The Black Death was a very important time in history and, while devastating, it led to many advances in medicine due to the mass spread of a new deadly disease. The 14th Century encompassed the time period of January 1, 1301 to December 31, 1400. When this disease struck, Ole J. Benedictow calculates that it killed about 50 million people in Europe alone, which was about 60% of Europe’s population at the time. That being said, the Black Death, often referred to as the Bubonic Plague, clocked in the death toll at about 75 million people. The Plague reached France, Norway, Denmark, and Britain, making it the largest and worst plague to ever strike against mankind. To add perspective, The Black Death struck around 1348 and lasted almost …show more content…
These bumps can appear anywhere and everywhere on the human body. As previously mentioned, one way to contract plague was through fleas. They would usually take a wild rodent as their host, such as rats. These hosts would wander all over, giving the fleas a chance to jump on people and bite them, infecting their blood. These people would then continue to spread it to others, through bodily fluids.
Access to health care is a recent social commodity. During the times of the Black Plague the general population did not have access to health care or the means to pay for medication of medical attention. Only individuals with wealth could afford to live with such a luxury. The rest of the general population was left to contract a horrible disease and fend for themselves. Some of the things that the Black Plague would do to the human body were most likely accompanied by immense pain. The lymph glands would swell and turn into lymph nodes, which are large and painful bumps. Also, a bacteria known as Yersinia Pestis is believed to be the cause of plague. This bacteria causes healthy tissue to slowly deteriorate and eventually die. The dead and dying tissue turns black. This side effect is what gives the disease its name.
To prevent the spread of the Plague from patient to doctor, doctors would wear special hazmat suits. The main part, and the part that draws the most attention, is the mask. First, there was a
The black death was caused by bacterial strains, lived in the stomach of certain fleas which live in the fur of rodents. There were three types of the plague bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. The most common was bubonic. The person would develop bumps filled with pus this
The black death came through Western Europe from 1348-1949. The black death is a deadly disease that killed huge amounts of people. Some names that the black death is known as are the “Bubonic Plague”, “Black Plague”, and “The Plague”. The Black Death is a disease that was spreaded quickly and that is how it killed so many people. It spreaded through cough and touching and thats why it spread so quickly everywhere. The black death was deadly because it caused the skin to die, swelling, pain then death. The black death was a powerful disease and caused many changes to take place in the society.
I was observing the spread of the plague right before my eyes. I knew how the three types of plague were transmitted but the humans did not. The three types were the Bubonic, Pneumonic and Septicemic plague. The Bubonic plague was the most common plague in medieval Europe. It was transmitted by infected fleas that were carried by rats, when the rat died the flea would jump to a human to feed from their blood. The human bitten by the flea, was then infected and faced certain death, the flea would then find a new human to feed off. The Pneumonic plague, being the second most common type in medieval Europe, was far more deadly and contagious than the Bubonic plague. The Plague would attack a human's respiratory system and was spread through the air by a victim's cough. The last type of plague was the Septicemic, it was the rarest and deadliest form of the Black Death. The Septicemic plague was also spread by fleas, like the Bubonic plague, but moved directly to a human's
The plague was spread by fleas, which were not effected by the disease. Fleas first infected the rats, which lived off garbage and sewage. The rats then spread the infection to the humans. Rats were a common sight in the cities, due to the poor sanitary conditions, so no one
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.
The Black Death was one of the worst pandemics in history. The disease ravaged Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa between 1346 and 1353 (Horrox 1994). It is difficult to understand the reality of such a devastating event, especially given the fact that science during the middle ages was severely underdeveloped. No one knew about bacteria, viruses, or other microbial agents of disease (Benedictow 2004). They had no way of protecting themselves during that time and no one was safe from the effects of the plague. Those who wrote chronicles claimed that only a tenth of the population had survived, while others claimed that half to a third of the population was left alive (Horrox 1994). In 1351, agents for Pope Clement VI predicted the number of deaths in Europe to be 23,840,000 (Gottfried 1983). Obviously, not all regions experienced the same mortality rates, but modern estimates of the death rate in England give the first outbreak a mortality rate of about forty-eight percent (Horrox 1994). That is, England lost half of its population in about a year and a half. Clearly the chroniclers ' who claimed that ninety percent of the population had died were overstating the magnitude of the plague, but this overemphasis demonstrates how terrifying the pandemic was to those who experienced it (Horrox 1994). The Black Death had huge consequences on the lives of those who were impacted directly, as well as major religious and cultural effects that came afterward.
