What was Black Death

and what is Black Death nowadays?

This terrible disease, called at the time the “Great plague” or the “Black Death” devastated Europe, spreading panic in the hearts of the people. There was no escape of it. Actually, what was the black death? What were its symptoms? First, the people were hit by an unbearable headache, the fever and high temperature give place to shivering. But unlike a simple fever, the body of the patient with plague changes and eventually large pus-filled tumors appear. These “buboes” swelled under the armpits, on neck and groin. At first, it had a light pink color, then it got crimson and gradually it turned black, growing to the size of an orange. The sufferings of the patient often ended in a agonizing death – that’s what the black death was.

Effects

The great medieval Black Plague epidemic has affected a lot more houses – it has reduced the population of Europe in the XIV-XVIII centuries in one third. Why specifically at that time the plague pathogen become a perfect murder weapon? After all, nothing like that happened in the XIX century, when the plague came to Europe again. And today in Madagascar (where one of the natural sources of plague is located) several hundreds of people die of this disease each year – that what’s the black death is now. Of course it is also very bad, but there is nothing similar to the medieval pandemic. What is black death nowadays? Does it differ from history?

what was black death?

History

To understand the peculiarity of the strain of the Black Death, the scientists are studying medieval burial places. And the story of what was black death and what it is now becomes more and more mysterious. Three years ago Michelle Drankur and his colleagues from the University of Marseilles received the results, which seem to suggest that the three major pandemics – of the Late Antiquity, Middle Ages and in the XIX century – the same strain raged. But now, having studied five different plague cemeteries, they came to another conclusion. The pandemic of the XIV-XVIII centuries was caused by at least two different strains. One began to rage in France, then approximately in the year 1348 it moved to England – here you can read more about England in the age of the black death. The second was killing the residents of the Netherlands in year 1350. It is obvious that only the presence of two great strains could have done such a terrible medieval pandemic, what was the black death. But the scientists agree that they still did not fully understand the genealogy of the disease.

The sequence of genes that is characteristic for Yersinia pestis, was looked for in the teeth and bones of the victims. Then the known mutations were sequenced to distinguish the strains. That’s where it was found that in the Netherlands the plague germs have the same and still unknown mutation.

 

 

Black Death fear nowadays

Why scientists are trying to get to such an old history? Because they know what was black death at that time and they do not want it to happen ever again . It seems that some of the variations of the strain were specifically dangerous, because at the outbreak in the year 1720 in Marseilles more than half of the population died. And visa versa, the outbreak of the XIX century, which came from Asia, was by no means similar to that terrible pandemic.

 

what is black death?

 

Hygiene

By the way, the scientists once again remind of the use of hygiene and the benefits that it brought to the mankind. Because in fact, the plague, apparently, was carried not only by the rats and fleas, but also the lice that got on the clothes. Already in the twentieth century, for several times the scientists have found the lice infected with plague in the tombs with the victims of the black death. The researchers have shown on the basis of experiments with rabbits, that these parasites might be the carriers of the plague, but not of all the strains of it. In general, the research continues, but the fight for the cleanness should be started now.