The plague - a terrible disease that was popularly called the “Black Death” - became a real pandemic in the Middle Ages, which swept not only Europe, but also parts of Asia and Africa, resulting in the death of a huge number of people (about 60 million people). In some countries, this terrible disease wiped out about half of the population, and it took centuries for the population to recover to its previous level. Our review contains little-known and shocking facts about this terrible disease.
Let us immediately clarify that very few written sources have reached us about the times when the Black Death raged on our planet. Therefore, there are a huge number of myths and rumors around the plague, sometimes greatly exaggerated.
Plague and the Church
The Catholic Church has been one of the most powerful organizations in the world for quite some time, so it is not surprising that there are many conspiracy theories about it and the church has become a scapegoat in many situations.
It is believed that the supposedly outdated and unscientific thinking and actions of the church contributed to the active spread of the disease and overall led to an increase in the number of deaths. Currently, the main theory is that the plague was spread by fleas, which were carried primarily by rats.
Due to Catholic superstitions, cats were initially blamed for spreading the plague. This led to their mass extermination, which in turn caused rapid reproduction of rats. They were the cause of the spread of the plague.
But skeptics believe that rats could not contribute to such an active spread of the disease.
Overpopulation, sewage, flies...
Some people do not like to remember this completely unromantic part of medieval history. Researchers believe that one of the main reasons for the plague pandemic was the fact that people did not pay any attention to hygiene.
And the point is not even that people did not wash, but that there was no modern infrastructure, in particular sewerage, constant garbage collection, refrigeration equipment, etc. An example is Bristol, the second largest city in the UK when the plague broke out in Europe. The city was overpopulated and there were open ditches everywhere with human waste and other sewage overflowing. Meat and fish were left out in the open air, and flies lurked in the food. no one cared about the purity of the water. Not only the poor, but also the rich lived in these conditions.
Is the plague native to Asia?
It is believed that the cause of the outbreak of plague was not rats, but the “plague bacillus” bacterium that appeared in Asia, which appeared due to climate changes in this region. In addition, there were excellent conditions for both the spread of pathogenic bacteria and the breeding of fleas. And this fact just confirms the theory that rats are involved in the spread of the disease.
Plague and HIV
After the plague pandemic that killed millions of people, there were several more outbreaks of the disease at different times. Perhaps only those who lived far from large cities and observed the rules of hygiene managed to escape. And some scientists are sure that they have developed immunity.
Approximately the same situation is happening today with AIDS. Scientists have discovered that there are people who are immune to this disease. Some researchers believe that this mutation likely occurred due to the human body's fight against the plague epidemic in Europe. Understanding the mechanism of this rare mutation can certainly help in the treatment or prevention of HIV.
Black Death and nursery rhyme
The nursery rhyme “Round Around Rosie” is popular in the West. While it may just be an innocent song for children who love it, some adults are convinced that the song's origins are very dark. They believe that Circle Around Rosie is actually about the Black Death in Europe. The song mentions bags with bouquets of flowers, and during the plague, bags with strong-smelling herbs were worn by the sick to hide the unpleasant odor emanating from them.
Ash, which is also referred to in the song, is a fairly obvious reference to dead people being burned. However, there is no evidence that the poem has anything to do with the plague. There are several varieties of it, the earliest of which date back to the 1800s. And this was hundreds of years after the plague.
The plague accelerated the onset of the Renaissance
Although the Black Death was an incredible tragedy in human history and led to millions of deaths, this event, oddly enough, also had positive aspects for society.
The fact is that in those years Europe suffered from overpopulation and, as a consequence, unemployment. After millions of people fell victim to the plague, these problems resolved themselves. In addition, wages have increased. Masters are worth their weight in gold. Thus, some scholars argue that the plague was one of the factors contributing to the advent of the Renaissance.
The plague still claims lives today
Some people believe that the plague is a thing of the past. But there are places on Earth where this disease continues to kill people. The plague bacillus has not disappeared and still appears today, even in North America, a continent where plague was unknown in the Middle Ages.
