The Black Death arrived ‘out of nowhere’ in the mid fourteenth century. It was so bad that doctors couldn’t understand it yet alone treat it! Because of this, it took twenty-five million lives! The Black Death was a plague that carried on fleas that took a bite out of black rats. These rats infested carts and cargo ships that were travelling via transport routes, rivers and ports to villages and towns across western Asia, Africa and Europe! The symptoms of the plague were:
Doctors and apothecaries could not cure the plague because they did not really understand the cause of it. They used treatments that they used for most other illnesses. Many doctors believed that all disease resulted from bad smells. They prescribed posies of herbs or pleasant-smelling crushed flowers, which the patient would sniff by means of a nosebag.
Some doctors advised their patients to inhale the smells of human waste in the belief that one bad smell would counteract the effect of another. The most famous doctor in Europe, Guy de Chauliac, made the Pope sit in a smoke-filled room in the hope of avoiding the plague.
High fever, severe vomiting, and bleeding from the lungs were all very common, and victims’ bodies would usually be covered with gruesome boils.
The Black Death was spread by a bacillus called Yersina pestis. This was not discovered until the end of the nineteenth century by a French biologist named Alexandre Yersin.
In a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; shopkeepers closed stores; etc.
- large (one to ten centimetres long), very painful, itchy blue-black tumours called buboes in the groin and armpits
- pus and horrible smells coming from buboes
- coughing up blood
- fever
- nausea and vomiting.
Doctors and apothecaries could not cure the plague because they did not really understand the cause of it. They used treatments that they used for most other illnesses. Many doctors believed that all disease resulted from bad smells. They prescribed posies of herbs or pleasant-smelling crushed flowers, which the patient would sniff by means of a nosebag.
Some doctors advised their patients to inhale the smells of human waste in the belief that one bad smell would counteract the effect of another. The most famous doctor in Europe, Guy de Chauliac, made the Pope sit in a smoke-filled room in the hope of avoiding the plague.
High fever, severe vomiting, and bleeding from the lungs were all very common, and victims’ bodies would usually be covered with gruesome boils.
The Black Death was spread by a bacillus called Yersina pestis. This was not discovered until the end of the nineteenth century by a French biologist named Alexandre Yersin.
In a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; shopkeepers closed stores; etc.