The Black Death and Changes of Society Essay

How different areas were affected by different diseases

The black death ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351 taking a proportionately greater toll on life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time. Because some places were so remote, like villages in Poland, the black death didn’t reach them. It would take a very long time for infected hosts to travel to remote locations. Not many people traveled to these villages, so they were spared. Also, places separated by a lot of water, and where people did not know existed were spared, like Australia. Islamic regions were highly impacted by the black death.

There were many effects from the black death, although some weren't bad. The trade suffered for a short time as there weren't as many people to trade with and peasants had to work harder to grow the crops. As the peasants had to work harder, they got pay rises and went higher in the feudal hierarchy. Wars were temporarily abandoned meaning that there weren't many significant events straight after the black death.

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As the black death headed north, the people who originally had diseases would have most likely had the bubonic plague and maybe the septicemic plague. As it traveled north, people would have started to get the pneumonic plague which is caused by sneezing or coughing on someone and traveling in their lungs.

How Medieval Diseases Travelled

The black death came from the port city of Messina on the island of Sicily in October 1347. It originated in Asia and traveled through the East. Now it would spread into Europe. Medieval people blamed the plague for most things including foul hair, a glance from an infected person, and the wrath of God. People think the disease was spread by rats containing fleas that had bacteria in the stomachs, but the disease was spread by humans. Rats only introduced the disease, they didn’t spread it.

In a study published in January 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists tested the three ways the disease could have been spread: rats, airborne transmission, and fleas and ticks that humans carry around with them on their bodies and clothes. Fleas and ticks latching on to people was the conclusion. When traders would come to a place that was infected by the black death, as soon as they would come near someone infected, they would become infected as well. These traders didn't know this, so they would go back to their home town and then it would spread in there as well. This is how the diseases were mainly spread.

It was estimated that around 800 people died a day in Paris, France. There were so many people dying that they had to start burying them in pits. The bubonic plague is the most common. You get it when a rodent or a flea bites you. It infects your lymphatic system which is a part of your immune system. The septicemic plague is when bacteria enter your bloodstream and multiply. It is not contagious. Pneumonic plague is when bacteria spread into the lungs. It is the most lethal form of the disease. When people with the pneumonic plague cough and someone breathes it in, they can get an epidemic.

What different diseases are caused by and what where the diseases

There are three plagues in the black death: bubonic plague, septicemic plague, and pneumonic plague. The bubonic plague is the most common and is caused by bacteria in a flea or rodent when it bites you. It impacts your immune system, in particular your lymphatic system. Symptoms from this plague can include; fever and chills, headache, muscle pain, general weakness, and seizures. The 2nd worst plague is the septicemic plague which is very contagious and is caused by bacteria getting into your bloodstream and multiplying. Some symptoms from the septicemic plague include; fever and chills, extreme weakness, abdominal pain, bleeding, shock, and blackening of skin. The pneumonic plague is the least common plague and is extremely dangerous as it spreads so easily. Symptoms include; coughing, difficulty breathing, nausea, fever, headaches, weakness, and chest pain. This disease progresses rapidly and can lead to death within 2 days.

Other diseases that occurred in the Middle Ages include dysentery, malaria, diphtheria, flu, typhoid, smallpox, and leprosy. Most of these diseases are now rare in Britain, although some other diseases are now rare that weren't before. There were so many diseases in the Middle Ages as they had poor hygiene and didn't have a proper diet. In the Middle Ages, scurvy was a large problem. The shortage of Vitamin C causes scurvy. Fruits were very expensive for the peasants meaning they rarely had them.

People's food and water were infected with water which led them to get dysentery, typhoid fever, or cholera. Diseases such as measles, smallpox, and chicken pox were very unfamiliar meaning that they spread rapidly. In the Middle Ages, leprosy was one of the most threatening diseases of all. People with leprosy were excluded from the world and were put in houses called leproseries. Lepers had to wear a special dress and would rattle their clappers or bells to warn people they were coming. It was the church's responsibility to take care of the people with this disease.

How hygiene played a role in some diseases

The diseases that were in the Middle Ages were mainly caused by bad hygiene. Peasants in the Middle Ages didn't have a variety and sufficient food, clean water, or food. they rarely took baths (once a week) and they had rotten teeth. As there was no knowledge of germs or how diseases spread in the Middle Ages, the Church explained away illness as ‘divine retribution’ for leading a sinful life. A lack of hygiene amongst medieval people led to horrific skin complaints.

