When we think of disasters, world changing events, what is the first to come to mind? Wars, maybe, disasters because they are the most often experience. However, what about a much smaller one, one that has the potential to turn ugly quick and one we inhale and walk through every day but do not see; a little something just waiting for the right opportunity to attack. In many ways, the most dangerous and ruthless enemies may be closer than we think. In fact, they could be in your very own home, maybe on that pencil lying on the table. These potential enemies are bacteria. Through the course of history, there have been many epidemics that have literally changed the world. Influenza, smallpox, and yellow fever are just a few examples, but there is one that has proved to be far deadlier and more devastating than any other: the plague. Others might know it as The Great Mortality, The Pestilence, or the Pest (Barnard 4). This microscopic creature started a crisis of the late middle ages that brought entire ruling powers to their knees. It caused social and political systems turmoil and to stifle and tested morals and religious principles (Gottifred The Black Death). It killed 50% of its victims and in the end 25 million people, one-fourth of Europe’s population, were gone (Walker 1) all in a matter of twenty-one years, 1331 to 1357. The plague was a devastating epidemic that not only killed millions of people but also destroyed entire civilizations.
There are three strains of the plague: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic (Snell the Black Death) and they are all considered a zoonotic disease meaning they affect mostly animals (Altman 1). The plague was first discovered in 1849 by a student named Alexander Yersin. He discovered that all...
... middle of paper ...
...was over, but small outbreaks continued to pop up and survivors lived in constant fear of its return.
In many ways, it can be disturbing to realize something so small can hold so much power, that a tiny creature “can expose the fragility of human society.” With just enough stress, the most compact and unwavering societies can break (Barnard 4). The plague was horrible and left behind only broken and shattered remains of a different time. In a lighter side, this taught people. They realized the importance of proper sanitation and how it can slow the spread of disease. They also understood the importance of not to taking things for granted and the tomorrow is not guaranteed. The Black Death, too many, is marked as “the greatest biological-environmental event in history and one of the major turning points of western civilization” (Gottifred The Black Death).
After a series of biochemical tests and evaluation to determine several unknown bacteria, the bacterium Yersinia pestis was chosen to report. The discovery of Y. pestis dates back to 1894 by French/Swiss physician and bacteriologist named Alexandre Yersin. The name Yersinia pestis is synonymous with its more common name, the plague. Y. pestis is known to infect small rodents such as mice and rats, but is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected animal or flea. Although this bacterium is known to still cause illness today, it is infamous for three pandemics that occurred in earlier centuries. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first recorded pandemic occurred in 541 A.D. and is known as the Justinian Plague. The second pandemic originated in China in 1334 and has received the egregious name the “Black Death.” Finally, the third outbreak took place in the 1860’s and is known as the Modern Plague. It wasn’t until the end of the Modern Plague that scientists discovered the causative agent and mode of transmission of the Yersinia pestis bacterium.
From 1347 to 1350, the Black Death hit Northern Europe. Although, this was not the first time this type of disease was record. The plague was documented to have affected North Africa and the Middle East during the Classical Time. There are several speculations that this certain type of virus had been the cause of other epidemics, such “the pestilence described as striking the Philistines in the biblical book of 1 Samuel” (plague 9) although this is not verified. When it hit Europe in the 14th century, the main cause was black rats and fleas that carried the virus, as well as the disease being spread by poor sanitary. During this time period, about “one-fourth to one-third of the total population of Europe, or 25 million persons” (plague 10) died. The infected black rats were believed to have been carried over by Central Asian trade routes, fleas are believed to have become infected by biting an already infected rat. How a person would get infected was in two ways; either, normally one was bitten by a tainted flea or rat and unfortunately, the virus could live in the host indefinitely. Once a person became infected, it wouldn’t take too long for those around them to also become infected. Not only was the plague spread by rats and fleas, but the disease was insa...
During the thirteenth century the plague started spreading, it spread through the trade routes of many countries. Many people only heard of the plague being in China, but little did they know that the infection was already following the routes. The were three types of the Black Death Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septicemic.The Bubonic strain of the plague was more common, an infected person would have symptoms of chills, fever, vomiting, and rapid heartbeat. The person would soon develop inflamed swelling which were called buboes. Once a person had these buboes within a week, fifty to eighty percent of these infected
Diseases like the Bubonic Plague can be very deadly and hurt the society. The Bubonic Plague was a very devastating disease in the mid 1300s. It lasted about 6 or 7 years, and killed nearly 50% of the European population.The disease was believed to have started in China and went down the European trade route. Also one theory is that enemy’s would catapult infected carcasses into other enemies villages. And people in the villages didn’t have anything to stop the disease from spreading so it would wipe out entire villages.(document 1)
The Black Death came in 3 forms: the bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Each different from of the plague killed people in a vicious way. All forms were caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis.
The most intriguing article within the stimulating documents was William Stearns Davis’ “The Life of a Peasant” (Davis, 1922). Which offers an unaltered view of the lives of peasants in the middle ages. In his article, Davis introduces the idea of deadly bacteria through a description of the Black Plague, a disease caused by the bacterium named Yersinia Pestis. The Black Plague devastated the kingdoms of the middle ages. Yersinia Pestis was able to do this as at the time of its major outbreak, poor hygiene was commonplace, and antibiotics were non-existent. The question that stood out from the article was “To what extent, would it be possible for superbugs to create an environment today absent of effective antibiotics?”
