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Limit trade or stop it all together

Inforce quarantine if infected

Inforce mask (The Black Mask specifically)

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The majority of people were peasants that worked on farms.

The women in peasant families used a wood wheel to spin wool and make cloths.

The children in peasant families spent most of their time helping their parents with day-to-day activities, instead of going to school. They worked jobs in the house, looked after animals, and helped grow food.

Peasant's homes were small and often made up of one room. They usually were made up of a wattle (A framework for a wall or fence made from woven twigs), a daub (Plaster, clay, or another substance used for coating a surface, especially when mixed with straw), and thatch (a roof covering made of straw).

Peasants had to give 10% of what they made on their land to the church.

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Peasant homes were small, often just made up of one room. A peasant's hut was made of and , with a roof but no windows. Inside the hut, a third of the area was penned off for the animals, which lived in the hut with the family. A fire burned in a hearth in the centre of the hut, so the air was permanently eye-wateringly smoky. Furniture was maybe a couple of stools, a trunk for bedding, and a few cooking pots.

Women in peasant families learnt to spin wool from an early age, using wooden wheels to make clothes.

Children spent most of their time helping their parents with day-to-day activities. Rather than going to school, they worked on jobs in the house, looked after animals and helped grow food.

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Peasant homes were small, often just made up of one room. A peasant's hut was made of and , with a roof but no windows. Inside the hut, a third of the area was penned off for the animals, which lived in the hut with the family.

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In 17th-century Europe, the physicians who tended to the plague wore a costume that has since taken on ominous implications

It was a protection of the plague so it would not get in their lungs and nostrils.

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Introduction

Medieval people called the catastrophe of the 14th century either the "Great Pestilence"' or the "Great Plague." Writers contemporary to the plague referred to the event as the "Great Mortality." Swedish and Danish chronicles of the 16th century described the events as "black" for the first time, likely to refer to black as glum or dreadful denoting the terror of the events. The German physician Justus Hecker suggested that a mistranslation of the Latin atra mors (terrible, or black, death) had occurred in Scandinavia when he described "The Black Death in the 14th century." Black Death became more widely used in the German- and English-speaking worlds.

The Death Toll

In October 1347, a ship came from the Crimea and Asia and docked in Messina, Sicily. Aboard the ship were not only sailors but rats. The rats brought with them the Black Death, the bubonic plague. Reports that came to Europe about the disease indicated that 20 million people had died in Asia. Knowing what happened in Europe, this was probably an underestimate, because there were more people in Asia than Europe. Best estimates now are that at least 25 million people died in Europe from 1347 to 1352. This was almost 40% of the population (some estimates indicate 60%). Half of Paris's population of 100,000 people died. In Italy, Florence's population was reduced from 120,000 inhabitants in 1338 to 50,000 in 1351. The plague was a disaster practically unequalled in the annals of recorded history and it took 150 years for Europe's population to recover.

The Plague Doctor Costume

The plague doctor costume consisted of an ankle length overcoat, a bird-like beak mask filled with sweet or strong smelling substances, along with gloves and boots. The mask had glass openings for the eyes. Straps held the beak in front of the doctor's nose which had two small nose holes and was a type of respirator. The beak could hold dried flowers (e.g roses or carnations), herbs (e.g. mint), spices, camphor or a vinegar sponge. The purpose of the mask was to remove bad smells, thought to be the principal cause of the disease. Doctors believed the herbs would counter the "evil" smells of the plague and prevent them from becoming infected. The costume included a wide brimmed leather hat to indicate their profession. They used wooden canes to point out areas needing attention and to examine patients without touching them. The canes were also used to keep people away and to remove clothing from plague victims without having to touch them.

