In October, 1347 a devastating disease called the Bubonic Plague was brought to Europe leaving ⅓ of the population dead. This disease was also known as the Black Death. It was brought over via trade routes on Genoese ships. The main source of the plague was from rats which traveled to Europe on the ships. The fleas who had been hosted on the rats contributed to the spread by coming in contact with the humans. The bacterium, Yersinia Pestis was responsible for leaving the people of Europe with buboes, fever and weakness. The worst part of the disease was that there was not a cure. The Black Plague deeply impacted the European society in numerous ways including the decline of population, individuals being falsely accused and a medical crisis.
From 1348 to 1353 the bubonic plague spread like wildfire throughout the European cities. Almost all of the cities were deeply affected except for five which included Milan, Nuremberg, Bruges and Gherti (DOC. 1). Europe was
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Medical conditions were lacking throughout this period of time. Not to mention the doctors would not want to jeopardize their own health to help people during the time of the Black Death. With no help from the doctors this left the disease to continue to run rapidly and people continuing to die. If a doctor did help they wore outfits made of leather to protect themselves from the plague and they wore a mask (DOC. 6).Treatments of this time included a variety of options. If one had enough money they could pay for a treatments like bloodletting and allowing leeches to latch on to ones body and suck all the bad blood out of their bodies. Other treatments involved bathing in urine and aromatherapy. As one can tell the plague lead to a medical crisis especially since few doctors would help the patients. This medical crisis lead to many more deaths of people and played into the factor of the declining population of the European
During and after the period of the Black Death medical practices advanced and improved, which helped the people of Europe as well as other continents. Because of the many deaths during the period of the Black Death doctors were able to dissect and inspect more human bodies, even though these
The black plague struck Europe from 1347 to 1351. The infected bacteria traveled through ships from China and Inner Asia to Europe then spread on land. From the devastating impact on the population, to the workings of the society, the impact of the plague was felt on all levels of the social order. The Black Death’s impact on society and the modern world is deep, and although there were many different effects, some had more importance than others. The most significant effects of the Black Death was the church’s shifting place in society, the weakening of feudalism, and the decline of manorialism due to the large effects on society.
The bubonic plague, also known as Black Death, is a prime example of the diseases transported throughout the Silk Roads. It is believed that this disease originally started in south China and was spread to northern China via Mongol warriors and Chinese travelers, eventually spreading westward along the Silk Roads and trade lanes to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The bubonic plague is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium and is spread by flea bites. Usually, fleas prefer to live on rats, but the large decrease in rat population due to the Little Ice Age caused the fleas to seek new hosts. The disease was previously localized to Mongolia and central Asia because of the nomadic lifestyle, but they could survive in sacks of grain and clothing and with the increase of trade along the Silk Roads, the fleas quickly made their way across the Mediterranean. Europeans were not prepared for this type of catastrophe and consequently suspended their daily lives. Many people abandoned their houses, churches and schools closed, and the sick were quarantined inside their homes while bodies of the deceased were piled in the streets and buried in mass graves. In some cases, the infected were burned along with their belongings in an effort to destroy the disease. By the end of the initial outbreak, almost 40% of Europe's population had died and trade had been brought to a halt. The Black Death had profoundly changed the political, social, economic, religious, and cultural foundations of modern Europe (Acrobatiq,
The Bubonic Plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, devastated the world between 1347 and 1351. Due to the plague being transmitted through fleas, many people were susceptible to the disease that wiped out much of the population. The plague caused much throughout Europe because of the number of lives lost, the number of people affected, and the limited amount of medical research that came from this period in time. The number of lives lost caused devastation in Europe.
In the mid 1300’s the Black Plague (Black Death) made its way into Europe. The plague had social impacts, economic impacts, and political impacts. The plague affected everybody's life regardless where you were on the social ladder. Everybody who got the disease was dead in three to five days. The few years the plague was in Europe it was affecting them 150 years later.
The Bubonic Plague was an epidemic which tore through a developing and growing Europe. The lasting impact included the onset of the Dark Ages. The reasons why the Bubonic Plague was so devastating to European society include low sanitation quality, the continuing decline of public morale and the overall large number of lives lost. Each individual factor continued to depress the city allowing the plague to take complete advantage.
The black plague, also known as the bubonic plague, swept its way across Europe beginning in 1346 A.D. , killing an estimated thirty to fifty percent of the total population. The plague was spread by fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, and was carried over oceans by hitchhiking rats and pet gerbils. The plague outbreak that decimated the population was transported by infected Christian merchants
The Bubonic Plague was a spreading disease. It infected and killed most of the population of Europe within a few years. The plague began spreading in 1348 when fleas caused this infection when they bit animals such as rats. The bacteria entered the skin through the flea bite which soon infected the lymph nodes. These rats stowed away on trade ships which quickly passed this deadly disease to humans. The Bubonic plague was very disastrous to the European society until it finally began to slow down in 1351. It killed so many people due to its rapid spreading. It lowered the religious belief and trust in God by many people in the community. Also, the local physicians lacked the knowledge of the plagues symptoms and its cure.
