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The Bubonic Plague
By Joy J. Fine
The Bubonic Plague, often called the Black Death, was a fast spreading disease that wiped out millions of people beginning in the middle thirteen hundreds. It spread from Asia, where it killed an estimated thirty five million people, across the seas by ships that unknowingly were carrying rats that carried the disease. It is believed to have been brought to England by the trading ships of the Italians after they came back from Asia and spread across Europe from there. When the ships first arrived in England they carried with them dead and dying sailors. In the small space of only three years this dreaded disease killed somewhere upwards of a million people which was nearly thirty three percent of the then population of all of Europe.
Black Death Effects
It was nicknamed the Black Death because it changed a person’s skin color to a grayish hue. One of the frightening things about this disease is the ease at which it spread. The infected rats were able to transfer the Bubonic Plague in two ways. The fleas that lived on the infected hosts spread it by jumping off of them and then living on human hosts instead, whether this was in the straw they slept on or on their bodies, and then biting them. As well a bite from an infected rat could infect a person. The person bitten was not expected to live more than a few days.
One thing that made people so susceptible to this disease was the kind of conditions that people lived in during those times. Their sanitary conditions were abysmal in the European villages with so many people crowded into small areas. With no way to properly store their food they often ate meat that was no longer safe to eat, it had turned, and bread that was stale. On top of that because no one understood, at the time, what was happening, the medical advice given was exactly the opposite of what should have been done. The people were told not to bathe, though this was already done infrequently enough, they were told this would give them less chance of catching the plague if they remained dirty thus keeping the pores closed to disease.
Symptoms of the Bubonic Plague
When a person became infected with the Bubonic Plague the signs came upon them quickly. At first it was nothing more than symptoms of the flu; their arms and legs felt heavy and painful. But soon this escalated into vomiting blood and swelling of the glands in the groin, neck and underarms. This swelling increased daily until, by day three or four, the glands burst. It was a painful way to die.
Some people believed the Bubonic Plague to have been God’s judgment. One specific group, the flagellants, thought that if they punished themselves they would remain unscathed by the disease. They tried to blame others, like the Jews and any Clergy who did not agree with them, looking for any source who may have displeased their God enough to bring this judgment down on them. The Pope at the time spoke against them and their madness.
This frightening disease, which is still around to this day, is no longer the death sentence it once was. The Bubonic plague, which still affects between fifteen hundred and two thousand people a year, with about fifteen of those cases being found in the United States, is curable if recognized and treated quickly with antibiotics.
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