The Black Death

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The Black Death

• 1347-1351

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Impact of the Famine of 1315-1317

• By 1300 Europeans were farming almost all the
  land.
• A population crisis developed.
• Climate changes in Europe produced 3 years of
  crop failures.
• Due mainly to excessive rain.
• 15 of the peasants in some English villages
  died.
• A consequence of starvation poverty was
  susceptibility to disease.

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How the Plague Arrived

• Estimated to be sometime during the summer of
  1347 in Europe.
• By the fall it spread throughout the southwest of
  Europe.
• By 1349 it had reached England.
• Completely infected by 1350.

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Where did the Black Death come from?
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Effects on Europe

• Killed an estimated 1/3 of Europe's population.
• 25,000,000 people!
• Art, science, and literature stopped being
  created.
• People were only worried about their survival.

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Symptoms of the Plague
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What caused the Plague?

• The Oriental Rat Flea

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How was the Plague Transmitted?

• Spread by fleas that lived on black rats.
• The fleas sucked the rats blood which was
  infected with the plague.
• When the rats died, the fleas moved onto humans.

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Forms of the Plague Bubonic

• Most common.
• Mortality rate 30-75.
• The symptoms were enlarged and inflamed lymph
  nodes.
• Around arm pits, neck, and groin.
• Victims were subject to headaches, nausea, aching
  joints, fever of 101-105 degrees, vomiting, and
  a general feeling of illness.
• Symptoms took 1-7 days to appear.

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Forms of the Plague Pneumonic

• Second most common
• Mortality rate 90-95.
• If treated today the mortality rate would be
  5-10.
• The pneumonic plague infected the lungs.
• Symptoms included sputum tinted with blood.
• Sputum is saliva mixed with mucus exerted from
  the respiratory system.
  
• As the disease progressed, the sputum became free
  flowing and bright red.
• Symptoms took 1-7 days to appear.

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Forms of the Plague Septicemic

• The most rare form of all.
• Mortality was close to 100.
• Even today there is no treatment.
• Symptoms were a high fever and skin turning
  purple.
• The black death got its name from the deep
  purple, almost black discoloration.
• Victims usually died the same day symptoms
  appeared.
• In some cities, as many as 800 people died every
  day.

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How did they cure it?

• Medieval people did not know that germs caused
  the disease.
• They also did not know that it was spread by rats
  and fleas.
• They had superstitious beliefs that their bodies
  must be poisoned.

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Crazy Cure 1

• The swelling should be softened with figs and
  cooked onions.
• The onions were mixed with yeast and butter.
• Then they opened the swelling with a knife.
• Did it work?

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Crazy Cure 2

• Take a live frog and put its belly on the plague
  sore.
• The frog would swell up and burst.
• Keep doing this until the frogs stop bursting.
• Some felt that a toad would work better then a
  frog.
• Did it work?

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A Common Nursery Rhyme

• Ring a-round the rosy,
• Pocket full of posies,
• Ashes, ashes!
• We all fall down!

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What does the Nursery Rhyme mean?

• Ring around the rosy
• rosary beads give you God's help.
• A pocket full of posies
• used to stop the odor of rotting bodies which was
  at one point thought to cause the plague, it was
  also used widely by doctors to protect them from
  the infected plague patients.
• Ashes, ashes
• the church burned the dead when burying them
  became to laborious.
• We all fall down
• dead.