Cause And Effects Of The Black Death

Black death was a bubonic plague, which took the lives of millions of people in the mid 1300s. This plague was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which lived in fleas. Therefore, transmitting the bacteria to its rodent hosts every time they would feed. The bacteria then killed the rodents leaving the fleas without hosts to feed on and in result they would feed on the humans. (Bailey 7-12) Most people who were infected would last two to three days before they died, no longer than two to three weeks. The plague moved rapidly, medical researchers believe it could have moved as fast as eight to twelve miles a day. The plague was first encountered in China and it spread through Asia and into Europe in a

During the fourteenth century a disease ravaged across the middle east that calculated up to fifty million deaths and impoverished half of Europe. This disastrous disease had attained the nick-name, “Black Death”, referring to its high fatality rate. The plague, as some may call it, scattered amongst the whole world taking many lives because of the lack of medical attention or treatment and is even still around till this day. The Black Death is best understood through its symptoms, treatments, and death toll changing life in the fourteenth century.

The black death came through Western Europe from 1348-1949. The black death is a deadly disease that killed huge amounts of people. Some names that the black death is known as are the “Bubonic Plague”, “Black Plague”, and “The Plague”. The Black Death is a disease that was spreaded quickly and that is how it killed so many people. It spreaded through cough and touching and thats why it spread so quickly everywhere. The black death was deadly because it caused the skin to die, swelling, pain then death. The black death was a powerful disease and caused many changes to take place in the society.

History reveals the mid-14th century as a very unfortunate time for Europe. It was during this period when the continent became afflicted by a terrible plague. The source of the pathogen is known today as bubonic but was colloquially known as “The Black Death” to Europeans of the day. The plague caused a tremendous number of deaths and was a catalyst of change, severely impacting Europe’s cultural, political and religious institutions.

The Black Death was one of the most devastating worldwide diseases in human history. The plague originated in central Asia and was brought to China by traders and Mongols from 1334-1347. Mongol protection of the trade may have caused the disease to spread along the “Silk Road” to Crimea. During a Mongol siege against Caffa in 1347, the Mongolian army began to die. The Mongols catapulted the dead bodies into the city where the fleas on the corpses were released into Caffa. In the year 1347, October, Genoese traders escaped from the city and sailed to Messina, an Italian port, unaware that they were infected by the disease. Eventually, everyone on the ship died and a “ghost ship” made it to port. Seeing no activity on board, the ship was

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in history. Many Western Europeans were living with this disease for nearly four hundred years. The disease was able to spread rapidly and affected Europe in many ways. Since this disease was rapidly spreading throughout Europe it scared many of the people during this time. Many historians considered the Black Death in the fourteenth century a turning point in Western European history. According to Streissguth, “Before the epidemic of bubonic and pneumonic plague died out three years later, it would kill more than one-third of the continent’s population.” Hundreds of thousand people died from this horrific disease which changed Europe forever. Near the end of the fourteenth century it was obvious to the people living during that time that the plague had become a regular and destructive aspect of life. The plague had left many rural areas untouched after the late 1300’s but the epidemic began almost every decade. When the Black Death began to spread across Europe it caused unimaginable fear, panic, and chaos for the people. The Black Death was an important turning point in Europe, where the economics, politics, and society would never be the same. The Black Death spread rapidly across Europe causing many people to become ill and die which resulted in social, economic, and religious upheavals.

The causes of the Black Death – the flea, the rat, and the bacillus Yersinia pestis– have been labeled the “unholy trinity” (Boeckl). The flea is able to live in environmental conditions of about 74° Fahrenheit and 60% humidity (Ibid). Before the Black Death reached Europe, they were experiencing those same types of weather conditions. The rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis and the human flea, Pulex irritans, are both capable of transmitting plague (Boeckl). Sometimes, an infected flea cannot ingest blood because Yersinia pestis obstructs its digestive tract. The blockage causes a flea to regurgitate into a bitten host rather than ingest the host’s blood, thereby infecting the host with plague (Boeckl). Unable to eat, the famished flea will bite with more frequency, accelerating the spread of plague. A flea can be carrying Yersinia pestis without it blocking the flea’s digestive tract, in which case the flea does not transmit plague when it bites a host. Also, Yersinia pestis can only enter a victim through a bite, as the bacilli cannot pass through intact skin (Gottfried).

