The Plague

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The Plague or the Black Death hit Europe in 1347. It was very contagious and deadly. Doctors at the time had no idea how to contain it or treat it. Panic spread just as fast as the disease which is normal when something so deadly begins a rapid spread among communities. Between 2014 and 2017 eleven cases of Ebola were confirmed in the United States (1) which sent the country into a panic and that is because we have advanced quite a bit when it comes to medicine since the Middle Ages, so one can only imagine how much more panicked the people of 1347 were.

The plague caused boils that oozed all over the victim's body.  "The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.". (2) Other times, it took days for them to succumb to the disease. People who helped nurse the sick would end up sick themselves which made nursing others a dangerous job.

Scientists now know that the cause of The Plague is a bacteria known as bacillus and they " know that the bacillus travels from person to person pneumatically, or through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats" (3), which were everywhere in ships which is where the plague first began. But at the time, people did not know what had caused this disease outbreak so some people had a theory that it was a punishment from God. Some of these religious people who thought that God sent the plague as a punishment decided to go around flagellating themselves through towns. This was not very sanitary since blood from their flagellating would fling on people watching, thus spreading the plague even more. 

The plague ran it's course by the 1350s but it showed up here and there later. (4) Even now in the United States, an average of seven cases of the plague are reported a year. (5) But nothing on the level of the outbreak in the Middle Ages has been seen again. 

1."2014-2016 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa | History | Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease) | CDC." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed July 11, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/history/2014-2016-outbreak/index.html.

2. Editors, History.com. "Black Death." History.com. September 17, 2010. Accessed July 11, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death.

3. Editors, History.com. "Black Death"

4. Editors, History.com. "Black Death"

5. "Maps and Statistics | Plague | CDC." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed July 11, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html.