The Black Death was a period in
14th-century Europe where three variations of the plague,
bubonic, septicaemia, and mnemonic wiped out an
estimated 60% of Europe. Today that's equivalent
to 450 million people. Today, we're exploring
how you could have survived the Black Plague. But before we get
started, do us a solid, hit that subscribe button. Turn on notifications
and leave a quaint, yet memorable comment. Grab a mask, grab some gloves
and chug that Emergen-C, we're going plaguing. We might have evolved as humans
in technology and science, but viruses and our
basic biology have not. As would be the
case in 2019, if you want to avoid
getting the plague, it's best to start
by avoiding places where large crowds congregate. The pneumonic plague was
spread through air droplets-- or airborne, if you will. So the more people around open
mouth coughing and sneezing, the more chances
for infected humans to get their plague
all up in each other. The bubonic plague however,
was spread from flea bites associated with infected mice. Rodents infected with
plague riddled fleas would transfer the
disease from flea to human in the right
social conditions as well. Infected people
often don't realize they were spreading the disease,
because they didn't realize their plague infested
bodies were crawling with super fleas that
could dump their sick host behind for a more healthy
body up to two meters away. Being more than two meters
away from plague infested fleas was one way you might have
avoided the Black Death. May as well stay home
and binge read the Bible. Hey, while you're there. Seal it up and never leave. Italy's myriad points of entry
being surrounded by water meant many different
opportunities for the plague to enter the European nation. Once word of the Black
Death reached Milan, the leader at the
time-- a brutal and no nonsense man
named [? Yaherd-- ?] ordered the houses of those
inflicted with the plague to be boarded up. Locking in any occupants inside
and preventing their sick hands from touching a thing
outside of their doors. And while this approach
was extreme and brutal, dooming otherwise healthy
members of the victims' families trapped inside
a diseased coffin, the city of Milan
ended the Black Death with only a 15% mortality rate. By far, the lowest of
any major Italian city. They did have to
make some sacrifices and both innocent lives
and social activities, such as rummaging
through the remains of the recently deceased. Italy may be known
for its yummy lasagna but, man, did one
Florentine writer paint a real delicious picture of
what the streets of Florence were like during this time. Mass burial sites were
layered with victims and dirt, akin to one making lasagna with
layers of pasta and cheese. Exposure to the plague,
even from the deceased, could soon turn you into an
ingredient of this nightmare lasagna. So loved ones often
would abandon their dead into the streets without burial. Game of Thrones wasn't around
to teach the people of the 1300s to always burn the dead. As the body count
was rising, so did the amount of bodies
decaying in the streets. A group emerged
called the Bikini, not related to the bathing suit. They were men of lower social
stature themselves inflicted with the plague to remove
the deceased from the cities. Unfortunately, some
did eventually also turn to robbery and murder. But nobody else was going
to go near a pile of highly infectious corpses, so
Italy just sort of had to deal with it. The Bikini helped
keep the streets clear while rich people were able to
gather their diamonds and fur and get the hell out of
these plague riddled streets. Though, they didn't
think to burn the bodies, they did consider the magical
healing power of fire. One notable survivor
of the plague was Pope Clement IV, despite the
fact that a whopping one-third of the Cardinals in Avignon
where the pope lived succumb to the disease. Doctors had advised Pope
Clement to sit in a ring of fire in order to avoid
contracting the disease. And it worked. He was never infected. Rats saw the ring of fire
around an otherwise healthy body and said, no thanks, man. And kept scurrying around for
more convenient less flammable targets with fewer obstacles. And human beings
too tend to avoid walking into a ring
of fire in order to conversate with the pope. In 1666, the devil's year,
the Great Fire of London decimated the city. But it also killed off a large
population of rats and fleas who were conduit to
the bubonic plague. Very few things in
life make less sense than old-timey doctor uniforms. But, again, their
knowledge of contagion wasn't nearly as
advanced as ours. Italian author,
Giovanni Boccaccio, lamented in texts
that physicians were woefully
unprepared for handling cases of the plague due to
their ignorance of treating the disease. Earlier physicians may have
inadvertently contributed to the spread of
the disease from not using adequate protection
against contamination themselves. After years of
treating the illness, doctors eventually
designed a plague uniform to protect themselves. And let's face it,
it looks really cool. First worn by trendsetting
Dr. Charles DeLorme in France, this late century
stunner included a long overcoat, hat, an
appointed mask that, yes, made him look like a bird. The beak of this mask
worn by adult men was believed to have provided
protection from infection because was filled with pleasant
smelling items like Rose petals and mint. Doctors believe the foul air,
called miasma, spread disease. So naturally, to
counteract this, one would just
surround themselves with pleasant smells. With this getup, the leather
outfits prevented flea bites. That, or the fleas were
justifiably terrified of human sized birds. Staying alive during
the Black Death epidemic could be a real bummer. But in order to stay alive
it wasn't a good idea to spend your time
with a flagellants. Flagellants, for
those who don't know, is a person whose objects
themselves or others to flogging. Either as a religious discipline
or for sexual gratification. They were religious zealots who
would whip the ever loving sin right out of you. And, man, was the Black
Death their time to shine. Since many Europeans
believed God sent the plague as a punishment for
their sins, they would seek atonement
for these sins by publicly whipping themselves. Despite being properly
shamed in the public square, you would not be immune
from contracting the plague. In fact, flagellants
