Essay

Janki Patel May 12, 2009 Medieval Plague You may have heard of the Medieval Plague, a deadly disease that struck in the mid thirteenth hundreds. It was contagious and thus, it killed hundreds of helpless souls. Due to this, the disease was known as the Black Death. The Black Death spread around Europe like a wildfire. The first time that the plague was seen in Europe was at Messina, Sicily in October of 1347. The plague came in trading ships that probably came from the Black Sea. The trading ship held a rat that had a flea on its back. The flea, which was as small as a pea if not smaller, killed about one third of the population in Europe. It spread as far as London and France, and greatly damaged the population there. If a person was found to have gotten the Black Death, he would die within three to five days. Also, everyone including friends and family would leave that person for fear of getting the Plague. However, just because they left the person didn’t mean that they wouldn’t get the plague. When the people threw garbage into the streets, rats and fleas would be attracted to the garbage and in this way the Plague was spread around. The Black Death wiped out whole towns and cities. It got to most of Europe and some of Asia. A simple bite on someone’s leg could swell up and through this one part of the body it could spread all through the whole body in minutes and in a few days your breathing would get painful and soon enough you would attain death. Since the