爱美丽的第一篇research paper-----How did the Bubonic plague affect Euro

那天跑步，爱美丽跟我絮絮叨叨说鼠疫的故事。她对这些很感兴趣，在学校的图书馆里看这方面的书。这个学期老师要他们每个人写一篇关于历史的research paper， 她就决定写鼠疫。我说你写完了给我看看。

她今天就给我看了。我觉得写的还真的挺不错的。当然我是亲妈滤镜。

经过她同意，我贴在这里，留下来纪念一下，我娃的第一篇research paper，哈哈。

她死活不要做医生，太可惜了

 

Today, we know the Bubonic plague, also known as black death and many other names, to be one of the most horrific plagues to ever hit planet Earth, but what really happened? What started it? Is there a cure? Where did it originate? What caused it? Today, I will cover all these topics and more as we find out, how did the black plague affect Europe?

    To understand the plague, we need to trace it back to its origins. The Black Plague originated in China, and was brought to Europe by trade ships of the Golden Horde (group of Mongols) in the Black sea. On these ships, rats had been infected with the plague and escaped into the ports of Sicily, where the ships were docked. The rats had fleas that also got infected and spread it to people. The plague spread like wildfire, not only infecting people, but livestock, and the rest was history. Literally.

    The plague lasted from 1346 to 1353, wiping out 20-60 percent of  Europe’s population. To put that into perspective, let’s say 1000 people got infected. Barely 10 of them would have survived. Some symptoms of the plague were swelling under armpits and groins to the size of eggs or apples, boils full of blood and pus, attacks on the lymphatic system and nodes, fevers, chills, and extreme weakness. It was extremely contagious and no one knew how to treat it. Crude practices include bloodletting, and many were jews massacred for God’s forgiveness. So many people died that mass graves became popular. A mass grave is where a hole is dug in the ground, bodies are dumped into the hole with no prior preparation, and a layer of dirt is thrown on the top.    

The bubonic plague was actually so contagious that if you touched an infected person's clothes, you would become infected as well. It was also so fast acting that you could go to bed completely healthy and wake up, well, you wouldn’t wake up. It was called the black plague/death because most people died 2-7 days after infection and had blackened tissue due to gangrene (death of body tissue due to lack of blood). 

Due to mass deaths during the bubonic plague, the economy was very much weakened. Trade was stopped completely and many farmers died, leaving people with no food. It was caused by direct contact with infected tissue, and due to the conditions in medieval European towns, it was nearly impossible to avoid contact. Social distancing was applied, but by that time it was too late.

As you can probably gather from this, life was extremely difficult during the bubonic plague. Many people died, and if you didn’t die from the horrible symptoms of the plague, you would most likely die from starvation, as the farmers were all dead and trade had stopped. The short life expectancies of someone who was infected did not help. Now knowing this, we can accurately say that the Black death was one of the most horrific plagues to hit planet Earth.