People still die from the plague, especially in poor countries. Failure to comply with hygiene rules and lack of medicines lead to the fact that the disease can kill a person in just a few days.
"Bad Air"
The scientific theory of miasma in relation to disease is quite old. Given that science was in its infancy during the plague outbreak in Europe, many experts at the time believed that the disease was spread through “bad air.” Considering the smells of sewage flowing like rivers through the streets, and the stench of decomposing bodies that had not had time to bury, it is not surprising that the foul air was considered responsible for the spread of the disease.
This miasma theory led desperate people at the time to begin cleaning up dirt from the streets to avoid bad air and help prevent disease. Although these were actually good measures, they had nothing to do with the epidemic.
The concept of "quarantine"
The idea of quarantine did not come with the Black Death; The practice of separating sick and healthy people has existed for a long time. In many cultures around the world, people long ago realized that placing healthy people next to sick people often caused the healthy people to get sick. In fact, even the Bible suggests keeping those with leprosy away from healthy people to prevent them from becoming infected.
However, the actual term "quarantine" is much more recent and is actually indirectly related to the plague. During repeated outbreaks of the Black Death across Europe, some countries forced sick people to live in fields until they recovered or died. In others, they set aside a small area for sick people, or simply locked them at home.
The isolation period typically lasted about 30 days. This may be excessive, but little was known about germs at the time. Eventually, for unknown reasons, the amount of time for isolating patients was increased to 40 days.
Virus or bacteria
Most people believe that the Black Death was caused by a bacterium called plague bacillus (Yersinia pestis), which infected people with bubonic plague. The disease was named so because of the terrible buboes that appeared on the body. However, some researchers have suggested that this bacterium may not actually be the culprit behind the global pandemic that swept across three continents centuries ago.
A number of scientists have spent years exhuming those who died from the plague and examining their remains. They stated that the plague was spreading too quickly, much faster than modern strains of plague. Some scientists are convinced that it was a completely different disease that behaved more like a virus.
Perhaps it was something more similar to Ebola than to modern versions of the plague bacillus. Scientists also recently discovered the existence of two unknown strains of Yersinia Pestis that were present in the remains of those killed by the plague.
There are different types of plague
We most often hear about bubonic plague, but it is actually only one of three types of plague. Bubonic plague is characterized by enlarged lymph nodes called “buboes,” which give the disease its name. This type is spread only through flea bites and contact with blood contaminated by insects; Bubonic plague cannot be transmitted from one person to another.
Similarly, septicemic plague spreads only through breaks in the skin and contact with blood. It gets worse when bacteria multiply in the blood. Septicemic plague has many of the same symptoms as bubonic plague, including fever and chills, but it does not cause the telltale nodes of bubonic plague.
The third type is the only one that can be transmitted from person to person. Pneumonic plague is airborne and can spread from one person (or animal) to another through breathing in close proximity to someone. Different types of plague can mutate into others; pneumonic plague and septicemic plague often become complications of advanced bubonic plague.
Because different types have similarly devastating effects, it was long believed that bubonic plague was the disease that swept across Europe during the plague epidemic 
. A new study, supported by DNA evidence, suggests that the Black Death was not bubonic plague, but a more rapidly spreading pneumonic plague.
Plague originated in China
Researchers have successfully traced the presence of bubonic plague to its origins in China, more than 2,600 years ago.
Different strains of plague have different bacterial structures. Looking at the distribution of each strain, the researchers traced the bubonic plague along the Silk Road, isolating 17 different bacterial strains. All of these mutations trace back to a single type of bacteria that only began to spread outside China over the last 6 centuries, carried by rats on ships leaving Chinese ports.
In 1409, ships brought the plague to East Africa. It also spread east and west, across Europe and through Hawaii. It eventually reached the United States in the late 19th century after an epidemic 
covered Yunnan province.
