Josie Kennedy

4/1/13
Black Death Notes
Types of plague:

Bubonic plague, the disease's most common form, refers to telltale buboes
painfully swollen lymph nodesthat appear around the groin, armpit, or neck.
Septicemic plague, which spreads in the bloodstream, comes either via fleas or
from contact with plague-infected body matter. Pneumonic plague, the most
infectious type, is an advanced stage of bubonic plague when the disease starts
being passed directly, person to person, through airborne droplets coughed from
the lungs. If left untreated, bubonic plague kills about 50 percent of those it
infects. The other two forms are almost invariably fatal without antibiotics.

Organism, symptoms, and incubation period:

It reached Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 25 million people. The
Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included
the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which one in five residents died.

Yersinia pestis, which is generally thought to be the cause of the Black Death, is
extraordinarily virulent, even when compared with closely related bacteria. This is
because it's a mutant variety, handicapped both by not being able to survive
outside the animals it infects and by an inability to penetrate and hide in its host's
body cells. To compensate, Y. pestis needs strength in numbers and the ability to
disable its victim's immune system. It does this by injecting toxins into defense
cells such as macrophages that are tasked with detecting bacterial infections.
Once these cells are knocked out, the bacteria can multiply unhindered.
In 1894, during an outbreak of disease in Hong Kong and India known as the
Third Pandemic, bacteriologists Alexander Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato,
working independently of each other, identified the bacteria that caused plague.
This bacterium came to be called Yersinia pestis, when Yersin showed it to be
the causative agent of the plague in India. Working backwards, Yersin
determined that plague was the cause of the Black Death as well, due to the
medieval records of large tumors.

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/plague-
article/

The symptoms of the Black Death were gruesome: Tumors covered the body -- some of
them as big as an egg or apple, Boccaccio wrote. A large neck tumor might permanently
cock a person's head in the opposite direction. Purplish splotches also covered the body.
These were nicknamed "God's tokens," because God usually took the sufferer soon after
they appeared. The sick even smelled like they were going to die. Bad breath and odors
indicated they were rotting from the inside.

Medieval writers tell us that the fevers resulted in delirium -- madmen wandered the
streets, shouting wildly. The sick vomited incessantly or coughed up blood. Pus and
blood oozed from sores. Once the symptoms started to appear, the victim was a ticking
time bomb and died within days.



The Black Death reared its head sporadically in Europe over the next few centuries. But
by 1352, it had essentially loosened its grip. Europe's population had been hard hit,
which had an economic impact. The workforce had been destroyed -- farms were
abandoned and buildings crumbled. The price of labor skyrocketed in the face of worker
shortage, and the cost of goods rose. The price of food, though, didn't go up, perhaps
because the population had declined so much.
People who survived the Black Death era generally suffered a communal crisis of faith.
Rather than becoming more religious in thanksgiving to God for their survival, people
harbored doubts. They had turned to the church for an answer to the plague, and the
church had been able to offer no help. Additionally, priests, who, along with doctors, had
the highest rate of contact with the diseased, also had one of the highest rates of
fatalities. Several new heretical movements sprang up. Those who still clung to their
faith were more likely to do so in a very personal manner. Many began to build private
chapels.
When did the plague infect Europe? Where did it travel to?

According to historians, the Black Death arrived in Europe on boats in October 1347 on 12
Genoese trading ships docking in Messina. When the people gathered on the decks excitedly
approached the ships, eager to meet the foreign tradesmen, they were met with a deadly surprise:
most of the sailors were dead, and those remaining were on deaths door. Among a variety of
symptoms, the sailors were sporting black boils that oozed blood and pus, marking Europes first
exposure to the infamous pustules that would give the plague its name.

By the time the ships pulled into Messina, Europeans had heard rumors of a plague striking other
nations. The rumors were true: by the early 1340s, it had already hit China, India, Persia, Syria,
and Egypt.
To follow the exact years the plague hit countries in Europe, look to the map.

Organism, symptoms, and incubation period

Yersinia pestis, which is generally thought to be the cause of the Black Death, is
extraordinarily virulent, even when compared with closely related bacteria. This is
because it's a mutant variety, handicapped both by not being able to survive outside the
animals it infects and by an inability to penetrate and hide in its host's body cells. To
compensate, Y. pestis needs strength in numbers and the ability to disable its victim's
immune system. It does this by injecting toxins into defense cells such as macrophages
that are tasked with detecting bacterial infections. Once these cells are knocked out, the
bacteria can multiply unhindered.
In 1894, during an outbreak of disease in Hong Kong and India known as the Third
Pandemic, bacteriologists Alexander Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato, working
independently of each other, identified the bacteria that caused plague. This bacterium
came to be called Yersinia pestis, when Yersin showed it to be the causative agent of
the plague in India. Working backwards, Yersin determined that plague was the cause of
the Black Death as well, due to the medieval records of large tumors.

The Bubonic Plague or Black Death is now known to be caused by a bacterium called Yersina
Pestis. In 1894 bacteriologists Alexander Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato found Y. Pestis to be
the cause of the outbreak in Hong Kong and India called the Third Pandemic, and traced its
symptoms back to the black death.

This particular bacteria has to make up for its two major handicaps (not being able to survive
outside the animals it infects and an inability to penetrate and hide in its hosts body cells) by
having extreme strength. Y. Pestis has the ability to disable its host immune system by injecting
toxins into defense cells whose job it is to fight bacterial infections. Once the immune system is
out of the way, the bacteria can constantly multiply until it completely over takes its host.

The symptoms of the Black Death were gruesome: Tumors covered the body -- some of
them as big as an egg or apple, Boccaccio wrote. A large neck tumor might permanently
cock a person's head in the opposite direction. Purplish splotches also covered the body.
These were nicknamed "God's tokens," because God usually took the sufferer soon after
they appeared. The sick even smelled like they were going to die. Bad breath and odors
indicated they were rotting from the inside.

Medieval writers tell us that the fevers resulted in delirium -- madmen wandered the
streets, shouting wildly. The sick vomited incessantly or coughed up blood. Pus and
blood oozed from sores. Once the symptoms started to appear, the victim was a ticking
time bomb and died within days.

The Black Death consisted mainly of bubonic plague, but pneumonic plague was also
present in the epidemic. Symptoms of the bubonic plague included high fever, aching
limbs, and blood vomiting. Most characteristic of the disease were swollen lymph nodes,
which grew until they finally burst. Death followed soon after. The name "Black Death"
not only referred to the sinister nature of the disease, but also to the black coloring of the
victims' swollen glands. Pneumonic plague was even more fatal, but it was not as
abundant as the Bubonic plague.

Symptoms:

Tumors/growths covering the body
Swollen glands turning black, resulting in the infamous black spots that gave the plague its name
Purple splotches all over the body
Fevers resulting in delirium
Vomiting blood
Aching limbs

People who survived the Black Death era generally suffered a communal crisis of faith.
Rather than becoming more religious in thanksgiving to God for their survival, people
harbored doubts. They had turned to the church for an answer to the plague, and the
church had been able to offer no help. Additionally, priests, who, along with doctors, had
the highest rate of contact with the diseased, also had one of the highest rates of
fatalities. Several new heretical movements sprang up. Those who still clung to their
faith were more likely to do so in a very personal manner. Many began to build private
chapels.

How was it treated then?

What was the historical impact?