Three Forms of the Plague

Three forms of the plague brought an array of signs and symptoms to those infected:

Bubonic plague refers to the painful lymph node swellings called buboes, primarily found around the base of the neck, in the armpits and groin which oozed pus and bled. Victims underwent damage to the skin and underlying tissue until they were covered in dark blotches. Most victims died within four to seven days after infection. When the plague reached Europe, it first struck port cities and then followed the trade routes, both by sea and land. The bubonic plague was the most commonly seen form during the Black Death, with a mortality rate of 30-75% and symptoms including fever of 38 - 41 °C (101-105 °F), headaches, painful aching joints, nausea and vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise. Of those who contracted the bubonic plague, 4 out of 5 died within eight days.

The pneumonic plague is an airborne plague that attacks the lungs before the rest of the body. Pneumonic plague was the second most commonly seen form during the Black Death with a mortality rate of ninety to ninety-five percent.

The septicaemic plague is a form of deadly blood poisoning. The disease is contracted primarily through the bite of an infected insect. Septicemic plague can cause disseminated intravascular coagulation, and is almost always fatal; the mortality rate in medieval times was 99-100 percent. Septicemic plague is the rarest of the three plague varieties.

The bubonic plague mechanism was dependent on two populations of rodents: one resistant to the disease, which acts as hosts, keeping the disease endemic; and a second that lacks resistance. When the second population dies, the fleas move on to other hosts, including people, thus creating a human epidemic. The original carrier for the plague-infected fleas thought to be responsible for the Black Death was the black rat. The bacterium responsible for the Black Death, Yersinia pestis, was commonly endemic in only a few rodent species and is usually transmitted zoonotically by the rat flea. Brown rats may suffer from plague, as can many non-rodent species, including dogs, cats, and humans.

The Nuremberg Chronicle

The burning of Jews in the 14th century during the black death (bubonic plague). Jews were perceived as being less susceptible to the plague than their neighbours (likely the result of Jewish ritual regarding personal hygiene) and they were accused of poisoning Christian wells: thought to be the source of the plague.

Page CCXXX, English Translation:
"The miserable wretched Jews, in A.D. 1337, at Deckendorf, on the Danube, in Bavaria, in scorn and ignominy of the divine majesty and high veneration paid to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the holy Christian religion, stabbed the Holy Sacrament many times. They then threw it into a hot oven, and as it remained unconsumed, they finally placed it on an anvil and struck it with hammers. When this became known, the Jews were seized by Hartmann von Degenberg, the caretaker, and the citizens; and when the truth was established, they were deservedly condemned to death. And this same Host, being present at the Holy Sepulchre, is venerated for its many miracles.
Thereafter, in the year A.D. 1348, all the Jews in Germany were burned, having been accused of poisoning the wells, as many of them confessed.

At this time locusts and vermin passed through the sky from east to west like a thick cloud, devastating all vegetation and fruits; and after they were dispersed the stench caused a horrible pestilence.

A pitiful and lamentable pestilence began in the year 1348 and endured for three years throughout the world. It resulted from the aforesaid locusts or vermin. It started in India and spread as far as England, ravaging Italy and France, and finally Germany and Hungary. The mortality was so rapid and great that barely ten persons out of every thousand survived. In some regions only about one third of the population escaped. Many cities, towns, marts and villages died out entirely and remained void. Some said that the Jews increased this calamity by poisoning the wells."

Page CCLXIIII, English Translation:

"Nothing is better than death, nothing is worse than an unjust life.
Death, the best for men, the everlasting rest from labors,
You loosen the yoke of old age by the will of God,
You remove the heavy chains from the neck of those held captive,
And you take away exile. You break open prison doors.
You snatch away the unworthy, making possessions equal in fair portions,
And you remain unmoved, incapable of being persuaded by any means.
Set in place since the first day, you order the soul to
Bear all things serenely with the promise of an end to labors.
Without you life is torment and an everlasting prison."

Some medieval cures and preventive measures for the plague:

Plague is a scourge from God for your evil deeds-by scourging yourself with a whip like a flagellant, then God has no reason for scourging you with plague.

Apply a mixture of tree resin, roots of white lilies and human excrements.

