The Black Death

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The Black Death
1347 - 1349
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WHAT WAS THE BLACK DEATH?
Here are two quotations from the time of the
Black Death describing the symptoms of the
disease
BUBONIC PLAGUE
PNEUMONIC PLAGUE
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Some words you need to know
DISEASE -
Illness
EPIDEMIC -
Disease spread rapidly to many people
MORTALITY -
Number of deaths
A deadly disease
PESTILENCE -
PLAGUE -
A deadly disease spread by fleas and rats.
Sign of disease on a patient like spots, high
temperature, or sweating.
SYMPTOM -
APOSTUMES -
Large abscesses (filled with pus) on the body
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Some words you need to know
A food shortage that causes starvation among the
people.
FAMINE -
Large swellings and abscesses on the body
CARBUNCLES -
Large growths on the body
TUMORS -
Biological processes in the body that help fight
off disease
IMMUNE SYSTEM-
A song, a poem or a rhyme
DITTY -
MACABRE -
Gruesome, ghastly, chilling, horrid
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The Bubonic Plague

• It was called black death because of a symptom
  of the disease, in which sufferers' skin would
  blacken due to hemorrhages under the skin
• It was spread by fleas and rats
• It caused painful lymph node swellings called
  buboes

Lancing a Buboe
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The Bubonic Plague

• Buboes formed in the groin and armpits, which
  would ooze pus and blood.
• It would cause damage to the skin and underlying
  tissue until they were covered in dark blotches

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The Bubonic Plague

• Most victims died within four to seven days after
  infection
• It originated in Asia but was blamed on Jews and
  lepers

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The Black Death killed about a third of Europes
population - an estimated 34 million people.
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The swiftness of the disease, the enormous pain,
and the grotesque appearance of the victims, all
served to make the plague especially horrifying.
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The Beginning
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The Famine of 1315-1317

• By 1300 Europeans were farming almost all the
  land they could cultivate.
• A population crisis developed.
• Climate changes in Europe produced three years of
  crop failures between 1315-17 because of
  excessive rain.

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The Famine of 1315-1317

• As many as 15 of the peasants in some English
  villages died.
• One consequence of starvation povertywas
  susceptibility to disease.
• The Europeans often ate stale or diseased meat
  because refrigeration had not yet been invented.

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The Famine of 1315-1317

• Also, medicine was primitive and unable to cure
  an illness that modern technology might have
  cured.
• Bad medical advice also advanced the plague.
  People were often advised to not bathe because
  open skin pores might let in the disease.

