The Black Death: The Plague Breakout In Europe
“The Black Death” During, the medieval times, there was a destructive disease sweeping across the globe. So destructive it is believed to have taken twice as many lives as the amount of people murdered by Joseph Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union (Benedictow). In this essay, I will explain to you “The Black Death”, the name given to the plague breakout in Europe. In order for you to understand the plague in Europe, I must first inform you on plagues, in general. “Plague is a bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and their fleas,” (National Geographic Society). There are three types of plague; bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic. The bubonic plague is the plague I will be talking about in this essay. All three of these plagues are easily spread and painful. Symptoms include swellings ranging in size then are, “followed by….fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains--and then….death,” (“Black Death”). According to the same article, you could go to bed feeling completely normal yet be dead by morning!
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In 1347, 12 trading ships incidentally introduced this deadly bacteria to Europe.
The 12 ships landed with most of its sailors dead or extremely ill. These sailors, “were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and pus and gave their illness its name: the “Black Death”,” (“Black Death”). That was the beginning of a terrible epidemic in Europe.
During that time, there was nothing to do about the disease, medically. “Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rose water or vinegar,” (“The Black Death”). When none of these practices worked, people began simply avoiding those infected. Doctors stopped taking patients, “priest refused to administer last right”, shopkeepers closed their stores, and many people left the city for the country (“The Black
Death”).
Since, they could not cure or treat the disease, people began wondering if this was God’s way of punishing them for their sins. They began repenting in extreme ways. Some thought they needed to get rid of all the wrong doers in the world. Thousands of Jews being killed in 1348 and 1349 is an example of this extreme repent (“The Black Death”). Another repent, that was really odd, was a group of upper-class men would go from town to town, beating themselves and one another with “heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal” in front of the townspeople. They would do this for three times a day for 33 ½ days for each town (“The Black Death”)!
“The Black Death” spread through Europe like wildfire from 1346 to 1353. In the end, around 50 million Europeans died from this terrible plague which calculates to roughly 60 percent of the European population at that time (Benedictow). The sustainability of our world as we know it was greatly affected by this disease. Just think of the great things those 50 million people would have done. The cure to the common cold could have been lodged in the mind of one of them. The plague also, “had an enormous impact on [their] society and greatly affected the dynamics of change and development from the medieval to Early Modern period,” (Benedictow). In conclusion, “The Black Plague” will forever go down as one of the most horrific and deadly outbreaks of all time.
In 1347, 12 trading ships incidentally introduced this deadly bacteria to Europe.
The 12 ships landed with most of its sailors dead or extremely ill. These sailors, “were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and pus and gave their illness its name: the “Black Death”,” (“Black Death”). That was the beginning of a terrible epidemic in Europe.
During that time, there was nothing to do about the disease, medically. “Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rose water or vinegar,” (“The Black Death”). When none of these practices worked, people began simply avoiding those infected. Doctors stopped taking patients, “priest refused to administer last right”, shopkeepers closed their stores, and many people left the city for the country (“The Black
Death”).
Since, they could not cure or treat the disease, people began wondering if this was God’s way of punishing them for their sins. They began repenting in extreme ways. Some thought they needed to get rid of all the wrong doers in the world. Thousands of Jews being killed in 1348 and 1349 is an example of this extreme repent (“The Black Death”). Another repent, that was really odd, was a group of upper-class men would go from town to town, beating themselves and one another with “heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal” in front of the townspeople. They would do this for three times a day for 33 ½ days for each town (“The Black Death”)!
“The Black Death” spread through Europe like wildfire from 1346 to 1353. In the end, around 50 million Europeans died from this terrible plague which calculates to roughly 60 percent of the European population at that time (Benedictow). The sustainability of our world as we know it was greatly affected by this disease. Just think of the great things those 50 million people would have done. The cure to the common cold could have been lodged in the mind of one of them. The plague also, “had an enormous impact on [their] society and greatly affected the dynamics of change and development from the medieval to Early Modern period,” (Benedictow). In conclusion, “The Black Plague” will forever go down as one of the most horrific and deadly outbreaks of all time.