Bathing should not be avoided, and be done with vinegar and rosewater-alternatively in your own urine.

Drink the pus of lanced buboes.

Quarantine people for 40 days (quarantine comes from latin for 40)-first done in Venice in 1348.

Place a live hen close to the swellings to draw out the pestilence then drink a glass of your own urine twice a day.

Grind up an emerald and drink it in wine.

Injest snakeskin, bone from the heart of a stag, Armenian clay, precious metals, aloe, myrrh and saffron.

Roast the shells of newly laid eggs, and grind them to a powder-add Marigold flowers and treacle-drink in warm beer every morning and night.

©2017 John Martin Rare Book Room, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, 600 Newton Road, Iowa City, IA 52242-1098
Image: Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death (detail), c. 1562, oil on panel, 117 x 162 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid

Acknowledgements to Alice M. Phillips for her work editing the original exhibit material and subsequent web design.

The nearly 6,500 volumes in the John Martin Rare Book Room are original works representing classic contributions to the history of the health sciences from the 15th through 21st Centuries. Also included are selected books, reprints, and journals dealing with the history of medicine at the University and in the State of Iowa.

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Introduction Medieval people called the catastrophe of the 14th century either the "Great Pestilence"' or the "Great Plague." Writers contemporary to the plague referred to the event as the "Great Mortality." Swedish and Danish chronicles of the 16th century described the events as "black" for the first time, likely to refer to black as glum or dreadful denoting the terror of the events.

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An Oregon man, Paul Gaylord, was in a coma for 27 days in 2012

After contracting the bubonic plague from a cat bite, his organs began to fail.

The 61 year old lost all his fingers, except for parts of both his thumbs, all of his toes and a part of his right foot.

The article expresses, "Gaylord's condition was so bad that the day before he woke up, doctors considered pulling the plug."

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An Oregon man who escaped death after contracting the bubonic plague from his cat has opened up about the terrifying experience and how lucky he is to be alive.

Paul Gaylord was in a coma for 27 days in 2012, on life support as his internal organs began to fail, his extremities rotting.

"I had collapsed lungs, my heart stopped and my hands and feet turned black," Gaylord wrote in a tell-all essay for The Guardian.

"Technically, I shouldn't be here."

Gaylord's condition was so bad that the day before he woke up, doctors considered pulling the plug.

"My recovery shocked everybody," the 61-year-old wrote. "I'd been told I'd be on dialysis for the rest of my life, but I had one treatment and I recovered. Everything in my body did, except my hands and feet."

The retired welder lost all of his fingers except for parts of both thumbs, all of his toes and a part of his right foot.

Gaylord, who lives in a rural town near the Cascade Mountains, recalled the Saturday night that his cat Charlie showed up on the porch, swollen and choking on a mouse. He tried to pull it out, but the cat bit his finger and ran away. The next day Charlie returned, "clearly suffering."

"It was as if the mouse had died in his mouth and was rotting, and I was worried about bacteria," Gaylord wrote. "I called a friend over to put him down, then we buried him."

Gaylord's own symptoms kicked in at work the next day. He had a fever and felt sick before his skin turned grey and his wife rushed him to the hospital.

After being given antibiotics for cat scratch fever, a doctor told Gaylord he thought bubonic plague was the correct diagnosis.

"I had glands under my arms the size of lemons and that's one of the symptoms," he said.

Gaylord spent a month in the hospital - most of it unconscious - before returning home.

Health officials dug up Charlie's body and determined he was infected with the plague, but couldn't tell where it came from.

Fleas that live on small rodents carry the disease.

Gaylord has since retired, and spends his time making hunting knives in his workshop.

"It's hard to believe it happened to me, but rather than feel depressed, I've always felt positive and happy to be alive," he wrote, calling his experience "a fluke."

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Man who contracted bubonic plague from cat bite: 'My recovery shocked everybody'

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An Oregon man who escaped death after contracting the bubonic plague from his cat has opened up about the terrifying experience and how lucky he is to be alive. Paul Gaylord was in a coma for 27 days in 2012, on life support as his internal organs began to fail, his extremities rotting.

