The Black Death

One of the worst contributors to the spread of diseases is simply travel. When humans travel, they bring diseases with them and when people are unaware of this, diseases can spread quickly throughout many countries, like what was seen with the plague. Europe experienced a population increase that resulted in the introduction of new crops, technology and, most importantly, trade routes that connected Europe, Asia and Africa to each other. Later, when plague began to spread within Asia, it eventually was carried to Europe and Africa along these trade routes. When the plague began killing in full force and people began to realize they can’t help the sick, they ran. However, this reaction only helps the disease to spread and by attempting to run away from the disease, they actually helped propagate it. We now know that in order to prevent diseases from spreading, we need to isolate those who are sick and safely give them treatment.

What would you do if something was trying to kill you, but you didn’t know what it was and there was seemingly no way to escape from it? When people realized that the plague was widespread and deadly, they tried to find people to blame, took measures in attempt to reduce the spread of the disease and society changed overall. It took time for people to understand the severity of the plague. They tried to take care of the sick, bring them to priests to receive their last rites and didn’t take any measures to reduce contact other people. Eventually, however, they figured out that the disease can spread from person to person. In order to reduce the possibility of the disease spreading, they locked the sick in their home with their healthy family, set up Cordons Sanitaires and instituted quarantines where people wouldn’t be allowed to get off ships for forty days. People also began to burn clothing/bedding, dig shallow graves and cover the bodies with lye. Naturally, the Muslims blamed the Christians and the Christians blamed the Jews for the disease. Also, unsurprisingly, the church was unable to do anything to contain the disease, so people lost faith and the church lost power. Some people tried to take their faith into their own hands and a group called the Brethren of the Flagellants travelled around self-flagellating trying to repent for the sins of man and stop the disease. This group of people were sometimes violent and would attack and kill Jews. They were not the only ones to kill Jews however, most places decided that the killing Jews would be beneficial and so they treated the Jews much like Hitler would much later in history. The Jews had to wear yellow stars, and many were burned to death if not killed outright. The King of Poland was their only saving grace and allowed Jews to live safely within his realm. The only good that came from the plague was from the restructuring of society. The church was unable to protect people so they lost power, the deaths led to an overwhelming need for workers, so everyone was able to find a job and bring themselves up from poverty, new technologies were made and a new era of medicine emerged.

The group that was impacted the most by the plagues were the Jews. Like always, they were blamed for everything that is bad with the world and most people were ready and willing to hold them accountable for the plague and kill them. They were lucky that the King of Poland was sympathetic and invited them to live peacefully. This certainly had a long-lasting effect because Jews became a significant portion of the population in the region of Europe. On a more positive note, medicine was improved. There were different groups of medical practitioners and the plague revealed that some groups are better than others. There were academic physicians that didn’t treat patients and believed health was dependent on the balance between the four humors of the body and the plague made it obvious that the humors had nothing to do with health. Surgeons largely died trying to treat patients, folk medicine didn’t work and that left the barbers to practice bloodletting and surgery. Giovanni Fracastoro published a book where he described the idea of germs and identified ways germs can spread from person to person. Other institutions, like universities, were greatly impacted by the plague. Many highly educated people and student died causing universities to close. However, this also led to the rise of more universities in places that didn’t require people to travel a long way to get to. Socially and economically, everything paused. People weren’t trading, wars were not being fought, and society had to reconstruct itself. Landowners had to pay for people to farm the land or rent out the land to nearby farmers. The serfs that used to be the ones working the fields now were earning a salary and could live independently and not under the control of someone else. Overall, the plague forced much of Europe to reorganize their societies with consideration towards religion, medicine, education and economics.

Through a series of experiments, it was figured out that the bacteria Yersinia pestis is found in animals that die of plague, including humans. It was also figured out that this bacterium can be transmitted to different animals via fleas. This is only one explanation for the transmission of plague however. In later experiments, it was found that Yersinia pestis can survive in the wool of clothing. This method of transmission is much faster than via fleas and accounts for the faster rates of plague transmission. Other studies suggest that this bacterium can also remain dormant for thousands of years before being reintroduced to humans and causing another outbreak of plague. In the U.S. people are still getting infected by the plague. People are contracting the disease in various ways, some by chance contact with an infected flea and others from exposure to dead animals. Plague has been common in African countries since the 1990’s. Due to the close living conditions and unprepared medical infrastructure, plague has been infecting a couple thousand people. There are vaccines available to protect against that plague, but not everyone has access to them. It is also hard to completely get rid of fleas and rodents that carry the disease. Monitoring rodent reservoirs and letting the public know about where the plague is will help people avoid the disease. There are many treatments available to those who are infected as long as they get treatment within a couple days of infection. The plague can still kill quickly, and many people will die if they are intreated.

 

References:

All Information Is from The Power of Plagues by Irwin W. Sherman and class discussion