The Epidemic Plague

Epidemics are large outbreaks of infectious and contagious diseases. Such outbreaks are termed epidemics when they are confined to a single country and pandemics when the outbreak is international, transported across the globe and affecting many other countries. In this essay, I will be talking about the plague. Nowadays, the plague is rare, but has still been known to occur in parts of California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Africa, Asia, and South America. The plague is a disease that affects humans as well as other mammals. It is caused by Yersinia Pestis, a type of bacterium.(Arnold, Paul) The rat flea Xenopsyalla is the most common vector, but ticks and human lice can also carry the bacteria. Yesinia Pestis is hard for the immune

They include coughing or severe coughing, fever, frothy bloody sputum, difficulty breathing, and pain in the chest when you breathe deeply. (Arnold, Paul) Septicemic plague may cause death before its symptoms even appear. These include abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea, fever, vomiting, and bleeding due to blood clotting problems. (Arnold, Paul)

To diagnose someone with the plague, tests that are done include blood culture, inspection of fluid taken from an affected lymph node and/or bubo, as well as sputum culture. If treatment is not received within 24 hours, death can occur. Without treatment, the fatality rate is at about 60% to 90%. If the person receives treatment, the fatality rate drops to between 5% and 20%. The most common treatment is the use of antibiotics such as tetracycline, streptomycin, gentamicin, doxycycline, or ciprofloxacin. Intravenous fluids, respiratory support and oxygen are usually also needed.

People with pneumonic plague are quarantined, and isolated from other patients as well as the caregiver, as it can be transmitted when the infected patient coughs; tiny droplets carrying bacteria move through the air. Any person who breathes these in will be contaminated; this means that many people can be infected at once, and therefore the epidemic spreads a lot

Because of death and illness workers became exceedingly scarce. The demand for people to work the land became extremely high, and peasants felt the effects of the new higher wages. Serfs and peasants were no longer attached to their lord – if they were not happy and left, another lord would hire them instantly. Therefore, lords had to make the situation more profitable for the peasants, by offering them higher pay. Price of land fell and poorer people were able to buy it and start earning more money. For the first time in history, the scales tipped against the wealthy landlords, while peasants and serfs gained more bargaining power. The standards of living were subsequently raised, and everything was more expensive. Work stopped being done, due to the lack of manpower and the countries’ income plummeted. The countries were basically on pause during this time, not producing and