The Black Death, a deadly plague that killed one in four people in Europe between 1347 and 1350, wiped out a third of Europe’s population and continued to spread death for the next 300 years. The plague started in China and was spread by infected rats and fleas to humans. It included three different types of plague: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. The deadliest form was the septicemic plague, which attacked blood and had a close to 100% fatality rate. The plague spread rapidly across Europe via trade routes and caravans, causing fear of helping the sick and leading to mass abandonment of plague victims. The Black Death somehow survived until the 1600s.
In just three years between 1347 and 1350, one in four people in Europe died in one of the worst natural disasters in history: the Black Death. By 1352, it would wipe out a third of Europe’s population, or 25 million people, and continue to spread death over and over again for the next 300 years.
Also known as the Black Death, this plague started in China, where infected rats passed the disease to fleas which spread it rapidly to humans. With extreme rapidity, he killed most victims he touched, usually within hours. What initially seemed like an epidemic quickly took on pandemic proportions.
The Black Death was so named because of the large black blisters that would have formed at the site of the glands, but it actually includes three different types of plague: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic.
Bubonic plague was the most common, spread by fleas and rodents. The lymph nodes would swell in the armpits, neck and groin, to the size of an egg or an apple, and would turn black from bleeding under the skin. Flu-like symptoms included nausea, vomiting, headache, pain, and high fever, but people often died with no other symptoms other than swollen glands. The death rate from bubonic plague reached 75%, and victims died within about 72 hours.
Pulmonary plague was even deadlier, with a 90 to 95% mortality rate. It attacked the lungs, filling them with fluid and causing the victims to spit blood and mucus. Highly transmissible, someone only needed to be in the vicinity of an infected person to inhale the bacterium from the air. Pulmonary plague killed its victims within 48 hours.
The deadliest form of the Black Death, however, was the septicemic plague, and there is still no cure today. This form attacked blood. Fatality rates were close to 100%, and people often died the same day symptoms started. The telltale signs were high fever associated with skin discoloration to deep purple, caused by disseminated intravascular coagulation or blood clotting in veins.
The plague is believed to have traveled from Asia to a Crimean port on the Black Sea via a Genoese trading ship returning from Asia. Italian merchants paid homage to the Tartars or Mongols who lived in the area to maintain the port. Once disease broke out at the port, tens of thousands of Tatars died while the local Genoese population remained holed up in the nearby walled city of Caffa.
For revenge or for other reasons, the Tartars attacked Caffa, catapulting the bodies of the dead plagued beyond the walls. When the Genoese fell ill, they attempted to escape the disease by sailing to their homeland, Italy. By the time the ship put in, many of those aboard were already dead or dying. The plague spread rapidly across Europe via trade routes and caravans, cutting a wave of death from south to north passing through France, England, Germany, Denmark and finally across the populated world.
One of the most devastating aspects of the Black Death was the fear of helping the sick. Even touching the clothes of someone who was sick could be fatal. Families abandoned their fathers, mothers, and even children, and abandoned plague victims lay in droves in the streets. Families who stayed with their loved ones often paid the price, forced by citizens to be locked up in their own homes, healthy and sick, equal to a death sentence for everyone. Many eyewitnesses tell of hundreds of people who die every day, buried in mass graves. Dead bodies and the stench of death were everywhere, and people believed that the smell itself could spread disease and walked around with handkerchiefs filled with herbs or oils held to their noses. In the winter, when the fleas were dormant, the plague stopped, but in the spring it started to spread again, claiming victims once more.
The Black Death somehow survived until the 1600s. The child’s nursery rhyme Ring Around The Rosie is often cited as referring to the disease, although this is thought to be an urban legend, as the first report appearing in print was not until to 1881.
Ring around the rose
Tasche di posies
Ash, ash (or Achoo, achoo)
We all fall.
The first line was thought to describe an early symptom of a ring rash or skin discoloration. The second, the flowers or herbs that people would keep close at hand to ward off the stench of death. The third line was said to refer to the sound of sneezing, an initial symptom of falling ill, and the last line a reference to falling dead.
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