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    The Black Death

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    The Black Death was a devastating pandemic that originated in Asia in the 1330s and spread to Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 75-200 million people. It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was often transmitted via fleas on rodents. Symptoms included painful, swollen lymph nodes called buboes as well as fever, vomiting and other symptoms. It spread rapidly across trade routes and was transported by ships and travelers, devastating populations across many countries in Europe and North Africa.

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    The Black Death

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    jani
    73 views6 pages
    The Black Death was a devastating pandemic that originated in Asia in the 1330s and spread to Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 75-200 million people. It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was often transmitted via fleas on rodents. Symptoms included painful, swollen lymph nodes called buboes as well as fever, vomiting and other symptoms. It spread rapidly across trade routes and was transported by ships and travelers, devastating populations across many countries in Europe and North Africa.

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    The Black death

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    The Black Death was a devastating pandemic that originated in Asia in the 1330s and spread to Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 75-200 million people. It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was often transmitted via fleas on rodents. Symptoms included painful, swollen lymph nodes called buboes as well as fever, vomiting and other symptoms. It spread rapidly across trade routes and was transported by ships and travelers, devastating populations across many countries in Europe and North Africa.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    73 views6 pages

    The Black Death

    Uploaded by

    jani
    The Black Death was a devastating pandemic that originated in Asia in the 1330s and spread to Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 75-200 million people. It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was often transmitted via fleas on rodents. Symptoms included painful, swollen lymph nodes called buboes as well as fever, vomiting and other symptoms. It spread rapidly across trade routes and was transported by ships and travelers, devastating populations across many countries in Europe and North Africa.

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    The Black death

    Made by Luna Bojadzi


    The three great plagues

    There have been three great world pandemics of plague recorded, in 541, 1347, and 1894 CE, each time causing
    devastating mortality of people and animals across nations and continents. On more than one occasion plague
    irrevocably changed the social and economic fabric of society.
    The three great plague pandemics had different geographic origins and paths of spread. The Justinian Plague of
    541 started in central Africa and spread to Egypt and the Mediterranean. The Black Death of 1347 originated in
    Asia and spread to the Crimea then Europe and Russia. The third pandemic, that of 1894, originated in Yunnan,
    China, and spread to Hong Kong and India, then to the rest of the world.
    What is the Black Death?
    The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic
    occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human
    history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by
    the bacterium Yersinia pestis spread by fleas, but it can also take a secondary form where it is spread by
    person-to-person contact via aerosols causing septicaemic or pneumonic plagues.The Black Death was the beginning of
    the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the
    course of European history. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked
    at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard
    the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian
    authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbor, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the
    Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe—almost one-third of the continent’s population.
    How did the plague start?
    Even before the “death ships” pulled into port at
    Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors
    about a “Great Pestilence” that was carving a
    deadly path across the trade routes of the Near
    and Far East. Indeed, in the early 1340s, the
    disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and
    Egypt.

    The plague is thought to have originated in Asia


    over 2,000 years ago and was likely spread
    through trading ships, though recent research has
    indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black
    Death may have existed in Europe as early as
    3000 B.C.
    Symptoms
    Europeans were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the
    Black Death. “In men and women alike,” the Italian poet Giovanni
    Boccaccio wrote, “at the beginning of the malady, certain
    swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the
    bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some
    more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.”
    Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were
    followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms—fever, chills,
    vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains—and then, in short
    order, death. The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system,
    causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the infection
    can spread to the blood or lungs.
    How did the plague spread?
    Most evidence points to the Black Death being the main
    bubonic strain of plague, spread far and wide by flea-ridden
    rats on boats and fleas on the bodies and clothes of travellers.
    In an age of growing maritime trade, food and goods were
    carried ever longer distances from country to country, and the
    rats and their bacteria traveled with them—at an estimated 24
    miles a day. The unceasing flow of sea, river, and road traffic
    between commercial centers spread the plague across huge
    distances in what is known as a “metastatic leap.” Big
    commercial cities were infected first, and from there the
    plague radiated to nearby towns and villages, from where it
    would spread into the countryside. The plague was also carried
    down the well-trodden paths of medieval pilgrims; holy sites
    became additional epicentres of regional, national, and
    international propagation.

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