Black Death

Black Death

History

• Plague has a remarkable place in history and has had enormous effects on the development of modern civilization. Some scholars have even suggested that the collapse of the Roman Empire may be linked to the spread of plague by Roman soldiers returning home from battle in the Persian Gulf in 165 .

• For centuries, plague represented disaster for people living in Asia, Africa and Europe and because the cause of plague was unknown, plague outbreaks contributed to massive panic in cities and countries where it appeared.

"Black Death" or the Great Plague

The second pandemic, widely known as the "Black Death" or the Great Plague, originated in China in 1334 and spread along the great trade routes to Constantinople and then to Europe, where it claimed an estimated 60% of the European population (Benedictow, 2008). 

How Did the Black Death Spread?

The Black Death of the 1340s and 1350s was, in terms of the percentage of the population lost, the worst recorded plague in human history. It wiped out as much as a quarter of the world’s population, probably including more than half the population of Europe, and records suggest that it sometimes did so in a spectacularly gruesome way—routinely covering its victims in exploding cysts and rotting their extremities with gangrene. It was the pneumonia and not these more visible symptoms that killed most victims, but all told, it was a terrible way to die. The grief and horror that survivors must have felt would have been enough to break anyone’s heart, and that’s essentially where Europe was in these years leading up to the Renaissance—a grieving, terrified, brokenhearted continent.

Symptoms

Bubonic plague affects the lymph nodes (another part of the lymph system). Within 3 to 7 days of exposure to plague bacteria, you will develop flu-like symptoms such as fever,headache chills, weakness, and swollen, tender lymph glands.

How do we get ?

Usually, you get bubonic plague from the bite of an infected flea or rodent. In rare cases, Y. pestis bacteria, from a piece of contaminated clothing or other material used by a person with plague, enter the body through an opening in the skin.

Treatment

When plague is suspected and diagnosed early, a health care provider can prescribe specific antibiotics (generally streptomycin or gentamycin). Certain other antibiotics are also effective.

Left untreated, bubonic plague bacteria can quickly multiply in the bloodstream, causing septicemic plague, or even progress to the lungs, causing pneumonic plague.

Prevention

Antibiotics

Health experts recommend antibiotics if you have been exposed to wild rodent fleas during a plague outbreak in animals, or to a possible plague-infected animal. Because there are so few cases of plague in the United States, experts do not recommend taking antibiotics unless it's certain a person .

References

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=141316