History Day Project Turning Points in History

The Bubonic Plague or the Black Death

By Ansh Kakar The Bubonic plague or also called the Black Death was the deadliest disease in medieval history. It has killed over 200 million people. It has wiped out a third of the population at the time. The Bubonic plague has drastically changed history, and it is a major turning point as well. The plague started from a bacterial infection in rodents and some fleas. Through those fleas the disease can transfer to humans. When it does the outcome can be terrifying, creating a plague outbreak, which is viral and transferred to millions of people creating a worldwide epidemic. The term bubonic comes from the Greek word Boubwv, which means swollen bumps. So it is basically an infection that enters through the skin, then it reaches your circulatory system, then it composes a network of conduits, which is basically a network of tubes that take water to the heart which can be deadly. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Since most humans did not developed antibodies, which helped fight of the disease, it became even more deadly. It would kill 2/3 people that got the infection. Once a person would get the infection they would die in about 4-6 days. Some of the symptoms were coughing blood, black dots on the skin, and severe muscle cramps, and seizures. The epidemic started from China. Since China was one of the busiest world trading nations, it didnt take that long for the disease to spread all across Asia. In 1347, several Italian merchants returned from a trading journey from China. When the ships docked Sicily, many merchants on the ship were already dead from the plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the countryside. Even though the people of the city drove away the merchants, the disease spread like wildfire. This is what some of the witnesses said: "Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial." By a few months the disease had spread as far north as Europe. The Europeans called the disease the Black Death, because of the black spots the occurred on the skin. By people that had the disease, trying to move, and people trying to trade with the disease, it spread throughout the world. The plague also affected the economy of many countries and completely changed many countries population and way of life. In the west, it was normal to see abandoned farms, livestock, and houses. The decline of farming resulted to food shortages and killed more people.

Some armies in the medieval times used the disease for biological warfare. For example they would send people with the Bubonic plague into cities they were in war with and infect and decrease their population. The medieval doctors recommended moving from the plagued cities, staying away from rats and insects, and being more sanitary. When people started moving away from the plagued cities, they moved into lands that didnt have the disease and started the disease there. So basically the world was in a cycle of disease. Plague still exists in various parts of the world. In 2003, more than 2,100 human cases and 180 deaths were recorded, nearly all of them in Africa. The last reported serious outbreak was in 2006 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa, when at least 50 people died. The United States, China, India, Vietnam, and Mongolia are among the other countries that have confirmed human plague cases in recent years. Most people survive if they're given the correct antibiotics in time. Good sanitation and pest control help prevent plague outbreaks since they need crowded, dirty, rat-infested conditions to really get going. Some people today still fear that some nation can find a way to combine the infection, and make multiple supplements of the bubonic plague, put it into a nuclear bomb and affect the world again. I think that this is one of the most major turning points in history! It changed the world for hundreds of years! It killed and extinguished 1/3 of the worlds population and changed history forever!