INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE BLACK DEATH
1. The exact death toll of The Black Death is difficult to know. The number of deaths was different depending on the place and the source. Current estimates are that between 75 and 200 million people died from the plague throughout Europe and Asia. |
2. The name "Black Death" is recent. During the plague, it was called "the Great Mortality" or "the Pestilence." |
3. Even though the main period of The Black Death ended in 1351, smaller and less lethal outbreaks continued for centuries and the disease did not fully disappear until the 1600s |
4. Many doctors believed that bad smells could drive out the plague. Some of the treatment for the disease included dung and urine, as well as other ingredients that were more likely to spread disease than to cure it. |
5. Other ways that people tried to prevent or cure the plague were to be happy and avoid bad thoughts, drink good wine, avoid eating fruit, put fragrant herbs in beverages, avoid lechery, do not abuse the poor, eat and drink in moderation and to maintain a household in accordance with a person’s status.
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6. Y. pestis causes three varieties of plague: Bubonic plague, caused by bites from infected fleas, where the bacteria moves to lymph nodes and quickly multiplies, forming growths, or buboes; Pneumonic plague, a lung infection that makes its victim cough blood and spread the bacteria from person to person; and Septicemic plague, a blood infection that is almost always fatal. |
7. The mortality rate for people who caught the bubonic plague was 30-75%. For the pneumonic plague it was 90-95%. The Septicemic plague killed nearly 100% of the people it infected and still has no cure to this day. |
8. Apart from the plague being a punishment from God, a lot of well-educated people also believed the plague was caused by pockets of bad air released by earthquakes or by an unfavourable alignment of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius on March 20, 1345. |
9. During the course of the plague, thousands of Jews were exiled or murdered. In one German city, Strasbourg all the Jews in the city were asked to convert to christianity. Those that did not were burned at the stake. About 2,000 died. |
10. Once the Black Death had subsided, plague epidemics kept on occuring in Europe. For example, in 1665, London was struck by The Great Plague, which killed thousands of people. And in the 1890s, a third pandemic began in China and India and eventually reached the US During this pandemic the cause of the disease was discovered, as well as a cure. Even today, plague still survives in the modern world, with Y. Pestis found in Asia, Russia and Southwest America, and other places where the host rats and fleas live. But nowadays plague is rarely fatal.
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