The village that sacrificed itself
In 1665, a tailor from the village of Iyam in Derbyshire, England, ordered fabric from London. During the delivery, the village received much more than just fabric - it was infected with the plague that was already reigning in the capital. People began to die, but they knew that the plague had not spread to the surrounding villages. So, led by the priest William Mompesson, the residents decided to isolate themselves by remaining in the Plague City to prevent the spread of the disease.
The quarantine began in June 1666. From that moment on, no one could enter or leave the village. Neighboring cities left food in specially designated areas far away from the populated area. Before the quarantine, 78 people had died, and by the end of the plague this number had risen to 256. Before the townspeople reopened their village to outsiders, they burned furniture and clothing, hoping to eradicate all traces of the disease, which might still be dormant.
The sacrifice was a success. There was not a single case of plague in any of the neighboring villages. Mompesson lost his wife Catherine, but he himself survived.
Conspiracy theorists used the plague to persecute Jews
When the plague decimated Europe in the 14th century, Christians and Jews began blaming each other. An estimated 25 million people died in the first half of 1348, and rumors soon emerged that the plague was a Jewish plot to destroy Christianity. The conspiracy allegedly began in Toledo, Spain, and spread throughout Europe.
The Count of Savoy began arresting and interrogating Jews, determined to find his version of the truth. His brutal torture allowed him to obtain many confessions, mostly people confessing to poisoning the city and city water supply systems. The Count sent these confessions to other cities as a warning, but the people there took them more seriously. Hundreds of Jewish settlements were burned to the ground and countless people were killed.
In Strasbourg, the nobility and city officials disagreed over whether to kill Jews. The nobles realized that this approach could eliminate the threat of plague, and at the same time their creditors. On Valentine's Day 1349, some 2,000 Jews were burned on a massive wooden platform in Strasbourg, their wealth confiscated and redistributed to Christian nobles.
The plague came to Strasbourg anyway. She took 16,000 lives.
The plague didn't necessarily kill
Many of us imagine that the plague was an imminent death sentence. This belief arose from the massive, widespread devastation caused by the plague, rather than its effects on individual sufferers. Many stories actually talk about people who were immune to the plague, but instead talk about those who contracted the disease but survived. Marshall Howe was one of those people.
Howe lived in the village of Iyam during the quarantine, and after recovering from the plague, he helped bury the dead. He was reportedly driving one person to the grave when the corpse suddenly spoke and asked for something to eat. It is believed that the deceased eventually recovered. Another Iyam resident, Margaret Blackwell, recovered from the plague after she became so thirsty that she drank a pot of rendered lard.
Studies of the skeletal remains of victims of the Black Death have revealed several facts. Most of those who died were already suffering from some other illness, such as malnutrition, before contracting the plague. The plague actually killed previously healthy individuals, but it is now believed that many who were healthy had a chance of survival.
The culprits of the most massive deaths in history are not the politicians who started the wars. Pandemics of terrible diseases were the causes of the most widespread death and suffering of people. How did it happen and where is plague, smallpox, typhus, leprosy, cholera now?
Historical facts about the plague
The plague pandemic brought the most massive mortality in the middle of the 14th century, sweeping across Eurasia and, according to the most conservative estimates of historians, killing 60 million people. If we consider that at that time the world's population was only 450 million, then one can imagine the catastrophic scale of the “Black Death,” as this disease was called. In Europe, the population decreased by about a third, and the labor shortage was felt here for at least another 100 years, farms were abandoned, the economy was in a terrible state. In all subsequent centuries, major outbreaks of plague were also observed, the last of which was noted in 1910-1911 in the northeastern part of China.
Origin of the name of the plague
The names come from Arabic. The Arabs called the plague “jummah,” which translated means “ball” or “bean.” The reason for this was the appearance of the inflamed lymph node of a plague patient - the bubo.
