By: Caroline Longardner
As we continue on with the COVID-19 VIRUS in this country there seems even to be a rise in cases most recently. The weather is warming up and people are getting out more and perhaps are not as careful as they should be about wearing masks and “distancing”. Many of the our social affairs have been canceled for the summer.
A correction is to be made in the column on “Tuberculosis”. It was written that over “93 Million people” have died in the United States by May 20, 2020 of the Covid-19 Virus. It should have read: “93 Thousand people”. Sorry for the typo.
The BLACK PLAGUE -”BLACK DEATH” was a terrible global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck in Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. Actually it was thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was likely SPREAD BY TRADING SHIPS, though recent research has indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black Death may have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C. The first plague arrived in Europe in October in 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks and were met with a horrifying surprise: Most of the sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian authorities immediately ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the city harbor, but it was too late: Over the next 5 years, the Black Death would kill more that 20 million people in Europe — almost one third of the continent’s population. The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system, causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the infection can spread to the blood or lungs. It was a horrible disease, causing swelling at the beginning, either on the groin or under the armpits, becoming as big as an apple or an egg, and these were called the vulgar named “plague-boils”.
Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms — fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, tenible aches, and pains– and then, in short order, DEATH. The Black Death was extremely contagious. “Persons who seemed perfectly healthy when they went to bed could be dead by morning! Were you aware that the nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosy” was written about the symptoms of the Black Death?
Scientists know that the Black Death, ‘know known as “THE PLAGUE”, is spread by a bacillus called YERSINA PESTIS. They know that the bacillus travels from person to person through the air as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Both of these pests could be found almost everywhere in Medieval Europe (and aboard ships). This was how it traveled from port to port. Soon it was in France, Africa, Italy, England and all over the world.
Physicians used crude and dangerous techniques on the Black Plague. Blood-letting and boil-lancing, bathing in rosewater or vinegar and burning aromatic herbs were among a few.
Many people fled the cities to live in the country, however, the livestock also got the disease. In fact, so many sheep died that there was a shortage of European wool.
It was thought that it could be DIVINE PUNISHMENT FROM GOD. Jews were purged from many communities and thousands were massacred in 1348 and 1349. Many Jews fled to sparsely populated regions of Europe to be safe from the mobs.
Public flagellation (even by upper class people) was done by persons who traveled from town to town engaged in displays of penance and punishment. They would beat themselves and one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople looked on. For 33 1/2 days the flagellants repeated this ritual 3 times day. Then they would move on to the next town and repeat the process over again.
