The Deadliest Period In History, The Black Death Plague
Posted: Saturday, February 28, 2009
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
The word plague is used for numerous terrible outbreaks of various diseases and pestilences. But often times, when anyone refers to The Plague, they have reference to the so-called Black Death Plague which virtually devastated Europe in the 1340's. It is now thought to have been the Bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis), an infection which enters through the skin of it's victim as with a flea bite. It is (was) largely spread by the Oriental Rat Flea. Fleas vision is very poor, yet they smell carbon dioxide being expelled by animals and humans and they leap towards the smell and often cling to the victim.
It was a horrible time when there were no modern medical advances, no antibiotics and not even an understanding of the disease. The symptoms consisted of first, swollen lymph nodes primarily found in the armpits, groin or neck, red spots on the skin which then turned black, severe pain as the skin actually started dying before death took the patient. Vomiting of blood, hard, heavy breathing and aching joints. It was a horrible death.
The bubonic plague could also develop into septicemia ( or septicemic plague, a toxemia of the blood stream) which was almost 100% fatal, or develop into pneumonic plague if the patient took pneumonia. This disease is still known in some 3 rd world isolated regions where sanitation is lacking and where rodents with fleas are plentiful.
The first records of this plague is as far back as the sixth century A.D. when it swept through the Byzantine Empire. However, the most devastating period of it's entire history was from 1347 to 1350 throughout Europe. The story of it's legendary spread is interesting but long and detailed. It is thought by some sources to have begun on an Island in the Black Sea which had a seaport frequented by traders from numerous points. When the plague became widespread on the island, many took to their boats to escape and most headed for Italy carrying rats, fleas and the disease. This proved to be the major problem and the cause of the wide spread infection. As one place became infected many fled, carrying the disease with them until virtually all of Europe was filled, reaching even to Greenland! It is recorded that over one third of Europe's populace died.
A different version of it's beginning is found in the following quote from the Boise State University:
The Black Death erupted in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s. No one really knows why. The plague bacillus was alive and active long before that; indeed Europe itself had suffered an epidemic in the 6th century. But the disease had lain relatively dormant in the succeeding centuries. We know that the climate of Earth began to cool in the 14th century, and perhaps this so-called little Ice Age had something to do with it.
Following are some quotes from that era. The names are unfamiliar to me and I have no idea who they are.
Giovanni Boccaccio said the victims "ate lunch with their friend and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."
Marchione di Coppo Stefani; "It struck me very deep this afternoon going with a hackney coach from my Lord Treasurer's down Holborne, the coachman I found to drive easily and easily, at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand, and told me that he was suddenly struck very sick, and almost blind, he could not see. So I 'light and went into another coach with a sad heart for the poor man and trouble for myself lest he should have been struck with the plague, being at the end of town that I took him up; But god have mercy upon us all!"
S. Pepys : "Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. However, the disease remained, and soon death was every where. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial."
We should forever thank God for our brilliant scientists who have found remedies for many of these type of sufferings of humanity.
Resources:
(Wikipedia)
(Insecta-Inspecta)
(www2.iath.virginia.edu/osheim/)
(eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague)
(boisestate.edu)
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Thanks for the great info.Thank you for reading and commenting Steve, I really appreciate it
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