The Black Death: Bubonic Plague

The Black Plague started

out in China in the 1330s.
Originally it only affected
rodents, however it quickly
spread to humans.

The Culprits

The Disease
Cycle

Flea drinks rat blood

that carries the
bacteria.

Bacteria
multiply in
fleas gut.

Human is infected!

Flea bites human and

regurgitates blood
into human wound.

Fleas gut clogged

with bacteria.

The Famine of
1315-1317
By 1300 Europeans
were farming almost all
the land they could cultivate.
A population crisis developed.
Climate changes in Europe produced three
years of crop failures between 1315-17
because of excessive rain.
As many as 15% of the peasants in some
English villages died.
One consequence of
starvation & poverty
was susceptibility to
disease.

1347: Plague
Reaches
Constantinople!

In October of 1347, several Italian

merchant ships returned from the
Black Sea.
Docked in Sicily,
many
sailors
were already dying of
the plague. Within
days the disease
spread to
the city.
That was the
beginning of the end!

An account of the devastation:

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, monastaries and converts 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.

How Did It Affect So Many People?

The Italian writer Boccaccio said its

victims often:
Ate lunch with their friends and dinner
with their ancestors in paradise.
In winter the disease seemed to
disappear, but only because fleas are
dormant then.
After Five years 25 million people were
dead- One Third of Europes people!

Three Forms
Bubonic
Pneumonic
Septicemic

Each killed people in different ways

Bubonic Plague
Symptoms
Bulbous

Most common
Mortality Rate: 30-75%.
Symptoms:
Egg-sized swellings (buboes)
Arm Pit, Neck and Groin (dark blisters)
Headaches, weakness, nausea/vomiting

Pneumonic Plague
Symptoms
Mortality Rate: 90-95%
(Today if Treated 5-10%)
It infected the lungs, and
Symptoms:
slimy snot tinted with blood!
Many times victims choked
on their own Blood (ew).

Septicemic Plague
Most Rare Symptoms
form of all!
Mortality rate was close to 100%
(Even today there is no treatment)
Symptoms: High Fever and
skin turning deep
shades of purple!
Victims usually died
the same day the
symptoms appeared.

WHY?

Ignorance Surrounded Cause and Cure

Europeans were Frantic

Blames
Alignment of Planets
Infected Clothing, Humans
Gods Wrath aimed at Sin
Jews

Cures/Remedies
Pomanders
Mixture of Molasses & Chopped Snake
Repentance
Flagellants

Video
https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kScxc9
DPrnY

From the Toggenburg

Bible, 1411

Lancing a Buboe

Medieval Art & the

Plague

Bring out your

dead!

Attempts to Stop the

Plague

A Doctors
Robe

Leeching

Attempts to Stop the

Plague

Flagellanti:

Self-inflicted penance for our sins!

The
Mortality
Rate35%
70%

25,000,000
dead !!!

Textbook
P. 25-27