History of the Black Death

The Black Death

Warning this blog may contain sort of graphic images, the images contain symptoms of the black death.

The Great Plague, commonly known as the Black Death or simply the Plague was an Asain born disease which spread throughout almost all of Europe in 1347 and later dates. There is two big popular belief in the way that the plague got to Europe here is one of them. The cause of the plague to reach Europe was indirectly caused by the Mongolian empire. They were sieging a town on the black sea called Messina but the plague was infecting many of their troops so what do you do in that situation? Here are some options they had. 1. Throw your men over the walls to infect the enemy 2. Siege the town normally or 3. retreat until the disease is gone for the time being. Let's go with option 1. The Mongolians begin to fling their dead bodies over the walls causing the troops and people inside to get infected and die with no way to escape but the sea. They sent out many boats to Europe hoping to escape the plague and the Mongolians, however, rats and fleas had come with them carrying the plague. In the other belief, it was just random trade ships from this town.

Bubonic

The ways to spread the plague were separated into 3 different names they each had different symptoms and different survival rates. The most commonly thought of is the Bubonic way. Rats would carry this type of plague in their blood which would then we drunk by fleas and insects like that. These fleas would then bite Humans spreading the plague into the Humans bloodstream because of this, many people on the boats were infected. The infected people would get boils on their skin, big round puss filled balls that would cause great pain and would eventually explode opening you to even more infections. You would begin throwing up blood, internally bleeding, your nose fingers and toes would go black, cramps, seizures and many other things until after an extremely painful 10 days you would normally die. This type of plague isn't as bad these days since the chance to die can reduce to 10% and it can't easily spread as fleas and rats are dealt with these days when back then they were a norm.

Septicemic

The 2nd way is called Septicemic. It is like the common flu in a lot of ways, however unlike the common flu. It would begin causing organ failure, vomiting and internal bleeding from blood clot problems. It could easily kill you before the symptoms showed and were spread through fleas and rats, as well as coughing from a person infected because this would infect those areas of the body mostly. Just like both other ways of infection these days it has a low infect rate and high survivability however it is the most common now since it can be spread through coughing as well as rats and fleas. All 3 plagues spread extremely well back in the first outbreak, however, I personally believe this would have spread the most.

Pneumonic

The 3rd and final way is called Pneumonic. This one was contracted through open blood cells contact. It could also infect open cuts out in the open, you could get this by touching their blood or any infected bit on their body or if they touch an open wound of yours. This one could kill fast, some people were as healthy as ever and died in their sleep. Those that did survive the first part went through the agonising pain until eventually they died or the plague left their system. It is possibly the most painful one but the hardest to catch however back in 1347 even this one spread as fast as the others. I will explain why later.

The ships reach Europe

In both main stories, there were ships that arrived at Europe's shores, on them were dead or barely alive, victims with disease spread across the ship. The Europeans let them dock without realizing what they had just caused, now the plague was into Europe as the rats, fleas and dead victims came off the ship, men on the shoreline would get infected quickly and it would just keep spreading from there. At the time there was no way to cure this plague so many died quickly. People tried to flee but they were already infected unknown to several of them. Animals were infected, everything was, caravans, other boats and many of the people. The environment at this time was extremely plague friendly. However a few months before this event another lot of ships arrived at the coast of Venice spreading the plague into Venice this caused mass outbreak all over Europe.

Why it spread so well

At this time in Europe cities and towns were crowded, homeless people everywhere and living standards were terrible. However many Jewish areas were fine and not overcrowded, the Jews at this type had really good living conditions this caused them to be blamed even more when the plague came and many of the Jews survived. Seeing a dead body in the middle of the street was quite common, food was traded in an easily infected way and the people were always crowded with the streets filled with homeless people. Flu, fleas and rats were already extremely common so when the plague arrived it was like a party for it. So many easy people to infect. Immediately Jews were targeted as the first few victims got puss filled spots on them. They began throwing Jews into wells and throwing them next to dead victims. It's quite possible that more Jews were killed by Christians than the plague. In my opinion yes more Jews were killed by Christians than by the plague since they were generally separated from the massive crowded areas with homeless people. They had pretty good living conditions. Because of their low death rate and just because Christians at that time were nothing like most Christians these days, immediately blamed them and basically went all Inquisitor on them. They slaughtered many Jews.