Poor people washed in cold water, without soap, so this did little to prevent infection. The more disfiguring skin diseases were generally classed as leprosy. Leprosy destroys the extremities of the body. Leprosy was not the only disease that could affect someone in this way: the affliction known as St Anthony's fire could also to this. Sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis were common among all social classes. Symptoms included unsightly skin rashes, recurring bouts of fever, blindness, mental illness, and ultimately, death. Whilst the poor had to make do with traditional herbal remedies and superstition to cure their ailments, the rich could afford to pay physicians.

If you were lucky and were born into a royal family, you had access to hot water as well. Royal families bathed more than most, as some kings would have special rooms set aside for bathing. As for the commoners, they were lucky to submerge themselves in plain water with a rag, because gathering clean water was very difficult at the time. Several people may enjoy the bath before the water is thrown out! Bad hygiene and lack of proper sewage methods were a definite factor in the Black Death, without a doubt. However, London for example was a crowded, bustling city with a population of around 70,000. The sanitation in London was extremely poor and living conditions were filthy.

How animals played a role in some diseases

The black Death's cause was recently confirmed by molecular research to have been Yersinia pestis, the plague bacterium, carried by rodents and passed among them (and to humans) by fleas. The black plague still exists as an endemic infection of rodents in many parts of the world, excluding Australia. It can still be passed the humans although it is easily treated with antibiotics. In the Middle Ages, doctors would treat the plague by letting blood out. This didn't cure it and in some cases made it worse as they didn't sterilize the needles and the open wounds would easily get infected.

Seemingly, acute infectious diseases common to people and cattle, though rare in the modern era, were not unusual in early medieval Europe. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that non-bovine livestock died in some early medieval bovine and human–bovine plagues.

The study, published on Monday in the journal PNAS, instead points the finger at human parasites, such as fleas and body lice for primarily spreading plague bacteria during the Second Pandemic, a series of devastating outbreaks that spanned from the 1300s to the early 1800s. When fleas infected with the bacterium Yersinia pestis bite humans, the bacteria can jump into the bloodstream and congregate in humans’ lymph nodes, which are found throughout the body. The infection causes lymph nodes to swell into ghastly “buboes,” the namesakes for bubonic plague.

When a rat that had the plague dies, its parasites abandon the corpse and may go on to bite humans or other rodents. As an alternative, some scholars have long toyed with the idea that fleas on humans spread the Black Death. If fleas and lice picked up the plague by biting an infected human, they could potentially hop onto a person in close quarters and transmit the disease.

Immunity to diseases

After you got the black plague, you were no longer immune to it so couldn't get it. Smallpox and measles caused a great deal of suffering. The number of people dying from measles and smallpox gradually declined during the Middle Ages. People developed an immunity to these infections and by the 14th century, it was mainly children who died from measles and smallpox. However, it was a new disease, against which people had no immunity, that led to what has been described as the 'worst disaster in the history of the world.' This disease, which was later to become known as the Black Death broke out in southern China in the early 1330s.

The Black Death then moved on to India. Travelers returning from this country told how whole communities had been destroyed by the disease. These stories stimulated terrible fears in Europe. Many people believed that the disease was a sign of the end of the world.

Devastating epidemics that swept Europe during the Middle Ages seem to have had an unexpected benefit leaving 10% of today's Europeans resistant to HIV infection. The disease, Yersinia pestis, the disease of the black plague might give people now carrying the mutation increased resistance to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) compared to non-carriers. Scientists have figured out that the genetic mutation prevents the virus from entering the cells of the immune system but have been unable to account for the high levels of the gene in Scandinavia and relatively low levels in areas bordering the Mediterranean.

How religion played a part in diseases (both the Catholic Church and Islam)

During the Middle Ages, religion came to dominate all aspects of life throughout much of Europe. The Christian church established monasteries, which served as hospitals, and later began to provide training for doctors. At the same time, medical schools based on Islamic practice were gaining a high reputation at centers like Salerno in Italy and Montpellier in France. In Europe, during the Middle Ages, the only recognized religion was Christianity, in the form of the Catholic religion. The church also helped medicine in the medieval period because it cared for the sick. They believed that they must care for the sick as Christ would. The lives of the Medieval people of the Middle Ages were dominated by the church. The Christian Church saw it as the duty of all Christians to help the sick and needy, but they had no particular method for treating disease beyond faith and prayer.

