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The Black Death


             Dead people littered the streets of China, Europe, and Asia everywhere. Cattle and livestock strayed through the country unattended. Families deserted their own blood. All of this calamity for one reason, The Black Death.
             The Black Death started in China in the early 1300's. Plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people when the rodent they were living on died. Once people are infected, the illness spreads quickly. Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outburst of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of the plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England, where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it formed on the skin. .
             There were three types of the plague, bubonic, pneumatic, and septicemic. All forms were caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. Bubonic was the most common of the three. The mortality rate was 30-75%. The symptoms were enlarged and inflamed lymph nodes (around arm pits, neck and groin). 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.
             The pneumonic plague was the second most commonly seen form of the Black Death. The pneumonic and the septicemic plague were probably seen less then the bubonic plague because the victims often died before they could reach other places (this was caused by the inefficiency of transportation).


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