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What Is The Cause Of The Bubonic Plague

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12 Genoese trading ships brought the Black Death curse when they arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina in October 1347(History.com Staff). When visitors gathered on the port to welcome the ships, they were beyond horrified. The sailors had passed away, and the people that survived were stricken with disease. Mysterious black boils covered their bodies, thus giving the name "Black Death". However, the Sicilian authorities delayed in removing the "death ships", which resulted in the beginning of a horrible era. After striking Messina, the disease spread to the port of Marseilles in France, port of Tunis in North Africa, Rome and Florence, Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London. The Black Death aka the Bubonic Plague spread at a fast and furious rate. Within five years, 20 million people which is about one-third of Europe's population were killed.
No was prepared for the arrival of the Black Death. “In men and women alike,” the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, “at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils"(History.com Staff).The plague caused a painful swelling of the lymph glands that were known as Buboes. The spots on the skin are red, then change to black. …show more content…

In the Wintertime, the disease reduced due to fleas being dormant. But every spring, the disease would be active once again. In the 1600s, the disease had almost disappeared. French Biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered that the Black Death is spread by a bacillus called Yersina Pestis at the very end of the 19th century. It travels from person to person pneumonically, through air, or even the bite of infected fleas and rats. Due to Modern Sanitation, the Black Death has lowered the amounting of people impacted by

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