Middle East outbreak

Europe wasn't the only place that had a serious outbreak at the time. Through trading with the Mongolians and other Asain countries, the disease spread into Middle Eastern land going right through Egypt, Constantinople and Meca. This caused the plague to get into Africa which is where it still resides today. The Middle East at the time was just as bad as the European countries, overpopulation, low infrastructure stuff like that causing it to do just as well as it did in Europe. With the plague now in Africa, it began to spread through there infecting many people in Africa.

How they reacted

Europe was massively Christian so immediately Jews were unfairly killed by Christians because in their eyes the mass Jews displeased god and by killing them his faith in Humans would be restored. As death tolls raised the graveyard would be full so they would resort to stacking bodies in Churches and burning them to try to please their god, anyone found to be infected would be locked in their house and in many cases left to die or burn down inside either by themselves or with other infected victims. Christians began to carry a flower called a Possie as they believed it to be gods luck, however, they would still die. Some people took advantage of this become "Plague Doctors" some people legitimately thought they were helping by becoming these Plague Doctors, others did it simply for money. They managed to mostly protect themselves with the gear they wore, they would autopsy victims and try to find a solution sometimes the suggestions they gave actually work to help stop the spread so they began valued people to all the leaders. In several cases, Plague Doctors were kidnapped and held for ransom with an extraordinary price which would be paid because of their supposed value. People did anything they could to survive, Christians would sacrifice Jews, regular people would barricade themselves and other would run to other cities only to die in the country or spread it.

Minorly affected places

Poland during this time was largely unaffected as it had a very spread out population, their infrastructure was fine and they didn't suffer nearly as many problems as the others did. Their leader at the time was quite smart and quarantined the border immediately. They were infected a bit but the country was mostly fine not suffering mass destruction. There were several areas of people also not affected due to resistant blood types from I guess you would call it evolution? (not completely sure, think it is though). There is some belief that possibly the death rates are seemed to be low since there is more lack of recorded history due to small cities and low population.

Events up to today

After a few years, the first outbreak was over, massive amounts of the European population was dead and people were still attempting to recover. The plague was mostly gone but bits of it still affected people in Europe, around 80% of the European population was dead resulting in hard work for everyone. Minor outbreaks happened all through the years until finally it mostly ended in Europe with the 1665 great plague of London. Affecting over millions once again. However, the great fire of London greatly stopped the plague killing many rats, fleas and bacteria. The plague was now almost completely gone from Europe, however, it had spread to Africa and stayed in China causing a 3rd outbreak in China killing million in India and China. Minor outbreaks happened in places like Australia until modern times the African outbreak causing around 140 people to die and over 10 thousand infected.

Why it goes away and comes back out of the blue

The plague bacteria have begun to hibernate into the ground and multiplying. Once it is once again ready to come back as it can't stay underground forever it will come up and attack then go back into hiding. This has only really happened to Africa recently, however, there is a chance that America, Australia, all of Asai and all of Europe will still have the bacteria in the ground multiplying just like in Africa. There is a possibility that the Bacteria is evolving to travel through the sea now just like it can in the air and somewhat through the ground. The black death is one of the most deadly and successful diseases in history going worldwide from Asai to America to Australia and many other places.

Was it good in the long run for Humans?

In my opinion yes it was. It stopped overpopulation and forced Humans to seek better technologies to cope with their situation. Humans weren't making many advances at that time and people were as separated as ever. With the black plague, the people with better immune systems survived so we as a species evolved in a way with better immune systems. This disease was bad in the short run but good in the long run as it made Humans evolve to cope with this, better immune systems. Without this plague, I doubt that our technological success would be at the level it is these days.