Summary Of The Black Death Ziegler

For my book report, I read a book called “The Black Death” by Philip Ziegler. The book itself, not including the “notes” at the end of the book, is two hundred and seventy nine pages long. This edition of “The Black Death” was published in two thousand nine. It is a book that informs you not only about how the Black Death begun and how it was caused, but also about what went on during the Black Death and about the aftermath of this pandemic that ravaged Europe during the fourteenth century. The Black Death was one of the worst events that ever occurred throughout the history of Europe.
The Black Death, also known as the “Great Pestilence” to the people of medieval Europe, was a pandemic that was estimated to have killed off thirty to sixty
At the time, this seemed to be the most logical and valid theory for many people but that was due to the lack of scientific and medical knowledge that the people had during the fourteenth century. We now know that the Black Death was caused by rats that were carrying the Yersinia pestis bacterium and that oriental rat fleas would bite the resistant carrier rats and become infected with Yersinia pestis. After a few days the Yersinia pestis would multiply creating blockage in the flea’s midguts starving the fleas. The fleas would then begin to feed aggressively and would continuously try to rid of the blockage by regurgitating, causing hundreds of bacterium to enter the wound. This would infect the host, and as the population of non-resistant rats died out, the fleas would then move on to different hosts such as humans, causing a human pandemic. This was the most common way that a human would become infected during the fourteenth
Each bubo would become inflamed and start out as a dark red color. Over time the bubo would change color from red to purple to black. Also, the victim would experience a high fever resulting in some mental disorientation as well as causing the subject to become delirious. The victim would also experience other symptoms such as muscular pain, vomiting, and bleeding in the lungs. It was also quite possible that the victim would experience gangrene of the toes, fingers, tip of the nose, or the lips, causing the skin to die and turn black. All of these visual symptoms earned the pandemic its nickname, the Black