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Shea Arend
Kathryn Ordway
History 101
11 April 2016
Black Death
In the fourteenth century Black Death spread into Europe and wiped out one third of the
population from 1347-1350(YouTube, 2014). The Black Death was a period of time where many
people died from a disease. This disease was spreading very rapidly and there was no cure being
found. Communities were baffled, and with seemingly no end in sight, society just had to be
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cautious and deal with all of the dead bodies. How did this disease come to be? Where did it
come from and how was it spreading? Was this the Bubonic Plague or something else?
The most common thought over history has been that the Bubonic Plague was the cause
of Black Death. These believers believe that from the Bubonic Plague came a mixture of plagues
including Bubonic, Septicaemic, and Pneumonic. With the Bubonic strain being the weakest of
the three strains, it was also less fatal than the other two which had mortality rates close to one
hundred percent. The Septicaemic strain affects the circulatory system and the Pneumonic strain
affects the respiratory system(Marquette University). These two strains are thought to be spread
from person to person unlike the Bubonic strain which is thought to of been spread from rats and
fleas.
The Bubonic Plague originated in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in the year 1320. From
