The Black Plague In the mid-1300s a devastating pandemic spread across Europe and decimated over one third of the population. The bacterium Yersinia pestis first infected black rats and then transmitted the infection to humans by fleabites. The plague that swept the continent is known as Black Death or Black Plague. The name came several centuries after its visitation (Benedictow 42). The contagion swept across Europe by way of roads and vessels. Millions of people died within just a few years (Weise). Although the Black Plague eradicated millions, it created advances in medicine, revised sanitation standards, and modified how to tend to those afflicted. The Black Plague pandemic brought useful responses. The early public health measures were drastically expanded. Sara McGill mentions that” The people’s limited understanding of medicine, cleanliness and sanitation also added to the power of the plague” (1). They were able to do some preventative measures, causes and recommended cures which later led to the basic medical practices and sanitation practices of the time (Benedictow 43). It also opened a door for more modern medicine and wave of changes in public health and hospital management. People have now embraced a method known as quarantine. This practice isolates those who are contagious from the healthy so as not to spread diseases. There was no known effective antibody to fight the contagion (2). Black Death was known as the greatest medical disaster of the Middle Ages (Cruse 71). The development of modern medicine and medical practices were formed as information of plagues became known. Pointer states that technology opened up a new world of pathogen identification (Hamzelou 16) and disease regulation. The Black Death helped shape medieval medicine's course of development, and also helped shape the development of future medical practices. Companies such as the CDC focus on disease control and prevention. The corporation is able to make vaccination and immunizations for all types of diseases. This has helped prevent millions of deaths around the world.
The plague spread throughout Europe and killed so many people that burial space was limited. A Florentine chronicler described that,” those who were poor who died during the night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pit… Others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just as one makes layers of pasta and cheese” (Benedictow 44). The bacterium was spread quickly by way of roads and vessels. By land the contagion traveled up to 2 kilometers a day on main roads, and 40 kilometers