Black Death
Dont die
About the Plague
Plague is a bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and their fleas. But via those fleas it can sometimes leap to humans. When it does, the outcome can be horrific, making plague outbreaks the most notorious disease episodes in history. The animal reservoir for plague includes mice, camels, chipmunks, prairie dogs, rabbits, and squirrels, but the most dangerous for humans are rats, especially the urban sort. The disease is usually transmitted by the rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis .
How to prevent it ;
- Keep some clean clothes tightly folded and bound up in cloth treated with mint or penny-royal, preferably in a cedar chest far from all animals and vermin.
- At the first whisper of plague in the area, flee any populated town or village and head for an isolated villa, far from any trade routes, with your cedar chest.
- Vigilantly clean every last corner of your villa, killing all rats and burning their corpses.
- Use plenty of mint or penny royal to discourage fleas.
- Allow no cats or dogs to come near you.
- Once away from all human contact, wash in extremely hot water, change into your clean clothes, and burn the clothes you traveled in.
- Keep a minimum distance of 25 feet from any other human being to avoid catching any pneumatic form spread through breathing and sneezing.
- Bathe in hot water as frequently as you can.
- Keep a fire burning in your villa to ward off the bacillus, and stay as close to it as you can stand, even in summer.
- Have your armies burn and raze to the ground any nearby houses where plague victims have resided.
- Pray to the deity or the saint of your choice frequently and fervently.
- Stay where you are until six months after the most recent nearby outbreak.
Black Death Symptoms
The symptoms of the Black Death are:
- Painful swellings (buboes) of the lymph nodes
- These swellings, or buboes, would appear in the armpits, legs, neck, or groin
- A bubo was at first a red color. The bubo then turned a dark purple color, or black
- Other symptoms of the Black Death included:
- a very high fever
- delirium
- the victim begins to vomit
- muscular pains
- bleeding in the lungs
- mental disorientation
- The plague also produced in the victim an intense desire to sleep, which, if yielded to, quickly proved fatal
- A victim would die quickly - victims only lived between 2 -4 days after contracting the deadly disease
Black Death
Plague is a bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and their fleas.
Black Death
It was called the Black Death. Hundreds of millions of people died of it.
Black Death
Plague can infect domestic pets, and pets can be a source of human infection.
3 Interesting Facts About . . . The Black Death
Facts
- A plague epidemic swept through Europe from 1348 through 1351, killing an estimated 25–60% of Europeans. Some estimates are as high as 2/3 of the population.
- The exact death toll is difficult to measure from medieval sources. The number of deaths varied considerably by area and depending on the source. Current estimates are that between 75 and 200 million people died from the plague.
- The term "Black Death" is recent. During the plague, it was called "the Great Mortality" or "the Pestilence."