The Black Death, also called the Bubonic Plague, or just a The Plague, was horrible plague, and is easily the worst epidemic in known history. It’s believed to have originally came to Europe by a Mongolians invasion force, called the Golden Horde. It’s believed that Genoese trading ships then left during the siege of Crimea, with the famous plague spreading rats in the hold. They would’ve landed predominantly in Constantinople, thus bringing the worst disease known to man to Europe.
It’s believed that the plague wiped out 30-60% of the entire population of the western world. I know that sounds like a big gulf between 3 in every 10 people and 6 in every 10 people dying, but records weren’t well kept in the middle ages and so they ended up low-balling it. Historians and scientists know believe it was closer to 50% or higher, meaning half or more of Europe died in the peak years of the plague. And something that many people didn’t realize is that those peak years was only about 1347-1353, only about 6 years, making this Black Plague so much scarier, because it killed close to 25 million people in 6 years.
The symptoms of the Plague are fairly well known, but they’re worth going over anyway. Large red boils would grow out of peoples skin, predominantly the groin and armpits, ranging in size from apples to eggs. After a few days these would either heal and fade to scars, or, many more times likely, they would turn black and start leaking pus, while smaller black lumps spread from the originals all over the body. Once the spots turned black, you rarely lived more than 3 days.
The doctors of the time were completely incapable of stopping the disease, since they didn’t understand germs, and a great many of them believed it was a punishment from god, and to act against the disease would be to act against god, so they purposefully did nothing. This was a small number though, and the majority were just inept. They often tried things like bloodletting, were they believed the disease to be in the blood, so they cut peoples arteries and let them bleed out. This did not work. The only right thing they did was telling people to keep away from the diseased folk, but most did this anyway because of the stench.
Possibly the most horrifying aspect of this plague in the nursery rhyme, “Ring Around the Rosy” it goes: Ring around the rosy, pocketful of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down! Well this pleasant playtime song is actually talking about the subject of this paper. “Ring around the rosy” is referring to the discolored ring around the red lumps before they turn black, or the “rosy” “Pocketful of posies” refers to the fact that people carried posies and other flowers with them, so that they didn’t smell the dead and sick people. “ashes ashes” is talking about how millions of bodies were burned, because the graveyards were overflowing. The result was ash laden air. I believe you can figure out what “We all fall down” means, and how absolutely terrifying it is to hear children sing it, while falling over themselves.
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