Frigid Plague: A Short Story

Disease and plague, something that has been with man since the beginning, always challenging them, forcing them to adapt and change. Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill is a book explaining the hardships, facts, and evidence of how plagues caused man to adapt and move. Documented encounters with disease, ranging from the height of the Chinese empire, to the medieval kingdoms in Europe and Spain, as well as the colonization of the Americas, and the great genocide of the native peoples of South America. The illusory idea that man had won the battle in 1974 was quickly proven wrong yet again, for man may never win the battle against disease, and forever be in a constant battle. McNeill’s claim of fact as well as Ethos allowed him to write a consistent story including rhetoric devices, showing the true purpose of the informative book and conveying his main point of how plagues shaped the course of humankind development.

"The Black Death" is known as the worst natural disaster in European history. The plague spread throughout Europe from 1346-1352. Those who survived lived in constant fear of the plague's return and it did not disappear until the 1600s. Not only were the effects devastating at the time of infection, but during the aftermath as well. "The Black Death" of the fourteenth century dramatically altered Europe's social and economic structure.

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.

There are many ways to explore any period in history. The period that we will look further into will be Medieval Europe. I found an academic article that explores deeper into that period, especially the Black plague. Assembling three primary sources of the black plague, each has a different perspective of what was portrayed in the academic article.

The plague, otherwise known as “the Black Death”, brought on much turmoil and suffering for the habitants of Pistoia. Numerous ordinances were put into effect with the primary goal of limiting the spread of the plague as well as to keep the city as healthy as possible. These ordinances typically focused on confinement, i.e. no one goes to Pisa and Luca and no one from Pisa and Luca is allowed to enter Pistoia (ordinance 1), how death and burials are to be processed (ordinances 3-12), and how butchers were to handle their animals and animal carcasses (ordinances 13-19). Essentially, confinement was targeted in hopes of stopping the spread of the infection while keeping the city isolated. Secondly, how the bodies of plague victims and their

The book When Plague Strikes, is about 3 deadly diseases. It 's about the Black Death, Smallpox, and AIDS. Each of these diseases can cause a serious outrage of death. The book also tells about how doctors try to come up with treatments, medicines, and antibiotics to try and cure these diseases. All these diseases got the best out of everyone. Some people reacted differently than others with these diseases. All the diseases came in play in A. D. 1347, when the Black Death broke out for the first time in what’s today is know. As southern Ukraine.

There were three major outbreaks of the Black Death pandemic in the world. In the history the Black Plague is also called as the Black Death or Bubonic Plague. This research paper will mainly cover the European outbreak of the 14th century as it is considered to be the era of the worst time of the Black Death period. Many historians would agree that the events of 1300s led to dramatic changes affecting every European country in all the aspects. Creating economic, social, religious, and medical issues, the Black Death caused renovation of the Europe. New circumstances forced Europe to reconsider its political system, improve the medicine and look at the situation from a different perspective, shifting from the medieval to modern society. Paul Slack, in his book The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England, provides a detailed description of the most affected places and the approximation of the victims, estimating that Europe had lost about one third of its population. Comparing to cholera the number of deaths caused by the Black Plague in England is doubled making The Black Plague the most devastating disease (Slack 174). In the book, The Black Death, Robert Gottfried examines the history of the Black Plague and its political consequences as well as social. He introduces the facts how the European population was affected in both positive and negative ways. From his writing it stood out that the lower class was affected the most as the conditions they lived in were worse

25-50 million people. That is the amount of casualties caused by the Black Death, it was brought to Europe in the 1340’s by ships returning from the eastern side of the world. However, most of the men on the ships were already dead or nearly dead, sick with the terrible virus. Although the Black Death is very lethal and difficult to survive, they have now found ways to prevent the virus from infecting anyone else.

I felt downcast because Jonathon had tried to help several people and was always compassionate. I also knew that very few people had died, but I had hope that he would be part of the few that was spared.

Once upon a time a few centuries ago I was a little girl who was energetic and adventurous, but one day all of that changed. I was in the yard playing tag with my sister and two brothers but then we heard “the bell.” The bell meant the sickness, black plague, was in town. When the people began to hear the bell they ran all over the place causing a panic and knocking on doors making sure everyone knew what was happening.

The American Plague, Molly Caldwell Crosby’s nonfiction novel, accounts the journey of yellow fever from an African virus to the remarkably deadly epidemic that shaped American history in an often overlooked way. Crosby’s novel aims to give insight to the historical impact of yellow fever in the Americas, especially the United States. The novel guides through the history of the titular “American Plague”, yellow fever, in three main parts: its height epidemic in the United States, specifically in Memphis, the Commission to find the cause and vaccine for it, in Cuba, and the effects and presence the epidemic has in the present.

The Great Plague killed nearly half of the European population during the fourteenth century. A plague is a widespread illness. The Illness was also known as the “Black Death”. Most of the European people believed the plague was the beginning of the end of the world. They were scarcely equipped and unready for what was to be entailed. It was by far one of the worst epidemics yet to be seen in those times.

There is a certin unsureness in the circulation and communication of information in A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. This instability of the language in this proto-novel is caused by the author citing two sides to every point or statement he makes causing contradictions. On top of this Defoe repeats the same points throughout the entire text. This uncertainty helps to make the reader believe the writing is an actual journal as opposed to an edited, actual non-fiction.

A Journal of the Plague Year is a first person account of what it was like living through the times of the plague. It recollects stories and other accounts of plague times heard by and collected by the Defoe from other involved individuals. Explains many aspects before, during, and after the plague of their ways of life and culture. Tells of tales of survivors of the plague but mostly off different tales of deaths and how they died in many outrageous and tragic ways of people killing their families, themselves, or masses of people. The whole journal is filled with collections of stories, but also with charts showing the deaths in different parishes and how they change as the plague raged on. In the end, it tells how life went back to normal for London and Defoe and his family.

The hopeful words of the Empress run through my head again. My eyes slowly opened and adjusted to the dazzling bright light coming in from the open circular window. I was aboard the SS Mary, an extravagant white ship heading to Rycon. It had an intimidating presence that took one's breath away. I stood up while wary of the swaying ship and stretched out my aching muscles. My attire was wrinkled and discolored, but I didn't mind. I grabbed the royal bodyguard overcoat that was on a tiny rickety chair. The coat was elegantly laden with medals and had a bright velvet-like red color just like my dyed hair. I was currently on a voyage to foreign nations in order to ask if they could endow Euteria with the means to bring the plague to an end. The Empire had cracks because of recent issues, such as the rat plague, undermining unity across the land. I believed the Empress could unite the land just as soon as the plague was dealt with. I heard commotion coming from the deck, so I stepped out of my comfy little room and went up to survey the scene. After six days of enduring gruesome storms and narrow pathways through jagged cliffs, we were finally within the shoreline of Rycon. The men on the boat were both dazed and groggy from the harsh travel conditions, but seeing the shoreline renewed their strength. The