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Black Death
ThThe Black Death” is the name that was given to a disease called the bubonic plague which was widespread during fourteenth century. The plague according to modern biomedical science was a severe infection of the lymphatic system caused by Pasteurella petis, a bacillus carried principally by fleas that thrive on animals, particularly rodents such as rats. At the beginning of the outbreak, the cause of the plague was attributed to bad air, some kind of generalized pestilential miasma (Patel, 2011). The Black Plague is said to have originated in Asia and China. It was given the name “The Black Death" because of the black spots it produced on the skin
(Middle Ages, 2011). It then reached the Crimea and then Sicily in 1347. Tartar armies besieged a Genoese trading outpost in the Crimea and intentionally infected the inhabitants. Some of the Genoese escaped by ship, carrying the infection that they then unknowingly spread to each port at which they landed (Black Death, 2005). The long term effects of the Black Death were devastating and far reaching. Agriculture, Religion, economics and even social classes were affected.
Its symptoms were the swelling of the armpits and other areas of the body, mostly the groin and the neck, another symptom would be rings around your cheeks, the main symptom was black patches around the skin caused by bleeding around the buboes(swollen lymph glands). About one fourth of Europe died within a few years after the Plague was introduced to Europe in 1347. Europe wasn't the only place to be hit with the Plague. The Far East was also affected by it to, though not as severe as Europe was. Many scientists and people believe that rats and other rodents brought the epidemic to Europe. Most Epidemics are most likely to occur when rats live closely with humans in areas where there is poverty with poor sanitation and that also share an environment with wild rodents that have plague bacteria. (Jones, 2011). e black plague never really did "end" per se. However, it did die down quite a bit in Europe for two main reasons.

The first is that people started becoming immune. When the black plague came through Europe. Due to Europe's almost non-existent hygiene, the plague infected most everyone. Miraculously, many people's immune system wiped it out on its first run through their body, never getting more than a slight fever and a cough. The people who were infected either died or managed to pull through and became immune in the process.

Eventually the plague simply couldn't affect as many people. Most everyone was immune after it ran its course through Europe. The ones who got it and didn't get an immunity were dead. All that were left to infect were the ones that had managed to not catch it at all.

The second reason was that after plowing through Europe, they started getting pretty good at fighting it. They knew how to take care of the people that got it (though it wasn't completely effective, it did raise their survival rate.)

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