Bubonic Plague Dbq Essay

In 1347, rats on ships brought fleas infected with the bacillus that caused the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death. Within four years, between 1347 and 1351, the Death had spread across much of Europe. Between 25 and 50 percent of the population of Europe died of the disease. The Plague led to fanatical religious practices such as flagellation, when people whipped themselves to atone for the sins they believed had caused the disease.

The Bubonic Plague also known as the Black Death first appeared in England around 1347 AD. This horrible plague was spread by mainly by fleas. These fleas would live on animals such as sheep, cows, horses, and rats. The Black Death even impacted well known poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Due to this disease, Shakespeare lost his sisters, brothers, and his one and only son.

The primary source I chose for my analysis is “A Most Terrible Plague: Giovanni Boccaccio”. This document focuses on the account of how individuals acted when a plague broke out and hundreds of people were dying every day. This source is written by Giovanni Boccaccio as it is a story told by him and friends as they passed the time. Boccaccio discusses how “the plague had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc along the way, had now reached the west.” Readers of this source can assume there wasn’t much cures and medicinal technology weren’t used much during this time as even their physicians stayed away from the sick because once they got close they would also get sick.

The Black Death The Black Death was tragically devastating to the European Society, it affected many people. The Black Death is exactly what it sounds like. The Bubonic Plague (The Black Death) spread in Italy in the spring of 1348. The Black Death is a disease carried by bacteria, which is carried by fleas, on to rats, who pass it on to humans.

Therefore, the medicine and treatments that people received for the Black Death were more based upon prayer and miracles, for example, a fifteenth century Italian medical book suggests that plague victims should make a good death through their last rites rather than treating their body . This would have meant that victims would have accepted their fate and exposed themselves to other people, such as the priest that would come to administer their last rites, meaning that the more contagious part of the disease, the pneumonic plague, would have been passed on to more and more people. However, whilst some of the medicines had no use, others did help to prevent the spread of the disease and, while no one had any idea why, some people did survive being infected due to some of the treatments. Lancing the Black Death’s famous buboes was one such treatment .

Many factors played a key role in the extensive spread of the Black Death, or Bubonic plague, like insect bites or rodents, but the progressive trade networks were the most impactful. It started in Asia, in the 1300’s, but the new trade routes allowed it to spread across the Indian Ocean. Many people from many different backgrounds were negatively affected by this disease, and many didn’t know that they were exposed to the disease until it was too late. The Black Death had a variety of clinical forms, but no matter which type a person had, they were guaranteed death. This disease completely changed the medieval world and affected religions as well as many other ways of life or cultures.

The Black Death ravaged over 20 million people in China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt during the early 1340’s. Most of these people were in Europe; this was over ⅓ of the population at the time (“BLACK PLAGUE”). This was the First Pandemic of the Bubonic Plague, killing far more than any Pandemic to follow it. Given the knowledge of medicine and science during this era, the Black Plague spread like wildfire, and caused many hideous symptoms which led to several ineffective treatments. Luckily, scientists and doctors worked together to create a cure, and while the Bubonic Plague does still infect people to this day, the wave that killed countless Europeans died out by 1400 (“IN THE WAKE OF THE PLAGUE:

The reason the bubonic plague was so devastating to the European society is because no one was prepared for so many people to die so quickly. This event that reached Italy in the spring of 1348 was one of the most deeply stressing moments of humanity that faced most of Europe. No only did 50% of Europe’s population die it affected every single part of the European society. The culture, education, economy, religion, and the simplicity of life was turned upside down from this epidemic. Not only was were the symptoms of the plague bad, while you had the symptoms you suffered with the misery effects of the plague that there was no cure for.

Europe in the fifteen hundreds was a dangerous, local, hierarchic, tradition-bound, slow moving, and poor filled with the tasks of providence, salvation and community. Europe during the fifteen hundreds were a dangerous place; disease, famine, and violence all prevented the population of the era to live a long life. One of the major killers during the time was disease. Disease and plagues killed major parts of the population, the bubonic plague, for example, claimed the lives of perhaps a third of Europe’s population in five years.

Often as a result of overpopulation, pandemics—like swine flu and ebola, for instance—have affected life on Earth for centuries; one of the most well-known, and possibly the most unforgiving epidemics was the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death . Although the first symptoms of the Plague trace back to the Mongol Empire in 1331, the disease first struck Europe in Venice and Genoa during the winter of 1348. In the following years, the Bubonic Plague spread rapidly throughout Europe, killing roughly a third of its population. It is suggested that the rapid spread and extreme severity of the Black Death was partially due to the weakened immune system of the Europeans, which had been caused by the Great Famine, a period of food scarcity that affected Europe from 1315 to 1322. Additionally, the lack of knowledge about the spread of

With years much of the population was dying. 2. The symptoms of the Bubonic Plague or known as the Black Death killed many people as it started to spread around Europe. The plague lived in the stomach of the flea which rats had and

The pre-plague Syrian population was 1,200,000 with the death rate being 33%. The people who suffered from this diseases body’s were typically carried by biers and benches, although many people were dying and there was not an adequate amount of biers and benches to carry all the bodies. The bodies started being carried by wooden planks, ladders, doors, window shutters, and baskets. Sometimes a bier or a plank carried several bodies. (DBQ: The Black Death,

Pistoia had other ways of trying to prevent the spread of the disease such as, not allowing linens to travel outside the city, or bring linens into the city from outside sources. They would burn linens that they believed to be contaminated due to outside sources. Pistoia also had a very strict way to deal with the dead. They would ensure that the body was tightly

A Priest in Italy, Father Dragoni, provided for those with the plague by feeding the ill and paid guards to help with the recovery process. As a priest at that time, Father Dragoni worked with the state and people in high positions to help those who were impacted by the plague. He felt the obligation to help those to practice good deeds, most likely for salvation, an idea that was spread among the Catholics in Italy during that time. (Doc 9) The Plague Column, built after the Plague thanked God for ending it.

It was the Spring of 1348, and the citizens of Europe were malnourished due to limited food supplies for such a large population. This made them more susceptible to the outbreak of the Black Death. The Black Death originated in Asia, then moved westward into Sicily. From Sicily, the plague crept its way up through Europe infecting millions of people, in total killing more than one third of Europe’s population. In fact, over fifty percent of the population of Siena died, along with fifty percent of Paris, eighty percent of Florence, and over two thirds of Venice.