The Bubonic Plague

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THE BUBONIC PLAGUE
Can one single infested rat change the whole course of history? During Shakespeare’s time it changed almost every single person’s life. Shakespeare was very affected by the Bubonic plague caused by the rats. Shakespeare had three sisters and a brother that were killed by this deadly disease. His only son was also killed by the Bubonic Plague. Many of the theaters were shut down out of fear of the disease. Before Shakespeare was born, the outbreak of 1563 of the plague killed over 80,000 people in England. London alone had 20,000 deaths. London was filthy during this whole epidemic and there were no sewage systems. All the sewage was dumped into the River Thames (Alchin 1). The Elizabethan Era was a rough time for all the people because of the scare of this terrible disease. The Bubonic plague ransacked the Elizabethan Era and created awareness of this kind of destruction for earlier and later types of plagues.
The Bubonic Plague was a part of the Black Death. The Black Death originally started in Central Asia in the mid-1300s and traveled to Europe on the trading ships that were coming (“Plague” 506). As it traveled through Europe, it ended up in England during the 1600s. The Bubonic Plague started in the winter of 1664-1665 when England was at war with Holland. The plague began in the poor, overcrowded parish of St. Giles and from there it went up the social tower (Cowie 17). People were so scared about the plague that they never went outside and when they did go out they would hurry up and do what they needed to do (Cowie 19). During the Black Death, nearly 20-30 million people died (“Plague” 506).
There are quite a few symptoms of the Black Death and the Bubonic Plague. One symptom of the Black Death wa...

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... the 1980s, nobody really knows how AIDS started. They have some evidence from a man that lived in Congo who had the disease in 1959, and the only reason they knew he had it was because a blood sample was collected from him (Guilfoile 25). It was largely ignored when it was starting to spread and then people started to raise awareness and they wanted to create a cure for it.
HIV derived from chimpanzees because when the native people would butcher them, and they had a cut on their hand, the blood from the chimp would get into the persons cut and go into their bloodstream. It is likely that it came from the Cameroon chimpanzees and in them it is called SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus). Since the 1980s people have been trying to find a cure for this killing disease. ITs not really clear as to what type of immune response is blocking people from the infection.

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