Bodies are piled in the streets; tortuous groans are heard echoing throughout the streets and boarded-up houses. The cause of all this? The bubonic plague, commonly known as the Black Death or The Plague. The plague ravaged Europe and even the British Isles where it lingered for years but not idly. Traces of this disease are even found today. But the fact of the matter is that the Black Death profoundly affected the world in which we live in today.
What exactly is the bubonic plague and where did it spread? To be specific, the bubonic plague is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia Pestis. This virus was carried by rats who were hosts to fleas on board trading ships from China during 1345-1348. The plague was extremely contagious due to its nature of spreading through moisture droplets floating through air. By the time 1348 had come to an end, the plague had hit Marseilles, France. By 1350, the plague had spread from the eastern steppes of Asia to Europe, into central Spain.
The plague was a terrible disease. Symptoms of the plague included a high fever, muscular pains, severe headaches, and circular swellings of lymph glands called buboes in the groin, armpits, or neck. These buboes became reddened and were painful to the touch. More symptoms include seizures, coughing up blood, vomiting, and fatigue. Victims of the plague usually die within six days of contracting the symptoms (Kotton, pg 1). .
During 14th century Europe, the general populous was ignorant, uneducated, and most of all, superstitious. When the plague hit, people thought it was the end of the world and God's way of punishing all the "sin" they had committed. Strange radical cults were even formed whose members physically punished themselves to be spared from God's wrath and purged of sin. Because people were so uneducated, they in fact spread the disease even more than it should have. It was believed that since cleaning yourself and bathing opened the pores on your skin, you could contract the disease more easily, so the general consensus was not to bathe.