1. Sachem North High School
Dr. Afxendiou
Sachem North High School

2. A disease so horrendous it was given three names…
The Bubonic Plague
The Black Plague
The Black Death

3. It started…

5. Caused by…
In the rat flea
Bacteria
On the rat

6. The Disease Cycle Human is infected!
Flea drinks rat blood that carries the bacteria.
Bacteria
multiply in
flea’s gut.
Human is infected!
Flea bites human and regurgitates blood into human wound.
Flea’s gut clogged with bacteria.

7. Transmission
Airborne! Inhaled by the victim, infected the lungs, and dead due to respiratory failure sometimes within 24 hours.
Touch objects touched by infected person and introduce into system via the mouth.

8. Symptoms of Plague
BUBONIC - fever, exhaustion, chills, swollen glands which turn red at first, then black PNEUMONIC - cough which produces frothy blood from lungs SEPTICAEMIC - internal bleeding; blood pools under skin causing black coloration

9. Treatment
Since they didn’t understand the way deceases worked and spread, their cures seem ‘absurd’ and ineffective to us.
They believed that the decease was caused by bad vapors and blood imbalance

10. Bring out your dead! Ring around the rosies A pocket full of posies
Ashes ashes
We all fall down.
Bring out your dead!

11. They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in
They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in ... ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug. And I, Agnolo di Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands ... And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.
—The Plague in Siena: An Italian Chronicle

12. Attempts to Stop the Plague Self-inflicted “penance” for our sins!
Flagellanti:
Self-inflicted “penance” for our sins!

13. Attempts to Stop the Plague
Pogroms against the Jews
“Golden Circle” obligatory badge
“Jew” hat

14. The Mortality Rate in Europe
35% - 70%
25,000,000 dead !!!
Half of Asia decimated!

15. Effects:
Social
art – moves away from strictly religious subjects to death as a subject.
Depopulation
Serfs can achieve their freedom
Loss of support for the Church – couldn’t explain why the Plague had to happen. Seeds of the Reformation
Higher level of leisure

16. Effects: Political – Government halted
Decline of feudal system of government – peasants leave the manor

17. Effects:
Economic-
Commerce ceased
Trade was disrupted
Food production slowed
Loss of labor force
Loss of knowledge
Labor shortage allowed peasants to escape from serfdom when offered freedom in exchange for work.

18. One tiny insect, a flea, toppled feudalism and changed the course of history in Europe.

19. Can the Plague return? 1660-1663 Last Epidemic: 1942
Largest Outbreaks: ’s
Last Epidemic: 1942
Last Outbreak: 2005, DR Congo, Africa

20. Thesis Statement Exercise:
How did political institutions in western Europe change from the fall of the Roman Empire to the end of the Middle Ages?