It was late October 1347 when this terrible disease hit the coast of Europe. This tragedy had many effects on the people of Europe economically and emotionally. The Black Death was brought over by sailors, had many symptoms, spread very quickly, and had a big impact on the people of Europe. With no one really knowing what the black plague was, it caused a great deal of panic when it first showed up.
This terrible disease was brought over by some of the sailors that had been infected with this disease and came to the port on the coast of Europe. On those ships were rats that had fleas who carried this disease from one host to another. It eventually spread from fleas to rats, and from rats to humans. Consequently, if you came into contact with
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The Black Death is known to spread quickly so it was no surprise to see that it had covered a lot of Europe. It also spread to places such as Aragon, Byzantium, Genoa, Majorca, Naples, Sicily, and Venice. In many different places in Europe, it was so contagious that over 20 million people were killed by the disease.
This disease causes boils to appear on the upper thigh and upper arm, a fever to arise, and a lot of aches and pains. This also caused the victim to have bleeding in the lungs, mental disorientation, and only 2-4 days to live after contracting the disease. The maximum number of days that one would live after contracting this disease is 7 days and the minimum was 1-2 days. Once again, this was a while ago so they didn’t really have a cure.
Also, at that time no one really knew why this disease was spreading in Europe so, they assumed that it was a punishment sent from God for all of the heresy and greed the people of the church had committed. At the time, people of the church were very religious and didn’t like people who would not go along with the church’s rules and beliefs, so heresy was a very common thing alongside greed. With all of this greed and heresy came sin and they believed that God would punish you for your sins. This ended in the theory that the disease was all a
At this time however, cold weather and rains wiped out many crops creating a shortage of food for humans. Rats also went through this shortage in food. This made them “crowd in cities, providing an optimal environment for disease”(Karin Lehnardt in 41 Catastrophic Facts about the Black Death). Before the black death spread through Europe, sanitation wasn’t very good. Living conditions were bad so when the black death came to Europe, it spread more rapidly because people were not clean and healthy. Another reason the plague spread so fast was because the dead “bodies were piled up inside and outside city walls where they lay until mass graves could be dug”(Karin Lehnardt in 41 Catastrophic Facts about the Black Death). This made the air very polluted and contributed the spread of the epidemic. In total, the black death killed about thirty million people. This was about one-third the population of Europe. Some towns were completely wiped out. Because of this, medieval people thought everyone would eventually die, although we now know that some populations did survive. Also, because people were not being saved by the church, their beliefs were questioned. Less people dedicated their lives to the church because of this. Both the poor and the rich died but more than one-half the people dead were poor. This was also a result of poor sanitation and living conditions. The Black Death initiated in China in the early 1340’s
Europe was struck in 1328 and lasted until 1358; of course outbreaks would happen every once in a while. The Black Death was able to reach every corner of the world due to the trade routes that were travelled at that time. Although, the Britain was only affected for three years, it wreaked havoc everywhere. It took no prisoners it didn’t matter if you were young, old, poor, rich or a slave or a slave owner. Once infected one wouldn’t have much time left.
Many people of this time thought the Plague arrived due to their sins as accounted by Gabriele de’ Mussis. “I pronounce these judgment: may your joys be turned to mourning, your prosperity be shaken by adversity, the course of your life be passed in never ending terror…no one will be given rest, poisoned arrows will strike everyone, fevers will throw down the proud, and incurable disease will strike like lightning” This quote reveals that God imposed the plague onto the people and they had to suffer due to their sins. In another section of this book, there is an excerpt from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. In it he describes the symptoms the people in the city of Florence suffered due to this disease. “It’s earliest symptom, in men and women alike, was the appearance of certain swellings in the groin or the armpit, some of which were egg shaped while some where the size of a common apple…Later on…people began to find dark botches and bruises on their arms, thighs, and other parts of the body” This source is one of many found in Horrox’s book that all list the same symptoms for this mysterious disease throughout all of
The Black Death did not differentiate one religion from another, so the plague spread throughout Europe and the Middle East like wildfire not stopping until it reached the Pacific ocean. Christians and the Muslims were both terrified by the plague not being able to see it, know where it is coming from, why it is happening, or how to rid yourself of it, this was a scary thought. The death rate of the plague was around thirty two percent as it was stated in document two. Maybe the cause of this was the beliefs about the causes and prevention of it. One similar cause was the winds carrying contaminated air, two prevention that were similar was drinking an Armenian clay tablet and building fires to fumigate. Christians and Muslims at one point in time rebelled against the king. Then all of the religions assembled together for a night of prayer in the Great mosque as talked about in document nine.
