|
|
| word looked up : | home / archive |
Black Death : Black deathThe Black Death (also The Plague, and latterly Black Plague though not called this in earlier times) was a devastating epidemic in Europe in the 14th century which is estimated to have killed about a third of the population. Most scientists believe that the Black Death was an outbreak of bubonic plague, a dreaded disease that has spread in pandemic form several times through history. The plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis which is spread by fleas with the help of animals like the black rat (Rattus rattus). Sometimes, the term "Black Death" is used for all outbreaks of plague.
| |||
It isn't entirely clear where the major epidemic of the 14th century started, but it was probably somewhere around the northern parts of India. It then spread west to the Middle East. The plague was imported to Europe by the way of the Crimea, where the Genoese colony Kaffa (Feodosiya) was besieged by the Mongols. Myth (or history?) says that the Mongols catapulted infected cadavers into the city. The refugees from Kaffa then took the plague along to Messina, Genoa and Venice, around the turn of 1347/1348. Some ships didn't have anyone alive when they reached their port. From Italy the disease spread clockwise around Europe, hitting France, Spain, Britain, Germany, Scandinavia and finally north-western Russia around 1351.
The information about the death toll varies widely from source to source, but it is estimated that about a third of the population of Europe died from the outbreak in the mid-1300s. Approximately 25 million deaths occurred in Europe alone with many others occurring in Africa and Asia. Some villages were deserted with the few survivors fleeing and spreading the disease further.
The great population loss brought economic changes based on increased social mobility as depopulation eroded peasant obligations (already weakened) to remain on their traditional holdings. The sudden scarcity of cheap labor provided an incentive for innovation that broke the stagnation of the Dark Ages and, some argue, caused the Renaissance. Because of the depopulation, though, the surviving Europeans became the biggest consumers of meat for a civilization before industrial agriculture[?].
See also Danse macabre, Decamerone[?], flagellant, pogrom.
Recently the scientists Susan Scott[?] and Christopher Duncan[?] from Liverpool University have proposed the theory that the Black Death might have been caused by an Ebola-like virus, not a bacterium. Their rationale is that this plague spread much faster and the incubation period was much shorter than the plagues caused by Yersinia pestis. It also took place in completely ratless areas like Iceland. It was transferred between humans (which happens rarely with Yersinia pestis), and some genes that determine immunity to Ebola-like viruses are much more widespread in Europe than in other parts of the world.
Moreover, what was previously considered to be final evidence for the Yersinia pestis theory, tooth pulp tissue taken from a 14th century plague cemetery in Montpellier containing Y. pestis DNA, was never confirmed in any other cemetery.
There are counter-arguments to this theory, however. Historical examples of pandemics of other diseases in populations not previously exposed, such as smallpox and tuberculosis amongst American Indians, show that because there is no inherited adaptation to the disease, its course in the first epidemic is faster and far more virulent than later epidemics amongst the descendants of survivors. The Middle East and Far East were affected equally badly (as the Rihla of Ibn Battuta testifies), so the prevalence of immunity genes specifically in Europeans is curious. Furthermore, the plague returned again and again and was recognised as the same disease through succeeding centuries into modern times when the Yersinia bacterium was identified.
cattle, which he himself dares not attack. From time to time his eye
tongue over his toothless jaw.
On that day, it was remarked by his servants--or, in other words, by all
nourishment, and so fixed all the application of his soul on the events
seeming, by forgetting, to have destroyed them. It was this power of
genius. He would have attained it quite, had he not lacked native
attending him there as well as in the cabinet. Louis XIII claimed with
contributed himself, however, only that grandeur which consists in
back into Perpignan; the remainder had met the same fate, was already
glittering squadrons of the King, who followed him, forming ranks as they
battlefield swept clear of enemies; he passed haughtily under the very
secret agreement with the Prime Minister, or from very shame to kill a
above his head, fell in front of the lines, and merely served to increase
awaited him, the King's countenance changed and visibly fell; he lost all
he approached, his usual pallor returned to his face, as if having the
at last, when he joined the Cardinal, a profound melancholy entirely
the latter, still coldly respectful, bowed, and after a few words of
the results of the day, while the princes and great lords, riding at some
could suggest the idea that he had had the slightest share in the events
their reports, there was not one who did not seem to divine his thoughts,
All reports were made to the King. The Cardinal then traversed, by the
view from the height where he had remained; and he saw with satisfaction
.
On
wordlookup.net
All is still licensed under the GNU FDL.
It uses material from the wikipedia.
|
|