Methods of spread and symptoms of plague
There are three forms of plague: bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic. All of them are caused by one bacterium, Yersinia pestis, or, more simply, the plague bacillus. Its carriers are rodents with anti-plague immunity. And the fleas that have bitten these rats, also through a bite, transmit it to humans. The bacterium infects the flea's esophagus, as a result of which it becomes blocked, and the insect becomes eternally hungry, bites everyone and immediately infects it through the resulting wound.
Methods of combating plague
In medieval times, plague-inflamed lymph nodes (buboes) were cut out or cauterized, opening them. Plague was considered a type of poisoning in which some poisonous miasma entered the human body, so treatment consisted of taking antidotes known at that time, for example, crushed jewelry. Nowadays, the plague is successfully overcome with the help of common antibiotics.
The plague is now
Every year, about 2.5 thousand people become infected with the plague, but this is no longer in the form of a mass epidemic, but cases all over the world. But the plague bacillus is constantly evolving, and old medicines are not effective. Therefore, although everything, one might say, is under the control of doctors, the threat of catastrophe still exists today. An example of this is the death of a person registered in Madagascar in 2007 from a strain of the plague bacillus, in which 8 types of antibiotics did not help.
SMALLPOX
Historical facts about smallpox
During the Middle Ages, there were not many women who did not have signs of smallpox lesions on their faces (pockmarks), and the rest had to hide the scars under a thick layer of makeup. This influenced the fashion of excessive interest in cosmetics, which has survived to this day. According to philologists, all women today with letter combinations in their surnames “ryab” (Ryabko, Ryabinina, etc.), shadar and often generous (Shchedrins, Shadrins), Koryav (Koryavko, Koryaeva, Koryachko) had ancestors sporting pockmarks (rowans, generous, etc., depending on the dialect). Approximate statistics exist for the 17th-18th centuries and indicate that in Europe alone there were 10 million new smallpox patients, and for 1.5 million of them it was fatal. Thanks to this infection, the white man colonized both Americas. For example, the Spaniards brought smallpox to Mexico in the 16th century, because of which about 3 million of the local population died - the invaders had no one left to fight with.
Origin of the name smallpox
“Smallpox” and “rash” have the same root. In English, smallpox is called smallpox. And syphilis is called a great rash (great pox).
Methods of spread and symptoms of smallpox
After entering the human body, smallpox varionas (Variola major and Variola) lead to the appearance of blisters-pustules on the skin, the places of formation of which then scar, if the person survives, of course. The disease spreads through airborne droplets, and the virus also remains active in scales from the skin of an infected person.
Methods to combat smallpox
The Hindus brought rich gifts to the smallpox goddess Mariatela to appease her. Residents of Japan, Europe and Africa believed in the smallpox demon's fear of the color red: patients had to wear red clothes and be in a room with red walls. In the twentieth century, smallpox began to be treated with antiviral drugs.
Smallpox in modern times
In 1979, WHO officially announced that smallpox had been completely eradicated thanks to vaccination of the population. But in countries such as the USA and Russia, pathogens are still stored. This is done “for scientific research,” and the question of the complete destruction of these reserves is constantly being raised. It is possible that North Korea and Iran are secretly storing smallpox virions. Any international conflict could give rise to the use of these viruses as weapons. So it's better to get vaccinated against smallpox.
CHOLERA
Historical facts about cholera
Until the end of the 18th century, this intestinal infection largely bypassed Europe and raged in the Ganges delta. But then there were changes in climate, invasions of European colonialists in Asia, transportation of goods and people improved, and this all changed the situation: in 1817-1961, six cholera pandemics occurred in Europe. The most massive (third) took the lives of 2.5 million people.
Origin of the name cholera
The words “cholera” come from the Greek “bile” and “flow” (in reality, all the fluid from the inside flowed out of the patient). The second name for cholera due to the characteristic blue color of the skin of patients is “blue death”.
Methods of spread and symptoms of cholera
Vibrio cholera is a bacterium called Vibrio choleare that lives in water bodies. When it enters the small intestine of a person, it releases enterotoxin, which leads to profuse diarrhea and then vomiting. In severe cases of the disease, the body becomes dehydrated so quickly that the patient dies a few hours after the first symptoms appear.