Geography plays an important part in history no matter the circumstances. The Black Death is only one of many events in history where geography has an important role. Geography allows us to pinpoint the different locations and environments the Black Death occurred in. It is believed that the Black Death originated in Central Asia (China). The first outbreak was with the Yuan Empire in 1331, which may have advanced the end of the Mongol rule over China ( “How The Black Death Started In Asia”). The disease had killed more than 90 percent of the Hebei Province’s populations, as recorded in 1334, with the number of  deaths adding to be greater than 5 million people (“How The Black Death Started In Asia”). By 1393 a record showed a total of only 65 million chinese surviving. A series of trade routes from Central Asia (China)  lead to the spread of this devastating

During Europe’s boom in trade more advanced ways of cargo shipping and sea travel were developed, but with this advancement also came the transport of disease. The most deadly of these new diseases was the well-known Black Death, which starting in 1347 took its toll on Western Europe. Throughout history, when faced with hard times, the true side of humanity can be seen; during these times humanity often reverts back to their roots whether those be the barbaric or the amiable. During the Black Death civilizations did just that; the chaos stricken communities of Europe responded in various ways some more righteous and beneficial, and others negative and barbaric.

The black death is a major plague that first broke out during the middle ages and affected the people greatly. The black plague made its first appearance in the middle when it broke out many villages and hamlets were deserted and were never inhabited again due to the fact that a lot of people suffered from the plague. First off the plague affected the people greatly because they were all affected by it, but some were affected more than others for example you're walking down the street of your village and see tom and the next day you're walking down the street and he’s not there that how fast people were dying by the plague killed people. Second their lives would never be the same because of how much people were killed/affected by it. Also

The Black Death, according to Joseph P Byrne, was “a deadly epidemic that spread across Asia and Europe beginning in mid 1300’s.” It did not take long for the plague to make a big impact on the world. “By the spring of 1348, the Black Death, also known as Black Plague, spread to france, The Alberium Peninsula, and England, following trade routes and hitting big cities first before spreading to the countryside,” states Gail Cengage. In the 19th century, Europe was devastatingly hit with this epidemic that affected them greatly then and now. The Black Death in Europe affected 19th centuries economics, population, and literature. Its effect on Europe is an interesting topic that shaped history and our lives today. This topic is widely covered as Molly Edmonds writes her findings from other sources. These sources will be used to describe the effect the Black Death had on Europe.

The Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, was a gruesome plague that took over Europe killing over 20 million people. The plague was brought over from the Black Sea by traders and with the overpopulated filth-infested Europe the Black Death thrived. “The streets all year round were covered in feces - human and animal - urine, rotting food, and corpses of animals”(Howell). To this day scientists still do not know a cure or what exactly this disease was. It is understood that it was from fleas that were on dying rats that caused the plague. Moreover, the Black Death did not only kill millions of people, it also killed the way that society functioned. It decreased the supply and increased the demand for workers (The Black Death). Thus, causing the middle class to form and progress into what we know in the present day. It also gave the people a chance to persecute and massacre the Jewish communities by accusing them of deliberately poisoning wells and causing the outbreak of the Black Death (Bee). The influence that the plague had on the works of authors such as Chaucer changed not only society, but also how they thought and wrote.

The beginning of the 14th century saw Europe in the midst of a revitalization.  The agricultural revolution had made food more plentiful than before, more land was being cultivated and life was more optimistic than it had been for centuries. Despite a famine from 1315-1317 and the onset of the Hundred Year’s War, the 14th century continued to be a time of growth in Europe. This growth came to an end in 1347 though, with the emergence of the Black Death.  According to Norman Cantor, “The Black Death of 1348-49 was the greatest biomedical disaster in European and possibly world history” (Cantor 6). The Black Death decimated the population of Europe, halted the advancement of science and intellectual endeavors, as well as ushered in a new age of pessimism and morbidness. Europe would not recover from this blow until many centuries later.

Imagine, swollen painful red lymph nodes on the neck, legs, and armpits, but the red did not last long and before the victim knew it the swollen glands were turning black and then busting open causing lesions. Then comes the fever, vomiting, muscle pains and bleeding of the lungs. Yet people had no clue why this is happening or what caused it. The Black Death swept through Europe claiming lives left and right.

The Black Death of 1348 ravaged the main lands of Asia through North Africa and ultimately made land fall in London in the autumn of 1348. “The Black Death” is well studied and a highly scrutinized controversial topic researched by respected pundits on what really assisted with the spreading of the plague in London. The Black Death is broadly believed that it originated from an epidemic of the bubonic plague generated by the bacteria carried by the fleas that were host on the black rats. These rodents circulated the plague from China to Europe and ultimately hit Great Britain by 1348. Some scholars would argue that with the spreading of the plague spreading at such an alarming rate could there have been other factors, and elements that could be considered? As terror grasped Great Britain, the multitude of decrees multiplied among the elite citizens who understood they could be the next victim of the bubonic plague. The term Bubonic plague is often referred as an ailment of the black rats. As these infected rats were dying at an alarming rate the infected fleas on these black rats would have to find a new innkeeper as it would inevitably be humans. When the spreading of the plague from person to person occurs, this is referred to as pneumonic plague, but to allow this to happen there must be a transition from the bubonic plague. Once humans were bit sixty to eighty percent of the people died within a week with side effects ranging from headaches, fever, vomiting, painful