What Made The Black Death So Deadly & Who Were The Plague Doctors

in October of 1347 12 ships dropped anchor at a Sicilian port those who eagerly approached were met with a grisly sight almost all aboard were either dead or barely alive their skin erupting with blackened boils that dripped Hasse and blood in horror the Sicilian authorities demanded that the ship set sail but though they left the damage had already been done the black death was now in Europe and millions would die in what is considered one of the greatest disasters in history let's explore how the bubonic plague wiped out at least a third of Europe's population if not more in this episode of the infographics show what made the Black Death so deadly Europe was hit hard by the plague but it was not hit first it was also not unaware of a disease that was already bringing widespread death and destruction elsewhere before the infested ships arrived in Sicily rumors of a frightful sickness devastating the populations of first China and then India Egypt Persia and Syria had spread near and far while no one knew what caused it or why it seemed to follow trade routes spanning the near and far east further when it appeared it was by all accounts unstoppable though struck by the Black Death would begin to swell at the lymph nodes located in their groin area or underarm regions the growths would soon develop into large blackish blue egg sized lumps or for the even less fortunate expand to the size of apples these with investor and ooze various bodily fluids beyond this those with the disease could develop any combination of a series of additional symptoms these included fever pain chills sweating upset stomach and diarrhea almost always this was followed by death according to those who observed in defects firsthand all it appeared to take was a brief physical contact with the clothing of someone who was sick to pass the disease on to another though some doctors claimed that it was the spirit leaving the body of the deceased that infected others as it passed by obviously at this point in history the real methods of disease transmission were not yet well understood without understanding it most were helpless to defend against it few areas other than some islands cut off from the rest of Europe by the sea made it through the pandemic plague-free the rest of the population was not so lucky the bacterium infiltrated virtually every European city's defences and many who appeared perfectly healthy one day could be dead a few days later it was uncommon though possible for someone to survive a week or two before he or she died compounding problems further those with the disease would typically be asymptomatic for the first few days and so no one would be aware that they had caught it this meant that successfully isolating them from the rest of society at this point was all but impossible those who tried the next best thing to protect themselves by fleeing for the country were not safe there either the plague decimated livestock as well and countless pigs cows chickens goats and sheep who also died a brutal death this was such a problem that it led to a shortage of wool throughout the continent while many European areas had a death figure of around 30% 90% of the Italian city of Florence perished sometimes bodies of the deceased remained where they had died as there were not enough people still living to bury them thousands of French villages in addition to areas in other locations were left without a single remaining soul the black death had mercilessly transformed them into ghost towns in some instances nature eventually took over in areas that people once called home were reclaimed by surrounding forest it took aerial photography following the end of World War one to rediscover these locations as places where men women and children once lived most estimates place Europe's death toll between 50 and 70 million or around 30 some percent though the CDC claims it killed as much as 60% of the population which is considerably more worldwide estimates typically range from 155 to 200 million the world at the time was a mere 500 million people so nearly half of all its inhabitants or again according to some sources even more were killed so how was it that the black death was able to spread so quickly and wipe out so many people and animals alike well for one as previously mentioned there was little in the way of scientific knowledge in the 1300s not only did people not understand the plagues causes or modes mission but there were also countless failures in how those in the medical field attempted to treat it it is true that you're seeing a pestis the bacterium behind the Black Death or bubonic plague is highly contagious it can also be spread in many ways though obviously contaminated spirits aren't one of them many believe that in its later stages it had the ability to morph into an airborne strain that could be passed on to a new host via a simple sneeze or cough however all strains airborne or those in the more initial stages that are not are believed to have been transferred through a flea or likes bite and many animals in addition to countryside livestock serve as hosts for the bacterium and blood-sucking pests examples are things like squirrels rabbits Chipmunks and mice however many in the scientific field have argued that by far the worst contributor to the spread of the Black Death was the urban rat and it's flea part of the reason for this belief is that rats have been observed to develop symptoms quite similar to those in people and in cases of a modern-day plague many people with the sickness had accompanying bites from fleas recent outbreaks often follow what's known