Black Death

All that awful city life set the stage up for this. The Black Death is actually not just a bubonic plague; it’s a series of unfortunate events and illnesses that hit Europe over a period of years. They just mashed them all together and call it dun dun dun… the Black Death.

40 years before the plague even hits, Europe is struck with long winters, bad weather, and tremendous flooding that seriously cut the food supply. With the food shortage, people become malnourished and their immune system weakens.

Factor #2 is trade. People and goods are flying all over the world by ships, caravans, from China, from Africa, who cares? By ancient standards, it take no time to travel from one place to another and if it takes so little time for gold to arrive in Italy, then why not diseases?

Pandemic: a disease that crosses continents. Most people believed that the bubonic plague that destroyed 1/3 (and in some areas 1/2) of the European population came from China. The first reporting was a town in Asia Minor where a Mongol siege arrived in the late 13^th century.

The way it is spread is fleas. The fleas bite the rats, animals, or humans. Back then, people bathed once a month or so, so everyone had fleas. The cites were practically a breeding ground for rats. So when an infected rat from China arrives, it’s everywhere. So when the flea sucks the infected blood from the rat, it clogs their stomach so they never get full. Eventually, the flea drinks the blood of a human, discovers the blood has nowhere to go so –

The flea vomits the infected blood into the human.

Have a great lunch guys.

The Black Death is called the Black Death because people who caught the plague turned black. The disease is nasty and fast. A person will fall dead within three days of getting the plague. The worst of it is that it is a violent death and happens in front of everyone’s faces. The moment a person walks out the door, he will find the bodies of the ones who died the night previous. Common symptoms include bubbles that ooze pus, fever, and vomiting.

The plague is already existent during Justinian’s reign, but spreads only so far because there was no contact with other people. But since the Second Agricultural Revolution, the plague is on the move once more. And it wasn’t like they can quarantine cities. We can’t even do that today.