Methods to combat cholera
They applied samovars or irons to the feet of the sick to warm them, gave them chicory and malt infusions to drink, and rubbed their bodies with camphor oil. During the epidemic, they believed that it was possible to scare away the disease with a belt made of red flannel or wool. Nowadays, people with cholera are effectively treated with antibiotics, and for dehydration they are given oral fluids or special salt solutions are administered intravenously.
Cholera now
WHO says the world is now in its seventh cholera pandemic, dating back to 1961. So far, it is mostly residents of poor countries who get sick, primarily in South Asia and Africa, where 3-5 million people get sick every year and 100-120 thousand of them do not survive. Also, according to experts, due to global negative changes in the environment, serious problems with clean water will soon arise in developed countries. In addition, global warming will cause cholera outbreaks in nature to appear in more northern regions of the planet. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine against cholera.
TIF
Historical facts about typhus
Until the second half of the 19th century, this was the name given to all diseases in which severe fever and confusion were observed. Among them, the most dangerous were typhus, typhoid and relapsing fever. Sypnoy, for example, in 1812 almost halved Napoleon’s 600,000-strong army, which invaded Russian territory, which was one of the reasons for his defeat. And a century later, in 1917-1921, 3 million citizens of the Russian Empire died of typhus. Relapsing fever mainly caused grief to the inhabitants of Africa and Asia; in 1917-1918, about half a million people in India alone died from it.
Origin of the name typhus
The name of the disease comes from the Greek “typhos”, which means “fog”, “confused consciousness”.
Methods of spread and symptoms of typhus
Typhus causes small pink rashes on the skin. When the attack returns after the first attack, the patient seems to feel better for 4-8 days, but then the disease knocks him down again. Typhoid fever is an intestinal infection that is accompanied by diarrhea.
The bacteria that cause typhus and relapsing fever are carried by lice, and for this reason, outbreaks of these infections break out in crowded places during humanitarian disasters. When bitten by one of these creatures, it is important not to itch – it is through scratched wounds that the infection enters the blood. Typhoid fever is caused by the Salmonella typhi bacillus, which, when ingested through food and water, leads to damage to the intestines, liver and spleen.
Methods to combat typhus
During the Middle Ages, it was believed that the source of infection was the stench that emanated from the patient. Judges in Britain who had to deal with criminals with typhus wore boutonnieres of strong-smelling flowers as a means of protection, and also distributed them to those who came to court. The benefit from this was only aesthetic. Since the 17th century, attempts have been made to combat typhus with the help of cinchona bark, imported from South America. This is how they treated all diseases that caused fever. Nowadays, antibiotics are quite successful in treating typhus.
Typhoid in now
Relapsing fever and typhus were removed from the WHO list of particularly dangerous diseases in 1970. This happened thanks to the active fight against pediculosis (lice), which was carried out throughout the planet. But typhoid fever continues to cause troubles for people. The most suitable conditions for the development of an epidemic are heat, insufficient drinking water and problems with hygiene. Therefore, the main candidates for the outbreak of typhoid epidemics are Africa, South Asia and Latin America. According to experts from the Ministry of Health, every year 20 million people become infected with typhoid fever and for 800 thousand of them it is fatal.
LEPROSY
Historical facts about leprosy
Also called leprosy, it is a “slow disease.” Unlike the plague, for example, it did not spread in the form of pandemics, but quietly and gradually conquered space. At the beginning of the 13th century, there were 19 thousand leper colonies in Europe (an institution for isolating lepers and fighting the disease) and the victims were millions. By the beginning of the 14th century, the mortality rate from leprosy had dropped sharply, but hardly because they had learned to treat patients. It’s just that the incubation period for this disease is 2-20 years. Infections like plague and cholera that raged in Europe killed many people even before he was classified as a leper. Thanks to the development of medicine and hygiene, there are now no more than 200 thousand lepers in the world. They mainly live in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Origin of the name leprosy
The name comes from the Greek word “leprosy,” which translates to “a disease that makes the skin scaly.” Leprosy was called in Rus' - from the word “kazit”, i.e. lead to distortion and disfigurement. This disease also has a number of other names, such as Phoenician disease, “lazy death”, Hansen’s disease, etc.
