The Importance Of The Plague In The City Of London

The plague was a catastrophic time in history, and happened more than once. It took millions and millions of people’s lives. It destroyed cities and countries, and many people suffered from it.

The Great Plague of 1665 in London killed eight thousand people a week at its peak. Surgeons lanced buboes in an ineffective attempt to rid the body of bad humors (The Great Plague). Yersinia pestis lives in fleas on many types of rodent species. The rodents serve as long-term reservoirs for the bacteria without the rodents experiencing excessive die-off. Dogs and cats can host fleas infected with Yerisina pestis (Ecology). This makes the plague a zoonotic disease. The way the bacterium was transmitted in London was by the bites of infected fleas. Other animals can become infected by fleas that traveled from another host. Epizootic infections are then transferred to humans according to the Center for Disease Control. In 1666 London had a fire and the city was cleaned and better sewer systems were built. These improvements reduced the number of rats and ended the

The 14th century was an era of catastrophes. Some of them were man-made, such as the Hundred Years' War. However, there were two natural disasters either of which would have been enough to throw medieval Europe into real "Dark Ages". The Black Death that followed on the heels of the Great Famine caused millions of deaths, and together they subjected the population of medieval Europe to tremendous struggles, leading many people to challenge old institutions and doubt traditional values. These calamities altered the path of European development in many areas.

People in the Elizabethan Era lived in extremely unsanitary conditions; as a result, disease was extremely common. People considered pests such a lice, rats, and fleas as a normality in life and largely ignored their presence. Without realizing it, Elizabethan citizens were allowing for the spread of disease within their cities. Fleas on rats hosted a deadly disease: the Bubonic Plague. The Black Death, or the Bubonic Plague, was a disease that swept through Europe throughout the entirety of the Elizabethan Era. The plague swept through London in waves, the worst of which being 1563 and 1603. During these years, the mortality rates were 1 in 4. Between the years of 1578 and 1579 Norwich, a town east of London, lost almost 30% of its population from the plague. The Black Death wasn’t the only sickness to spread during this

From the reading “The Black Death”, the descriptions that stood out the most were the effects that the plague had on the animals. As described by the author, the plague effected both humans and animals. In paragraph seven, this point was emphasized in very grave details. The author stated that “One day, for instance, the rags of a pauper who had died from the disease were thrown into the street, where they attracted the attention of two pigs. In their wonted fashion, the pigs first of all gave the rags a thorough mauling with their snouts, after which they took them between their teeth and shook them against their cheeks. And within a short time they began to writhe as though they had been poisoned, then they both dropped dead to the ground”

The Black Plague, which was in Europe in 1346-1353 it killed many people. That the Black Plague spread all through Europe, it was made by rats that spread the disease. That the Black Plague killed 2/3 of Europe’s population and people were just dying instantly it started to spread very fast. That they did not find a cure until 1353, but still there were more people that died than lived. So the Black Plague was a disease the killed people very fast and it started in 1346 and ended in 1353, that it killed 2/3 of Europe.

The Great Plague of London in 1665 was a horrific blow to Londoners. Before this plague would be at its end, anywhere from 65,000 – 100,000 people would be dead, 15 percent of London’s population. The Great Plague was an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague, a  bacterial infection caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium, spread by the oriental rat flea, in the spring and summer of 1665. Bubonic plague is an infection of the tissues and organs in the human body that help carry away unwanted materials and toxins, known as the lymphatic system. The flea preys on house and field rats, and once the rat dies, will catch a ride on a human.

The fear of disease caused the people to have erratic and emotional feelings. They blamed people and things that had no piece in the cause of the plague. People who were blamed for the plague would publicly kill or beat themselves because they believed what people would say.(Historic World Events) Knowing what we do now we know, in reality, people brought the spread upon themselves. The disease itself would infect airborne objects like fleas. The fleas would bite people and other animals continuing the spread of the disease. Rats were another big issue for people. The rats would get bitten by the fleas and then move to the farms and boat areas and bite people. The rats would also be in the markets and then the food the people would eat would have the disease in the area where it originated (Hoyle). Ships crews would all die out at sea, then float to shore. According to Jacob von Königshofen, that’s the way it would get across the seas and oceans to certain islands and port cities. Lastly, and the most disgusting thing that caused the spread of the plague, was the unhealthiness of the people. They would dump their bodily fluids in the streets causing an unhealthy environment. Also, there were so many deaths that they would just leave the dead bodies lying around until they could get a proper burial day. These practices accelerated the exposure of millions. (Historic world

During the Late Middle Ages in Europe, between the years 1000 and 1300, thanks to agricultural improvements the population in Europe nearly doubled. During this time the life expectancy for an average European was 35 years of living in poor conditions. Due to the lack of jobs, extreme hunger was experienced at least once in the life of a European. In 1315 and 1317, Europe was faced with famine created with cold weather and crop failure.(text)

The Black Plague reached the shores of Britain in September 1348, where it wreaked havoc in cities of London and Bristol before eventually traveling to the wider countrysides to kill scores of serfs and aristocrats alike. The Black Plague was spread by fleas infected with Bacillus Bacterium on rodents, when the disease spreads to the human; a quick and painful death was expected. (Marquette University) The Plague caused farms to be abandoned, wages to increase dramatically, prices to quickly decrease, and increased political turmoil as the old political structure fell. The Black Plague replaced the old problems of British society with the complete opposite issue causing problems in Britain. (Chronicon Henrici

The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague.

It was believed in the middle ages that this disease was caused by poor hygiene, bad eating habits, corrupted humid air, and a lack of rest. Once a person was thought to be infected the doctors would move them to a non-infected area thinking that this would heal the persons illness instead this transported the disease even further than normal. In modern times we have made leaps and bounds to control this illness. One of the main problems of the plague is that it is not treatable until the victim gets tested and confirmed that the plague is the illness. Once that is done they will start receiving high doxycycline doses and many other types of antibiotics. The mortality rate for someone that is not treated is 50-90% compared to treated cases of 1-15%.

The high middle ages from the eleventh to the fourteenth century saw the reemergence of urban life, the revival of long distance commerce, innovation, maturation of manorial agriculture, and a burgeoning population. Consequently, the fourteenth century spawned war, famine, disease and economic decay, leading to what many historians believe to be the end of the Middle Ages. Although there were many contributing factors such as famine, collapsing institutions and war. Many historians believe the arrival of the Black Death to England in 1348 was the final straw, and the most impactful agent of change in that area. In a letter to his brother, Petrarch wrote, “When has any such thing been even heard or seen; in what annals has it ever been

Few days ago, it was reported that Eyam has closed the gates to keep the fatal disease all locked up.

During the same period that the Black Plague was ravaging Europe, the Papacy of the Church began to crumble. In the article was written by Danièle Cybulskie (2015, para. 1-2) She points out that many priests sent to administer last rights to the dying, did so knowing that they would most likely suffer the same fate, moreover other priests in a desperate attempt to survive, would shirk their duty. Entire monasteries would be wiped out as the sick and dying would flood into them for help. Simultaneously the people of the middle ages were becoming desperate for answers that the church could not provide. Heavy-handedly, the church blamed the Plague for the sins of the people. The Black Plague was a punishment from God as it was explained to the