| Quote: |
In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague occurred in China. The bubonic plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.
Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:
"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. 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."
The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian writer Boccaccio said its victims often
"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."
By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England, where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.
In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.
Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.
Medieval society never recovered from the results of the plague. So many people had died that there were serious labor shortages all over Europe. This led workers to demand higher wages, but landlords refused those demands. By the end of the 1300s peasant revolts broke out in England, France, Belgium and Italy.
The disease took its toll on the church as well. People throughout Christendom had prayed devoutly for deliverance from the plague. Why hadn't those prayers been answered? A new period of political turmoil and philosophical questioning lay ahead.
Black Death - Disaster Strikes
25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352. Estimated population of Europe from 1000 to 1352.
1000 38 million
1100 48 million
1200 59 million
1300 70 million
1347 75 million
1352 50 million |
| gh0stface wrote: |
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It was horrible but easy enough to avoid. I think that if they were less crowded in their cities that they would have not had as big an impact.
I seems like it was unavoidable to me.
Think of it this way:
AIDS is killing thousands every year and this is 2007. In 1100, the world didn't have much in terms of medicine, so a killer bug like the plague is gonna be catastrophic. These people had no electricity, no running water (hence no toilets), and no way of keeping food cold until cooking and eating it.
On a side note, I find the term "Black Death" to be extremely racist!! 
http://www.frihost.com/forums/vt-83846.html ya; i have heard the living conditions were quite bad then. thats why it was able to spread so easily. now of days it is not so bad because we have better living habit/condition/hdi.
Och, think of the smell!! Ah, no really, just don't sleep with the rats!
AIDS is different than Yersinia pestis. Y. pestis can be treated pretty simply these days. AIDS, you just have to stop the spread. However, you can't just test everyone's blood, then quarantine all people who test positive. Nor can you make positive people refrain from having sex.
"It's unconstitutional!" _mockingly_
| tpdreams wrote: |
AIDS is different than Yersinia pestis. Y. pestis can be treated pretty simply these days. AIDS, you just have to stop the spread. However, you can't just test everyone's blood, then quarantine all people who test positive. Nor can you make positive people refrain from having sex.
"It's unconstitutional!" _mockingly_ |
AIDS is indeed sad, and wish that we can stop it from spreading. Seems to have been unable to go away and is still with us all of this time, moving from one generation to another. Particularly sad in African countries where it is difficult to educate and check the spread and where medication is unaffordable for the majority of sufferers. It has even become a form of crime and terrorism when people consciously infect people with the Aids virus by sticking tainted syringes into victims.
I still wonder why a simple cure has not been found for AIDS. It's been a long time now since it first made its appearance.The lack of knowledge was the biggest threat a long time ago, we all know that we should wash our hands after a toilet visit, and other things they might not have done before. Around 1700 or when it was again (I suck with dates) the ones that delivered baby's would use the same 'tools' from one birth to another, not even washing their hands, so no wonder a baby would die soon after birth. That kept on until one guy demanded that they would wash their hands and use sterilized equipments. Today we know a lot more.
But I would hate to imagine a plague that nobody knows about being spread around the world
There was agreat program on discovery or Nat Geo recently about this subject.
It seems that the plague, in Europe at least was not actually bubonic plague and in fact it is unknown the exact cause of it.
The evidence for this was that in recorded cases of the spread in towns and villages it was seen that the disease spread from person to person, giving a random spread due to the travels of those with the disease who then spread it to the next person they meet, maybe across town or even another city, not a geographicaly concentrated spread as would be the case with fleas.
The symptoms also, although very similar, had some important differences. I believe that the time from contracting the disease untill death was longer than with bubonic plague if I remember correctly.
Has anyone else seen this documentary?
Can't find much about it but here's one reference.
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/for-staff/on-campus/media/June2002.html Yes the industrial revolution changed it all.
Every bad thing has a good side to it as well. The good thing of the Black plague is the Industrial revolution. It led to a major shortage of labor as already pointed out and this in turn brought about scientific inventions that were to change the world like never before.
Second, the article says Black Plague started in China. But what is the impact in China. It talks about the impact in Europe. Why did it not affect the Chinese as it did the Europeans? You will find an interesting answer to this.
medical education at that time was too poor that's why the plague was terrible
that's not necessarily true, and would depend on exactly where and when - and actually which - bubonic plague we are talking about. Consider the bubonic plague that hit Constantinople during the reign of Justinian versus the 1348 plague, the more traditional account of the "plague" and you'll probably have to come up with very different ways of interpreting the very idea of "plague".