as rat falls as well or where rodents die off in record amounts for whatever reason thus the most prevalent theory is that the Black Death all began when rats with the plague died and their fleas then looked for more blood in another readily available source which would at times be human upon being bitten by the contaminated fleet this person would then be exposed to the deadly bacteria seemingly in support of this theory ships during the mid 1300s were commonly infested with the furry rodents who thrived in their dark moist environment and following the death ships arrival in Sicily the plague continued to spread further following a trade route pattern as it had previously in Asia two other port locations throughout Europe and is far down as North Africa however more recently there have been some proposed tweaks to this rat based theory as we just mentioned the black death after all is not the only outbreak of the plague in the world's history there have been outbreaks before as well as after and those that took place more recently followed a different pattern entirely Europe's black deaths spread much faster and as far as historical records are concerned there was no mention of a mass rat die-off in the days or months preceding it now some scientists suggest that it was human fleas and lice that were the true culprits behind Europe's version of the disease in this case fleas would bite infected people and then move on to others one by one who happened to be in their nearby vicinity they described the underlying mathematical model that a rat fleas spread follows it's quite different from a human flea or lice one and when information is plugged into simulations the human flea model more closely match data from seven of nine plague in European cities those with this newest evidence admit that the causes of the plague are surrounded by ongoing controversy however whether the fleas were of human or rat variety it's a blood sucking pest of one kind or another that likely passed it on successfully and so very quickly it also turns out that the black death may not have been causing mass devastation all by itself when victims bodies were exhumed from mass graves in England and Thrax spores were also discovered along with them if anthrax was occurring at the same time as the plague this would definitely have made things much worse anthrax can not only be passed by coming into contact with sweat saliva or tears but also by mere skin contact in other words at the time of the Black Death pandemic people could have come down with a life-threatening disease of one kind or another in pretty much every conceivable way it's possible anthrax and other diseases made people extra susceptible to the plague due to already compromised immunity also it's possible that the body count of those claimed by the Black Death included victims that actually died from anthrax or other diseases beyond its quick transfer from host to host and the contributions of additional disease the way the black death was treated failed to help and may have actually helped kill victims or spread it further unintentionally for example at least initially medical practitioners would do things such as perform bloodletting on patients with the plague this is where they cut into the veins or arteries in the neck arms of those who were sick so that their blood flowed freely this procedure was nothing new and in fact dated back as far as to the times of ancient Egypt and Greece historical figures believed that to be healthy the body needed the right balance of blood phlegm and vile bloodletting was believed to correct a possible imbalance of too much blood which is what caused the person to get sick unfortunately the procedure appeared to be as ineffective for the victims of the plague as it was for charles ii or george washington centuries later while washington awoke with a sore throat and King Charles suffered a seizure following bloodletting treatments both died shortly thereafter Boyle Lansing was another technique used as a form of treatment which was just how it sounds someone would essentially Lance or stick a pointy object into the boils to drain them of their gooey contents if this wasn't done they would only continue to grow larger and in time poison their host due to the mass buildup of dead blood and pus then again popping them could also cause death due to toxic shock beyond the patient likely dying the boils contain highly contagious matter and possibly spread the disease yet further other methods such as burning of various herbs or immersing the sick in vinegar or rose water were also unsurprisingly ineffective in time after failure upon failure and in an attempt at self-preservation many doctors simply stopped accepting patients even priests began refusing to perform last rites out of danger for their own safety where men failed nature did little to help either not only did people have little idea of how to handle the plague but they were genetically prone to succumbing to it studies of the remains of the European population at the time determined that only 0.2% had a gene that offered them any of immunity the other 99.8% had none since so many of those who were susceptible to the plague died from it they did not pass their genes on further to the following generations many of those who did have the gene lived on to procreate this is why Caucasian Americans now have a 15 percent chance of having some resistance to the disease this is pretty good news considering the modern form of the plague is still around today one encounter via the twelve so-called death ships would go on to wipe out men women and children to such an extent that it would change the tide