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The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Europe from 1346 to 1353. One of the most fatal pandemics in human history, as many as 50 million people [2] perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. [3] Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas.
- 1346–1353
- Bubonic plague
- 75,000,000–200,000,000 (estimated)
1 day ago · Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time. The Black Death is widely thought to have been the result of plague, caused by infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- How many people died during the Black Death?It is not known for certain how many people died during the Black Death. About 25 million people are estimated to have died in Europe from the plag...
- What caused the Black Death?The Black Death is believed to have been the result of plague, an infectious fever caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The disease was likely...
- Where did the Black Death originate?The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean an...
- What were the symptoms of the Black Death?Yersinia causes three types of plague in humans: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Although there is DNA evidence that Yersinia was present in vi...
- How did the Black Death affect Europe?The effects of the Black Death were many and varied. Trade suffered for a time, and wars were temporarily abandoned. Many labourers died, which dev...
- What are other names for the Black Death?The Black Death has also been called the Great Mortality, a term derived from medieval chronicles’ use of magna mortalitas. This term, along with m...
- 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?
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, Syriaand Egypt. The plague is thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 ye...
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 v...
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.
Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersiniapestis. (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. Bot...
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 patie...
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...
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 ...
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 initi...
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...
Apr 5, 2023 · Definition. The Black Death was a plague pandemic that devastated medieval Europe from 1347 to 1352. The Black Death killed an estimated 25-30 million people. The disease originated in central Asia and was taken to the Crimea by Mongol warriors and traders.
- Mark Cartwright
- How long did the Black Death last?The first major wave of the Black Death lasted from 1347 to 1352.
- How did the Black Death end?The Black Death never really ended, it was just that successive waves became less devastating from the 15th century thanks to better sanitation and...
- Did people survive the Black Death plague?Some people did survive the Black Death since it killed between 30 and 75% of those infected and not 100%. There were also areas where the plague d...
- What happened in the Black Death?During the Black Death, the bubonic plague spread from the Crimea to Europe via rats or human parasites via Genoese ships. Between 30% and 50% of t...
Apr 16, 2020 · The Black Death, also known as the Pestilence and the Plague, was the deadliest pandemics ever recorded. Track how it ravaged humanity through history.
- John Seven
Black Death | Timeline. List of causes and effects of the devastating pandemic known as the Black Death. At the time the pandemic ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, many people thought the Black Death was a punishment for their sins. Today scientists think it was an outbreak of plague.
Jul 6, 2020 · Known as the Black Death, the much feared disease spread quickly for centuries, killing millions. The bacterial infection still occurs but can be treated with antibiotics. By Jenny Howard. July...