The bubonic plague dealt massive damage to Europe, Asia, and the Middle east, crumbling society and the population. Catastrophies like the plague, are thought to bring people together, but in this case, it was the opposite. This event terrified people so much that it ripped apart the fabric of society. The plague began in Asia, and slowly began to move towards Europe. The plague was carried by rodents and spread by traveling through trade routes. In 1347, a fleet of Genoese merchant ships, who were unknowingly carrying the bubonic plague, arrived in Sicily. Shortly after, the disease spread through Italy and then followed trade routes leading to France, Spain, Germany, England, and other parts of Europe and North Africa.(Holt Mcdougal.399) After four years, the Black Plague had infected nearly every country in Europe. Although some rural communities were
The Bubonic Plague or the Black Death has been in the history books since the medieval times. This deadly disease has claimed nearly 1.5 million lives in Europe (Gottfried). The Black Death hit Europe in October of 1347 and quickly spread through most of Europe by the end of 1349 and continued on to Scandinavia and Russia in the 1350s. Not only did the plague effect the European population by killing one-third to two-thirds (Gottfried), it also hurt the social and economic structures of every European society.
The plague of the black death was a panic and disaster in Western Europe because it leads the death of ⅓ of the population. It quickly spread all over the continent, destroying full towns and cities. Moreover, the plague reached its peak of destructions in 1349, which was a “wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain.” Life before the black death arrived for the serfs it was unpleasant and short. Nevertheless, Europe before the black death arrived was successful and the trade at the time was strong. The spread of the plagues was traumatic and unexpected because it spread so quickly.
"The Black Death" alone was not the only factor that was responsible for the social and economic change although it was the most important (Ziegler 234). Even without "The Black Death" continued deterioration in Europe would have been likely. The social and economic change had already set in well before 1346. For at least twenty-five years before "The Black Death," exports, agricultural production, and the area of cultivated land had all been shrinking. "The Black Death" contributed a large part to all of this destruction and led to important changes in the social and economic structure of the country (Ziegler 234-235). The plague touched every aspect of social life (Herlihy 19). There was hardly a generation that was not affected by the plague (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). Families were set against each other - the well rejecting the sick (www.byu.edu). Families left each other in fear. Many people died without anyone looking after them. When the plague appeared in a house, frightened people abandoned the house and fled to another (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). Due to this, the plague spread more rapidly because people were not aware that being in the same house with the infected person had already exposed them to it. Physicians could not be found because they had also died. Physicians who could be found wanted large sums of money before they entered the house (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). When the
The pandemic known to history as the Black Death was one of the world’s worst natural disasters in history. It was a critical time for many as the plague hit Europe and “devastated the Western world from 1347 to 1351, killing 25%-50% of Europe’s population and causing or accelerating marked political, economic, social, and cultural changes.” The plague made an unforgettable impact on the history of the West. It is believed to have originated somewhere in the steppes of central Asia in the 1330s and then spread westwards along the caravan routes. It spread over Europe like a wildfire and left a devastating mark wherever it passed. In its first few weeks in Europe, it killed between 100 and 200 people per day. Furthermore, as the weather became colder, the plague worsened, escalating the mortality rate to as high as 750 deaths per day. By the spring of 1348, the death toll may have reached 1000 a day. One of the main reasons the plague spread so quickly and had such a devastating effect on Europe was ultimately due to the lack of medical knowledge during the medieval time period.
The Black Plague ravaged the European Continent from 1347 to 1352 killing 25 million people and setting the stage for reforms politically, socially, and economically. During its conquests, the Plague killed enough serfs to force noble landowners to raise the wages of their serfs to entice them to stay and work on their land. It also brought about the eve of the flagellants, religious fanatics that believed self punishment was the only way to make god have mercy and end the plague. After the plague ended in 1352 the various failed attempts to heal the plague religiously (including the flagellants) weakened the standing of the papacy on the social ladder. Due to the increase in wages, peasants could begin to explore more art and open new avenues for themselves that they could not previously, leading to the creation of workers guilds which quickly gained power. The Black Plague truly had a profound and heavy impact upon the course of European history, and without it the world would be unrecognizable from what it is today.
Living through the Black Death in the Middle Ages was one of the most horrifying times to be alive. In this time period, Europe had a growing population (Marks, Olesky, Dunn, Rowling, & Tuchman, n.d.). When the Black death hit, no one had any knowledge on what to do or how to prevent the spread of the disease. The deadly disease arrived from the sea and was carried by rodent fleas infected with the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The infectious disease was very deadly and ended up killing one-third of Europe’s population (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017). Protecting yourself from the plague was very hard to do in Middle Ages. There were many different methods to protect yourself from the plague in the Middle Ages, however, not all of them were effective.