> Two types of plague are believed to have caused the Black Death. The
> first is the "bubonic" type, which was the most common. The bubonic form
> of plague is characterized by swellings of the lymph nodes: the
> swellings are called "buboes," The buboes are accompanied by vomiting,
> fever and death............ This form of plague is not contagious
> between human beings; it requires an active carrier, such as a flea. For
> this reason, many historians believe that flea-infested rodents caused
> the Bubonic Plague...........
> The second form of plague contributing to the Black Death is a highly
> contagious type known as "pneumonic" plague. It is marked by shivering,
> rapid breathing and the coughing up of blood............... This second
> type of plague is nearly always fatal and transmits best in cold weather
> and in poor ventilation. Some physicians today believe it was this
> second form, the "pneumonic" plague, which was responsible for most of
> the casualties of the Black Death because of the crowding and poor
> hygienic conditions then prevalent in Europe.
Pneumonic and bubonic are not exclusive. Pneumonic cases often present
buboes, bubonic cases often progress into the pneumonic...
> Many outbreaks occurred in summer during warm weather in uncrowded
> regions. Not all outbreaks of bubonic plague were preceded by rodent
> infestation; in fact, only a minority of cases seemed to be related to
> an increase in the presence of vermin.
While rodents perhaps can be blamed for the initial cases in Europe
(most notably the popular ports of Italy), they can't be totally blamed
for the subsequent spreading of the disease. The European population
of the time rarely bathed, and were quite flea-infested themselves.
People travelled more in summer. Rural farmers travelled into their
local towns to sell their produce on fair days, mingling with merchants
and minstrels who travelled from town to town and city to city. Add
in the occasional organized pilgrimage from some European city to the
Holy Land, which made requisite stops at all the towns along the way.
Stir in the Crusades, or any other holy war which gathered people from
various parts of Europe to go on campaigns where they would be interacting
with populaces already infected.
A popular weapon to use against a city one was attacking was to catapult
dead animals, and occasionally a dead person, over the walls and into
the city. The medieval military officer knew nothing of bacteria or
viruses or fleas being the vector to spread disease (and would readily
leap from a cold dead body to a warm living one); he just knew that if
you lobbed enough dead bodies into the city (which, being under seige,
was unable to bury them), that soon the inhabitants of that city
sickened and died...
>The greatest puzzle about the
> Black Death is how it was able to strike isolated human populations
> which had no contact with earlier infected areas. The epidemics also
> tended to end abruptly...........
I just explained how it could spread into isolated areas. It stops
abruptly for a number of reasons. First off, you'll find most of the
time the 'abrupt' end coincides with colder weather...well, that's when
people holed up in their own houses, kept their warm-blooded mammals
inside in the stable or barn, and there was little intermingling.
Secondly, there's a diminishing pool of available hosts in a plague
stricken area. Quite frankly, most of the hosts died off; survivors who
were well-off financially would abandon the plague-stricken areas for
their country homes, where it was perceived to be safer. Those who
weren't lucky enough to have a country home to retire to remained indoors,
too afraid to risk going outside (and who would want to, with all those
dead bodies laying about unburied?)...so there was less opportunity to
interact with those who may be infected with the pneumonic form, or to
be infected with the bubonic form via fleas jumping off a dead body onto
the living one.
A very harsh manner of dealing with a plague infection in a household was
to lock all the household up in the infected building with the actual
plague victim, and then set fire to the house, killing all inside. Pretty
drastic, but it DID result in getting rid of not only the actual plague
victim, but those close to him who could very likely have gotten infected
but hadn't presented symptoms yet. It also would kill any fleas on the
people in the household. Unfortunately, any rodents carrying infected
fleas probably escaped... :-7
June
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