Methods of spread and symptoms of leprosy
It is possible to become infected with leprosy only by long-term contact with the skin of a carrier of the infection, as well as by ingestion of liquid secretions (saliva or from the nose). Then quite a long time passes (the recorded record is 40 years), after which the Hansen bacillus (Mucobacterium leprae) first disfigures the person, covering him with spots and growths on the skin, and then makes him an invalid rotting alive. Also, the peripheral nervous system is damaged and the patient loses the ability to feel pain. You can take and cut off a part of your body without understanding where it went.
Methods to combat leprosy
During the Middle Ages, lepers were declared dead while they were still alive and placed in leprosariums - a kind of concentration camps, where patients were doomed to a slow death. They tried to treat the infected with solutions that included gold, bloodletting and baths with the blood of giant turtles. Nowadays, this disease can be completely eliminated with the help of antibiotics.
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1) Most cases of infection in the United States occur in Western states
Plague affects between 1 and 17 Americans each year, and the most common type is bubonic plague. Because patients begin taking antibiotics before the disease progresses, less than 20% of those infected develop pneumonic plague. Where does this even come from in the 21st century? The fact is that in rural areas there is a very high population of rats, and it is simply impossible to exterminate them, and they are the main carriers of the disease. Most cases are in northern New Mexico, northern Arizona and southern Colorado, although cases have also been reported in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
2) The last plague epidemic in the USA was in Los Angeles
In 1924, 30 people fell ill with the plague. On October 30, 51-year-old Jesus Luyan felt unwell - a few days before, he found a dead rat under the house and threw it out. The man became patient zero. For a long time, the disease was considered a severe form of pneumonia, until the epidemic reached a more severe level. Certain areas of Los Angeles were quarantined. This and, to a greater extent, the deployment of a large-scale program to exterminate rodents helped stop the plague. All locations where infected animals were found were also noted, with some even found downtown and in Beverly Hills. The harbor was temporarily closed due to an infected rat being found there.
3) Epidemics still occur in Madagascar
Most of the plague cases occur in Madagascar. The country is constantly experiencing outbreaks of the disease: the last epidemic occurred in 2017 - from August to November, 2,348 cases were registered, of which 202 people died. This case was unique in that the plague reached the capital Antananarivo, as well as other major cities, which increased the rate of spread of the disease. It is usually during the rainy season that cases of infection appear in rural areas. This time, one man infected 31 people while traveling around the country. The Los Angeles Times reported that he probably thought he had malaria, which has similar symptoms, and therefore did not take any precautions.
4) The plague wand was almost used as a biological weapon during the Cold War
Both the USA and the USSR were looking for the possibility of using plague bacteria as weapons, but the Soviet Union advanced its development further - a way to spray the bacterium was created. This made it possible to infect an entire city. By some estimates, 50 kilograms of the plague bacillus sprayed over a city of 5 million people would probably infect 150,000 and kill 36,000. However, these estimates do not take into account additional factors that could cause the disease to spread further. The United States has never created a way to reproduce enough bacteria, but to this day there is a plan to counter such biological weapons.
5) The plague wand is incredibly durable
Despite all the horrors, a bacterium without a host can live no more than an hour. It is quite sensitive to sunlight, although it is resistant to various temperatures in which the wearer itself can survive. The main "success" of the plague bacillus is how well it survives inside fleas, and those, in turn, survive on rodents. Thus, rats are the main carriers. Beginning in the 1860s, China experienced severe pandemics, which by 1894 reached Hong Kong, and from there the plague spread via ships to port cities around the world. This is how the disease reached the western states. The disease was quickly eradicated from urban areas, but because of rats and squirrels, it was able to reach rural areas where it persists to this day.
