About a year and a half ago, I read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis and consequently became fascinated by the Black Death.
The cause of the Black Death has been the subject of much conjecture over the years. To most people “Black Death” is synonymous with “Bubonic Plague”. New research has come to light that the fatalities relating to the Black Death may have been caused by a virus similar to Ebola, or even by anthrax. The reason for the name “Black Death” was not because of acral necrosis, which is the common belief, but because of the dark times that befell the world because of the overabundance of disease and death.
The plague did more than just kill 1/2 to 2/3 of the worlds’ population – it also played a big part in many of the peasant uprisings and increased wages and freedom for the working class in Europe. Due to the shortage of peasants to take care of manual labour, they became a hot commodity and could bargain better deals for themselves. Because the upper- and middle-class were dying off as well, more people from the lower classes were able to move up into higher social standing. This, along with other contributing factors, is one of the purpoted causes of the Great Vowel Shift which caused most of the discrepancy between English spelling and pronunciation. The plague was also instrumental in reducing the Church’s influence on everyday life, as the clerics were unable to cure the sick with their solutions of burning Jewish people, lepers, and those with skin conditions such as acne and psoriasis, people became disillusioned with the Church. Due to the high death rates, untrained clerics were recruited by the Church, resulting in abuse of the sway they held over the general population.
There were three different variations of the plague. First there was the bubonic plague, which caused the lymph nodes to swell and become filled with pus and blood. This was the most common form of the plague seen during the Black Death. Second was the pneumonic plague, which infected the lungs and respiratory system. This was the most contagious form of the disease. Third was septacaemic, which was the most deadly and had close to a 100% mortality rate. Septacaemic plague was a poisoning of the blood and caused disseminated intravascular coagulation – basically, simultaneous clotting of the blood in all the veins in your body.
The bubonic and septacaemic plagues were carried by fleas inhabiting black rats. When the brown rat became the dominant rat in Europe, the plgaue’s effectiveness in perpetuating itself was less successful. Common opinion is that the plague originated in Asia, and first appeared in China in the 1300s. It then spread a trail of death right across Asia and Europe, sometimes leaving whole villages devoid of any life. Ships left ports with hundreds of sailors, only to be found grounded on foreign shores with not a sinlge person left alive to moor the ship. Because death was so commonplace, crying for those who had passed became pointless and subsequently, few tears were shed over death. Bodies were routinely thrown into mass graves, or just piled up outside the town walls.
An interesting effect that the plague has had on the natural selection of genetics for the current population of European nations which were affected from the plague is a genetic mutation/flaw that means 10% of the population has a resistance to HIV. I’m not sure if the link between HIV & the Plague has been discovered yet.
Anyway, I’m tired and I have no idea why this turned into an essay about the plague.
or juice
I wore socks all through winter time. I kept meaning to get slippers, but never got around to it.