of history you've been feeling pretty lonely lately so you decide that it's time to get yourself a pet but you don't want to be too mainstream about it so instead of a nice dog or a cat you opt for a rat Hey rats can be cute too you know you and your rat Wilbur quickly become best of friends but then one day your best rat buddy picks up an unwanted hitchhiker a flea then Wilbur's flea decides that it like to take a chomp out of you and without you even feeling it the tiny flea has bitten you and sucked on your blood for the next three days you and Wilbur continue your best friendship going on best friend adventures and solving mysteries together and then on the fourth day you start to not feel so hot you chalk it up to all the excitement you and Wilbur F and sharing lately but as the symptoms progress you start to feel like you might have the flu instead then suddenly you start growing what looked like huge blisters in your armpits and groin and the tips of your fingers turn black as the flesh begins to die congratulations because you've got the bubonic plague and much like most of Europe back in the 1300s you're about to be dead the plague or Black Death as it was most commonly known has its origins amongst the fleas of rodents from the central and western asian region of the world it's belief that climate change during a period of warming during the medieval ages cost the rodents who carried the infected fleas to flee the drying up grasslands while those rodents who didn't believe in climate change stayed behind and died forced into close contact with humanity the fleas of these rodents began to feast on our soft supple human flesh and in return infected us with the plague historians believed that the plague killed off many early populations of humans before naturally receding but what would to be known as the Black Death kicked off in earnest early in the 1300s a secession of natural disasters and lesser plagues hit South and Central Asia which led to widespread famine not wanting to be left out of the kill all humans party the bubonic plague arrived in 1331 it is believed to have killed 25 million Chinese people before it finally reached Constantinople in 1347 Mongol raids and travellers along the famous Silk Road are believed to have pushed the disease further and further west but it wasn't until Genoese traders brought the plague infected fleas into the port city of kapha and Crimea in 1347 that the bubonic plague went mainstream pretty soon the Black Death as it was known by then was all the rage amongst the Europeans and by 1351 it had reached as far west as Spain and is far north as Russia before the Black Death went out of style it had killed between 75 to 200 million people and it's belief that it took the world 200 years to recover the numbers loss to the disease in the wake of the plague zealous persecution of various scapegoats blamed for the outbreak led to the death of many thousands more including Jews Friars foreigners beggars pilgrims lepers gypsies and people who get to the front of the line at Starbucks and have to check the menu because they still aren't sure what to order the play gets such a good time in Europe though that it revisited the continent intermittently throughout the 14th and 17th centuries causing many hundreds of thousands of additional deaths in 1771 the plague hit Moscow and killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people or as much as 33 percent of the city's population a hundred years before that the plague killed 100,000 in London like adventurous European University students though the plague went global and between 1500 and 1850 the plague was present in at least one location throughout the entire Islamic world so you've just gone and gotten yourself infected with the Black Death because maybe modern diseases are just too trendy for you why is this the worst thing that could ever happen to you well first could it happened to you the answer to that question is no humanity has long since overcome the terrible affliction known as the Black Death and is safe from the ravages that once killed hundreds of millions of people just get you can totally get the Black Death today and if you think you're safe in your first world life because surely it's only a disease that strikes at the most remote poorest regions of the world you may want to think again as of 1900 the Black Death has made its way to the United States when an epidemic struck San Francisco and lasted until 1904 then quickly made a comeback throughout 1907 in 1908 while that was over a hundred years ago and we have developed many drugs and treatments for the plague just in October of 2017 the deadliest outbreak in modern times hit Madagascar and killed 170 people while infecting thousands more but that's an island off the coast of Africa and San Francisco was over a hundred years in the past surely we're safe today once more no absolutely not and in fact the western United States is one of the largest geographic areas where the plague is reported in wild animals and livestock alike so keep that in mind next time you decide to hit up a petting zoo but what about the plague is so terrible well before we tell you will warn you to go ahead and finish eating if you were eating or to cancel any lunch or dinner plans you may have had coming up because we doubt you'll have the appetite after this episode it starts off with a flea bite or perhaps a bite from an infected rodent and then suddenly your body is host to a nasty little bacteria called Yersinia pestis our bodies however have had plenty of exposure to the plague by now seeing as your seniya pestis his favorite historical pastime was to murder all humans