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The Causes And Effects Of The Black Death

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The states of California, Arizona, and Florida have a combined population of about 65 million people. Imagine all three of those states being completely wiped out, that doesn't even compare to the devastation Europe suffered because of the Black Death, which lasted for 7 years. It took a staggering 200 years before Europe would be able to build back up their population again. On top of the large amount of losses, the rest of the world suffered from the large monumental setbacks including labour, art culture, and the economy as a whole. (“The Week UK”). The Black Death, from 1346-1353, was one of the most catastrophic events in human history, which can be seen by the fact that between 75-200 million people who were killed in Europe due to the plague. The plague originally was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The bacteria circulated among wild rodents where they lived in great numbers and density. An area of such would be known as a ‘plague focus’ or a ‘plague reservoir’. Plague among humans arises when rodents in human habitation, normally black rats, become infected. The black rat, also known as ‘house rats’ and the ‘ship rats’, like to live close to people, the very quality that makes it the most dangerous (“History today”).It took 3-5 days for the infection to set in, in most of the cases it took another 3-5Days for the infection to increase. In total, from the time the community was contaminated a person was infected, and became ill. It would have taken 23

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