This affected more than just Europe, it really hurt countries in the Middle East and China. The Black Death was spread by the Mongols and passed into Europe through black rats and fleas. Ships were known to arrive in Europe with many dead bodies and only rats living. Symptoms of the Black Death included puss filled abscesses that ended up turning your whole body black. It is believed that after receiving symptoms of the deadly disease people would only survive a few days. It was feared that the entire population would be wiped out by this devastating plague. People of this age believed the plague had meaning and was related to God, there were different perceptions of why the Bubonic plague happened, although some believed God caused it, others strongly believed that it was not possible for God to commit an act that would cause so many issues to the world and its society. The population that survived the Black Death were traumatized by the events and also affected negatively economically. An effect of the plague was a shortage of labor which caused a shortage of supply and increase in demand of workers and laborers. The whole of Europe had changed because of this event and things such as revolts. Protests, and up rise started to occur in cities all over Europe. The Black Death changed the attitudes and thinking of the people of Europe
It is believed that the Black Death originated in central China in 1333 as the population succumbed to starvation. The plague spread to the Crimea where Kipchak Mongols or Tartars attacked Genose carrying furs and silks from Cathay, were besieging a Genoese trading centre of Calla, and catapulted their own dead into the city. The Genoese traders escaped by sea carrying the plague to Messina in Italy. In 1348 the plague spread from Cyprus to Florence which was also suffering from famine. The plague spread to Genoa from the Levant on 3 Galleys that went on to Marseilles, and then to the English south coast near Southampton, in 1348. The Black Death ravaged Bristol killing most of its inhabitants. It reached London around 1 November 1348 and by 2 February 1349, 200 people were being buried every day. The daughter of king Edward III, Joanna of died of the plague in Bordeaux on her way to marry Don Pedro, heir to the throne of Castille. The Scots who had not been affected by the black death took advantage by attacking England at this time, but this was simply that the plague had not
It was a bubonic plague that came from Asia and spread by black rats infested with fleas. The plague spread like a wildfire because people who lived in high populated areas were living very close to each other and had no idea what was the cause of the disease or how to cure it. The signs of the “inevitable death” where blood from the nose, fever, aching and swellings big as an “apple” in the groin or under the armpits. From there the disease spread through the body in different directions and soon after it changed into black spots that appeared on the arms and thighs. Due to the lack of medical knowledge, no doctors manage to find a remedy. Furthermore a large number of people without any kind of medical experience tried to help the sick but most of them failed “...there was now a multitude both of men and of women who practiced without having received the slightest tincture of medical science - and, being in ignorance of its source, failed to apply the proper remedies…” (Boccaccio). The plague was so deadly that it was enough for a person to get infected by only touching the close of the
The Black Death plague had disastrous consequences for Europe in the 14th century. After the initial outbreak in Europe, 1347, it continued for around five years and then mysteriously disappeared. However, it broke out again in the 1360s and every few decades thereafter till around 1700. The European epidemic was an outbreak of the bubonic plague, which began in Asia and spread across trade routes. When it reached Europe, a path of destruction began to emerge.
The black plague was an extremely deadly disease that originally struck Europe in the fifteenth century. However, outbreaks continued to occur until the eighteenth century. The plague was spread through rats that were infected by disease carrying fleas. Once infected, a person would typically die within days. It is estimated that over 25 million people, or about 1/3 of western Europe’s population died. People had very mixed opinions of the plague and the effects it had on the continent.
A devastating widespread disease that resulted in about 75 million deaths was known as the Black Death. The disease came from fleas that came off of rats that were commonly found in towns and cities. The fleas would bite the victims, injecting them with the disease. Fleas and rats could be found almost anywhere but they were mainly aboard ships of all kind. This is how the Black Death made its way through European ports. This disease could also be spread through the air from person to person. According to one doctor “instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick” There was no medical knowledge to help the people neither cure nor stop the disease. This sent all of Europe in a panic and changed many of their lives forever.
It spread throughout Europe very quickly and lasted from 1347-1353 A.D. It was thought that the disease had first originated from rats carrying fleas with the plague that came to Europe by ship. Anyone who caught the disease would first form buboes under their armpits or in the groin area, followed by fever, chills, and general muscle aches, and then internal bleeding which formed the black spots or boils under the skin. Other symptoms included a foul odor of all body fluids and the rotting of flesh at the fingers, toes, and nose. It was spread mostly by coughing and sneezing and whoever caught it would die in three to four days. There was more than one type of plagues of the Black death such as the septicemic plague and the pneumonic plague. The pneumonic caused sever chest pain, heavy sweating, coughing up blood, not many buboes formed but the person died in one or two days. On the other hand, the septicemic plague killed people too quickly in less than eight hours. All these plagues ended up killing over 25 million people in just under five
The Black Plague Was A Huge Disease that spread over Europe. According to the text “The so-called Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348. Believed to be bubonic plague, spread by infected fleas carried on rats, the disease swept through Europe over the better part
The most sever epidemic in human history, The Black Death ravaged Europe from 1347-1351. This plague killed entire families at a time and destroyed many villages. The Black Death had many effects beyond its immediate symptoms that contributed to the crisis of the Fourteenth Century. This plague not only took a devastating toll on human life, but it also played a major role in shaping European life in the years to follow. The Black Death divides the central and the late Middle Ages. This horrible catastrophe that occurred in 1348, swept through Europe causing numerous changes.
The “plague” is known as the “Yersinia pestis” bacteria, which is a rare zoonotic disease. These diseases are spread from animal to human (Newquist 239, Adamloakun M.D. 718). The bacterium lives in rodents such as rats and is carried by fleas (Newquist 238). When the fleas bite humans, the bacterium spreads.
Historians believe that the plague was caused by fleas that came to Europe from Asia on ships. At the time, people thought they were being punished by God and that they were being abandoned to fend for themselves. They thought the plague was being spread by bad smells.