The Effects Of The Bubonic Plague
The plague, figuratively speaking, is something one goes out of their way to avoid. The phrase is a cliche used lightly in modern eras to describe wanting to be as far away as possible from someone or something, but historically, your life depended on doing just that. However, the plague isn’t just part of a hilarious idiom, but a crippling epidemic that swept across Eurasia, infecting nearly all the nations it touched, not to mention killing up to one third of their respective populations. Now it is proven that the plague was caused by infected fleas, but by the time the disease had reached Europe in roughly 1348, there was still no known cure or cause, making the thyroid-attacking disease that much more deadly. The bacterial infection led
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According to those one would have asked in roughly 1340, the strangest detail about the plague is that it looked as if no one was immune. Even the physicians that scrambled to diagnose and cure the affliction contracted the symptoms themselves, eventually dying like the others (Doc.4). When even the healing hands of the village medicine man became blackened and useless, the people had the urge to turn to the solution of alternate causes. Seeing as the world around them was collapsing -- burials were unceremonious and more than regular, and mass graves were dug in a trench-like fashion and covered with thin layers of dirt -- the average historian can easily deduce why people yearned for answers, and quickly (Doc.4). Therefore, as seen countless other times in history, the people of Europe began to blame the Jews. Genetically born with a slight immunity to the plague, the Jewish people were under attack, being blamed for the sickness that surrounded them. Men and women alike were placed on large wooden pallets above the mass graves of their own people, and burned unless they agreed to be baptized on the spot. Young children were snatched unwillingly from parents and guardians, and baptized without personal consent (Doc. 6). Europe during the famous dark ages was known for its violent and torturous ways when it came to
According to those one would have asked in roughly 1340, the strangest detail about the plague is that it looked as if no one was immune. Even the physicians that scrambled to diagnose and cure the affliction contracted the symptoms themselves, eventually dying like the others (Doc.4). When even the healing hands of the village medicine man became blackened and useless, the people had the urge to turn to the solution of alternate causes. Seeing as the world around them was collapsing -- burials were unceremonious and more than regular, and mass graves were dug in a trench-like fashion and covered with thin layers of dirt -- the average historian can easily deduce why people yearned for answers, and quickly (Doc.4). Therefore, as seen countless other times in history, the people of Europe began to blame the Jews. Genetically born with a slight immunity to the plague, the Jewish people were under attack, being blamed for the sickness that surrounded them. Men and women alike were placed on large wooden pallets above the mass graves of their own people, and burned unless they agreed to be baptized on the spot. Young children were snatched unwillingly from parents and guardians, and baptized without personal consent (Doc. 6). Europe during the famous dark ages was known for its violent and torturous ways when it came to