Bubonic Plague

Y. pestis has caused large-scale epidemics, resulting in many changes to the ... ... middle of paper ... ...e cycle is initiated again with another flea bite. Occasionally, other species become infected, causing an outbreak among animals (e.g. prairie dogs, squirrels), called an epizootic. During plague epizootics, many rodents die causing hungry fleas to seek other sources of blood. People and animals that visit places where rodents have recently died from the plague are at risk of being infected from flea bites transmitting Y. pestis.

Some of the other animals known to carry the bacteria are: - Mice - Fleas - Lice - Prairie dogs - Cats - Dogs - Squirrels - Wood rats - And Chipmunks. The bubonic plague is usually contracted when an infected flea or rodent bites someone. In some rare cases, the bacteria on a piece of contaminated clothing or other material that has touched an infected person can enter through an opening in the skin. The bubonic plague is rarely spread from person to person. The bubonic plague can be spread through direct contact with an infected person or animal, or by eating an infected animal.

The Ships were forced to seek harbor elsewhere around the Mediterranean, which allowed the disease to spread very quickly (Truitt, 2001). This would be the beginning of a very traumatic event that would affect all aspects of European society. The Bubonic Plague generated from a bacterium called Yersina pestis, which is a one-celled organism that multiplies rapidly once inside its host and produces three types of symptoms, depending on how it is spread (Aberth, 2000). The bacterium that leads to the Bubonic Plague usually is found in the bloodstream of wild black rats. It is then posed to humans by fleas that feed on the blood of rats and then bite humans, in which the bacterium is passed into the human bloodstream (Aberth, 2000).

Marmots were small rats known to carrier this disease. Hunters of these rats were responsible for spreading this disease which killed approximately 60,000 people. Bubonic plague was found in other places but mostly contained in Asia. The disease was also found in Hawaii and San Franciso around the 20th century. Modern human outbreaks are linked to high mortality rates amongst rats without the presence of buboes and swelling of the groin.

The most common disease during the Black Plague was the bubonic plague. A person can only obtain it when a flea, that is already infected, bites a person or when there’s a cut in the person’s skin for bacteria to go through. People who had been infected can get fevers, headaches, and chills (Wells 1097). The bubonic plague was painful and had swollen lymph nodes. Inside of it was black, full of blood and pus, and it looked like it will burst any second (Bowers 132).

How were they to overcome it? While being overwhelmed with sickness and a number of dilemmas stemming from it, many societies became weak and eventually fell apart. The black death is suspected to have begun around the year of 1331 (Reedy, “The Bubonic Plague” 1). The disease started in inner Asia where it was picked up and spread by rats (Reedy, “The Bubonic Plague” 1). The rats and other various species of the rodent family would have caught the infection from fleas that carried the Y. pestis virus (Reedy, “The Bubonic Plague” 1).

The fleas would then bite into their victims, releasing the disease inside them. The disease, known as the Black Death, is caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis (“The Plague”). Once the disease got inside of the victim, symptoms such as the formation of buboes, which is swollen lymph nodes, start to appear under the arm, on the neck, or in the groin area. Normally followed by fever, chills, and muscle aches (“The Plague”). Other symptoms include, extremely foul odor of all body fluids, and gangrene of the finger, toes, and the nose.

The effects of this disease can be long-term. Lyme disease is not deadly if you treat correctly, but it does affect you in many different ways. Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria called borrelia burgdorferi. We get infected with this disease when we are bitten by a black legged tick or a deer tick. This bacteria is found in mice and deer.

The plague is the cause of the Black Death in Europe during the fourteenth century. The signs and symptoms of this illness is very similar to those of the flu. The most common symptom like stated before is the swollenness of the lymph nodes in the groin and armpit area which can become very painful. These areas of the swollen lymph nodes are often the areas where the person was bit. Other symptoms that occurred were muscle cramps, chills, high fever, seizures, vomiting, fatigue, decomposition of the skin.

The plague was carried into Europe in 1347 by flea-bearing black rats infesting the commercial vessels that brought goods to Mediterranean ports. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe’s population. The Black Death is endemic to rodents and transmitted to humans by common flea. In humans the disease invades the blood the glands under the arms and goin that would swell, sometimes to the size of an apple or an egg, and dark blotches would also appear on the skin. These blotches had the same meaning for everyone, on whom they appeared.