The Plague: The Black Death In Europe

The black death first came to Messina in Italy in 1347 when a few Genoese trading ships docked at the Sicilian port. People gathered at the port to greet the travelers, but they were met with an unfortunate surprise. Most of the fleet’s ship's crew was dead, however, the people who were alive were seriously ill and eventually died. The most unusual thing of all, they were covered in huge black boils. The disease spread throughout Europe and killed nearly one third of Europe's population over the next three years.This made many people start thinking about what it could be caused by and how to treat it.The Black Death was one the most devastating pandemics in human history it began in south west Asia and spread to Europe by the late 1340s there
were many different theories about why the people contracted the plague and this also impacted on how it was treated.

People contracted the plague in scary and unusual ways. The symptoms were all very painful and caused fear among the victims. The most obvious symptom for the black death were the buboes that would start appearing on people’s lymph nodes. These were black boils that gave off a horrible odour and could be as large as eggs. The plague had a mortality rate between ten to fifty percent depending on the strand of plague contracted. There were three strands of plague bubonic pneumonic and septicemic. Bubonic plague was the most common form. This was the strand that you would contract the pus filled buboes. Pneumonic plague affects your respiratory system. Septicemic plague is the most deadly as it affects your circulatory system. In looking through secondary sources that confirm that the symptoms were scary and the living conditions were horrible. For instance, “town centers were dirty and smelly. Rotting food scraps and sewage typically blocked the drains(oxford big ideas history 8: Australian curriculum pg 302). People living in medieval Europe experienced terrible symptoms from the black death.

There were many unusual beliefs about what the disease was caused by. When the plague started to spread it was thought that it was infected rodents. This was partially true because the yersinia pestis was a bacteria that were on things like rats and prairie dogs. People known as flagellants believed that the plunge was God’s punishment. They traveled around from town to town whipping themselves in a bid to repent to God. Some believed that the world was about to end. Others believed that it was the Jewish people to blame for witchcraft and poisoning the water. An analysis of secondary sources that reflect on the plague, confirms that there were a lot of unusual beliefs about how the plague started. For instance, “people in medieval times had no idea about what caused the Black Death. They also didn't understand why the infections would spread in waves” (oxford big ideas history 8 Australian curriculum pg 312) there were certainly a lot of unusual beliefs about what the plague was caused by.

With the lack of medical knowledge in medieval times there were a lot of different ideas on how to potentially cure the Black Death.
For the people who could afford it, they would be treated by a medical physician whom would have been trained at a university. But this didn't mean that there treatments were effective. most people would have seen a barber, a barber surgeon or a wise woman about treatments. A barber would perform dental or bloodletting procedures. A barber surgeon could perform a wide range of procedures. A wise woman would treat the poor people or people who couldn't get to a barbershop. Art was influenced by the plague. With drawings called danse macabre depicted the cause of Black Death as people being taken away by skeletons. With an analysis of primary and secondary sources, the cures for the Black Death were very unusual. for instance, “bloodletting was believed to cure illness and prevent diseases such as the Black Death.leeches were sometimes used to suck out blood; or a person's vein was cut and a set volume of blood was collected in a dish” (oxford big ideas history 8: Australian curriculum pg 316). Some of the most unusual cures were; drinking rotten treacle, living in a sewer, eating a spoonful crushed emeralds, washing yourself with urine, rubbing yourself with a living chicken, letting a leech suck your blood, smelling herbs and spices (aromatherapy) etc. lots of these cures are absurd but some of them like aromatherapy and leech therapy are still used today. Pope Clement VI had the ideas to sit between two large flames. This proved effective as the flames cleansed the air and stopped the yersinia pestis from spreading. There were a lot of unusual and unhelpful cures for the Black Death in medieval
times.

When the black death was over, almost one third of the population of Europe had died. The invention of antibiotics gave us a cure for the black death. People can still contract the plague or die of the plague but it is a lot less common.