Black+Plague

Is the plague really gone? People at the time considered the plague so powerful and destructive that it was thought to be sent by something that was not from this earth. They thought that God was punishing them for their sins. This study about the Black Plague may interest you.
 * The Bubonic Plague--Death by Fleas**

The plague started in [|medieval China] where the mountainous population was a fine breeding place for fleas. The plague then left China on boats headed for Europe, left on the rats that took refuge in the boats. Once in Europe, the fleas were exported all around the areas of the country. They then started to breed. That was when the real problem began. When the fleas turned into adults, they would be implanted with the germ when they would mate with other infected fleas.

When a human was bitten, they would start to develop [|buboes], blood filled boils on the skin. The person or people in the house who were infected would then be placed under quarantine. The doctors would then be brought. They didn’t help much, because their methods usually involved bleeding the patient to death. Once the patient was dead, the family would be placed in a locked house with no openings and no food was delivered so they would eventually die of hunger or thirst.

The burial places were limited, because over 7000 people died each day. So to make room the town leaders would carve giant holes to fill with the bodies. The rich were lucky enough to have coffins, but still even they were buried in these giant holes.

Back then if you were caught in the plague’s way you would almost always lose an employee, employer, brother, sister, mother or father. The higher ranks of people (e.g. kings, queens, lords and ladies) were wasting their money by buying so called “magic” potions and so called “magic” spells that were supposed to help them in being protected from the plague, but they never actually got any protection. When the bodies were placed outside the mansions of the rich, they would wear long plastic noses that held herbs that were thought to ward away the plague. The peasants were losing their numbers fast and because of this they all asked for higher payments, higher living standards and better food. The denials of the rulers started to anger the peasants, causing them to revolt.

There were three forms of the plague, the [|bubonic], the pneumatic, and the [|septicemia]. Those three were the ones who nearly destroyed more than half of Europe’s population. The plague then returned in three other moments in history, but not as deadly as this epidemic.

Once the plague had finally died down, the first explorers brave enough to visit the villages were shocked to see that some of the villages had almost half their original people still there! This boggled scientists for years, because so many had died in the years of the plague, but all these had survived. Now that we have our technology, scientists have found that there might have been a special gene in each one of those people called [|DELTA 32] that would destroy the plague virus. Then those people would be fully protected from the virus. Nowadays doctors have found a cure for this deadly epidemic. Life during the plague was hard since they didn’t have the medicines we do; the doctors were basically killing the patient. Many people were destroyed during this period of time, and many families were ripped apart.
 * After the Plague**

After the plague was finished, people still would not visit their original villages in fear of the plague attacking them again. When people did start to return to their villages, they, again, were shocked to see sometimes over half the people were there! Slowly, the villagers built a new life, but they still had to bury more dead bodies that were left from the plague. Soon, the villages were rebuilt and their people were living almost their old, daily lives. Finally, the plague was diminished, and all the people went back to living normal, healthy lives.
 * Rebuilding A New Life**

Corvine, Phyllis. __The Black Death__. San Diego CA.: 1997 "Secrets of the Dead." __www.pbs.com__. Educational Broadcasting Corp. 15 Feb 2007
 * Citations**