The Black Plague affected the physical, psychological and the social mindset of the people in the city of Florence, Italy. Several years earlier in the orient it had manifested and spread to Florence, Italy by 1348.(Boccaccio, The Decameron) In this essay I will give specific examples of all three points to show the lasting effect it had. This has been recorded as one of the worst epidemics in the history of the world. One of the best records of the Black Plague was the Decameron written by Boccaccio. Where he recorded this imagery with his own eye witness account. His document will shed light on what things were happening during the time of the Black Plague. Boccaccio's descriptions of the Black Plague …show more content…
The infection not only hit the humans but animals were also able to contract it. Not many people survived after they had come in contact with the Plague.Some symptoms of the plague were swelling of the armpits and groin. As Boccaccio describes " some of which were as big as apples and some of which were shaped like eggs, some were small and others were large." (Boccaccio, The Decameron) You can imagine the way people acted upon seeing these signs. They were probably afraid and didn’t know what was going on, or who to blame. In Florence people had given the swellings a name, they called them gavocciolo. (Boccaccio, The Decameron) Soon after the symptoms had taken control it wasn’t long before people started dying. Some died quicker than others but most would die within a few days of first sign. As it got worse it wouldn’t just be on some parts of the body but it would encompass the whole body never going unnoticed by others. The spots could show up in different ways either large and spread out or small and in tight groupings. (Boccaccio, The Decameron) To make matters …show more content…
Not only humans were effected but animals also and within moments they would just die right on the street. Boccaccio even accounts a time where he had saw some pigs come upon a rag that had the bacteria on it at which point they just started convulsing and died. Even healthy people were eventually affected. There was no getting away from the death. With all these symptoms and no cure the moral of the people quickly dissipated. No matter where they tried to run it seemed the sickness would always grab ahold. The results of running just made it spread much more rapidly and to more than just Florence and Asia. Imagine everyone around you dying and there being nothing anyone can do about it? Hoping everyday that you would not be infected, wanting to help but knowing if you do you could be next. People in 1348 didn’t know why these things were happening. Could it have been god's wrath or something else. Everyone you know is dying around you, no cure, nowhere to hide. People had different ways of dealing with the inevitability of dying. Some ran away from the troubles, some drank their lives away trying to be happy. In everyone's mind there was
“But there were others they had forgotten…the children. They were by all means frequent receivers of the disease and it killed them almost instantly or within a few hours”. The children in plague infested towns had premature exposures which allowed for the disease to affect them physically and mentally. Once infected, the parents of the children would abandon them on the streets instead because many could not bear to watch them die (Science National Geographic). The females who contracted the plague were especially disregarded because they could not carry on the family name for generations to come. The children could not provide for themselves, so they suffered greatly.
Some died because of the pain but others died from not being able to get food. This illness left very little
It was a sickness caused exclusively from the air that they breathed, and could literally suffocate those who were unlucky enough to succumb to
The first stage of the black death disease caused people to experience high fevers, weakness, jitters, and cold sweats. Other primary sources were coughing and dry/sore throats. A very obvious sign that indicated that you have been infected by this disease were the black and blue swollen lymph nodes under your arms or near your groin. These were referred to as “buboes”. These dark bubbles were filled with dead blood and pus. Once you started growing buboes like the ones shown on the next page, there was no way to get out of it alive. If left untreated the victim would die from so much of the built up blood being dead and if you
soon spread outside of Italy. It was so big that there were different variations of the mannerism
because fatal. All he was able to be given was medications to relieve his air passages and advice
Symptoms there were strange swellings with blood and pus seeped out, fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains-and then, in short amount of time there was death after that. These diseases attacked the young and strong especially, and commonly spared the old and the weak.
They had to go through the dreadful symptoms of the Black Plague. The symptoms of the illness would be a high fever, headaches, a severe cough, weakness, abdominal pain, and sometimes even vital tissue bleeding. But fortunate ones got a swift death and missed the clutches of death. The only hope of recovering was to get a doctor and get their treatment of cooked onions, ten year old treacle, sitting in a room between two fires, and sometimes even arsenic. “With this new disease outbreak us doctors are having trouble finding remedies to cure it. We have tried everything like putting herbs in your house and around your neck to making people sit in sewers, but so far nothing has worked.”, quoted Dr. Russell Jones. But with the symptoms getting worse the need for doctors is increasing. However when doctors work with suffering patients then they start catching the sickness too. This lowering the amount of doctors living in affected towns and cities causing many of the infected helpless. Many now think this disease will take the life of everyone on the Earth as it is the end of the
The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men
Many of the people begin to starve, and many of them had got smallpox and other diseases.
The people waited for ships coming from Asia. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were very sick. Some say that one could go to sleep perfectly healthy and wake up dead. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease: It affected about all types of livestock.
Black Death, outbreak of bubonic plague that struck Europe and the Mediterranean area from 1347 through 1351. It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the early 18th century. A cycle of ancient plagues had preceded these plagues between the 6th and 8th centuries AD; another cycle of modern followed them, but less deadly, plagues that began in the late 19th century and continue in the 20th century. The term "Black Death" was not used to refer to the plagues of 1347 through 1351 until much later; contemporaries usually called it the Pestilence, or the Great Mortality.
disease started somewhere in far east but spread along major trade routes. When the source of the
Before medical technology and before colonization in the world concurred there was the plague. The plague was considered to be the darkest times in human history where an infectious disease
The Black Death can be considered to be the most dangerous disease outbreak in history. When this catastrophic event emerged, no doctor or priest had any idea why it was occurring or where it came from. Today we now know how it spread and the impact of the plague it had on the economy at the time.