A Dash of History on Black Death
Background Information
The Bubonic Plague is a serious bacterial disease that has killed over a billion people in it’s past. It was a huge threat back in the 1300s and in the general time before the renaissance, but now, it’s no longer intimidating families and communities. In the past, there have been three total pandemics, all of which were huge, but it is rumored that there smaller outbreaks throughout time. Entries in journals and diaries of generals, scholars, doctors, and merchants spoke about the ill, describing symptoms that fit into the Bubonic Plague. Because there is no cure, there are still traces of the Bubonic Plague around the world today. Even in America, deep in the New York sewers, rats become a breeding ground for the bacteria. Black Death, as it was nicknamed after it’s largest and most deadly outbreak, is believed to have kick-started the renaissance as well. In fact, the Bubonic Plague began a whole new era, affecting society, religion, literature, and even pop culture. Black Death is deadly, brutal, and absolutely horrifying, but it seems that there was light at the end of that tunnel.
The Bubonic Plague is a serious bacterial disease that has killed over a billion people in it’s past. It was a huge threat back in the 1300s and in the general time before the renaissance, but now, it’s no longer intimidating families and communities. In the past, there have been three total pandemics, all of which were huge, but it is rumored that there smaller outbreaks throughout time. Entries in journals and diaries of generals, scholars, doctors, and merchants spoke about the ill, describing symptoms that fit into the Bubonic Plague. Because there is no cure, there are still traces of the Bubonic Plague around the world today. Even in America, deep in the New York sewers, rats become a breeding ground for the bacteria. Black Death, as it was nicknamed after it’s largest and most deadly outbreak, is believed to have kick-started the renaissance as well. In fact, the Bubonic Plague began a whole new era, affecting society, religion, literature, and even pop culture. Black Death is deadly, brutal, and absolutely horrifying, but it seems that there was light at the end of that tunnel.
Previous Cases and Outbreaks
The Bubonic Plague, or Black Death as it is better known as, has appeared throughout the centuries in multiple outbreaks, the most well known being the Black Death outbreak of the 1340s. However, the very first notable outbreak was back in 542, Constantinople. An estimated 25 million to 50 million deaths were the result of the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on the land around the Mediterranean Sea, later migrating inland eastward into Asia Minor and west into Greece and Italy. During that time, the plague had been nicknamed the ‘Plague of Justinian’, after emperor Justinian I, who was infected but survived due to extreme treatment. The second outbreak, the most well known and the most remembered in history, was the Black Death pandemic of 1340. The pandemic killed about a third of the entire European population. People were dying left and right and it was harder to control than anything else doctors at the time had ever seen. The Black Death was believed to have originated in or near China and spread from Italy and then throughout other European countries. After a little more research, however, historians found that the outbreak actually originated from Mongolia, which had had a huge outbreak in the early 1330s. It’s believed that the disease was brought to China by a merchant carrying infected animals. The third outbreak was in the mid-19th century, originating again in Eastern Asia. It had initially Yunnan Province in China in 1855. The disease stayed localized in Southwest China for several years before spreading. In the city of Canton, beginning in March 1894, the disease killed 60,000 people in a few weeks. Daily water-traffic with the nearby city of Hong Kong rapidly spread the plague there, killing over 100,000 within two months.From China, the plague spread to the Indian Subcontinent around 1896. Over the next thirty years, India would lose 12.5 million people to the bubonic plague. Overall, the impact of plague epidemics was greatest in western and northern India—in the provinces then designated as Bombay, Punjab, and the United Provinces—while eastern and southern India were not as badly affected. Ultimately, more than 12 million people died from the plague in India. With so many outbreaks of such a deadly disease, it’s a general surprise that not more people died.
The Bubonic Plague, or Black Death as it is better known as, has appeared throughout the centuries in multiple outbreaks, the most well known being the Black Death outbreak of the 1340s. However, the very first notable outbreak was back in 542, Constantinople. An estimated 25 million to 50 million deaths were the result of the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on the land around the Mediterranean Sea, later migrating inland eastward into Asia Minor and west into Greece and Italy. During that time, the plague had been nicknamed the ‘Plague of Justinian’, after emperor Justinian I, who was infected but survived due to extreme treatment. The second outbreak, the most well known and the most remembered in history, was the Black Death pandemic of 1340. The pandemic killed about a third of the entire European population. People were dying left and right and it was harder to control than anything else doctors at the time had ever seen. The Black Death was believed to have originated in or near China and spread from Italy and then throughout other European countries. After a little more research, however, historians found that the outbreak actually originated from Mongolia, which had had a huge outbreak in the early 1330s. It’s believed that the disease was brought to China by a merchant carrying infected animals. The third outbreak was in the mid-19th century, originating again in Eastern Asia. It had initially Yunnan Province in China in 1855. The disease stayed localized in Southwest China for several years before spreading. In the city of Canton, beginning in March 1894, the disease killed 60,000 people in a few weeks. Daily water-traffic with the nearby city of Hong Kong rapidly spread the plague there, killing over 100,000 within two months.From China, the plague spread to the Indian Subcontinent around 1896. Over the next thirty years, India would lose 12.5 million people to the bubonic plague. Overall, the impact of plague epidemics was greatest in western and northern India—in the provinces then designated as Bombay, Punjab, and the United Provinces—while eastern and southern India were not as badly affected. Ultimately, more than 12 million people died from the plague in India. With so many outbreaks of such a deadly disease, it’s a general surprise that not more people died.
Statistically Speaking...
The chance of a healthy person contracting Black Death these days are extremely rare. Unless they like swimming in the sewers or dumpster diving, it's going to be pretty hard to find rats with infected fleas buried in their fur. But there is a chance. Yes, it is 1 in a million, but there's always a chance... so don't go swim in the sewers and don't go find spare clothes in the dumpsters.
The chance of a healthy person contracting Black Death these days are extremely rare. Unless they like swimming in the sewers or dumpster diving, it's going to be pretty hard to find rats with infected fleas buried in their fur. But there is a chance. Yes, it is 1 in a million, but there's always a chance... so don't go swim in the sewers and don't go find spare clothes in the dumpsters.