Black Death

BLACK DEATH
Coming out of the East, the Black Death reached the shores of Italy in the spring of 1348 unleashing a rampage of death across Europe unprecedented in recorded history. By the time theepidemic played itself out three years later, anywhere between 25% and 50% of Europe's population had fallen victim to the pestilence.
The plague presented itself in three interrelated forms. Thebubonic variant (the most common) derives its name from the swellings or buboes that appeared on a victim's neck, armpits or groin. These tumors could range in size from that of an egg to that of anapple. Although some survived the painful ordeal, the manifestation of these lesions usually signaled the victim had a life expectancy of up to a week. Infected fleas that attached themselves to rats andthen to humans spread this bubonic type of the plague. A second variation - pneumonic plague - attacked the respiratory system and was spread by merely breathing the exhaled air of a victim. It wasmuch more virulent than its bubonic cousin - life expectancy was measured in one or two days. Finally, the septicemic version of the disease attacked the blood system.
Having no defense and nounderstanding of the cause of the pestilence, the men, women and children caught in its onslaught were bewildered, panicked, and finally devastated.
No doctor's advice, no medicine could overcome oralleviate this disease, An enormous number of ignorant men and women set up as doctors in addition to those who were trained. Either the disease was such that no treatment was possible or the doctors were soignorant that they did not know what caused it, and consequently could not administer the proper remedy. In any case very few recovered; most people died within about three days of the appearance ofthe tumours described above, most of them without any fever or other symptoms.
The violence of this disease was such that the sick communicated it to the healthy who came near them, just as a fire...