Essay On The Bubonic Plague

There are many thoughts on how the Bubonic Plague was spread. The bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, occurred during the fourteenth century. The bubonic plague originated in China in 1334 and made its way to Britain by 1348. The bubonic plague was an infection of the lymph nodes in the whole body of the person who was sick. At the time of the plague, no one knew what it was or how it was being spread. “Patients develop sudden onset of fever, headache, chills, and weakness and one or more swollen, tender and painful lymph nodes (called buboes)” (CDC-Symptoms). The bubonic plague is also known as a killer because of how many people the disease was able to kill in such a short time through fleas that were on rats. The bubonic plague killed over twenty-five million people in China and Europe. The bubonic plague got its name from the purplish-black spots that it …show more content…
As the disease progressed and spread from the fleas on the infected rats, it transformed into the pneumonic plague which is an infection of the lungs. This is when the plague went from only being spread from the fleas to being airborne from whoever was sick. “Pneumonic plague is spread from person-to-person. When a person with the plague coughs, tiny droplets carrying the bacteria move through the air… An epidemic can be started this way,” (Vyas) and it was. The bubonic plague “Could also be spread by contact with contaminated fluid or tissue from a plague infected animal” (CDC-Transmission). There were many different causes for the spread of the bubonic plague. The main cause was the Silk Road that ran from China to the Mediterranean Sea. The Silk Road was not only a route for trading goods and religions; it was an open door for disease to spread rapidly across a large area. There were many items that were available from many different merchants. As told by Marco Polo, the merchants were very