Why Did The Plague Spread In The 1300s

During the mid-fourteenth century, a plague hit Europe. Initially spreading through rats and subsequently fleas, it killed at least one-third of the population of Europe and continued intermittently until the 18th century. There was no known cure at the time, and the bacteria spread very quickly and would kill an infected person within two days, which led to structural public policies, religious, and medical changes in Europe. The plague had an enormous social effect, killing much of the population and encouraging new health reforms, it also had religious effects by attracting the attention of the Catholic Church, and lastly, it affected the trade around Europe, limiting the transportation of goods. As a response to the plague that took place

Treatments for the plague varied widely, and were always unsuccessful. Medical knowledge was lacking during this time period and treatment ranged from blood letting to bathing in urine. Blood letting was an extremely risky procedure that involved severing a vein to try and “bleed” the disease out. When you couple this with the lack of sanitation during this time period, you can only imagine the opportunity for infection. Europe also had problems disposing of the overwhelming number of dead.

The Bubonic Plague (Black Death) came to the eastern Mediterranean along the shipping routs. It reached Italy in spring of 1348. By the time the disease spread between 25% and 50% of Europes population had died (document 1, (Source: EyeWitnesstoHistory.com) the Bubonic Plague was spread because in this time there was not any place to put garbage and wast products like we have today, so they would just leave the trash/wast anywhere and everywhere and the result of this would bring rats and many other animals, and with these animals they had fleas and eventually the fleas would get to the people and the humans would get sick and spread it to everyone. Some symptoms of the Bubonic Plague were large swelling lumps which they called "buboes" sizing

The cramped living conditions, lack of proper medical care, and even lack of attention for the sick helped the virus spread. With the medical knowledge available at the time that is not hard to fathom. Plus one has to take into count self-preservation. The best chance to stay healthy was to avoid anyone who may have the plague or someone who has possibly come into contact with a victim of it. Which was basically impossible in those conditions.

The Black Death ravaged over 20 million people in China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt during the early 1340’s. Most of these people were in Europe; this was over ⅓ of the population at the time (“BLACK PLAGUE”). This was the First Pandemic of the Bubonic Plague, killing far more than any Pandemic to follow it. Given the knowledge of medicine and science during this era, the Black Plague spread like wildfire, and caused many hideous symptoms which led to several ineffective treatments. Luckily, scientists and doctors worked together to create a cure, and while the Bubonic Plague does still infect people to this day, the wave that killed countless Europeans died out by 1400 (“IN THE WAKE OF THE PLAGUE:

The Plague was a seemingly incurable wave of death that masked whole cities in an extremely short time. While the plague was first seen in Italy in the spring of 1348, the plague had already spread to England by the end of that same year, and had reached as far as modern day Russia by 1350 according to the map in Document 1. Bicarrio gave a vivid description of the plague and its quick spread as it entered florence when he wrote “ it destroyed countless lives, scarcely resting in one place before it moved to the next, and turning westward its strength grew monstrously” (Document 2). The spread of the disease was likely accelerated by the Europeans lack of immune strength against the disease and the living conditions in Europe. Another key point to mention about the spread of the plague are the various forms.

The bubonic plague consisted of large buboes, swollen lymph nodes, which developed soon after the person was bitten by an infected flea. Doctors realized that they could help their patients by bursting the buboes on their bodies later on, and they saved many people by doing this. The septicemic plague attacked the bloodstream, and it was even more dangerous than the bubonic plague. The toes, fingers, and nose could blacken due to the tissue dying, and the person would commonly go into shock. The pneumonic plague was the least seen, but it was the most dangerous.

The black plague was a very successful disease in the mid 1350’s due to the low medical ability and knowledge of the people populating the city or town. I will start off by saying people often run away from the danger to others, where with this you have to stay away from people. If you want to get to switzerland because

The decline of population was a prominent aspect in the deadly epidemic. Physicians didn’t have any knowledge of the Black Plague, which made it difficult to cure and eliminate the disease. With the lack of information about the disease and how it started, it resulted in many people not being able to get cured: “perhaps either the nature of the disease did not allow for any cure or the ignorance of the physicians… did not know how to cure it; as a consequence, very few were ever cured…” (Bubonic Plague DBQ Doc. 1). There was no medicine for

The Black Death The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague, was one of the biggest pandemics in the world. It started to spread from Eastern China, to Europe in the early 1300’s, and it reoccurred multiple times during the years to come. Merchant ships and rodents were the two main ways this disease spread and infected humans (The Black Death 1348). The symptoms for this plague were extremely painful and death was the most likely outcome in most cases.

Often as a result of overpopulation, pandemics—like swine flu and ebola, for instance—have affected life on Earth for centuries; one of the most well-known, and possibly the most unforgiving epidemics was the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death . Although the first symptoms of the Plague trace back to the Mongol Empire in 1331, the disease first struck Europe in Venice and Genoa during the winter of 1348. In the following years, the Bubonic Plague spread rapidly throughout Europe, killing roughly a third of its population. It is suggested that the rapid spread and extreme severity of the Black Death was partially due to the weakened immune system of the Europeans, which had been caused by the Great Famine, a period of food scarcity that affected Europe from 1315 to 1322. Additionally, the lack of knowledge about the spread of

The Bubonic Plague The Bubonic Plague was a disease that was spread through fleas found on rodents. It took place during the late middle ages (1340 - 1400) in mainly Europe and Asia and killed approximately 25 million people. The Bubonic plague was a turning point in history because it caused an advancement in medicine and hygiene, destabilized the Roman Catholic church and caused one of the greatest recessions in history. However, there were a few things that stayed the same, such as the manor system, agriculture, and aspects of medicine.

The Plague or “Black Death” came about in the 1300’s and killed an estimated 75to 200 million people in Europe. The plague went on for a whopping seven years before it finally subsided. It wasn’t discovered until 2010 that the bacteria behind that caused the “Black Death” was the Yersinia Pestis bacterium. Today this event that occurred a very long time ago is seen as a very horrible happening and a true horrifying disease outbreak.

One reason that the plague was so devastating is because there was a lack of medicine. The medicine practices being used that the time were not advanced enough

The reactions from the Christians and the Muslims to the greatly feared disease, known as the Black Death or the Great Plague were different in several ways. The first Plague was documented from 541 to 544 CE. Known as the Plague of Justinian. The Plague came in three different ways: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. With bubonic being the most common.