The Black Death

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In October 1347, the Black Death finally made its way to Europe. 12 Genoese merchant ships arrived at the Sicilian port of Messina, when the townspeople joined together at the docks they were greatly surprised to see most of the sailors were either dead or severely ill (Staff ). The sailors on the 12 forsaken ships had large black boils on their body that discharged blooded and pus. This gave the illness the name; the Black Death. Throughout the rest of the century, the Black Death would return a handful of times killing roughly 20 million europeans (Snell).
The Black Death unleashed a fury of death on Europe. Almost one-third of the population of Europe had perished. The Black Death came in three forms: bubonic, pneumonic and the septicemic version. The most common form bubonic is contracted when a person is bitten by an infected flea that were on rats. Once infected you would start to show signs with a few hours to seven days. In Giovann Boccaccio, Decamerone, he described the symptoms of the Black Death:
In men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumours in the groin or armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg...From the two said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently; after which the form of the malady began to change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, now minute and numerous. As the gavocciolo had been and still was infallible token of approaching death, such also were these spots on whomsoever they showed themselves. (Boccaccio 3)
The second form, the Pneumonic Plague attacked the respiratory system ("...

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...ecameron." Trans. Array1351. 3. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Clinic Staff, Mayo. "Diseases and Conditions Plague."Mayo Clinic. N.p., 26 Mar 2013. Web. 14 Apr 2014. .
Nevin, Laura. "The Black Death and the Renaissnce." Bella Online The Voice of Women . N.p.. Web. 14 Apr 2014. .
Snell, Melissa. "The Black Death." About.com Education> Medieval History. About.com. Web. 14 Apr 2014. .
Staff, History.com. "Black Death." History.com. A E Networks, n.d. Web. 14 Apr 2014. .
Wilde, Robert. "ABout.com Education European History ."Causes of the Renaissance. N.p.. Web. 14 Apr 2014. .

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