exacerbated the problem because they were well
traveled and spread the disease wherever they'd land. Which is probably not good. Because in order to survive the
plague you should probably-- Think of this as the
equivalent of putting a bubble around your city and
denying entrance to anyone suspected of
carrying the plague. Armed guards were
stationed at city entrances ready to deny entry to
anybody with the look of a low-grade fever. And while this work kept people
from entering the cities, it also contained
those people already inflicted inside the city. Beyond armed guards,
some European cities stopped allowing ships
to dock in their ports. Ships from the east were the
first to carry the plague into Europe. Once that was established,
fairly quickly ports became a little
more picky about which ships were allowed to dock. By 1348, Venice had established
a 30-day "why don't you go hang out over there and not
talk to anybody for a while" for travelers and
goods suspected of carrying the plague. Later, this was
bumped up to 40 days or as they say in
Italy, quaranta days. Hence, where we get
the term quarantine. These actions slowed down
the spreading of the illness, but it didn't do enough. Tens of thousands of
people still died in Venice from the Black Death. They maybe should have-- Plague Law is the law. We're talking no ships,
sealing up homes, and curfews. Several European cities
went full martial law when it came to combating
the spread of the disease. And with a mortality rate
of 80%, who can blame them? Landlocked Pistorius
in Northern Italy couldn't very well turn away
ships and closed down ports, but they could load
up the restrictions on imports, exports, travel in
general, trading and markets, and funerals. But Pistorius still
lost a jaw dropping 70% of its inhabitants. With all these percentages
being depressingly high, it's easy to forget
that some people did come down with the
plague in this era and actually survived it. It wasn't because they
tied live chickens around their
bibulous plague bumps or drank a refreshing
glass of chilled arsenic. They just had
immune systems that could fight this stubborn
killer because they took care of themselves. This was the time before Keto
diets and cross fit gyms. But even the people
of internetless times had to understand
arugula was healthy. Recent research has shown
what is still true now. If you were in poor health
before you contracted the disease, your odds
of succumbing to it were substantially higher. The mortality rate was
higher amongst people who already were in poor
health, be it malnourished, rotting teeth, or a
weakened immune system. Healthy people, while
not immune to infection, had a higher survival rate. So listen to your yogi. Start those juice cleanses. But also don't listen to yogi,
and you get your butt outside in that chilly air because
your chances of survival were greater in the winter. Unlike our modern day
flu and common colds, the plague prefers more
tepid climate showing up in greater numbers during
the warmer summer and spring seasons. In fact, the plague was nearly
non-existent in the winter. Just like today when
it's always fishy when Brenda calls in
sick for the flu in July. But if you wanted to
survive an epidemic of end-times proportions, you
could always pack up the kids and move to Norway. Unfortunately, the plague
eventually evolved to be all, "maybe I do like cold
weather you losers" and spread to all of Europe. Including icy cold Norway, which
had 30 plague outbreaks alone between 1348 and 1654. None during the winter. The plague likes to
keep us guessing. I wonder if the people
of the 14th century thought about being
born with immunity? Because, oh, yes. There was a genetic immunity. Some people get ageless skin. Some people get
crystal blue eyes. And some get genetic immunity to
a disease with an 80% mortality rate that took a big
bite out of Europe's ass. The Roma people, in particular,
had certain gene clusters that protected them
from becoming sick. Researchers found
several genes actually that may have protected
certain people from coming down with the plague. Lucky Roma. No, not completely. They could still
contract the illness, but there was a
genetic variation that triggered an immune response
to your Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that was doing
all of this population wiping of a continent of people. As established
earlier, the Europeans believed full heartedly two
demonstrably false assumptions about the spread
of this disease. Number one, the thick stench of
sick permeating the atmosphere was the physical embodiment
of the disease itself. While the disease was
airborne, it of course, doesn't technically
have a smell itself. And number two, this
was all happening because God was mad as hell
because of all the sin. There was no TV yet. Of course, there
was rampant sin. Do you know how boring 1328 was? They also didn't have books
or research or the knowledge we have now thanks
to the lessons learned during that time
with how diseases spread. They could be forgiven for
avoiding extremely foul air and picking up an extra
rosary bead or two. And if that didn't
work, my favorite tip for how to survive the
plague, the screw it. Our old pal Boccaccio noted
some of the Florentines that vowed to carouse
and make merry and go out singing and
frolicking and satisfy the appetite in
everything possible. Europe was being
completely decimated by this painful ill
understood disease that seemed to take down
one in three people. And thousands upon thousands did
everything we've laid out here today to avoid the plague,
and they still got it. So some Europeans
wised up and said, then I'm going to the bar. They danced. They drank. They ate. They live their dang lives
because they knew more than anybody that this bacteria
was probably ultimately, sadly unavoidable. And what was the life
expectancy in 1400 anywhere? 30? So they said screw it. And you know what? They died just as often as those
that only drank in moderation. Cheers to you 1300 Europe. You walked so we could run. You can still get
the play today, but now it's cured fairly
easily with antibiotics. A wonderful new invention
we can't ever possibly fully appreciate because
we've never had to consider moving to Norway
to avoid the Black Death. So do you think you would
have survived the Black Death? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our weird history.