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The Black Death
1347-1349
In the midst of life
.we are in death
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Death confronts the Rulers of the World
The Pope, a king and a prince meet with..
their deathly Counter-points
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The Angel of Death summons his victim
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THE SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN DISEASES
THE HUMAN BODY AND ITS DISEASES ACCORDING TO AN
ENGLISH 15TH CENTURY COPY OF GALEN
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The Symptoms
Buboes
Septicemic Formalmost 100 mortality rate.
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The Symptoms
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The Culprits
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How was the plague spread between people?
The plague came from germs called pasteurella
pestis.
This made the rats very sick
When the rats died the fleas jumped on to humans.
Fleas sucked the rats blood.
The plague germs lived in rats blood.
The fleas infected other rats and humans with the
plague. Soon almost half the people in England
were dead.
The fleas bit the humans.
When the human died, the flea jumped to another
rat or human.
The flea bit another human.
The humans died
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WHERE DID THE PLAGUE COME FROM, AND HOW DID IT
REACH EUROPE?
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(No Transcript)
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REACTIONS TO THE SPREAD OF THE PLAGUE
Jews were burned in Strasbourg in 1349. It was
believed that the Jews had caused the plague by
poisoning drinking water.
Flagellants whipped themselves in Germany early
in 1349. They believed that the plague was sent
by God as a punishment for human sin. They were
punishing themselves for these sins.
In 1345, in China and India, fire fell from
heaven and stinking smoke, which slew all that
were left of men and beasts
In 1348 the plague happened in Florence. It was
sent upon them by the just anger of God. The city
was cleansed of filth, and sick persons were
banned from entering.
In 1347 twelve galley ships entered the harbor of
Messina (Sicily). In their bones the sailors bore
so virulent a disease that any one who only spoke
to them was seized by a deadly illness.
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THE ARRIVAL OF BLACK DEATH IN ENGLAND, 1348
In June 1348, in Melcombe, in the county of
Dorset, came two ships. One of the sailors had
brought with him from Gascony the seeds of the
terrible pestilence and, through him, the men of
that town were the first in England to be
infected.
1349. To the Lord Mayor of London. Order to cause
the human dung and other filth lying in the
streets to be removed. The city is so foul with
the filth from out of the houses that the air is
infected and the city poisoned
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VICTIMS OF THE PLAGUE BEING BURIED IN FRANCE
It is estimated that between one-third to half
the entire population was wiped out by the Black
Death.
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A TYPICAL MEDIEVAL VILLAGE
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DESERTED VILLAGES
A deserted village in Buckingham shire
Deserted medieval villages.
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EFFECTS OF THE BLACK DEATH ON THE LAND
FROM A MODERN HISTORY BOOK
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Medieval Art the Plague
An obsession with death.
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(No Transcript)
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Medieval Art the Plague
Bring out your dead!
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FLAGELLANTS
People sorry for their sins
who whip themselves.
The object of this penance was to beg God to put
a stop to the black death.
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From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411
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Medieval Art the Plague
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Boccaccio in The Decameron
The victims ate lunch with their friends and
dinner with their ancestors.
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The Danse Macabre
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A Little Macabre Ditty
A sickly season, the merchant said,The town I
left was filled with dead,and everywhere these
queer red fliescrawled upon the corpses
eyes,eating them away.Fair make you sick,
the merchant said,They crawled upon the wine
and bread.Pale priests with oil and
books,bulging eyes and crazy looks,dropping
like the flies. I had to laugh, the merchant
said,The doctors purged, and dosed, and bled
Then they began to die.
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A Little Macabre Ditty
First they sneezed, the merchant said,And
then they turned the brightest red,Begged for
water, then fell back.With bulging eyes and face
turned black,they waited for the flies. I
came away, the merchant said,You cant do
business with the dead.So Ive come here to ply
my trade.
And then he sneezed.!
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Medieval Graffiti
Words scratched on a church wall in England. They
say 1349 the pestilence. 1350 pitiless, wild,
violent, the dregs of the people live to tell the
tale.
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The Bubonic Plague
EFFECTS

• Caused massive depopulation and change in social
  structure
• It weakened influence of Church because the
  Church could not stop it
• It originated in Asia but was blamed on lepers
  and Jews
• Resulted in pogroms against Jews

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POGROM
a campaign of persecution or extermination
sanctioned by a government and directed against
an ethnic group, especially against the Jews
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
Pograms against the Jews
The Yellow Badge, or Golden Circle worn by Jews
as a badge of shame to distinguish them from
Christians. The Nazis revived this custom in
the 1930s.
Jew hat
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
Leeching - No-one knew what really caused
diseases.
A Doctors Robe
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
blood
phlegm
But, almost everyone agreed that illness came
from an imbalance in four vital fluids in the
body blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.
yellow bile
black bile
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
Called humors or humours these fluids
controlled health and human behavior. The
imbalance in humors was fixed by bleeding the
patient by either applying leeches or making a
cut on the body and letting the patient bleed for
a while.
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What Really Happened
The origins of the plague are disputed among
scholars. Some historians believe the pandemic
began in China or Central Asia in the late 1320s
or 1330s, and during the next years merchants and
soldiers carried it over the caravan routes until
in 1346 when it reached Europe. The plague
spread to Western Europe and North Africa during
the 1340s. The total number of deaths worldwide
is estimated at 75 million people, and
approximately 2550 million of those deaths
occurred in Europe. The Black Death is
estimated to have killed 30 to 60 of the
population of Europe.
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What Really Happened
The three forms of plague brought an array of
signs and symptoms to those infected. The
septicaemic plague is a form of "blood
poisoning," and pneumonic plague is an airborne
plague that attacks the lungs before the rest of
the body. The classic sign of bubonic plague was
the appearance of buboes in the groin, the neck,
and armpits, which oozed pus and bled. Most
victims died within four to seven days after
infection. The Bubonic Plague in 2009 It still
exists and is common among rodents. We have a
cure for the disease, but occasionally people in
isolated places still die from the Bubonic
Plague.