Bubonic Plague
"A deadly bacterial disease of the lymphatic system, often marked by buboes, which are visibly swollen lymph nodes. Because buboes and other parts of the body often take on a dark cast, the plague came to be called the Black Plague or Black Death. Bubonic plague is typically spread through the bite of infected fleas, which are common parasites on rodents. Plague symptoms usually appear within two to ten days after a flea bite, and rapidly progress for three to five days, leading to death. Symptoms include very high fever, headache, aching joints, and toxic shock, due to bacterial toxins within the system." - K12
"All is thick and melancholy gloom." -Letter of Dr. Benjamin Rush
Dance of Death (Danse Macabre): In medieval art, an illustration of the power of death, in which a skeleton or demon leads people to the grave. During plague times, some people actually performed this dance as a way of trying to overcome their fear of death.
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The Black Plague originally came from Central and Eastern Asia, and rapidly spread throughout Europe. This plague was very deadly and patients could die within 5 days of getting the disease. The Plague was caused by infected fleas latching onto rats, which where mistakingly brought by ships across the world to popular trading ports. The disease was spread to Europe when a boat with infected rats stoped at Mediterranean ports to trade. When ships would stop the infected rats would get off and get into food or seeds layed on the ground by merchants. The rats would leave there saliva on the seeds or food, and therefore when humans touched the food with their mouths they'd get the disease. Any contact between humans and infected rats or fleas would cause the disease to be spread to humans. For example, rats or fleas would bite humans and spread the disease into humans. Overall, the Black death was caused by fleas who had the disease, latching onto rats who were transported around the world during the trading process, and later brought onto humans when the rats got into bags of food humans would eat, or when rats or fleas bit humans.
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From 1347 to 1350 the Black Death
struck Europe:
·In
less than two years 30% to 60% of the population of Europe was
wiped out.
·Nearly
75 million died in western Europe
alone.
·18000 people died in London in
the course of three years.
·Almost
1/3 of the worlds population had died from the plague by
1350.
·Estimates
go from 100 to 200 million deaths
worldwide.
·The
mortality rate of the bubonic plague was 30% to 75%
percent.
·Within
1-7 days the first symptoms occurred, including fever, nausea,
headache and an infection the lymph nodes
Information found at http://deathblack.wordpress.com/category/statistics/