, lymph nodes and mucus membranes of the body, and a multitude of other secondary symptoms. Smallpox is typically diagnosed by ruling out the possibility of other

Smallpox, also know as variola virus, is extremely contagious and lethal. In modern day it has been eradicated and we no longer vaccinate the human population. Symptoms begin 12-14 days after infection; after 1-2 days spots turn into blisters and then pustules and after 8-9 days these pustules become crusted. If the person survives, large disfiguring scars remain (Merck, 2003).

Some other symptoms of the Bubonic Plague that only affect less than 10% of the infected, are: coma, stiff neck, and confusion.

Smallpox is extremely dangerous because there is no known cure. Smallpox can spread through the air and physical contact with the pox marks or anything that the pox marks touch. The Variola Virus spread so quickly that it caused over 50 million infections per year. Symptoms of Smallpox include vomiting, chills, fever, rashes, malaise, blisters,

This essay discusses the Black Death, which was a fatal plague that killed millions of people across the world and how the Black Death was transmitted will be further explained in the essay. The Black Death disease commenced in China and it spread to Europe, which is also further explored. The long and short-term effects will be identified. There are three different known plagues that are known as the bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague, but they were not all of them were transmitted in the same way. This plague commenced in the 1300's when symptoms began to appear and the outbreak was minimised a few years later.

There are a couple symptoms to smallpox, mostly affecting your skin. The first couple of days, it will begin with normal symptoms of a fever. Eventually, there will be body aches, headaches, and you will begin to feel weaker. Small, round blisters appear all around the body. Within a week, the pox becomes filled with pus and gets bigger. Then eventually, the blisters crust and stomach pains will most likely occur. Within the next couple of weeks, the blisters become scabs and they fall off, which result in scars on the skin. You could get scars, blindness and your hands and feet could get deformed. The scars stay on your body.

The bubonic plague was a devastating disease that rapidly swept across Europe. Also known as the Black Death, the plague spread from port to port and started to wipe out entire civilizations. All of Europe was eventually contaminated, with over two-thirds of the population dieing to the infectious disease. Believed to have started in 1346 when the Mongol armies overtook the Genoese trading outpost of Caffa on the Black Sea, over half the soldiers on the boat returned dead. The quickness of the infection and then death, brought a fear to these people they have never witnessed before. The sudden death caused by the disease created a paranoria among the people that Armageden had arrived.

The Black Death, as it most commonly is known, is the largest detrimental disease spread known to man. It originated in Asian countries during the 13th century and spread rapidly to the European population due to the “northernmost caravan route” coming from Crimea to Constantinople. From there the destruction began and the fear of death became a reality to everyone. This sickness is assumed to have taken half of the population during its time which in turn greatly affected the way of life.

Imagine a quick spreading rash throughout the entire body, leaving not a single space behind; every opening and crevice in your body, including your mouth and eyes covered in painful bumps accompanied by high fever and severe body aches. Flat red spots transforming into fluid-filled lesions and soon oozing out yellow pus, evidently emitting a pungent odor to anyone who dared get close. The live virus present in the darkening crusty scabs that would soon fall off only to leave behind a deep pitted scarred filled complexion on anyone who was fortunate enough to survive. These scars would be forever remembered as the hallmark for the smallpox epidemic which tormented the world for over 3,000 years. (Riedel “Deadly Diseases”).

Bubonic plague is an infectious disease that is spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. These bacteria remain in a dormant state primarily in a rat flea’s foregut. Once the flea has bitten a victim it regurgitates the contents in its foregut into the bite location. Once the bacterium has entered into a mammal’s warm body it begins to reproduce and spread throughout the mammal’s body. The reproduction of this bacterium creates large painful swollen lymph nodes which are called buboes. Once these buboes get large enough they begin to ooze infected body fluid so that any contact between an infected person and a healthy person will facilitate the spread of this disease. (The Mayo Clinic Staff, 2012)