Cures That Didn't Work: The Black Death

Why not live life to it's fullest when it could be over any minute? This was the sentiment of many people living in 14th century Europe during the outbreak of the Black Death. Two million people died from the Black Death, and people who weren't dead knew that they could die any day. In their remaining time on earth they decided to abandon the system and just do whatever they wanted. This wasn't a difficult thing to do because the system had basically fallen apart. During the worst outbreaks of the plague regular society stopped as people became too sick or too dead to do their jobs. Those who were still alive and well suffered from fear of the plague, famine (due to lack of food production), and unsanitary conditions (due to lack of garbage disposal). Anarchy took over the land because the governing class was dead or inactive.

Unknown - Jewish Encyclopedia

What Was the Black Death?

The black death first appeared in Italy in the year 1340 and was spread by sailors throughout Europe all the way up to England and Ireland. By the time it ran its course, the black death killed about two million people. The plague turned many bustling cities into ghost towns.

The sheer magnitude of destruction that the black plague caused is in itself a marker of modern society. Without the complex trade roots and high density of city populations, the black death probably would have started and ended in Italy. Or it might never have sprung up.

Symptoms

People who caught the black death generally died within a week or less. The symptoms started with a flu-like fever followed by vomiting. Then, pus-filled buboes appeared and parts of the skin turned purple from internal bleeding. During the last phase of the plague, the lungs filled with fluid and the patient died.

Ineffective Cures

Fear of the deadly Black Death resulted in many treatments that didn't work. These treatments seem illogical today, but in the midst of all the chaos and terror that surrounded the Black Death people were willing to try anything.

The physicians of the time simply had no idea of how to treat this deadly disease. They argued about how it was spread. Some said it was transmitted by sight, others argued that one could contract the disease just by thinking about it. Most physicians advised to purify the air with fire and good-smelling herbs and to avoid the sick at all costs. Some treated ill patients with blood-letting and pastes made of their own excrement, popular treatments at the time which didn't help anything.

One physician contracted the plague, and shockingly, survived by draining the pus from his own buboes. This cure may have worked, but it didn't stop other crazy cures from springing up.

During the middle ages the Church was a huge part of people's lives and the citizens of Europe wanted the Church to save them from the black death. The Church didn't have the power to do this and most of their priests were actually dead. Since it was the priest's job to deliver the last sacraments to the dying, most priests contracted the plague quickly. Many people lost faith in the Church and turned to other religious cults. One of these was the flagellants, a violent group that marched from town to town beating themselves as a sacrifice to God.  Despite these drastic measures the plague continued it's rampage.

Another awful measure taken to end the plague was a mass assassination of the Jews, who were said to have poisoned the wells causing the plague. Jewish people were tortured until they confessed to helping spread the plague and then they were burned at the stake. After all the Jews were gone, the black death still swept the land, but all the debts the townspeople owed to their Jewish neighbors were gone.

           Burning of Jews during the Black Death epidemic, 1349 Unknown - European chronicle, scanned and cropped from History of the Jewish People by H.H. Ben-Sasson, ed. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1976) p.564-565

Aftermath of the Black Death

Eventually in the late 14th century the plague ran it's course and slowly disappeared, but it certainly didn't leave without a trace. The black death began the end of serfdom because so many died that labor became scarce and the still living peasants could demand higher wages and better conditions. This resulted in the peasants becoming more powerful. Art also changed, it became more macabre and paintings featuring death or illness became the norm.

How Was the Black Death Actually Spread?

The BBC documentary (Medieval Apocalypse) that I watched to learn about the Black Death didn't mention how the disease was actually spread. This sparked my interest so I googled it. According to to The Washington Post and Forbes gerbils, not rats probably brought the disease over from Asia, but there is also some evidence that the Black Death may have been airborne. It's fascinating how we are still questioning how a disease that occurred over hundreds of years ago was spread. I think this just goes to show how complex our world is.