We cannot allow the mass extermination of all small mammals, so the plague will most likely be our neighbor for many decades to come.
The plague epidemic raged in Europe from 1348 to 1351 and, according to rough estimates, destroyed from 25 to 60% of Europeans.
It is difficult to ascertain the exact number of deaths from medieval sources. Mortality rates varied from area to area. According to the latest data from researchers, the number of deaths from the plague ranged from 75 to 200 million people.
The name “Black Death” appeared relatively recently, and during the epidemic and for a long time after it, the disease was called “The Great Mortality” or “Pestilence”.
Although the period that refers to the Black Death ended in 1351, the plague returned periodically to Europe until the end of the 15th century.
The Black Death was the second pandemic in Europe. The first occurred back in the sixth century, and it also brought many misfortunes, but it was not as devastating as the second.
The Black Plague followed closely on the heels of a surge in population growth in Europe, which, coupled with a two-year period of cold weather and heavy rains that washed away grain harvests, led to population congestion in cities that provided fertile ground for the contagious disease.
In 1346, rumors of the black plague originated in China and spread through Asia, Persia, Syria, India and Egypt to Europe. According to these rumors, the entire population of India died out.
It is said that during the siege of the Genoese city of Caffa by the Tatars in 1347, its inhabitants were infected with the plague when the Tatars began dumping victims of the disease into the city.
In November 1347, the crews of several Genoese merchant ships landed in the Sicilian city of Messina after a trading voyage along the coast from the Black Sea to Italy. There were dead and dying sailors on the ships, many of whom had strange black tumors on their necks, armpits or groins. Many of them were coughing up blood. Those who were alive died within a few days.
From Sicily, the disease spread throughout Europe within three years, moving north and reaching Iceland and Greenland. The plague and the simultaneous changes in climate put an end to European colonization of the shores of Greenland.
In the Italian city of Siena, more than half the population died out. Work on the construction of the cathedral, which was planned to be the largest in the world, stopped, and the construction of this structure never resumed. Truncated transepts (cross naves) still stand in the city as a memory of the Black Death, which stopped construction.
In May 1349, the plague reached Bergen, Norway. She got there with the crew of a ship that delivered a cargo of wool from England. A few days later, the crew and passengers of this ship died.
In November 2000, a study of the dental pulp of plague victims from a burial site in France showed the presence of Yersinia pestis in all 20 samples taken from three victims.
Yersinia pestis causes three types of deadly plague: bubonic plague, caused by bites from infected fleas, in which the bacilli move to the lymph nodes and multiply rapidly to form growths called buboes; pneumonic plague, an infection in which the patient coughs up blood and spreads the disease through the air; septicemic plague, which spreads through the blood and almost always causes death.
The mortality rate from bubonic plague was 30-75%. The pulmonary form killed 90-95% of infected people. The septicemic plague killed almost everyone and is still considered incurable.
Many believed that the plague was sent down from above as punishment for the innumerable sins of mankind.
Jews were often blamed for the appearance of the plague, who allegedly tried to destroy Christians with the help of this disease, although they themselves were dying from this disease.
Under terrible torture, Jews involuntarily confessed to poisoning wells and other water sources to spread the infection.
As a result of these forced confessions, Jews in the German city of Strasbourg were given a choice: either convert to Christianity or be burned. About 2,000 Jews were executed.
Many doctors believed that a bad smell could scare away the plague. Therefore, they doused the patients with urine and smeared them with feces, that is, they did everything to make the disease spread even more.
Washing the body was discouraged during the plague for two reasons. Firstly, together with changing clothes, it was considered a manifestation of vanity, which incurred the wrath of God. Secondly, it was believed that after washing, pores on the skin opened, through which contaminated air could more easily enter and exit, spreading disease. The latter prejudice existed in Europe until the 19th century.
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