In the 14th century,
the bubonic plague swept through the Middle
East, Asia and Europe. In Europe, it wiped out as
many as 50 million people, or more than half the continent. But did the European hygiene
practices at the time help or hurt the management
of this deadly epidemic? Today we're going to examine
what European hygiene was like during the Black Plague. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and
leave us a comment below to let us know what
unhygienic history you would like to
hear next about. OK, grab your loofah. We're off to Europe
in the 1300s. If you were a flea,
rat, or louse, the 14th century was a good
time to be alive because you were thriving in filth. Plus, you had a steady
job spreading disease. A flea would bite a rat that
was infected with the plague. And when the flea was
hungry for its next meal, it would jump onto a human and
bite them, transmitting disease from rat to human. Doctors of the era never
identified fleas as a vector for the plague. So people continued to
sleep on straw bedding that was teeming with
vermin, never realizing the risks they were taking
for their barely comfy bed. Europe wasn't very clean
in the 14th century and everything was pretty
much covered in grime. Bathing did not occur
every day for commoners. However, they knew
grime wasn't cool and most peasants
began their day by at least washing
their hands and face. Contrary to the stereotype,
medieval Europeans did occasionally take baths. The rich bathed in private
tubs, while everyone else visited public baths or
dunked in the local stream. Bathing was identified as
a treatment for the plague. But instead of
bathing in water, some recommended bathing in
vinegar and rose water. Vinegar, a common medieval
medical treatment, was considered a great tool
in stopping the plague. Plague doctors sometimes
washed their hands in vinegar or placed vinegar
sponges in their masks. And if vinegar wasn't
powerful enough for you, you could follow
other recommendations to take a bath in
your own urine. That's a lot of urine. But washing in your own urine
may sound like a decent option when you realize
in medieval times, people had to make
their own soap. This required a few
ingredients-- ashes from an oak tree, tallow, which
is Animal fat, lime, which was heated to become
quicklime, salt, flour, water, a pot, a pan, fire, and a
sturdy stick to stir with. Not to mention a few days
and of course, the knowledge of how to put it all
together Yeah, urine looks like an easier option. Even if you did practice
superior hygiene, that didn't protect
you from harm. In some areas, the
Jewish population had a mortality rate lower than
their neighboring Christians. This was likely because of
their sanitary traditions. Instead of learning
a few simple lessons from their healthy
neighbors, Christians went with more complicated
and decidedly brutal ideas. Some Christians
believed Jews were resistant to the plague,
accused them of tainting wells to spread the disease, and some
felt the plague was actually punishment from God for
allowing Jews to openly live in their community
as, well, Jews. This led some
Christians on a mission to convert, exile,
torture, and sometimes kill their Jewish neighbors. This despite several
popes declaring Jews had nothing to do
with the plague. But mobs aren't known for
their listening skills. Jewish communities were
vilified, oppressed, and individuals were compelled
to confess to nefarious deeds that they did not commit
just to avoid punishment, which didn't always save them. According to the Nuremberg
Chronicle, in 1348, all the Jewish
residents in Germany were burned, having been
accused of poisoning the wells, as many of them confessed. In hindsight, it looks a lot
like the lower infection rates were because Jewish
hygiene practices required more handwashing than the
Christian counterparts. Handwashing. Yeah, that seems more
probable than God's wrath. Doctors in the 14th
century had no idea how to effectively
treat the plague. And in fact, many
of their treatments actually spread the disease. For example, plague
sufferers experienced swelling in their lymph
nodes, called buboes. Doctors recommended
cutting open the buboes and draining the pus to let
the disease leave the body. Then to the wound,
they would apply a mixture of plant roots-- sounds good-- resin-- seems reasonable--
and dried feces. Yeah, that ruined it. And never wanting
to be wasteful, some recommended collecting
the drained pus from the buboes to drink. An almost certainly
fatal suggestion. Do I owe a copay for this? Fearing contamination, Europeans
tried to avoid infection. But it wasn't just
the walking afflicted that had to be dodged. It was also the dead. They were everywhere. Towns and cities
struggled to dispose of the overwhelming number of
cadavers during the plague. According to 14th century
Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, many perished
daily or nightly in the public streets. Of many others who
perished at home, the departure was hardly
observed by their neighbors until the stench
carried the tidings. Another chronicler in Florence
wrote, "all the citizens did little else except to
carry the slain to be buried." Europeans had some things
figured out and established sanitation policies to bury
infected bodies in mass graves. These were to be located outside
of town and in deep pits. But deep is relative and
keeping up with the body count was a never-ending task. Some cities were so overwhelmed
that dogs dragged cadavers back into town through the streets. According to 14th-century
chronicler Agnolo di Tura, some of the burial sites were
so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged cadavers
forth and devoured many. Before indoor
plumbing, human waste created a public health crisis. In the 14th century, townsfolk
might share one toilet among dozens of households. Excuse me. Pardon me. Is this seat taken? Heavy rains and floods
caused community cesspits to overflow, which sent