and so the body has learned to very quickly recognize y pestis from a unique molecule in its outer membrane unfortunately sometime in the past you seniya pest is caught on to this fact and now when it detects a temperature of about 98.6 degrees the bacteria figures that it's inside a warm blooded mammal this triggers Y pestis to modify the structure of the giveaway molecule effectively blinding your body's immune system to its real identity with your immune system fooled Y pestis makes a mad dash for your lymph nodes which seems like an odd choice for an invading bacteria because your body's lymph nodes are basically immune system fortresses and constantly looking for foreign invaders to wipe out for any other bacteria this would pretty much be a suicide run but Y pestis is basically the SEAL Team six of bacteria your body immediately tries to stop the bat terior with white blood cells the cells responsible for immune system response but Y pestis responds by shooting these responding cells with an appendage that injects toxins directly inside the cell's membranes destroying it after owning the crap out of your immune system Y pestis needs to recover by getting a hold of some iron and luckily for it your body is chock full of it unfortunately for the bacteria all that precious iron in your body is wrapped up in hemoglobin in other proteins or unfortunate for you really because if you've learned anything by now it's that Y pestis gets what it wants when it wants it while it holds the fork down in your lymph node each bacteria releases a molecule called Yersinia bactin which is a very high affinity for iron the molecules cruise through your blood system on the lookout for a specific iron rich protein in your body called transferrin once the molecules find some transferrin they literally rip the iron away from the protein destroying it in the process and bringing it back home to Y pestis by now the plague is happily making your lymph nodes into its new home kicking up its feet and replicating out of control thanks to a rich supply of hired at this point you're definitely feeling under the weather with general flu-like symptoms but if you're like most people you ignore these symptoms and push through without going to a doctor in this case your failure to get checked out will be fatal as with modern medicine the plague can be cured in over 90% of cases if caught early if not well your odds aren't very good at all at this point your lymph nodes will begin swelling up which create the iconic buboes so characteristic of the bubonic plague these look like very large blisters and can appear on the arms leg groin and armpits can grow to be as big as an apple by now you're going to have a really high fever and might even be vomiting blood and if any of those buboes bursts open you'll be using pus and other disgusting fluids from the open source this can be extremely dangerous because boo boasts that our burst open can lead to secondary infections from other bacteria but luckily for you you'll be dead long before any of those infections can properly set in gangrene can also set in to extremities and fingers and toes can blacken as the flesh dies and eventually falls off incredibly it's not the plague that kills you though but rather your own body that does the deed with Y pestis bacteria throughout your bloodstream your system totally loses its cool and triggers a condition known as septic shock causing your blood vessels to leak which lowers blood volume clotting and eventually organ failure luckily though modern medicine is able to cure a plague if caught quickly enough though many doctors today worry that the plague will very quickly begin to develop an immunity to most of the drugs we use against it this is prompted a renewal of the arms race that has lasted for millennia between man and bacteria and it's hoped that new vaccines and antibodies can be developed to stop the plague before it kicks off another world tour and leaves millions dead in its wake where in the past the remote nature of most human villages and cities made it difficult for the plague to be transmitted and thus limited its lethality today's hyper-connected world would let the plague travel around the world and in as little as a day and an outbreak that started far overseas could be in your neighborhood by that evening in fact it might already be there and we might all be on the verge of the next huge outbreak this year in many countries throughout the world that the flu has been deadly the CDC reported that in America it has been unusually active and in January was revealed that the virus was killing around 100 people every week in the u.s. in the UK they've had the worst flu season in many years but it's also been a global concern with countries all over Asia and Africa experiencing what many are calling one of the worst global flu outbreaks in a long time so much so that scientists said it's imperative to create a much more effective universal influenza vaccine we might regard ourselves as fortunate though based on what you're about to hear in this episode of the infographic show could the Black Death happen again don't forget to subscribe and click the Buy button so that you can be part of a notification squad first of all what is or what was the Black Death also known as the plague well it was one of the worst pandemics in history killing somewhere between 75 to 200 million people in europe and eurasia in just a few years from 1346 to 1353 after it was done something like 30 to 60 percent of URIs population had been wiped out with many others dying in other parts of the world as well in fact it killed so many people it took centuries for the world's population