The bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, has always been taught in our schools, recorded in our history books since 1347, and even doctors and microbiologists today study the earliest documentaries of this sickness. It was called the Black Death because of the acral necrosis which appeared on the body as the flesh started to die. These are also recorded in modern-day cases of plague where the fingers, hands, toes, feet and even faces, tongues and whole limbs turn black.
It’s long been thought that plague came from fleas infected with the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is supposedly the cause of the plague’s, dare I say, milder modern counterpart. It began in China; no one is really sure when, but at Kaffa the Mongols hurled plague corpses at the Genoese, so they knew its effect on the population as well as morale.
However, a few things have been overlooked and are yet to be explained. The swellings, or buboes, which would cover the body – these stinking, oozing pustules did help spread the sickness, but we don’t see these today. Also, the fleas from the rats would only turn to humans once all the rats were dead, but this is not explained. If rats were a daily nuisance from 1300s Europe up until recent times, then surely the fleas would have found another rat as soon as theirs died? Why turn to humans?
We understand that modern fleas cannot live on humans because our bodies are inhospitable. A cull of cats and dogs happened when the plague broke out again, as people feared these animals carried the plague. But cats chase rats, which makes me think that whoever passed that law that cats should be killed knew what they were doing. If the cats killed the rats, the fleas would have nowhere to go and so would turn to humans. That’s one mystery that has yet to be explained.
Another would be the feared Grim Reaper, who first arrived in artwork, stories and witness accounts when the plague first made port in Europe. People said they saw a black-cloaked figure appear on the edge of villages just before the plague broke out. Sometimes he had a scythe and would begin cutting down the wheat. Witnesses said he was tall and thin, with a terrible face. Some were even convinced they could see the plague winding its way down to the towns and villages from the hills and fields where these figures were reported. Many people now look at the artwork of the time and claim these figures to be extra-terrestrials. Cave paintings have to be the most intriguing part of the mystery. Going right back to Stone Age times, figures taller than you or I, usually painted black or dark ochre red, have been drawn onto walls, tombs and temples by races all over the world who had little or no communication with each other. The mystery deepens.
People were so terrified of this plague that if one member of the family came down with a fever, or even a spot, it was immediately assumed all were lost. The house was boarded up with the sick and the well inside, and it would have a large red “X” marked on the door or wall. That is unless you ran and left the village before anyone found out. If caught you had a high chance of being lynched, beaten to death or even chased into the wilds until exhaustion, hunger or exposure finished you off.
The Pope, however, had his physician do something unique for the time. He filled his chamber with huge fires and they were kept as clean as possible. The Pope never got sick, nor did any of his staff who stayed in the chambers with him. His physician was not so lucky; he caught the plague and died not long after.
We all know about the infamous plague doctors, who had their beaked masks filled with herbs and sweet scents thinking the plague was spread by a miasma, or dirty, unclean air. Once again eye-witness reports mention seeing clouds of noxious air covering towns, or settling like fog among the houses. Soon people began to get sick, and so many died that they were left in the street because no one was left to bury them.
The symptoms of the Black Death do not mirror the cases we find today. Most modern cases can be cured and appendages saved, so what made this first attack and many after so terrible? Somewhere along history the buboes vanish and almost all victims survive. The odds are in favor of the richer classes. This is all put down to hygiene, and I completely agree! It does help, but it does not explain why the symptoms changed. The terrible thirst, fever, frothing at the mouth and even a fear of water – some of these sound a lot like rabies. The black figures didn’t vanish until the 1600s, and the smoke and fog just before.
Was the Black Death some now-extinct plague? Was it really spread by fleas that, frankly, were much happier on rats than they were on humans? Was it some experiment by extra-terrestrials? Or a lack of hygiene? Let us not forget that before Mr Edward J. people still thought cholera, typhoid fever and tuberculosis were caused by this miasma. While researching this I did become interested in the number of paintings, woodcuts, carvings and stories which talk about the mysterious black figures who, as recorded in a village in Italy, walked through the streets and one by one each house came down with the sickness. When questioned, it was gone, seemingly into thin air.
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