The population relied on local healers, who were often women. By 1200, the training of doctors had become established, in universities in Western Europe which were controlled by the Church. The work of Galen was translated from Greek into Arabic and then into Latin. His ideas about medicine fitted well with Christian beliefs by abiding by a set of pre-determined natural laws. By and large, the Christian church during this period resisted any change. Dissection, for example, was forbidden until the 14th century, and even then it was strictly controlled.

The Islamic religious influence was more positive in the Middle Ages. Islam reached the peak of its civilization in AD1000, with Baghdad as its capital. Based on the Qur'an, the religion gave clear instructions on social responsibilities, such as the rich providing for the poor, and the healthy caring for the sick. On this principle, many hospitals were founded.

At the same time, medical scholars greatly admired the works of the Greek doctors Galen and Hippocrates. They applied the Greek methods of observation to their treatments of disease. Rhazes was the first doctor to identify smallpox and measles in 900AD. Alchemists found new ways of purifying chemicals in their attempts to create gold. In Islamic cultures at least, religion furthered some aspects of the treatment of disease.

How people changed after diseases

The first main impact of the Black Death was the sheer number of people that died. Historians agree that Europe’s population dropped by half in the first several decades of the Black Death, and this had a huge impact on social and family life for communities throughout Europe. For example, because people did not have a clear understanding of the causes of the plague they often went to the aid of their family members that became ill. This, of course, led to the caretakers also becoming sick after being bitten by the infected fleas. As such, people soon learned to avoid those who were showing symptoms of the plague. This situation meant that families and whole communities were often ripped apart as they tried to avoid the disease. As well, communal activities such as gathering for church and trading in marketplaces became difficult and dangerous.

The second major impact of the Black Death was the economic loss or effect that resulted from the spread of the plague. Marketplaces and trade in general suffered. For example, some of the hardest-hit areas in Europe and Asia were trading ports along the coast of the Mediterranean. These cities were often hotbeds for the plague since this was where the rats and mice that carried the fleas arrived after having stowed away on trading ships. This reality meant that trade in these port cities slowed as merchants and traders suffered.

The third major impact of the Black Death was political. The nature of the plague meant that it impacted everyone equally. It did not matter if people were wealthy or poor, the plague spread to all people of all classes. As well, the massive death tolls put massive amounts of pressure on the monarchs across Europe to deal with the crisis. This strained the political structures of many countries and kingdoms and led to political crisis.

The fourth major impact of the Black Death was the effect it had on art. For example, the image on the side is called ‘The Dance of Death’ and was created by Michael Wohlgemuth in 1493. Artistic images such as this emerged out of the period and display the focus that art took on death, which was a common reality for the people.

What can increase your chance of getting a disease in the Middle Ages Throughout the Middle Ages, they weren't very privileged meaning there were quite a few things that could increase your chance of getting a disease in the Middle Ages that they didn't even know. Some ways were;

Poor hygiene would make people very sick and smelly. Peasants rarely had baths and when they did, they shared with up to ten people and bathed in cold water. There was no soap for the peasants so they had to make do with other things they could find that would make them somewhat clean. As for the royals, they had baths regularly in hot water though they still got diseases regularly.

People in the middle ages didn't know what a sufficient diet was so they didn't have the necessary amount of food. The food that the peasants would eat would sometimes be rotten or not good. The royals got more food than everyone but still didn't have the right proportions. Everything was grown by the peasants who didn't get paid very much for the hard work they would be putting in to grow crops.

The way that doctors would cure some diseases also could increase the likelihood of getting a disease. Doctors thought that when you were sick, you had an imbalance in the four humors. If they thought you had too much blood, they would take a needle and let some blood out. This was called bloodletting. The needles that were used were unsterilized meaning that diseases would pass from person to person. Another issue with bloodletting is that the open wound could get infected leaving you with another disease.

The lack of cleaning also led to people getting sick. In a church, they wouldn't wash the floor for around 20 years! They would see it as getting rid of holy spirits. Germs were everywhere in the Middle Ages as they didn’t clean their houses very often either.