Black Death in the Late Roman Empire

IN OCTOBER 1348, GENOESE TRADING SHIPS dropped anchor at the port of Messina, Sicily. The ships had come from the Black Sea port of Kaffa, now called Feodosiya. On board were goods from Central Asia, which was then controlled by the Mongol Empire. The sailors were afflicted with strange black swellings (buboes) the size of eggs that oozed blood and pus. These swellings followed by fevers, boils, and black blotches on the skin caused by internal bleeding, After four or five days of awful pain, the afflicted died.

The black death was the Second Pandemic of the plague. The First Pandemic is was known as the Plague of Justinian and occurred during the reign of the Roman Emperor Justinian. The black death was one of the three worst epidemics in the world. It is one of the most painful and brutal deceases known to man. It originally was thought to have started in 527-565 BC in Egypt.

Rats, mice, and other small rodents carried the disease. Bubonic plague was the most common. What they had was small flee host that would latch onto the rodents and feed on infected blood. They traveled with the rodent and infected each person that it chooses to.

As to each type of plague, the least most dangerous (even though it is dangerous) was the Bacillus plague. Bacillus attacks the limp nodes; this causes many bruises and severe diarrhea. When all fails, and the diseases take effect the kill rate was about 60 percent if not found within the first two days. If the disease wasn't found within the early stages, the disease multiplies in the blood and becomes more toxic.

The Pneumonic plague was the second worst version to come back around. That would happen when the bacillus didn't take effect to attack the limp nodes. It would cause more alarming symptoms to helpers treating the disease. Pneumonic was the worst because made it to where you would cough up blood, therefore, causing the illness to now be airborne.

The Septicaemic plague is when the bacteria enters into the bloodstream directly and then multiplies there. When a flea bites a human, it travels thru the blood and is the scariest of all plagues. This form of disease would cause discoloration in your hands, and making your feet black. The death rate for this is usually 95/100 percent because this is an overnight epidemic. All of these forms of plague are dangerous in there own ways, but this was probably the scariest disease known to man.

Many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication, and worldliness. And the only way to overcome the plague was to win Gods forgiveness. Some even believed that the way to do that was to purge out the troublemakers in their community.

Historians have suspected for a long time that the plague of Justinian was a part of the pandemic of bubonic plague, but there is little empirical evidence existed. When historians suggested that this pandemic was a result of the bubonic plague was somewhat unexpected for the researchers as their previous analysis published in 2011 revealed no evidence for major outbreaks of bubonic plague before the Black Death. "Our new analysis implies that bubonic plague may have been a major killer already in the late Roman Empire," explains Krause, a professor at the University of Tuebingen specializing in Palaeo-genetics. "The Justinian plague seems like the best candidate for this earlier pandemic."

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)

"Plague with a past." Science Scope, Jan. 2013, p. 8. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497944034/AONE?u=oran95108&sid=AONE&xid=7df5027c. Accessed 1 Nov. 2018.

Black Death - HISTORY

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death

Truitt, Elly. "WHAT WAS THE BLACK DEATH." Calliope, Mar. 2001, p. 12. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A78679753/ITOF?u=oran95108&sid=ITOF&xid=66d68608. Accessed 1 Nov. 2018.

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