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How Did The Bubonic Plague Affect European Society

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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 …show more content…

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

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