Damen. "Man and Disease: The Black Death." . N.p., 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 30 June 2014. <http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&Civ/chapters/06PLAGUE.htm>.
-Black Death overtook it's victims with severe symptoms and an extremely high mortality rate
-Not the first time the plague hit, but in previous years there was little movement or trade so the disease had no way to spread
-Plague was an endemic among rodents, became an epidemic against other biological groups
-Black Death's pathogen is bacillus called Yersina pestis.
-Identified in 1894 by a French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin
-It wasn't until later years that the Black Death could be blamed upon Yersina pestis
-Pathogen lived as an infection in a rat's blood stream, traveling rat to rat through fleas. The rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) was the primary vector.
-The flea drinks Yersina pestis and it becomes a small bowel obstruction causing it to starve. Flea then bites a plethora of other rats in a hunger panic transmitting the diease. It's a non-lethal cycle between the flea and rodent.
- Fleas will bite almost any mammal, humans included, hence transmitting the disease to non-resistent homeosapians.
- Humans die within 5 days from Yersina pestis, sometimes even overnight. Though if you survive the plague, you will have a resistance and will not catch it twice.
- Starting with a fever, lymph nodes being to swell to flush out cotagion. Nodes become enlarged called buboes, given the name 'Bubonic' plague.
- Third day: high fever, diarrhea, delirium, black splotches appear on skin by contracted capillaries. Capillaries are small & block easily, then rupture causing the blackness of the epidermis.
- Death follows soon after due to internal hemorrhaging, bloodstream congested with bacteria.
-Buboes could swell so much as to rupture pus & bacteria, extremely painful but a flush of the system
-Pneumonic plague, airbourne bacilli attack victims quickly and fatally (collapse, cough blood, & die within hours)
-After 5 years, killed 1/4th-1/3rd of Europe's population
"Black Death." . N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2014. <http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Black-Death.pdf>.
-Peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350 caused by the bacteria Yerssina pestis
-Rat fleas and black rats traveled on merchant ships securing the spread of the plague throughout the Mediterranean and Europe
-Killed 30%-60% of Europe's population, approx 450million people killed
[Symptoms] -Ziegler says [it is questionable] if the bubo ruptures & discharges, you have a greater chance of living
- Acute fever & vomiting blood; most victims died 2-7 days after being infected.
-David Herlihy identifies freckle spots and rashes, potential flea bite sites
[has nice quotes I can take]
Matza, Louis. "The Sacred Nature of Secular Medicine in the Time of the Black Death." . N.p., 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 30 June 2014. <http://history.rutgers.edu/honors-papers-2011/doc_download/404-the-sacred-nature-of-secular-medicine-in-the-time-of-the-black-death>.
-Human roles and divine interventions were reconized and stressed in late medieval medicine. [pg3]
-Aristotle's natural philosophy became the base for describing natural phenomenons, according to scholasticism. [pg25]
-Galen & Hippocrates identified the buboes as external disfigurments caused by something internal. [pg31]
-Priests performed spiritual aid because the soul was more important than the body. [pg32]
-Doctors believe that it was by God's mercy that a person would heal and continue to live virtuously & his punishment if you were taken by the Black Death. [pg57]
-Resorting to medicine was thought to be an athiest action
-"In the introduction to The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio described inadequacies of medicine against the epidemic and the mass of unqualified healers crowding the market, but also criticized the recommendations of qualified doctors." [pg57]
-Doctors were obligated to use medicine according to God's expectations [pg58]
-God and god alone heals people, though with the aid of earthly medicines that he has sent us to use[pg 59]
-"the grace of God compelled those who knew the cause of the epidemic to use that knowledge to cure the faithful." [pg60]
"Science Museum. Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine.." The Black Death and early public health measures. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2014. <http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/publichealth/blackdeath.aspx>.
-Hippocrates & Galen are given basicly given all the credit when it comes to medicine during the Black Death.
-'Cito, Longe, Tarde' traslates to 'Leave quickly, go far away, and come back slowly.'
-"under Islamic doctrine, plague - being the will of God - was to be endured and fleeing was forbidden"
-"Strapping live chickens around plague buboes or drinking potions laced with mercury, arsenic or ground horn from the mythical unicorn did not help. Nor did carrying sweet-smelling flowers and herbs or ornate pomanders to purify the air. "
-Italy was the first country to ban travel and start quarentineing [40 days] ships/ people.
-Italian cities quarentined whole towns, saving some minor ones.
Knox, Ellis. "The Black Death." ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. ORB, 1 Jan. 1999. Web. 1 July 2014. <http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/westciv/blackdeath.html>.
-Orgin of the plague came from the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s.
-Major outbreak in Asia, China lost 35 million people
-Septicaemic attacked the blood, pneumonic attacked the lungs. Both 99% fatal
-People believed the disease was an airborne transmission due to the scent of decaying and rotting corpses; turned to scents to 'ward off deadly vapors'
-Cure of sound, church bells, cannons, to blast the plague away
-Talismans, charms, spells, that could be purchased at the apothocary to ward off disease
-Most realistic 'medical intervention' was to simply avoid the disease all together
