The Black Death Bubonic Plague Essay Research — страница 2

  • Просмотров 226
  • Скачиваний 5
  • Размер файла 15
    Кб

discovered that the Jews did not get their water from the city wells. (Actually, because of kosher laws, the Jews drew their water from country springs.) In 1348, eleven Jews were charged with contaminating a well in a German town. They were tortured and forced to confess falsely. After this trial, in other cities, Jews were banned from the town or herded into barns and burned alive. Some were even burned at the stake. In addition to the idea that the Jews were to blame, there were several strange theories about how the plague was spread. A man named Galen made one theory. He claimed that the disease was spread by poisonous vapors. These vapors supposedly came from the swamps. People were advised to avoid marshy regions or at least close up their homes and stay inside. They were

also advised to try and keep cool because heat was thought to be another source of the plague. People were told to wash their hands and feet, but never their bodies. Washing the body would open pores, and the pores were supposedly another place the disease could enter. Foul smelling air was another thing thought to spread the plague. People were not supposed to sleep on their backs because the vapors could get to their nose more easily, and many people walked around carrying flowers in their noses. Large bonfires were lit to make sure the poisonous vapors didn?t get to people. Even though death from the Bubonic Plague was extremely likely, physicians still tried to help sick patients. They would bleed the heart hoping that they could get the overheated blood out before it could

circulate throughout the whole body. They also bled the buboes to try to heal the infected areas. All this bleeding only resulted in the patients becoming weaker. Now a day, we know that using antibiotics, such as tetracycline and streptomycin can help cure the disease. We also know that the plague spread very rapidly because of bad sanitation. There were piles of trash all over the cities, because there was no regular pick-up day. Leftovers from meals were left on the ground for animals, rats accidentally included. There was no running water, so bathing was a rarity. The Black Death continued to terrorize people for a long time. People were hopeful in the winter when the fleas were dormant, but the terror would reoccur in the spring. The cycle finally ended in the 1600s,

centuries after the outbreak began. Since then, there have still been a few cases of the plague. During World War II, the Japanese formed a special biological warfare division. They worked on a way to spread the plague to the Chinese. They tried flying over cities and releasing plague-infected fleas over the towns. When crewmembers accidentally became infected from the fleas, the Japanese changed their method to packing the fleas into a bomb before dropping them. In the American and Canadian west there have even been several cases. In 1924 in the United States there was a small epidemic, with 32 cases. The numbers of human cases of this plague have increased since 1960, because the environment is not staying clean. The only way to stop this is to start picking up the environment.

Keep yourself and your home clean. Don?t let history repeat itself!