The Black Plague or the Black Death was the name associated to the three-type disease that nearly wiped out an entire civilization. The roots of the Black plague have been traced back to a bacterium called Yersina pestis. named by a French biologist Alexandre Yersin. The disease travels from person to person through the lungs, through the air, or through the bite of infected fleas and rats. There were three different versions of the plague, which included the Bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and the septicemic plague. Each of these infected the host and weakened the entire body eventually leading to death.
The Bubonic Plague, or more commonly known as ‘The Black Death’ or ‘The Black Plague,’ was one of the most devastating and deadliest pandemics that humans have ever witnessed in the history of mankind. The disease spanned two continents in just a few years, marking every country between Western Europe all the way to China. During the reign of the plague, which is estimated to be the years between 1347-1352, it is estimated that “20 million people in Europe–almost one-third of the continent’s population” was killed off due to the plague. The Black Plague would change the course of European history since the plague knew no boundaries and inflicted its wrath upon the rich and the poor alike. As a result, not only did the plague have a devastating demographic impact which encountered a massive social disruption, but also, an economic and religious impact as well.
We live in a world where people become sick and infected with bacterial infections. Since mankind was born, infections continue to persevere and adapt. In the the thirteenth century, people meet a new kind of disease that could be transmitted from person to person. It was in this era that people began to get infected with diseases that caused a slow and painful death. In the modern era, the scientific world has innovated new antibiotics and vaccinations to prevent us from getting infections. However, not everybody was so fortunate, in the Middle Ages a massive outbreak of a deadly infections plagued most of Europe. The Bubonic Plague also known as the Black Death diminished one third of Europe’s population.
In 1347, Europe was swept with one of the most devastating human catastrophes recorded in history, the Black Death. During the late 1340s and early 1350s, the lethal pandemic affected parts of western Asia and North Africa and it is believed to have begun in Central Asia in the early 1330s. Historians estimate that “the Black Death killed anywhere from 33 to 60 percent of Europe’s total population—roughly 25 million to 45 million men, women, and children.” (7) The Black Death that swept through Europe during the 1340s was an important event in history because it showed how a plague could easily spread through an unprepared population and the consequences it created.
Every year millions of people die. People die either from natural causes or from another source like murder. Cancer and AIDS are the number one diseases leading to death in the 21st century. (Jueneman 1) However, they have not always been the leading diseases. Around as early as 542 AD, a deadly disease broke out in Constaniople and quickly spread around the world within a few hundred years. This disease in considered the worst natural disaster in history. The Bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, is historically the disease that has caused the most deaths and caused China, Europe, and India to shortly stop trade altogether.
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 suspected them (www.tartans.com). In the winter the plague seemed to disappear, but only because fleas were dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims (www.byu.edu). The effects of the plague were devastating. After just five years, twenty-five million people were dead - one third of Europe's population. Once people were infected they infected others very rapidly. As a result, in order to avoid the disease, many fled to the countryside where the lower population density helped to decrease the speed at which the disease spread (www.tartans.com). From a person's time of infection to his or her death was less than one week (www.home.nycap.rr.com). The plague became known as "The Black Death" because of the discoloration of the skin and black enlarged lymph nodes that appeared on the second day of contracting the disease. The term "The Black Death" was not invented until after 1800. Contemporaries called it "the pestilence" (Cantor 7).
The Black Death (also called the "plague" or the "pestilence", the bacteria that causes it is Yersinia Pestis) was a devastating pandemic causing the death of over one-third of Europe's population in its major wave of 1348-1349. Yersinia Pestis had two major strains: the first, the Bubonic form, was carried by fleas on rodents and caused swelling of the lymph nodes, or "buboes", and lesions under the skin, with a fifty-percent mortality rate; the second, the pneumonic form, was airborne after the bacteria had mutated and caused fluids to build up in the lungs and other areas, causing suffocation and a seventy-percent mortality rate.
Considered one of the worst natural disasters in world history, the Black Death came through Europe in 1347 A.D. It ravaged cities and town, causing a death to the masses, and no one was considered safe. The Plague is any epidemic scourge or calamity for which remedies are difficult to find, and according to the encyclopedia, plague is a common term for a disease of rodents that occasionally cause severe human infection. Named for the black spots that appeared on the victims’ skin, the original disease originated from Oriental Rat Fleas and black rats. It first infected Mongol armies and traders in Asia, and then began moving west with them as they traveled. There was no natural immunity to the disease, and standards of public health and personal hygiene were nearly nonexistent. It is believed that if people had not fled to nearby cities in hopes of escaping the plague, it might not have ever spread like it did. In the end, it passed through Italy, France, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland, and even up to the island of Greenland. City dwellers were hit the hardest due to the fact of crowded streets and the lack of sanitation. Up until the mid-15th century, recurrent epidemics prevented the recovery of Europe’s population to pre-plague levels. The Black Death was an important turning point for the history of Europe. This time was “the beginning of the end of the medieval period and the start of a social transformation of the continent.” The social and economic impacts of the plague were so huge, economics, politics and the European society would never be the same again.
Graveyards were full, medicine failed, parents abandoned ill children and in just six months, millions had died. It was the beginning of the Black Death. It was a deadly plague that spread through Europe and Asia from the mid 1330’s -50’s. The cause of death for twenty million people, the survivors thought it was God’s anger at something they had done and, therefore, the end of the world. In Venice, ninety thousand died and in Florence, half the population. There were three types of the plague. The Bubonic plague was the most common, the Pneumonic Plague was less common and the Septicaemic Plague was the most deadly and rarest of them all.