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The Black Death started in China in 1334.

It came to Europe through the Silicon port of Messina.

It's said that when they arrived there everyone was dead.

"And those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus."

The Silicon authorities called them the " fleet of death ships."

People believed that to get rid of the black plague was to purge them.

People started to lash out at their neighbors because of their fear of catching the plague.

It ended by "keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease—creating social distancing that relied on isolation to slow the spread of the disease."

Even though the black plague started in Asia it affected Europe the most.

It eventually ended up killing over 25 million people.

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Contents

1. How Did the Black Plague Start?

2. Symptoms of the Black Plague

3. How Did the Black Death Spread?

4. Understanding the Black Death

5. How Do You Treat the Black Death?

6. Black Plague: God's Punishment?

7. Flagellants

8. How Did the Black Death End?

9. Does the Black Plague Still Exist?

The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of "death ships" out of the harbor, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe-almost one-third of the continent's population.
READ MORE: Pandemics that Changed History
How Did the Black Plague Start?

Even before the "death ships" pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors about a "Great Pestilence" that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the Near and Far East. Indeed, in the early 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt.
WATCH: How the Black Death Spread So Widely
The plague is thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was likely spread by trading ships, though recent research has indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black Death may have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C.
READ MORE: See all pandemic coverage here.
Symptoms of the Black Plague

Europeans were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. "In men and women alike," the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, "at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits...waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils."

Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms-fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains-and then, in short order, death.

The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system, causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the infection can spread to the blood or lungs.

How Did the Black Death Spread?

The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: "the mere touching of the clothes," wrote Boccaccio, "appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher." The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

Did you know? Many scholars think that the nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosy" was written about the symptoms of the Black Death.

Understanding the Black Death

Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century.)

They know that the bacillus travels from person to person through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Both of these pests could be found almost everywhere in medieval Europe, but they were particularly at home aboard ships of all kinds-which is how the deadly plague made its way through one European port city after another.
WATCH: How Rats and Fleas Spread the Black Death
Not long after it struck Messina, the Black Death spread to the port of Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa. Then it reached Rome and Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of trade routes. By the middle of 1348, the Black Death had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London.

Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible. In the middle of the 14th century, however, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it.

No one knew exactly how the Black Death was transmitted from one patient to another, and no one knew how to prevent or treat it. According to one doctor, for example, "instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick."

How Do You Treat the Black Death?

Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar.

Meanwhile, in a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; and shopkeepers closed their stores. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease: It affected cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens as well as people.

In fact, so many sheep died that one of the consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. And many people, desperate to save themselves, even abandoned their sick and dying loved ones. "Thus doing," Boccaccio wrote, "each thought to secure immunity for himself."

Black Plague: God's Punishment?

Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment-retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness.

By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God's forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers-so, for example, many thousands of Jews were massacred in 1348 and 1349. (Thousands more fled to the sparsely populated regions of Eastern Europe, where they could be relatively safe from the rampaging mobs in the cities.)
WATCH: The Grisly Business of Black Death Burials
Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the Black Death epidemic by lashing out at their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their own souls.

Flagellants

Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town to town and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment: They would beat themselves and one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople looked on. For 33 1/2 days, the flagellants repeated this ritual three times a day. Then they would move on to the next town and begin the process over again.

Though the flagellant movement did provide some comfort to people who felt powerless in the face of inexplicable tragedy, it soon began to worry the Pope, whose authority the flagellants had begun to usurp. In the face of this papal resistance, the movement disintegrated.
READ MORE: Social Distancing and Quarantine Were Used in Medieval Times to Fight the Black Death
How Did the Black Death End?

The plague never really ended and it returned with a vengeance years later. But officials in the port city of Ragusa were able to slow its spread by keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease-creating social distancing that relied on isolation to slow the spread of the disease.

