The Plague: The Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most deadliest diseases double ne humanity had to endure. The plague was spread by infected rats and fleas and had no preference for age, sex, or health. After a few people were infected in a town there was little stopping it from infecting more and more. Once infected, the chance of survival came down if you had the bubonic or pneumonic form of the plague. Each was deadly but the bubonic only had a 50% chance of death while the pneumonic killed nearly all its victims. The victims were usually put into quarantine, but sometimes they would be killed and their bodies would be thrown out and sometimes they would even use the corpses as a weapon and catapult them into enemy villages. While more and more people

Some would just simply isolate the victims but others would lock the victims in closets and wait for them to starve or die from the plague. Parents even would put their kids that were infected in quarantine, in order to protect the rest of the family. Villages would also expel the infected in order to stop further spreading of the disease. Few people would care for the sick and high class citizens would pay highly for a servant, who risked dying for wealth, to take care of them. Treatment of the victims was thought at the time was justified and reasonable because of the situation. The people believed that all they had to do do was isolate the victims at the earliest signs of infection and everyone would be fine, but the plague spread to rapidly and before people even realized that they had been infected they spread it to others. Still people trapped any one who seemed to be having any similar symptoms of a host of the

The officials, doctors, and pastors would also try to escape the village and the plague’s certain death. Most times they would would be frowned upon for leaving and even punished for leaving their duties and positions. As more villages fell to the disease people looked to their religion and in Germany people thought the plague to be an act of God. They did penance to avoid becoming sick and they also went around Europe and sang hymns to other people trying to recruit more people. At first the practice was tolerated by most officials, but as it became more extreme and they began to beat themselves and others, it was condemned and by 1350 the movement was over. Another movement is Germany was a belief that the Jews were the reason that the plague was happening. They were blamed for poisoning wells in villages with the plague. Non-Jews and the councils of Germany ordered many massive killings of Jews. Outside forces like the pope told that they need to stop, but the killings continued until World War