The Black Death: A Plague with No Mercy

            Many have heard of the great plague or black death; however, most do not know the true horror that surrounded it at the time. In 1346, the second known pandemic, The Black Plague, began and by the time it was through in 1353, 80-100 million people had been victim to it. In this paper, societal factors as well as responses and effects will be examined. In addition to the historical aspects, the effects of the Black Death will be examined and applied in today’s light.

As for societal factors that contributed to the epidemic, war and famine contributed to its spread. Since agriculture could not keep up with an increase in population as well as cold winters and rainy summers. As a result, poverty and famine occurred and people living in filthy overcrowded cities were perfect catalysts for the spread of a pandemic. As for war, since rats were carrying the plague, soldiers traveling on rat infested ships from country to country were becoming infected and spreading it wherever they went.

Responses to the initial spread of the black death were similar to how they tend to be today. At first people thought nothing of it and considered themselves safe. However, as soon as people realized the true severity of it, responses ranged all over the place. Since the time period was the 1300s and people were very religious, people assumed it was a big sin to blame for the pandemic. As a response, people started becoming as pure as possible and cleaning things up (no prostitutes, no swearing, etc.). More so, people would whip and murder themselves and each other to try and imitate Christ’s suffering as a sacrifice for an end to this big sin, or the plague. Outside of religion, some turned to men of medicine, which, in retrospect, was completely unsuccessful. As the film showed, even the most “successful” doctors of the time had no idea what he was dealing with. Doctors alike turned to obscene methods such as bloodletting with leaches as well as strange oils and clothes to cure the infected. People soon realized this was of no use. One final method used as a reaction to the plague was quarantine. In reality, had quarantine been used successfully, it would have worked. However, there was never true quarantine since many people still entered and exited areas once infected, continuing to spread the plague.

The overall effects of the black plague were an obscene decrease in the population at the time. Aside from that, the impact it had on society was a huge amount of fear, and in turn discrimination. Since many people turned to religion and medicine, both which produced no results, they were becoming fearful. Due to this fear, they began to blame the plague on certain groups of people such as the Jews or Christians. Depending on the location of the plague and therefore the cultural minority, one or the other would be blamed.

Relating the black plague to today, we now have a better idea on plague transmission. Knowing that the Bubonic plague was transmitted through a zoonotic source (rats) we can expect that today in other animals as well. More so, knowing that the pneumonic plague was transmitted through bloody spit, we can now better prepare for diseases spreading from the immune system. Knowing both these transmitters, we can prepare accordingly in our society to both sources.

Many people don’t know the plague re-emerged in Madagascar in the 1900’s and reached epidemic levels after 2009. Social factors that were involved in this re-emergence were rural houses being infected with many contagious rodents like prairie dogs, squirrels, mice, and rats. In addition to these vectors, domesticated animals such as dogs and cats, can also be to blame for spreading this. In Madagascar, they experienced a fatality rate of 23% for the pneumonic plague.

References

Sherman, I.W. (2017). The Power of Plagues (2^nded.). Washington, D.C.: ASM Press.

PowerPoint: The Price of Being Sedentary

In class handouts

The Emergence and Re-emergence of Diseases: Are We Ready for More?

            Emerging diseases are obviously significant because the human population has never been exposed to them, and therefore has no knowledge on how to counter them. However, re-emerging diseases are equally as threatening because they come back in adjusted strains that are more powerful against our body’s immune system. Since we are able to create vaccines to fight against them, the strains adjust in a way to trick our body’s and spread more effectively. For example, Ebola was first discovered in 1976 but kept under control in remote areas. However, in the 21^stcentury it re-emerged as an adjusted strain that tricked the human body into letting the virus in and making billions of copies of itself. As for zoonotic sources, these are dangerous because it is more difficult for us to pinpoint exactly which animal is carrying the disease. It is also more difficult to contain the disease when its carried in a zoonotic source, or animal, rather than a human. An example of zoonotic source is mosquitos carrying Zika.

One huge cultural problem associated with major outbreaks is containing it when it is found. As we saw in the film about Zika, Ebola, and Nipah; a lot of the places where these diseases originate are impoverish and culturally different than our Western Civilization. In one instance, Ebola was being spread because people would take care of their diseased love one and catch it. This is because medical centers and sanitation isn’t a huge part of their culture. Furthermore, these cultures often eat food with their hands which can also spread the diseases more easily than in our culture where we use utensils.

As for human responses to epidemics, humans seem to be a bit delayed. When a disease first emerges or re-emerges, people do not take it seriously. This concept is known as “outbreak culture.” They take everything for granted and go about their daily life. An example of this is the man who contracted Ebola and was told he was very sick and needed to stay in the hospital where he was visiting. He did not take the nurses serious and then flew by plane to another area in Africa, potentially spreading it to all passengers on his plane. Then he was finally hospitalized and kept attempting to remove himself from the hospital. He would unplug himself and constantly try to leave but the hospital staff fought hard against him. In the end he died and spread the disease to numerous members of the hospital staff.

Personally, I do not believe we are truly prepared for the next pandemic. I honestly think outbreak culture will continue to be a think and hinder our ability to control whatever disease begins to spread. Also, we were informed by Dr.Hinks, that from the beginning of an outbreak, it typically takes about 6 months to develop a vaccine to control the disease. Knowing this and the fact that people will not take the initial spread of the disease serious, I am worried for whatever comes next. If we want to be effective as a society against the next pandemic, I believe people need to be actively educated on just how dangerous it could be. Leading up to that time I think everyone should have a general knowledge about past pandemics and their severity, just as we are in this class. By knowing how fatal and severe they are, can actually scare people in to caring and reporting symptoms sooner than they would normally would.

Help Received: Film and handouts