Black Plague- In the middle ages millions of people were infected and died of a disease that caused them to get swollen bumps on their skin, called "buboes" and eventually they turned kind of black and died. The "Black Plague" is also know as "Bubonic Fever". They didn't know it then, but it was passed by fleas that lived on rats that lived everywhere that people lived. Rats traveled around the world on the trading ships, so the disease spread tremendously.
The black plague was not a local phenomenon -- it hit all of Europe, Asia, and much of Africa within just a few years. Perhaps one-fourth of the world population died, making it the largest holocaust in history.
The Black Plague was a disease the first became unpopular in the 14th century, when it started to spreadthrough Europe. It was highly unpleasant -- it only took three or four days to kill you, and it caused a lot of pain while it was doing so. Most importantly, it was incredibly contagious -- it seemed that you only needed to see a person who had the plague, and within three days you would be dead yourself. The black plague originated in the Gobi desert (in Asia) in the 1320's. From there it spread west, arriving in Constantinople in 1347. It raced across the trade routes, jumping from Sicily to Marseilles (Mar-say, inFrance) to Paris and across the channel to England. From England it would head northeast to the Scandinavian countries. No one could understand why it was happening, no one could stop it, and people continued to die. Europe fell into a deep depression, both economically and spiritually, as they felt their God had abandoned them.
Actually the methods were quite simple. The plague was using fleas to transmit itself. Considering the standards of personal hygiene at the time (nonexistent), flea bites were a common occurence and little more than an annoyance to the average European. The fleas could move from place to place by infesting rats, which were quite common aboard merchant ships. The fleas' infectious bites would kill the rats, but by that time the fleas would move to new hosts. The nearest hosts were often humans, who would then be infected by the fleas. From there the plague could move on -- back to the rats again, or from human to human.
http://library.advanced.org/11775/timeline/periods/events/BlackPlague.html
|| Standards Home | Activity | Resources | Teacher| Team page | How did you do? |Show your stuff