The sailors were initially held on their ships for 30 days (a trentino), a period that was later increased to 40 days, or a quarantine- the origin of the term "quarantine" and a practice still used today.

Does the Black Plague Still Exist?

The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared every few generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it. While antibiotics are available to treat the Black Death, according to The World Health Organization, there are still 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year.
READ MORE: How 5 of History's Worst Pandemics Finally Ended

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How Did the Black Plague Start? Symptoms of the Black Plague How Did the Black Death Spread? Understanding the Black Death How Do You Treat the Black Death? Black Plague: God's Punishment? Flagellants How Did the Black Death End? Does the Black Plague Still Exist?

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The Bubonic Plague spread quickly through contact with animals, mainly from fleas and rats. Later it was spread through traders.

Effective treatment was initiated in 1896

The rats and fleas were found on ships and all over Medieval Europe, which is how the plague spread though city to city.

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How Did the Black Plague Start?

Even before the "death ships" pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors about a "Great Pestilence" that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the Near and Far East. Indeed, in the early 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt.

The plague is thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was likely spread by trading ships, though recent research has indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black Death may have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C.

Symptoms of the Black Plague

Europeans were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. "In men and women alike," the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, "at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits...waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils."

Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms-fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains-and then, in short order, death.

The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system, causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the infection can spread to the blood or lungs.

How Did the Black Death Spread?

The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: "the mere touching of the clothes," wrote Boccaccio, "appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher." The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

Did you know? Many scholars think that the nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosy" was written about the symptoms of the Black Death.

Understanding the Black Death

Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century.)

They know that the bacillus travels from person to person through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Both of these pests could be found almost everywhere in medieval Europe, but they were particularly at home aboard ships of all kinds-which is how the deadly plague made its way through one European port city after another.

Not long after it struck Messina, the Black Death spread to the port of Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa. Then it reached Rome and Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of trade routes. By the middle of 1348, the Black Death had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London.

Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible. In the middle of the 14th century, however, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it.

No one knew exactly how the Black Death was transmitted from one patient to another, and no one knew how to prevent or treat it. According to one doctor, for example, "instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick."

How Do You Treat the Black Death?

Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar.

Meanwhile, in a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; and shopkeepers closed their stores. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease: It affected cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens as well as people.

In fact, so many sheep died that one of the consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. And many people, desperate to save themselves, even abandoned their sick and dying loved ones. "Thus doing," Boccaccio wrote, "each thought to secure immunity for himself."

Black Plague: God's Punishment?

Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment-retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness.

By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God's forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers-so, for example, many thousands of Jews were massacred in 1348 and 1349. (Thousands more fled to the sparsely populated regions of Eastern Europe, where they could be relatively safe from the rampaging mobs in the cities.)

Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the Black Death epidemic by lashing out at their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their own souls.

Flagellants

Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town to town and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment: They would beat themselves and one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople looked on. For 33 1/2 days, the flagellants repeated this ritual three times a day. Then they would move on to the next town and begin the process over again.

Though the flagellant movement did provide some comfort to people who felt powerless in the face of inexplicable tragedy, it soon began to worry the Pope, whose authority the flagellants had begun to usurp. In the face of this papal resistance, the movement disintegrated.

How Did the Black Death End?

The plague never really ended and it returned with a vengeance years later. But officials in the port city of Ragusa were able to slow its spread by keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease-creating social distancing that relied on isolation to slow the spread of the disease.

The sailors were initially held on their ships for 30 days (a trentino), a period that was later increased to 40 days, or a quarantine- the origin of the term "quarantine" and a practice still used today.

Does the Black Plague Still Exist?

The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared every few generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it. While antibiotics are available to treat the Black Death, according to The World Health Organization, there are still 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year.
Gallery: Pandemics That Changed History

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The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. Explore the facts of the plague, the symptoms it caused and how millions died from it.