to stabilize it also made comebacks in Europe later on such as the Great Plague of London from 1665 to 1666 but the 14th century black death was the first pandemic the world has ever seen in terms of loss of life it's thought it made its way to Europe on Genoese trading ships the ships arrived at the Sicilian port of Messina only for those who came to greet them to be faced with a nasty surprise most of the occupants of the ships were either dead or dying it's thought the ships had been to parts of Central Asia and there it said rats carrying the bacterium Yersinia pestis came aboard the ship's fleas on these rodents were the vectors that passed the disease to humans authorities in Sicily soon ordered all the death ships out of the harbor but it was too late and soon people all over Europe were getting infected it spread so easily because it was airborne which meant coughing or sneezing was enough to spread the disease around so what's it like to get down with a dose of black death during the pandemic an Italian poet called Giovanni Boccaccio described it like this at the beginning of the malady certain swellings either on the groin or under the armpits waxed to the bigness of a common apple others to the size of an egg some more and some less and these the vulgar named plague boils these eggs that he describes are called buboes once they appeared soon after the victim would have a very high fever usually start coughing up blood because of lung infection and between two and seven days it was often game over if you got it you most likely died but not everyone did and true to Nietzsche and philosophy what didn't kill them made them stronger studies have found that those who survived became healthier it's believed the plague had a mortality rate of 30 to 75 percent it was a time of chaos as whole communities lived in fear doctors didn't want to treat the infected for fear of being infected themselves while mobs were busy ascribing the blame to any minorities such as lepers Jews foreigners or even people with acne entire Jewish communities were destroyed and thousands of Jewish people were murdered you get the picture this was a grim time to be European as we said it came back many times but never as very lint as those years in the 1300s what might surprise you though is that the bubonic plague is still making appearances around the globe it killed 10 million in China in the 19th century more than 1000 in Australia in the early 20th century and over a hundred in San Francisco also in the early 19th century it's thought that in 2017 around two hundred two people died in Madagascar from the pneumonic plague according to the w-h-o this was from 2348 confirmed probable and suspected cases fewer people died of course because of modern medicine and health care by the way there are three kinds of plague bubonic pneumonic and septicemia the difference is in how it infects you with bubonic getting your lymph nodes hence the ugly eggs mnemonic gets the lungs and septicemia is an infection in the blood you can be treated for a pneumonic plague with antibiotics but left untreated you will surely die most modern cases have been in developing nations but there have also been some cases in the USA in fact in 2015 16 and 17 a handful of bubonic plague cases occurred in the country the CDC reports that more than 80% of United States play cases have been the bubonic form it stated that from 2000 to 2016 around 7 cases of plague occurred in the country every year and most of those were in the rural West and some in northern New Mexico and northern Arizona the worst year this century for the US was 2015 when 15 people were infected and four of them died also according to the CDC the Europeans are now in good shape with the department stating that all continents report instances of plague except Europe Australia and Antarctica the advice given by health professionals if you want to stay plague free is don't get bitten by fleas and don't mess with rats or other animals that could carry fleas easier said than done in 2014 a man from Oregon was infected with plague after his infected cat bit him news media reports that he had lumps under his arms the size of lemons his hands and feet turned black due to gangrene and he was in a coma on life support for a month he told the Guardian I had collapsed lungs my heart stopped and my hands and feet turned black technically I shouldn't be here he was so violently sick because he had all three kinds of plague his cat didn't fare well and it ended up being buried in the garden before the man got really sick the man lives a full life again - most of his fingers and toes so now we come to the essential question could there be another massive plague outbreak the answer is that it is very unlikely because we can treat it before it spreads most of us these days don't live in rat infested squalor as many Londoners did back in those bleak times when the Smithsonian asked the scientists this question he like most others said an outbreak was unlikely what was possible though was a plague based bioterror weapon that spreads the disease yes our wonderful species has in the past created plague bioweapons with some of the guilty countries being Japan the former Soviet Union and the United States of America despite being one of the most exciting and rich periods in history the Middle Ages were a tough time to live in among other horrible things that time period experienced a plague that wiped out 75 million folks across Europe Africa and the Middle East high infant mortality famine and battles add to that a social infrastructure that was frankly shocking and zero social welfare but just how dangerous was it to live