The+Black+Death+-+Symptoms+&+Treatments

Word of the plague spread like wild fire. As more people heard of this infectious disease, more and more people started to panic. The people in Europe were very religious, therefor, they were very superstitious. At first, the Europeans believed that the plague was God’s wrath. People believed that they were being punished for their sins. To repent for their sins a group of German’s called, the Flagellants, would whip themselves in public places while peasants gathered around them to pray. Flagellants also set up new rules: No drinking, No sex, No gambling, and beg for God’s forgiveness. However, these men were like celebrities in the Middle ages, and would break these rules afterwards. Later, for defying the original Church, these people were beheaded.

"Reaction to the Black Death"

The Europeans later found someone else to blame: the Jews. Jewish people were tortured, killed, and thrown out of villages. People believed that they were the cause their misfortune and that they poisoned the water. Some Jewish people were even burned alive. Priests also were drawn back from this disease. For fear of infection, priests stopped giving the dead their burial prayers. In the Middle Ages, dying without this prayer would dam a person to hell. It wasn’t just the priests that turned their backs, the wealthy as well. Whenever a village became too infected, the wealthy would move somewhere else. The peasants were mostly affected by this disease.

[|1320: Section 6: The Black Death] The reason why people called the bubonic plague the: “The Black Death” was because the infection altered colors and looked almost like a bruise except it was the color black and continually swelled. The bubonic plague impacted the human body by causing swelling and spreading continually swelling until the infection caused a “bursting.” The infection was easily spread by blood. When the swelling of the infection happened to burst or “pop” the blood and pus inside the swelling was highly infectious, therefore, was contagious. Some symptoms of the disease are swelling of parts of the body, fever, trembling, physical weakness, slurred speech, headaches, coated tongue, coughing, dry throats, and continuous swelling of black buboes (Latin) or Bilbo (Italian).

[|1320: Section 6: The Black Death]

As mentioned before, the swelling on the body were blackish-blue and very sensitive; they were usually near the armpit, groin, or on the thigh. In these buboes the dead blood and pus builds up inside and start to spread causing the swelling to become more enlarged. The size ranged to about a ping pong ball, however sometimes the swellings were even worse and tended to be the size of a “softball.” Usually the victim wouldn’t get any feeling of sickness and such when the victim had the disease; however after a couple of days the symptoms would develop and it would be extremely difficult for the victim to be cured. The disease tended to affect the people who were the most exposed (to outside).

Attempting to heal the patients in need of curing, doctors and priests were needed. The doctors however feared that they would receive the disease and therefore, were dressed abnormally and wore scary masks and covered themselves from head to toe. The doctors were feared of recieving the disease when helping the patients. They wore long bird-like beaks and wore a "jewel" of a sort on their eye area so that they would not look at the patient's eyes directly. Some people tried to “pop” the swelling of the buboes which resulted to the victim’s death because of the pain and from the toxic and the dead blood and pus that comes out of the swelling was contagious, therefore the people who came in direct contact could receive the bubonic plague. There were certain herbs that protected patients and doctors when breathing the air, an attempt to “clean” the air of any contamination of the bubonic plague. These herbs and flowers petals were inside the bird-like beaks. [|Henry Knighton, The Impact of the Black Death] Some people were able to recover and survive, however it wasn’t for long. They were only able to live for not even a week (4~5 days). Some people had a special and very rare DNA in their body that made them immune to the certain bacteria of the bubonic plague. However, it was very occasional and rarely and hardly ever happened.

Medicine in the Middle Ages was not that advanced, doctors were not ready for the plague. There were two kinds of treatments, though, that were used in hopes of curing the disease: leeches and bloodletting. The leach method is well known; doctors believed that the leeches would suck out the bad blood. In return, the body would make healthy blood. Bloodletting is very similar, instead of leeches; doctors would just cut patients to let the blood out. When infected with the plague, the blood had an awful smell, and was black with a little green. Again, doctors hoped that healthy blood would take its place. Many patients died through this method because they lost too much blood. There were other treatments too, but not to treat the whole plague. There were some remedies that were thought to get rid of plague symptoms. For headache, doctors would mix bay, lavender, rose, and sage. Lung infection was treated with liquorice and comfrey. To treat nausea, doctors would make a remedy made of mint, balm, and wormwood. Then there was vinegar, it was rumored to clean the infection out of the infected. There were some ideas that were thought to get rid of the boils from the plague. After poking a hole in the boil, a doctor would try to put mixtures of lily root, garlic, and onions in the hole. Some went as far as to put arsenic and dried toad into the boils. Since none of the European methods of treatment were working, doctors started to import some ingredients. From the New World, tobacco was sent and used like a medicine. Of course, it didn't work.