The Black Death

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The Black Death

• Late Medieval Period

http//www.fidnet.com/weid/plague.htm
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The Black Death

• Begins around 1347
• AKA Bubonic Plague
• Lasts only 5 years, until 1352
• Kills almost 1/3 of Europes population 25
  million

http//www.fidnet.com/weid/plague.htm
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The Plagues Route
http//historymedren.about.com/library/weekly/aapm
aps4.htm
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http//www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/hmcl1005/p
lague/
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Heres the Culprit!
http//www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/images/flea.jpg
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Where did it come from?

• Started with fleas on rats in Asia
• Traveled to Europe by trade
• Once the goods were unloaded and the rats got
  out, the fleas bit humans.
• Thus, they contracted the disease.

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Symptoms

• High fever
• Swollen glands
• Purplish spots under skin
• Sometimes bulged and turned black

http//www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/diagnosis.h
tm
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For all of you doctors ?

• Bubonic plague is a bacillus carried by parasites
  on the back of rodents. It was mostly carried on
  the backs of black rats.
• The plague mainly spread through flea bites.
  However, it could spread from human to human when
  it became pneumonic plague.
• Because of the rapid spread, and many
  inconsistencies, many scientists believe another
  disease was also present, possibly anthrax (from
  eating infected cows).

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Continued

• The spread is believed to have been stopped by
  the arrival of larger brown rats.
• These rats killed off the black rats and their
  fur is thicker and not as inviting for fleas.

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What to Do With the Dead?

• Plague spread so quickly, couldnt keep up with
  burials.
• Many bodies left in the street, which possibly
  further contaminated people.

http//nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/cur/eng97_8/remsen/sa
ki_justin/the_plague.htm
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Effects

• Enormous reduction in population labor shortage
• Trade disrupted
• Food shortages and starvation follow
• Many societies become lawless.
• In this sore affliction and misery of our city,
  the authority of the laws, both human and divine,
  was all dissolved and fell into decay.
  Boccaccio
• Jews became a scapegoat (Pogrom anti-Jewish
  massacres)

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Jewish Pogrom in Strasbourg, Germany

• On Saturdaythey burnt the Jews on a wooden
  platform in their cemetery. There were about
  2,000 people of them. Many small children were
  taken out of the fire and baptized against the
  will of their fathers and mothers. Jacob von
  Konigshofen
• The money was indeed the thing that killed the
  Jews. If they had been poor and if the feudal
  lords had not been in debt to them, they would
  not have been burnt

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What about the manors?

• Not enough labor
• Serfs realize they can bargain for pay now
• Nobles had no other choice but to pay serfs for
  services now
• This is another factor leading to Feudalism
  breaking down.

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And the Church

• People lost faith in Church
• Thought that holy people should have been able to
  stop plague or cure it
• Also, priests began to stop seeing the dying for
  fear they would contract the disease.

http//nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/cur/eng97_8/remsen/sa
ki_justin/the_plague.htm
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The Plague Today
http//www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/world98.htm
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