Tell me about the Bubonic Plague?
The Bubonic plague has been estimate to have been responsible for the deaths of 50 to 75% of the European population. How did this happen? Was it lack of sanitation? Them living too close together? Or something else?
Where did the plague start out, and who brought it to Western Europe?
Other than the obvious, death, what were the consequences?
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yea the poster above me explained how it arrived to the east
its actually not known for certain what the original carrier was, though mostly black rats(which were plentiful) could carry it and bite people.
on top of infected merchants traveling from india to europe
quite a few mongolian soldiers (who were now assaulting europe) were infected. and before they invaded towns or when they were too heavily fortified, etc
they would take their dead (some killed, some died from plague) and cattapult them into cities.
also people would become scared when their town became infected, so they would flee to clean zones. they didn't realize they were already infected and they would spread it even further.
animals eating the tainted flesh (like the black rats)
and people coming in contact with the necrotic flesh of the infected and the dead, would catch it.
aside from the economic issues, religious issues were a big part of it.
this was a turning point in the roman catholic church and possibly the era where the last truly good pope lived.
all the worldly and selfish clergy men and christians would avoid the sick, and even find remote colonies to make monastaries to hide in.
the good clergymen and christians went out and gave aid to the infected. they knew they couldn't do anything but make them comfortable and give them last rights.
this steadily weeded out the pure from having power, and allowed the greedy to gain control of the church.
the church then received a negative connotation, (not the lowest, that wasn't until the renaissance)
though one group, martin luther and his wife, managed help the infected and managed to not get infected themselves.
while doing this he lead the protestant revolution.
it is estimated that about 5-15%(estimate) of the population was born immune to the disease.
so in regards to sanitation: partially, the hazmat suit wasn't invented yet, though they started to catch on and burn the bodies of the dead.
living to close: the contact with the infected was a big thing, sleeping in the same room as one would be a bad idea.
mostly it was the germ warfare of the mongols, the infected ship (most of the crew died, and the survivors died later after they had already infected more people)
but all that mostly happened the east and south east, it was the fleeing for safety that truly spread it around.
btw this was fun, i'm having to study for my western civilization final and this one of the things we covered. this was learned in a college class so alot of angles were covered.
It was when an a trade ship from India with rats that were infected with a disease from mosquitoes arrived and all of the workers on the ship were infected too. It spread all throughout Europe and another consequence besides death was loss of workers...although some people (those who were still alive) thought this was a good thing because their bosses needed workers so payment was negotiable to higher prices.