1. The Black Death

2. What were the symptoms of the plague?

3. Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.
The Symptoms
Bulbous
Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.

4. The most common form of the Black Death was the BUBONIC PLAGUE and it was spread the fleas which lived on the black rat.
Bubonic = Enlarged lymph nodes

5. How was the plague transmitted?

6. THE FLEA Bacteria (Yersinia pestis) would build in the rat flea….

7. Cures?
If the swellings burst and the poison came out people sometimes survived. It seemed reasonable to draw out the poison.

8. Medieval cure
The swellings would be softened with figs and cooked onions.
The onions would be mixed with yeast and butter.
Then open the swellings with a knife.

9. Medieval cure Take a live frog and put its belly on the plague sore.
The frog will swell up and burst.
Keep doing this with further frogs until they stop bursting.
Some people say that a dried toad will do the job better.

10. Other Attempts to Stop the Plague : Self-inflicted “penance” for sins.

11. Attempts to Stop the Plague Pogroms against the Jews

12. Outcomes of the Death…. By the Numbers
Believed that over 25 million died
That is about 1/3 of Europe’s population at the time

13. Social Effects People abandoned family, friends, and homes
Cities were left like ghost towns
Cities often smelled or decomposing corpses

14. Economic Trade decreased due to fear of spreading disease
Demand for peasant work was high

15. Religious Thought God was punishing them
Abandoned religion when prayer didn’t help
Many clergy men died
Funerals were not held

16. The Plague Doctor Outfit Hat- Signaled as a DR
Mask- shielded eyes and face- filled with herbs to protect from smell
Stick- kept victims at a safe distance
Coat- protected from contact

17. Where did the Black Death come from?
Believed to have arrived in Messina on trade ships and then spread along trade routes and with people as they fled devastated areas.

19. And where did it go?
Faded away with several relapses over the next several decades, never reaching the devastation of the middle 14th century.

20. Pics and Art

24. Ring Around the Rosie
Some have made a connection with the Plague and this nursery rhyme. Can you?
Original Version
Ring around the rosy A pocketful of posies "Ashes, Ashes" We all fall down!
Other Version
Ring around the rosy A pocketful of posies "A-tishoo, A-tishoo" We all fall down!
The rosy red rash around the buboes = Ring around the rosy
Pockets filled with herbs and flowers (or posies) to cover smells.
"Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of some of the bodies.
Dead bodies that have fallen from the disease.