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The Black Death: The Plague Breakout In Europe

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The Black Death: The Plague Breakout In Europe
“The Black Death” During, the medieval times, there was a destructive disease sweeping across the globe. So destructive it is believed to have taken twice as many lives as the amount of people murdered by Joseph Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union (Benedictow). In this essay, I will explain to you “The Black Death”, the name given to the plague breakout in Europe. In order for you to understand the plague in Europe, I must first inform you on plagues, in general. “Plague is a bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and their fleas,” (National Geographic Society). There are three types of plague; bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic. The bubonic plague is the plague I will be talking about in this essay. All three of these plagues are easily spread and painful. Symptoms include swellings ranging in size then are, “followed by….fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains--and then….death,” (“Black Death”). According to the same article, you could go to bed feeling completely normal yet be dead by morning! …show more content…
The 12 ships landed with most of its sailors dead or extremely ill. These sailors, “were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and pus and gave their illness its name: the “Black Death”,” (“Black Death”). That was the beginning of a terrible epidemic in Europe.
During that time, there was nothing to do about the disease, medically. “Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rose water or vinegar,” (“The Black Death”). When none of these practices worked, people began simply avoiding those infected. Doctors stopped taking patients, “priest refused to administer last right”, shopkeepers closed their stores, and many people left the city for the country (“The Black
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