The Black Death

The Black Death, a disease that ravaged Europe during the medieval period (1348-51) this disease
was deadly and killed 2 million people. The black death was the most fatal pandemic recorded in
human history. The Black Death originated in Asia 1346, crusaders travelled to Asia to spread the
knowledge of goods and products that could be imported from aboard. Even though the crusaders
increased knowledge in good and products. The Black Death was introduced to Europe through the
trade ships and spread quickly.
The Black Death lived on the unsanitary streets of Britain, due to the fact of people dumping raw
sewage and rubbish onto the streets. This gave rodents a place to live and allowed the black death
to continue to spread. The government had begun to introduce fines if people poured sewage onto
the streets, as during this period people believed that miasma the theory of bad smells. People
began to stop pouring raw sewage into the streets, but this meant that sewage still remained. The
government began to create jobs for cleaning the streets these jobs were called muckrakers, Gon
farmers and latrines. The population of Britain during this period was around to of been 6 million,
meaning that nearly half of Britain’s population would’ve died.
Medieval doctors believed that illness was caused by the imbalanced of the four humours, these
were black bile, blood, phlegm and yellow bile.
People didn’t know how to cure The Black Death due to the fact people didn’t know how to cure
diseases. People came up with theories about how The Black Death could be cured, some of these
theories were natural and some were supernatural. Some cures included:
NATURAL:
- The discovery of germs wasn’t made until the 1800’s, this meant a wide range of beliefs
were thought of what was causing the plague. One of these thoughts were based on the
theory miasma which was the theory that bad smells caused diseases.
- Doctors believed illness was caused by the theory of the imbalance of the four humours, the
four humors included blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. If one of these four humors
were unbalanced the patient could fall ill.
SUPERNATURAL:
- Some ideas were widely based on religion, everyone believed that if someone where to fall
ill it was God punishing them. This also meant that the ill would not be cured, as it was seen
to be going against God. Flagellants would whip themselves to seek forgiveness, whereas
others would pray to seek forgiveness from God.
- Astrologists believed the cause was the alignment of the planets.
- Some still believed In the idea of Trepanning, this was where doctors would drill holes into
the patient’s head, this was done to release the spirts from their head. These sprits were
thought to of been causing the illness.
- Some doctors just burst the buboes that grew on the patient’s skin, there was some
evidence that this helped the patient’s chance of survival.
During this period there was known to be three types of plague, these included Bubonic plague,
Pneumonic plague and The Septicaemic plague. The Septicaemic plague was rare but also
deadly. The bubonic plague was spread by rats, which were commonly found in homes, villages,
towns and the unsanitary streets due to the fact people were dumping raw sewage into the
roads. If a flea had bitten an infected rat, and then the now infected flea was to bite a person
this flea would then transfer the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague had a mortality rate of
50%.
The symptoms of the bubonic plague are as follows:
- Swellings under the armpit and on the groin known as buboes.

- Fever
- Vomiting
- Diarrhoea
- Fingertips and areas of skin turning black.
The pneumonic plague was spread from person to person through coughing and sneezing, which
spread water droplets that had the plague in this would affect the victim’s lungs. The pneumonic
plague had a 100% mortality rate.
The symptoms of the pneumonic plague are as follows:
- Cough
- Fever
- Headache
- Breathlessness
The Septicaemic plague was spread through fleas and rodents causing a infection in the blood.
This form of the plague was the most serious and the most deadly. The Septicaemic plague had a
mortality rate of 100%.
The symptoms of the Septicaemic plague are as follows:
- Fever
- Chills
- Extreme weakness
- Abdominal pain
- Shock
- Bleeding from skin and internal organs
- Skin turning black.
Due to the lack of knowledge about what exactly caused the plague, no one could do anything to
exactly prevent future outbreaks, there were further black deaths throughout the Middle Ages.
Another significant outbreak of the plague was in London 1655. The outbreak in London shows
that there was no real known prevention for the disease.
In 1655 the plague returned to England; this was the first major outbreak for England in a long
time since the black death in 1348-51. The outbreak in London was particularly bad, 68,596
deaths had been recorded in London alone. This created concern as people started to flee
London to cities which didn’t have any plague cases. Efforts were put in place to try preventing
plague cases increasing, these included closing the border between Scotland and England and
stopping any trade between London and other countries.
Searchers were often older women, the work was poorly paid and dangerous as it brought them
into close contact with the victims with the plague victims. The work of searches meant the Bills
of Mortality could be produced; these gave the government a clearer understanding of what was
going on.
Due to a law that was passed in 1351 forcing wages to go back down to their original levels prior
the pandemic there was a revolt in 1381 called ‘the peasant’s revolt’ there were a lot of people
who were not happy with wages going back down.
Again, because the black death is the worst pandemic recorded in history, the social impact was
bad killing approximately 2-3 million people to a population estimated to be 6 million.

The Black Death

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Black Death

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Black Death

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Black Death, a disease that ravaged Europe during the medieval period (1348-51) this disease

The symptoms of the bubonic plague are as follows:

- Swellings under the armpit and on the groin known as buboes.

The symptoms of the pneumonic plague are as follows:

The symptoms of the Septicaemic plague are as follows:

You might also like