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Of the course of this class, I've had a fun time working on this Padlet. As I have mentioned a lot of times throughout the Padlet assignments,  Yersinia pestis is my favorite microbe, so there wasn't a lot that I didn't already know. I have always thought that how the Church treated the Plague as a punishment is as the most revealing thing about society at the time.
I did learn that in Milan, they bricked up the houses of people who were thought to have the disease, with the family still inside it, leaving them to die to the Plague or starve to death. I had previously thought the Duke had ordered the houses be burned down with them still inside, also brutal, but I feel like it's just the slightest bit better to be burned alive and die quickly than suffer for weeks.
On that note, I think a 'common misconceptions' area should have been included in the Padlet assignments. I know that so many diseases often have many misconceptions, and I think this would be a good place to work through some.

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The Black Plague is probably most wide-known ancient disease, at least in the west world. For good reason as well, over the course of a century, it killed nearly 70% of Europe population. With the death of so many people came a lot of changes. The average worker (that wasn't killed by the Plague) saw an increase in wages, as there were less people to work for the lords of various areas of land. Not only that, the prices of many different products dropped, as there wasn't as high of a demand. And because there were so few people around, workers saw an increase in their rights as no one was willing to risk loosing workers when there were already so few.

Society changed a bit as well. More and more people moved away from the Christian faith, as the religious sects either blamed the Plague on the people being impious, or kept saying that they would be saved through their religion soon, without any results.

Society didn't really learn much from the Plague, other than that contact with the diseased could potentially lead you contracting the disease as well, but the Plague happened centuries before Germ Theory even theorized, let alone was proved.

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While the Black Plague happened so long ago, there is still a lot to be said about how governments reacted.

Starting with Milan, Italy,  their response was interesting, but also horribly brutal. Whenever a person was displaying any sort of symptoms, their house was completely bricked up, with them inside it. While this was horrific, it did keep the Plague out of Milan for the most part. The ruler of Milan also enforced a pretty heavy isolationist policy during this time.

In many other countries, the leadership/churches starting blaming histories most significant scape goat, the Jewish. Many countries began to persecute and blame the Jewish people, causing them to flee to the only country who didn't persecute them, Poland. Ironically, Poland was spared much of the Plague. Poland was relatively isolated, and the king also enforced quarantines. Along with this, the Jewish brought in religious hand-washing, further stopping the spread of the Plague.

Clearly, some people we aware that quarantining was good for keeping the plague away, however, no where near enough governments were able to grasp that.

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Medical Advances during the Black Plague

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Medical Advances during the Black Plague

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When we think of the Black Plague, most of us bring to mind the funnily dressed plague doctors, with their black bird masks and long canes.

Many people think that the doctors that treated their patients were stupid. They blood let their patients, expecting that to heal them. They would allow patients to self flagellate to atone for there sins. And while that all seems very barbaric and unintelligent to us, they were doing the best they could with what knowledge they had.

The iconic plague doctor outfit was designed to keep the doctor's entire covered, the outer layer was even covered in wax to keep any kind of fluid out. The bird mask was filled with various herbs, trying to keep out the 'bad air.' This was all because they knew it was spread between people, they just didn't know how.

Among the horrifically incorrect medical treatments, people also quarantined. There were village wide quarantines, as well as smaller, individuals who quarantined.

In the modern day, we know how the Black Plague was and still is spread. We know that it is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and that is can be treated with antibiotics.

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Virulence in microbes is the ability to cause damage in the host body, basically how deadly a disease is.

Yersinia pestis is a very virulent disease. If left untreated it will kill nearly 100% of human hosts within 4 to 7 days, depending on which type of infection it causes.

The virulency has not changed much over time; however, with modern antibiotics the death rate of Yersinia pestis is much less likely to kill the host.

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The Black Plague spread through all of Europe except for Poland, Milan, and a mountain range in Spain. 

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The Black Plague started in Eastern Asia but spread to Europe in 1347 CE and continued until roughly around 1400 CE. Throughout those 50 years, over a third of Europe's population died of the disease, an estimated 25 million people.

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The bubonic plague first surfaced in China in 1347 and quickly spread throughout Europe via trade routes; however, the bacteria that causes the bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, was not discovered until June 20, 1894. It was discovered by Alexander Yersin.

The infectious agent for bubonic plague is a bacterium called Yersinia pestis.

Bubonic plague is considered a zoonotic disease, it is spread by fleas and small rodents.

https://www.pasteur.fr/en/research-journal/news/alexandre-yersin-man-who-discovered-bacterium-responsible-plague

https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Cause-and-outbreak

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/plague

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I will be researching and discussing Yersinia pestis, the disease that caused the Black Plague (it cause a lot of plagues, but I think we'll get to that later.)