Also known as “the Great Pestilence”, the Black Death first appeared in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia around the 1320’s and by 1347 had spread throughout China and most of Asia and was slowly making its way to Europe. In October of 1347, 12 trading ships docked at the port of Messina in Sicily. When people greeted them at the shore, most of the crew was dead and the rest were very ill. The men were overcome with fevers, muscle pain, extreme headaches, and even seizures. They also had black, pus-filled boils on their body that gave this gruesome disease the name, “The Black Death”.
At this time and the years before in Europe, there were wheat failures causing a famine throughout the continent, so trading was necessary in these conditions. While Italian crew members were loading up Chinese goods, they were also loading up rats with the infection. The disease itself (also known as Yersinia pestis) is not carried by the rats itself but the fleas that are attached to it. Over time, the rats have gained an immunity to this Yersinia pestis, but the fleas haven’t. When the flea sucks the blood from the rat, the Yersinia pestis infects the flea but in a different way. According to Shiya Ribowsky, a forensic medical investigator, “a toxin that comes from the Yersinia pestis blocks the abdomen of the flea, so it can’t actually swallow the blood that it sucks out of the rat.” This causes the flea to jump onto a human and instead of digesting the blood, the flea vomits the blood back into you. And just like that, the first victim of the Black Death is now walking around 14th century Europe.
There are three major forms of the plague that are all equally deadly. The first one is the most popular, the Bubonic plague. This disease has multiple symptoms such as chills, fevers, malaise, headaches, muscle pain, and seizures. According to the New York Times’ report over the Black Death and other plagues, the infected individual would be greeted with, “smooth yet painful lymph gland swelling called a bubo.” (This is where this version of the plague gets its name.) “[It is] [c]ommonly found in the groin, but may occur in the armpits or [the] neck, most often at the site of the infection.” The second form of the Black Death is the Septicaemic plague. Some symptoms that occur with this form are abdominal pain, bleeding due to blood clotting problems, diarrhea, fever, nausea, and vomiting. The Septicaemic form of the plague is based in the circulatory system and inhibits the body’s ability to clot, which in turn results in you bleeding from everywhere, essentially at the same time. The third and final version of the plague is the Pneumonic version. This form of the disease has multiple symptoms such as coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, pain in the chest, and severe cough. The Pneumonic version of the plague takes place in the respiratory system, specifically the lungs. According to Shiya Ribowsky, a forensic medical investigator, the organism settles in your lungs, and over about a week long time period, your lungs essentially liquefy, and you cough them up and die.
Having taken place in the 14th century, treatments for the Black Death were essentially nonexistent. Because no one knew what to do to get rid of the “Great Pestilence”, everything was tried, and the few that were were not sanitary and were just gruesome. People were so desperate, they turned to God to seek forgiveness. The first treatments to be used were called bloodletting and boil-lancing and both date back to ancient Egypt. Bloodletting is the process by which a doctor slices your wrist one to two times to remove the “infected” blood. Although it was used predominantly in the 14th century during the Black Death, it was usually not successful in treating the patient. Another treatment used at this time was boil-lancing, and was used only for patients with the Bubonic version of the plague. Still used today, boil-lancing consists of slicing the boil and letting the pus or blood drain out to relieve pressure on the patient. This treatment was usually not very successful in the 14th century either because of the infection that would occur after the slicing of the boil. More treatments included superstitious practices such as burning certain herbs and bathing in rose water or vinegar. Because the citizens of Europe did not understand the disease, no treatments were made, so people believed that this was God’s punishment. Seeking God’s forgiveness, people attempted to exterminate anyone they thought was unholy. According to www.history.com, “many thousands of Jews were massacred in 1348 and 1349. (Thousands more fled to the sparsely populated regions of Eastern Europe, where they could be relatively safe from the rampaging mobs in the cities.)”
Although they were not around in the 14th century when the Black Death was prominent,plague doctors played a major role in the 17th century when the disease was still deadly but not as popular. The original plague doctor costume was made by Charles de l’Orme, chief physician for King Louis XIII, in 1619. According to the man himself, “The nose [is] half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two holes, one on each side near the nostrils, but that can suffice to breathe and carry along with the air one breathes the impression of the [herbs] enclosed further along in the beak. Under the coat we wear boots made in Moroccan leather (goat leather) from the front of the breeches in smooth skin that are attached to said boots, and a short sleeved blouse in smooth skin, the bottom of which is tucked into the breeches. The hat and gloves are also made of the same skin…with spectacles over the eyes.” The plague doctor costume is used today in movies and television shows, and is viewed today as a symbol of the Black Death and how it affected the world.
Even though the plague essentially became nonexistent in the early 1350’s, it has reappeared in the following generations every now and then. For example, in 17th century London, known today as, “The Great Plague”. Starting in May of 1665 the plague had only killed 43 people. By June, 6,137 people died. By July, 17,036 people died, and by August, 31,159 had perished from this vicious disease. According to www.historic-uk.com, the plague first started appearing in London in the poor, overcrowded parish of St. Giles-in-the-Field. When the first signs of the plague appeared in a household, the house was closed off completely, essentially ensuring death to the whole family. To tell the infected houses apart from the healthy ones, a red cross was painted on the door along the words, “Lord have mercy on us”. When people would shout, “bring your dead”, the corpses would be pulled out of their households, put in a cart, and taken away to the plague pits. One of the most famous plague pits was called the Great Pit located at Aldgate in London and another at Finsbury Fields. Luckily for the citizens of London, the Great Fire of London that occurred in 1666 killed most of the rats and fleas that were causing the plague. The plague finally died out in the fall of 1666 due to the cold weather killing off the fleas.
William Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan era when the bubonic plague, sometimes referred to as the Black Death, was virulent. He was known to have a terrible fear of the deadly disease and its consequences and this is hardly surprising as it touched so many areas of his life including his life as an actor at the Globe Theater. There were high mortality rates amongst Elizabethan children and this was true of the brothers and sisters of Shakespeare some of whom were struck down by the Black Death.