The Plague
PD: 3a

The plague or Black Death was a massive pandemic. This disease killed 30%-60% of Europe’s population at the time. It took time to recover from the immense loss. It took nearly 150 years for it to settle and leave Europe. It is said to have originated in China, oriental rat fleas carrying the disease must have made their way in the Silk Road in merchant ships, bringing the infection to Europe. Although the plague did not only hit Europe it hit most of Asia too. This malady was a vile one. Taking lives of innocent people, families, including women and children. Many sicknesses and diseases have plagued many Europeans and Asians, but part of the fault was because of the lack of hygiene and clustered urban living. Medical treatment before was critical, a simple cold could be a sign of an early grave. In the cities so many people live close together that they can easily contract the Black Death disease. Allies and small decrepit buildings also contained the pests that cause these illnesses. Hygiene was something many people, especially Europeans, didn’t take seriously; therefore empowering the pandemic. The bacterium that causes Black Death is called Yersinia Pestis. It is carried by fleas theorizing the cause of the illness. Fleas feed excessively to satisfy their monstrous hunger, infecting animals and humans. Thus the rats that get shipped to different countries carry these parasites causing the Pandemic.
Symptoms of the Y. Pestis are buboes in the groin, neck and armpits which bled and seep puss. They would grow as tumors the size of eggs or as big as an apple. As the malady continues to disseminate it starts to evolve, changing its appearance. They seem to look like black spots and spread all over the body. High fevers and vomiting blood is another part of the sickness, fevers can reach up to 101-105*F. Headaches and painful joints play a part too. Blood-tinged sputum can become bright red and free flowing. People who become infected only live for about two to eight days if left untreated. It can, nowadays, be cured thanks to our medical research and sanitation, but many of the people, in some countries, still become ill and don’t have great medical attention. It is, and, or can be contagious, it may enter through the skin, intestines, and lungs. Gastrointestinal infection is caused by eating anthrax-infected meat, having symptoms like vomiting blood, severe diarrhea, and inflammation in the intestines. This can spread throughout the body creating more toxins along the way which can cause death. In the skin, itchiness and irritation can occur, lesions and blisters form. The infection can develop to toxemia and death. As for the respiratory infection, you can develop cold or flu-like symptoms, if left untreated it can cause respiratory collapse which can be fatal. The Y. Pestis virus is a cold-blooded killer. Not only are the symptoms lurid, they follow with the upshot, death. Sicknesses like the typhus, smallpox, and respiratory infections was said to be a combination of different plagues creating the Y. Pestis. Others say that it is a form of anthrax and N.F. Cantor and other combinations of other pandemics. Or that it could be a form of an infectious disease characterized as a hemorrhagic plague. Scholars and doctors gave their theories on how the infamous condition formed, whether if it originated by itself or if it is a combination of other plagues, it all had the outcome of the Y. Pestis. The Y. Pestis symptoms were similar to the bubonic plague and previous infections that the early people have contracted, therefore giving researchers ideas and clues, like for example, the Black Death becoming the outcome of evolving infections and diseases. One infection was enough, but all of them combined were calamitous. During the 14th century nearly75-200 million people were killed of the pestilence. In the middle ages many people knew very little about the