human waste cascading into the local water supply. And if you didn't even like the
idea of going to a place called the cesspit, much
less the long walk to get there to
dispose of your waste, many emptied their chamber
pots directly into the street. Excuse me, Gov'nah. Rats are not picky and will
eat any food they can find, even discarded or undigested
food mingled with feces. So these open sewers
attracted rats with their friends the fleas,
along with other vermin, all of whom were partners
in disease transmission. Having begun to see the
connection between effluence and disease,
England's parliament tried to stop people
from dumping waste into the water supply. In 1388, the body declared,
"so much dung and filth of the garbage and
entrails be cast and put into ditches,
rivers, and other waters that the air there has grown
greatly corrupt and infected and many maladies and
other intolerable diseases do daily happen." In the 14th century, Europeans
believed foul smell spread disease. In an attempt to
combat the plague, they carried sweet smelling
flowers and pomanders, which are small centered
objects, to cleanse the air. The plague doctor costume
became emblematic of the era. The birdlike mask
worn by doctors held dried roses, herbs like
mint, or spices thought to protect against infection. Doctors donned the mask
and a full-body covering when treating victims
of the plague. The outlandish outfit
may have indeed warded against infection,
though not because of the herbs and spices. Being covered head to toe meant
the doctors had unknowingly invented a medieval hazmat suit. In the 14th century,
civilization had not yet reached the age of
production and consumers had a little variety
from which to choose. Not so for the Black Plague. You had a choice. The plague came in not
one, but three varieties-- bubonic, pneumonic,
and septicemic. Bubonic plague spread via
flea bites and infected the lymphatic system. Pneumonic plague
infected the lungs, after inhaling
aerosolized bacteria. And septicemic is when the
bacteria infects the blood through direct exposure, or
via lungs, or lymphatic system. If you were unlucky, you
contracted the bubonic plague, which had a survival
rate between 25 and 75%. If you were very
unlucky, you were infected with the pneumonic
plague, which had a survival rate between 5% and 10%. And if you were
very, very unlucky you contracted the
septicemic plague which had a survival rate of-- well, it really didn't
have a survival rate. It was virtually unstoppable. It had a mortality
rate of 99% to 100%. Interestingly, despite
hundreds of years of medical advancements,
the septicemic plague is almost always
fatal, even today. A silver lining to
the septicemic plague is that it's difficult to catch. Of course if you do something
silly, it increases your odds. Bloodletting was one of the
most popular medical treatments in the 14th century. Doctors often treated fevers
by bleeding their patients to remove heat from
the body, and bleeding was used on plague patients. Doctors believed,
partially correctly, that the plague
infected the blood. As a result, they recommended
cutting open veins to let the disease
leave the body. However, the medical treatment
also exposed doctors and others to the septicemic plague. Very, very, very bad luck. In the 14th century, Europeans
often laid straws, or rushes, on their floors. Straw covered up the dirt
floor in poor people's homes. While wildflowers were
sometimes added to the rushes, and the top layer
changed occasionally, the bottom layers might
remain for decades. In the 16th century,
Erasmus, a Dutch philosopher and Christian
scholar, was disturbed to find that in many homes,
the bottom layer is left undisturbed sometimes
for 20 years, harboring expectoration,
vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings,
scraps of fish and other abominations
not fit to be mentioned. These putrid rushes
exhaled a vapor that was harmful to the
health, Erasmus declared. They also attracted rodents
and let bacteria flourish. It was an all inclusive
vacation resort for the plague. When the Black Plague
struck, Europeans knew the disease was contagious. In some areas, cities
tried to turn away ships that had visited
infected areas to protect their population. In 1348, Venice became the
first to enforce a 30-day day isolation period for
ships and travelers to make sure they
weren't infected. In later outbreaks
of the plague, the city extended the
isolation to 40 days, giving birth to the
term quarantine, from the Italian
quaranta, meaning 40. Unfortunately,
even these efforts failed to stop the
spread of the disease. Tens of thousands still
perished in Venice. The doctor to Pope Clement
VI, Gui de Chauliac, said the epidemic
shamed Europe's doctors. They dared not visit the sick
for fear of being infected. And when they did
visit them, they did hardly anything for them. De Chauliac instructed Pope
Clement VI to sit alone between two bonfires. The doctor claimed this
treatment would cleanse the air and prevent infection. The fires may have had the
unintended effect of keeping plague-ridden rats at bay. But combined with
its forced isolation, it kept the pope plague-free. The Black Plague wiped out
tens of millions of Europeans, but history's deadliest epidemic
had a surprising benefit-- at least to those who survived. According to research
by Dr. Sharon DeWitte, the plague improved
the health and lifespan of people who lived
through the epidemic. For 200 years afterward,
people's diets improved and they lived longer
than pre-plague Europeans. Scholars point to several
potential explanations for the improvements. The smaller population
following the plague enjoyed higher wages
and cheaper food prices, which helps explain
the better diets. And survivors of
the plague might have been hardier, since
the plague eliminated so many people. So what do you think? How filthy would you have been
living in 14th-century Europe? How filthy are you now? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from Our Weird History.