The Black Death was one of the most life-changing pandemics in history. It was first discovered 550 years later in the 1800s by Alexandre Yersin, a french biologist. In his honor, the plague was named Yersinia Pestis. The plague traveled in two major ways. Yersin discovered that it traveled by infected fleas; the flea would attempt to feed on a human or animal and would then regurgitate the disease into the new host, further spreading the illness. Urban areas across Europe were populous with rats, which were one of the main hosts of the plague. These rodents spread the Black Death throughout cities in days. The unaffected still were not safe if they did not come in contact with an infected flea or rat. The plague also traveled pneumonically, or through the air. It caused large boils full of blood and pus, which would pop and spread. Another symptom was coughing, which was one of the many ways of proliferation. The disease eventually spread throughout Europe and killed a third of it’s population. It’s wrath caused many shortages, loss in hope, riots, and even some good things, such as many changes in art, science, and education. Therefore, the Black Death was one of the most life-changing pandemics in history.
The carriers of this disease were rats and fleas. It first started off with fleas, then fleas would then jump on rats and the rats would give the disease to humans. The disease didn 't harm the fleas and the rats could only take so much without showing ill effects. Rats would get on ships and make everyone on the ships sick. This is how the Plague traveled.
The black death affected Europe because it killed over a third of its population. In all, the black death killed twenty million people in Europe. People fled their homes, families, and friends because they did not want to get infected with the plague. The Plague reduced the population of the world from 450 million to 375 million. Seven thousand people died per day in Cairo. Three Fourths of Florence’s residents were buried in makeshift graveyards. The disease even spread to the isolated outposts Greenland and Iceland. However, the Black Death set the scene for modern medicine. Growing increasingly frustrated about diagnoses with the Black Plague, educators began to place a greater emphasis on medicine.
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.
No one knew how to treat it or how to prevent it. The Europeans knew very little about disease or where this particular disease was coming from. Commoners believed it was a punishment from God for their sins. Towns tried to take preventive measures by outlawing gambling, swearing, and by secluding prostitutes. Others, such as the Flagellants, tried to repent. More intellectual minds tried to explain it with science. Some believed a shift in the cosmos was poisoning the air and others thought of it as an unbalance in the body. Most physicians stopped treating patients when the plague spun out of control, however a few curious minds continued to investigate cures and symptoms. Doctors tried various treatments to keep the plague at bay. They covered themselves from head to toe and others surrounded themselves with
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, also known as Black Death, the Great Mortality, and the Pestilence, is the name given to the plague that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351. It is said to be the greatest catastrophe experienced by the western world up to that time. In Medieval England, the Black Death killed 1.5 million people out of an estimated 4 million people between 1348 and 1350. There was no medical knowledge in England to cope with the disease. After 1350, it stroke England another six times by the end of the century.
The Black Death is a very chilling disease that had a lot of gruesome symptoms. People who fell victim to the Black Death had a fifty/fifty chance of surviving and were put through several weeks of high fevers and welts all over their bodies (The Black Death 4). When people first began to become sick from the Black Death, it starts off running a high fever after a while, people would
How the disease was transmitted was further looked on by Nelson (1995). According to the said author, the disease was transmitted primarily by fleas and rats. The stomachs of the fleas were infected with bacteria known Y. Pestis. Nelson held that “the bacteria would block the "throat" of infected fleas so that no blood could reach their stomachs, and they grew ravenous since they were starving to death” (1995, par. 14). The bacteria would then attempt to suck up blood from their victims, only to disgorge it back into their preys' bloodstreams (Nelson, 1995). Now, however, the victims' blood was mixed with Y. Pestis. Fleas infected rats in this fashion, and the rats spread the disease to other rats and fleas before dying (Nelson, 1995). Without rodent hosts, the fleas then migrated to the bodies of humans and infected them in the same fashion as they had the rats .