in the Middle Ages and what would your chances be of actually surviving the period that's what we'll find out today in this episode of the infographic show most common ways people died in the Middle Ages the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century it began with the fall of the Roman Empire and led into the Renaissance and Age of Discovery this period predates the discovery of penicillin and germ theory meaning that death by disease was a common occurrence among medieval people poor health conditions and malnutrition added to the problem diseases and conditions commented a period where dysentery gonorrhea influenza leprosy malaria measles smallpox typhoid and peripheral fever in the Prussian town of Alban in August 1349 the Black Death was first recorded and this terrible illness has long been associated with death in the Middle Ages studies have shown that people around this period had a life expectancy somewhere in the 32 40s that piece of data is according to some sources misleading as the life expectancy rate was dragged down significantly by the high infant mortality rate caused by death at childbirth and disease in infancy many people did in fact live to 60 or 70 years of age or older during the Middle Ages Enrico Dandolo became the Doge of Venice at the age of 85 and died old and blind at 9 in the year 1205 however death by childbirth was a serious problem as hygiene was yet to be fully understood both the rich and poor died in childbirth Queens often died while giving birth to future princes and princesses thus greatly affecting lines of inheritance and courses of history richer families could usually afford to hire a wet nurse if the mother died during childbirth but peasant families were forced to be more inventive by soaking bread and milk for the infant to ingest or even soaking a rag in milk and letting the child suckle from the rag death arrived to children in the shape of germs and viruses that people in the Middle Ages had no idea led to disease having had no knowledge of germ theory there were no antibiotics or vaccines to protect the most vulnerable members of society the very old and the very young the death rate for children was horrendously high and to survive birth and infancy put one in good stead for the pursuant obstacles this tough period in history brought poor medical care weak immune systems infectious diseases and hunger killed countless of people during the Middle Ages for perhaps no event was as undeniably devastating as the Black Death one-third of the population of Europe between 1347 and 1350 - were wiped out by bubonic and pneumonic plague that ravaged the region this outbreak was probably the most deadly force the most tragic pandemic event to have swept through a populated region killing at least 75 million people throughout Europe northern Africa and the Middle East if we factor in that the population of Europe was thought to be around 70 million in 1350 then yes the plague was responsible for a huge number of deaths and if we were living at that time in Europe many of us would have become part of the estimated 50 percent of Europe's population who fell victim to it and then there were those who died on the battlefield hacked and cut with weapons and with no means to properly clean infected wounds soldiers often led short brutal lives however casualties and medieval battles were often surprisingly light once one side had lost five to ten percent of their number noblemen and officers were often held to ransom many army casualties were slayed by disease food borne and septicemia instead amputations were not to be taken lightly and many died from contamination and dirty surgical instruments anesthetic was unheard of and if drinking enough alcohol wouldn't stop the screams you may have been knocked with a blow to the head instead those high-ranking officers who were able to access the cutting-edge medical science at the time enjoyed leeches applied to wounds or perhaps a course of bloodletting traveling was no picnic either finding a safe place to stop while traveling was troublesome and folks often had to resort to sleeping out in the open running a risk of freezing to death in the winter or being robbed or killed on the road food was also hard to come by on the road and the traveler was often forced to forage steal or go without lack of foreign languages could be problematic and travelers may find themselves caught up in local disputes or battles and things weren't much better at sea while it was faster to travel by sea boarding a vessel put the traveler at risk of sudden storms or shoddy navigation the ships themselves weren't particularly safe until later in the Middle Ages but on land or at sea life certainly wasn't a breeze during this fascinating period of history what were some of the other brutal periods of history to live through let us know your thoughts in the comments also be sure to watch our other video called what would happen if you ate only meat and nothing else thanks for watching and as always don't forget to Like share and subscribe see you next time

Channel: The Infographics Show

Views: 1,673,692

Rating: 4.8071404 out of 5

Keywords: The Black Death, Black Death, Plague, bacteria, sickness, illness, history, animated history, bubonic, bubonic plague, black, rats, europe, middle ages, midieval, pandemic, black plague, black death (disaster), the plague, plague doctor, bubonic plague (disease or medical condition), pneumonic plague, animation, animated, world history, the plague doctor, simple history, disease, medieval, it's history, I AM

Id: boMzFm7I1zs

Length: 31min 16sec (1876 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 29 2019