Causes and Lasting Effects of the Black Death

The Black Death was an infectious disease that spread through medieval Europe and Asia. In medieval times from the 5th to the 15 century, most cities did not have a board of health so the streets were filled with garbage, waste and sewage. People lived in close, cramped houses surrounded by dirt roads. There were no hospitals, the old and sickly were brought into wooden huts with no doctors or medicine or anything. When the Black Death hit it was a catastrophe. People had never seen anything like it. People went delirious and within 8 days they were dead. In some towns more than half the people were killed. It was estimated that anywhere between 30 and 60 percent of the population died. Over 75 million people were killed in all. There are many causes and lasting effects of the Black Death, one of the causes was the fleas. Some lasting effects were new inventions and it took Europe out of the middle ages.

The main cause of the Black Death is fleas. Fleas like to suck rodent blood such as rats. The rodents began to get infected and most of them died. Once the rodent population was scarce the fleas needed another source of food, so jumped on to humans to drink their blood. Since rats lived in close contact with the humans it made this possible. The first people to get infected were the Golden Horde in China, which at the time was ruled by Mongols. The Golden Horde which was an army were attacking the Genose city of Caffa. They catapulted dead bodies over the city walls. The people of the city began to get infected too. The leader of the Golden Horde was Genghis Khan. His army through conquest spread the disease all throughout Asia. Once Italian traders came and got infected along the silk road along the silk road, they then carried...

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...l the power it lost. As for nobles there were too few of them to rule and too few peasants to ruler over. This took Europe out of the middle ages and into the Renaissance period where new inventions were made, art was created, and civilization flourished.

The Black Death was a form of the bubonic plague that killed millions around the globe. It started in Mongolia from fleas getting infected and killing rodents. Once all the rodents were dead the fleas jumped into humans. From there it spread through touching, coughing and through the air. Although the Black Death was a catastrophe, it brought many good changes, for example new inventions were created like the windmill. New vaccines were made and hospitals improved. It also took the world out of the middle ages and into the Renaissance. Without the Black Death many of our current technology’s could never exist.