There was once a horrifying monster that killed millions of innocent civilians by dissolving their lungs and causing their flesh to become black. It spread with deadly efficiency, killed in a matter of days, and could travel through the air. Although this may sound like a children’s horror story, this monster was a reality in Europe in the 1300s. The Black Death was a pandemic that killed just over half of Europe’s population between 1346 and 1353. Even though some argue that the Black Plague could have been a fortunate event because improved the survival rates of later generations, the plague is ultimately one of the biggest calamities the world has ever seen because it’s symptoms were terrible and gruesome, it caused people to abandon
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Friendships were broken and ties were cut as everyone struggled to avoid the plague. Philip Ziegler in his book The Black Death tells readers, “...fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate, as if they had been strangers…” (Ziegler 1340). Everywhere in the area, shops closed, surgeons rejected patients, and priests denied people their last rites. Common civilians began to lose their compassion and humanity as they tried to escape the terrifying disease. However, the plague was simply unavoidable. Even as citizens flocked to rural areas, the plague had already affected the cattle and herds there. All attempts to escape the plague were futile. As the people became increasingly desperate, they began to turn towards unconventional methods of plague treatment, nearly all of which were unreliable and would have actually caused more harm than good. One of the methods commonly utilized by the few doctors still willing to treat patients was bloodletting. It involved making an incision in one’s arm or neck and letting quite a large amount of blood pour out. Not only did this make the patient even more susceptible to the plague and other diseases, but it was also extremely unsanitary. However, this time period was before the discovery of germs, so physicians would use the same blade to make incisions in different people of varying degrees of health, which directly aided the transmission of
Friendships were broken and ties were cut as everyone struggled to avoid the plague. Philip Ziegler in his book The Black Death tells readers, “...fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate, as if they had been strangers…” (Ziegler 1340). Everywhere in the area, shops closed, surgeons rejected patients, and priests denied people their last rites. Common civilians began to lose their compassion and humanity as they tried to escape the terrifying disease. However, the plague was simply unavoidable. Even as citizens flocked to rural areas, the plague had already affected the cattle and herds there. All attempts to escape the plague were futile. As the people became increasingly desperate, they began to turn towards unconventional methods of plague treatment, nearly all of which were unreliable and would have actually caused more harm than good. One of the methods commonly utilized by the few doctors still willing to treat patients was bloodletting. It involved making an incision in one’s arm or neck and letting quite a large amount of blood pour out. Not only did this make the patient even more susceptible to the plague and other diseases, but it was also extremely unsanitary. However, this time period was before the discovery of germs, so physicians would use the same blade to make incisions in different people of varying degrees of health, which directly aided the transmission of