The Black Death During the 14th century a mysterious plague struck the continent of Europe, so devastating that nearly one-half of Europe’s population had been completely wiped out (Slides 8). The Black Death as it came to be known, carried on across the lands for over a three hundred year reign. Understanding what the plague is, and the origin of how this tragedy came to be, shows what a devastating and incomprehensible event this was which almost lead to a civilizations extinction. With the large amount of dead caused by the disease, the number of workers had drastically been reduced. With few to farm the lands to produce crops, changes in agricultural practices had to be made in order to comply with the new way of life (Slides 10). However,
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The rat acting as a carrier of the organism is immune to the effects of the disease. Once the flea feasts upon the blood of an infected rat it now too is a carrier of the organism and has the ability to infect a human body. The symptoms of infection are described as running a high fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, aches, and pain, then ultimately proceeded by death when left untreated (History.com). Accompanying these symptoms, black boils appear on the skin oozing blood and pus hence the given name the Black Plague. There are two types of possible infections that spawn from contracting the disease, pneumonic and septicemic, all which were fatal in the given era. In the pneumonic variation, the organism settles in a person’s lungs and over a period of five to seven days the lungs begin to liquefy, which in turn makes the host cough out their own lungs and perish. The septicemic variation inhibits the body’s ability to clot blood, which then causes the infected person to literally bleed out internally, and externally until death (History.com). Not only was the transmission from rats to fleas, but also once a human host was infected, simply coughing would spread the disease to others (History.com). Today, antibiotics have been created that treat an infected person to prevent the disease from being as deadly as during the original outbreak in Europe and allow a person to survive
The rat acting as a carrier of the organism is immune to the effects of the disease. Once the flea feasts upon the blood of an infected rat it now too is a carrier of the organism and has the ability to infect a human body. The symptoms of infection are described as running a high fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, aches, and pain, then ultimately proceeded by death when left untreated (History.com). Accompanying these symptoms, black boils appear on the skin oozing blood and pus hence the given name the Black Plague. There are two types of possible infections that spawn from contracting the disease, pneumonic and septicemic, all which were fatal in the given era. In the pneumonic variation, the organism settles in a person’s lungs and over a period of five to seven days the lungs begin to liquefy, which in turn makes the host cough out their own lungs and perish. The septicemic variation inhibits the body’s ability to clot blood, which then causes the infected person to literally bleed out internally, and externally until death (History.com). Not only was the transmission from rats to fleas, but also once a human host was infected, simply coughing would spread the disease to others (History.com). Today, antibiotics have been created that treat an infected person to prevent the disease from being as deadly as during the original outbreak in Europe and allow a person to survive