The Black Death
Spread
Changes
Symptoms
Causes
Doctors actually started treating patients in hospitals.
Fleas carried the disease on the back of rats.
Trade helped rats spread the disease to other towns/cities
The Black Death caused the death of 60% of the population in Europe
The bacteria that cause the plague are known as Yersinia pestis.
Bubonic Plague
Septicemic
Pneumonic
Accompanying symptoms are fever. chills, headaches, and weakness.
If not treated, the infection can spread to other parts of the body.
It can occur on it's own or may develop from bubonic plague
Symptoms include fever, chills, weakness, abdominal pain, and shock.
There can be bleeding and tissue death, especially of the fingers and toes. These dying tissues may appear black, hence the name Black Death.
This is the only form of plague that can be transmitted from person to person.
Symptoms of other types of plague can be present, but the characteristic clinical picture of pneumonia is present.
Shortness of breath, chest pain, and cough with watery or bloody mucus production are symptoms of pneumonic plague.
The spread of the Black Death started in China and then spread through trade to Europe
Pnuemonic- In this form of illness the plague bacteria spread to the lungs or infect the lungs directly when infected droplets in the air are inhaled.
Bubonic Plague-In this form of the infection, bacteria infiltrate the lymph nodes, causing enlarged, painful, tender lymph nodes called buboes.
Septicemic- This form of plague is a result of plague bacteria entering the bloodstream.
Those who survived the Black Death benefited from an extreme labor shortage, so serfs once tied to land now had a choice of whom to work for.
Lords had to make conditions better and more attractive or risk leaving their land untended, leading to wage increases across the board.
A few decades later, when lords tried to go back to the old ways, there were peasant revolts throughout Europe and the lower classes maintained their new freedoms and better pay. Science, Live. "How The Black Death Changed The World". Live Science. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 May 2017.
The Catholic church and Jewish populations in Europe did not manage so well.
Church services in many areas simply ceased because of the lack of priests.
There was distrust in god.Faith in religion decreased after the plague, both because of the death of so many of the clergy and because of the failure of prayer to prevent sickness and death.
Many people hated the Jewish population.
Towns and villages slowly began to implement local health boards to develop and enforce sanitation procedures.
A cut in the cost of livestock.
Attempts to cure
Whipping themselves: Because they believed the plague was a punishment from god and whipping themselves was a way of apologizing and showing their devotion to god. However this just increased their chances of getting the plague as their blood was exposed .
Before the Black Death art was very religious based and in scenes of death it was very graceful with fellow believers praying etc. but after/during the plague the dead were stripped to bones and were dancing and being devoured by bugs.
Before the Black Death Gothic architecture was at it's peak palaces, churches, etc. After the Black Death architecture collapsed as there were not enough people to complete previous projects/start new ones during the first couple of years after the Black Death.
Literature focused on the Black Death and the suffering of the writers.
The Black Death didn't single-handedly cause the Renaissance, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Black Death is probably among the handful of factors (we'll say 3-5) that played the largest role in bringing about the Renaissance.
The Black Death killed many students and teachers on both the university, and primary levels of education, but also killed many would-be students and teachers. So the level of education was low for students during and and for a a few years after the black death. These students then went on to teach lowering the standards of education even more.
It took 150 and in some areas more than 80 years for Europe's population to recover.
"Consequences Of The Black Death". En.wikipedia.org. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 May 2017.
Since it was so difficult (and dangerous) to procure goods through trade and to produce them, the prices of both goods produced locally and those imported from afar skyrocketed. "Decameron Web | Plague". Brown.edu. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 May 2017.
Aromatherapy: Smelling nice things. A common belief was that disease came from miasma, or the bad smells that were often found in overcrowded towns. To counter this, doctors often encouraged their patients to sniff herbs of fragrant flowers, bundles of herbs or sweet smelling oils. In some cases, they even suggested that patients should breathe in the smell of human waste in the hope that one bad smell might overcome the more dangerous miasma.
Bloodletting: But it was difficult for many people to afford the leeches, so lots of them resort to the old age method of bloodletting that would involve using a blade to make an incision in the skin. The sanitation levels were not enough then, so this actually left many people dealing with gruesome infections.
Washing yourself with urine: Urine was used a lot for medical reasons in medieval Europe, and this was mostly because it had easy access. Victims of the Black Death would bath in urine 2-3 times a day to relive the pain of the symptoms.Some even thought drinking a glass of urine would be more beneficial.
Rub your wounds with a live chicken: They believed that if they rubbed a chickens butt on their buboes and the chicken caught the disease it was passed through them and onto the chicken, however if the chicken did not catch the disease the disease had not passed through them and into the chicken. Unfortunately this did not help cure the disease it helped spread it.
Kill jews: they believed jews were responsible for the plague they believed they had poisoned the air or the wells from which people drew their drinking water.
Drinking vinegar, eating crushed minerals, arsenic, mercury or even ten-year-old treacle!
The fashions of the nobility became more extravagant in order to emphasize the social standing of the person wearing the clothing.
"Decameron Web | Plague". Brown.edu. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 May 2017.