Tuesday, April 30, 2013

When and How did the Black Death Spread

Where and how the black death spread? 

The black death was a disease that people caught. The fleas had bad bacteria and 

they travelled in the fur of rats, when the fleas drank blood from rats and humans they 


transferred the disease.







      Image 1 is a primary source and it shows us a picture of a flea. The people of the 14th century didn't know what caused the Black Death and it was only discovered approximately 100 years ago. The drawing of the flea is from the 1700's 
.      The disease spread very quickly and whoever got bitten by the fleas were the victims of black death. 
  






Image 1 Fleas  http://saburchill.com/history/chapters/chap4018f.html




The Black Death spread very quickly because: 


  • In towns and cities people lived very close
  • The filth that littered the street gave the rats the perfect environment to breed and increase their number.
  • People believed that it was sin to bath everyday  so people were not clean
  • Lack of medical knowledge meant that people tried anything to help them escape the disease.
  • The people wanted to show their love of God by whipping themselves hoping that God would forgive them their sins and that they would be spared the Black Death. 
  • The churches sent people to religious trips (pilgrimages) , this was bad because people well and unwell were being at the same space at the same time, this would spread it even more   
    because everybody passed it on to each other. 


                                         Image 2: Spreading of Black Death 

The Black death spread
towards Europe very quickly 
because Europe was trading
with the East, some medieval  Europeans were aware of a mysterious disease sweeping through Asia in the 1300's. From Central Asia, the disease moved along the trading routes to many other countries killing many people.   

Image 1 is a secondary source and it shows us how the black death spread towards the other countries in Europe. 



The YouTube Video contains information of Why and How the Black Death spread. The video describes every little detail of the spreading disease. 



Friday, April 19, 2013

Doctors During the Black Death

How did the doctors deal with the black death?

People with the disease were locked into their houses with their entire family. A big red cross would get painted on the door to show that they are infected, and there were guards that were placed outside those doors, so no one could get in and no one could get out.
The doctors who were to deal with the disease wore an early version of a hazmat suit. Doctors did not go into the houses of people with the Black Death as they didn't want to catch the disease. The doctors left family members to look after the victims and generally served as a visual warning to the public of the presence of an infected person or persons. 

The Doctors suggested many cures, some of them are:
 Carry Flowers or wear a strong perfume- The smells would help to ward away the disease (Result: Nothing)
Drink hot drinks- The victim would then sweat out the disease (Result: Nothing)
Carry a lucky charm- The charm would ward off the disease (Result:Nothing)
Use leeches to bleed the victim- This would remove infected blood (Result: Nothing)
Smoke a pipe of tobacco- The smoke would ward off the disease (Result: Nothing)
Give a strong dose of laxatives- This would cause the victim to completely empty his bowels, thus removing the disease. (Result: Strong doses of laxatives can cause death from dehydration.)
Coat the victims with mercury and place them in the oven- The combination of mercury and heat from the oven would kill off the disease. (Result: This could actually cause serious burns.)


But none of them worked. The Doctors couldn't find a cure for black death so the people started believing that this is a punishment from God. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_doctors_deal_with_the_plague#

Image 1: The Plague Doctor


Image 1 is a primary source because this was a newspaper article during the Black DeathA plague doctor would have worn a beak doctor costume in his role as a specialized doctor. He was known then as a “Beak Doctor”. The protective suit consisted of a heavy fabric overcoat that was waxed, a mask of glassed eye openings and a cone shaped like a beak to hold scented substances. Some of the scented materials were amber, balm-mint leaves, camphor, cloves, laudanum, myrrh, rose petals, and storax.A wooden cane pointer was used to help examine the patient without touching.The image shows us how the Plague Doctor (Plague doctor is also refereed to the doctor who deals with the Black Death) in a Hazmit suit, they needed to wear this to protect themselves from the people who were affected by the Black Death.   http://theloveforhistory.com/other/the-great-plague/plague-doctor/






Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Black Death

  What was the Black Death, and how did it cause the death of so many people?

The black death was very dangerous and contagious and destroyed 2/3's of Europe's population  and it killed people in a strange manner.  People who weren't affected went crazy in fear of catching it and the people who caught it usually died within 7 days. In those times doctors were not very advanced and they mostly believed in superstition, so 70% of people who caught it died. It was slow and painful. This was very dangerous as it spread all over the world and many people were at risk of catching it. The people who didn't catch it were very few and were very lucky. The Black Death was so dangerous that even kings and the people of the highest positions were in danger of catching it. Nothing could stop it and nothing could stop it spreading. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_Black_Death


There are 3 types of plague: 

Bubonic plague, the disease's most common form, refers to telltale buboes—painfully swollen lymph nodes—that 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.




Image 1: Black Death

This is a secondary source. The image shows us how the disease looked like, people suffered from it because they had no choice. The disease spread very quickly through out Europe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/12/black-death-genome-sequenced-dna