THE MEDIEVAL PLAGUE OF DEATH

by Pam North

Germ warfare has become a more visible and terrifying threat since September
11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax incidents, and diseases of the past,
thought to be more or less under control, loom as threatening spectres
again due to supplies of protective vaccines that are currently inadequate
for large-scale inoculation in emergency circumstances.  Much of the
more advanced world has become fairly protected (and overly complacent)
from many of the diseases that once ran rampant, bringing high death tolls.

It's interesting to look back on the effects of a widespread disease.
One of the worst outbreaks to occur in history was the bubonic plague, or 
Black Death as it was called.  In the early 1330s an outbreak ot the disease 
occurred in China, and since China was one of the busiest of the world's 
trading nations, it wasn't long before China's plague spread to western Asia. 
The Crimean city of Kaffa, inhabited by Genoese, was laid seige to by invading
Mongols or Tatars, who lobbed decaying corpses of plague victims over the city
walls.  This early form of germ warfare killed nearly all Kaffa's inhabitants,
but a few Genoese sailors escaped and sailed away, carrying the plague
with them.  The dying sailors docked at Messina, Sicily in 1347, and soon the
plague infiltrated the town.  Ships from the East, turned away from Messina, 
went to Genoa and other European ports, spreading the plague farther.  The 
Black Death eventually wiped out one-fourth to one-half of Europe's 
population (20 million to 75 million people).  Although the disease had been 
around for a long time, it had never killed in such numbers.  The bacteria
was carried by rats, which were unaffected by it, but fleas picked it up 
from the rats.  As the human population grew, fleas turned from the blood of 
small mammals to that of human beings.  When the disease reached the lungs 
of an infected person, it could then be transmitted via direct contact 
between people, usually killing painfully and quickly.  The Italian writer
Boccaccio said its victims "ate lunch with their friends and dinner with 
their ancestors in Paradise."  Survivors of the plague may have gained 
immunity from genetic chance, or perhaps by having had a mild form of the 
disease previously.

The nightmare of the Black Death changed the world forever.  After it began 
to diminish in 1350, chaos reigned and society was severely impacted.  Law 
and order suffered; schools and universities had closed; debts could not be 
collected from the dead; construction projects had come to a standstill and 
repairs failed to be made; morality was subject to abandonment in the face
of the strong possibility of impending doom.  Much of the platform of order 
had collapsed and had to be built again.

Some changes wrought by the plague brought good, however.  Now fewer in 
number, workers could demand better treatment, higher wages and easier work 
from those who needed to hire them.  Many moved from the country to the 
cities and towns for better jobs.  A surplus of available goods meant lower 
prices for purchasers, which translated into a better standard of living.  
The working class began to have a higher sense of self-esteem, and in turn 
was more respected by the upper class.  Land values dropped due to an excess 
of available property, which allowed more people to achieve the dream of 
becoming landowners.  As people's station in life improved, their desire 
for knowledge increased, creating a demand for more institutions of learning.
New teachers replaced those who had died, bringing fresh viewpoints, and 
teaching was done in the local languages rather than in the traditional 
Latin and Greek.  For the first time, the common people could acquire an 
education, and this was probably the major contributing factor for the 
following age of the Renaissance.  New philosophical questions were asked, 
expanding people's minds and perceptions.

The Black Death was not the end of the bubonic plague.  Outbreaks in smaller 
areas still occurred afterward, the worst of which was one in London in 1665.
People had become wise enough to leave when the plague struck, retreating to 
safer, more isolated areas in the country.  A young professor named Isaac 
Newton took such a leave from London to inhabit his country estate 
temporarily, and used the time to develop the math for his theory of gravity.

While bubonic plague has not been totally eradicated, modern antibiotics,
if used early, have so far held the disease in check.  It also has been 
suggested that the immunity some individuals have shown to the human
immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) may be a genetic mutation inherited from
ancestors who survived the black plague.