La Muerte Negrea

The Black Death

The Black Death is one of the most lethal disease out breaks in history. The Black Death's widespread terror accounted for nearly one third of the deaths in Europe.The Black Deathwas a pandemic that hit Western Europe, the Middle East and Asia in 1347-1351. It was an epidemic so ugly and destructive that it wiped out much of the population in those areas. It is thought tohave killed at least one third of the population in Europe. The Black Death was known during the time of the plague as the Great Mortality or the Pestilence any name that it was given did not change thedevastation that it caused. The disease was believed to have started by the overcrowding of people and animals during a time when period of growth hit Europe, except for the fact that there had beentwo years of cold weather and devastating rains that killed the grain crops and left a shortage for food for both humans and rats. This famine and the close environment and over population of thepeople and animals were a prime way for the disease to spread (Cohen, 1974). The people of that time knew nothing about contamination and the way they lived cluttering the streets with filth gave therat’s ample opportunity to breed thus enabling the disease to begin its spread. The Black Death came in three forms, the bubonic plague, pneumonic, and septicemic. Each different form of the plaguekilled people in a vicious way. All forms were caused a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. The bubonic plague was the most commonly seen form of the Black Death, the mortality rate was 30-75%. The term‘bubonic’ refers to the characteristic bubo or enlarged lymphatic gland. Victims were subject to headaches, nausea, aching joints, fever of 101-105 degrees, vomiting, and a general feeling of illness.Symptoms took from 1-7 days to appear and took about a week to kill the victim The initial symptom is a blackish pustule forming over the point of the bite, followed by swollen lymph nodes near that...