Course Description:
The Black Death was a plague that flipped the world upside down. It occurred from 1347 to 1350. Scholars state that it killed anywhere from 75 – 200 million lives. The plagued travelled all throughout Europe, North Africa and China. It was also given the name “The Great Pestilence.” Many documents blame this mortality on the rats. The Black Death operated as if it had a mind of its own and selected individuals, households, neighborhoods or cities at its own discretion. When a person was afflicted with the disease it was quickly noticeable. The signs of infection were shown by what they called “buboes.” These buboes would grow anywhere in size from a small apple to an egg. Documents state that these large bumps would be filled with puss usually of a blue or black color. They were a certain sign of death. The bumps were a signaling to a countdown clock to expiration. Anyone who caught the disease was only expected to live from 5 minutes to 3 days. They could die at any given second.
Documenting the names and numbers of who passed from the mortality was a difficult task. Many did not receive a Catholic burial as the priests were scared to visit in some regions and in others the people died too quick and unpredictably for them to arrive on time. The numbers were tremendous. In France alone up to 10,000 people died in a week. A person died as a number and usually nameless. The mortality was quick and swift. We will be discussing the numbers of deaths in many regions all throughout Europe and how they got rid of the bodies in an orderly fashion. Families were known to take dead relatives to the pits in the center of the town themselves. There were also gravediggers who road by ringing a bell for the dead to be taken out of homes and would collect them in big carts to take them to the grave pits. In deserted towns the putrid bodies just lay in the streets.
It is true that the animals were affected by the mortality as well. Wolves would sometimes attack the survivors and in other times they were repelled by the stench of the rotten bodies. Dogs, cats and cows also died from the conditions. Fever delirium drove women to run the streets nude in some areas in other areas they acted as if it wasn’t real and continued to play games, drink what was left, dance and be merry. A large percentage of our modern day socialism was designed from plague like experiences. Phrases such as “feedem with a long handled spoon” “can't trust em, as far as I could throw em” or even phrases like “for christs sake,” all come from plague experiences. The majority of the activity that fulfilled our modern day cartoons also comes from these experiences, for instance: turning stiff and fainting, or “being scared to death” or having a white streak in the hair from a fear shock. There was a lot of crime that occurred during these times. Especially with the “nurses” who have a mass amount of reports of killing off patients similar to activity they conduct today. All of these things will be spoken about in detail during the course.
The Plague Doctors were an odd character that was designed to battle the plague. We will talk about his purpose and the imagery of his long beak. Medicines and the origins of vaccinations will be discussed as well. The expansion of hospitals were done during these times. The plague assisted in the advancement of medical sciences and its speed in practice. We will discuss on how this was done and who the original hospitalers were. There were many different forms of remedies that were rumored to be effective and we will details some of these, as the majority were herb related.