THE DIRTY BLACK DEATH
Zackary Cody
Survey of World Civilization I – HIST-1110-003
December 8th, 2016
The dirty Black Death, formally known as the bubonic plague, was an awful, horrendous
disease that affected essentially everyone in Europe from the 14th century to the 17th century. It
was a disease that killed basically everyone who came in contact with it. Many people blame rats
for the spread of the disease, but upon more detailed examination, one can find that fleas are to
blame for the spread, as they would bite the rats and then bite people. The disease made the
infected people’s’ skin die and turn black. What was worse than that is, the big bumps, known as
“bubos”, that people would get under their arms or inside thighs that hurt really bad and had pus
and blood dripping out.
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At the time, all most people could do to help the people with the
bubonic plague was to just make them as comfortable as they could until they eventually died.
The bubonic plague killed off so many people in Europe. People were dropping left and
right and up and down. The bubonic plague killed over one third of the population. That would
be like if you and thirty of your friends were hanging out and then over ten of them just died.
People had families and friends that they were losing to the dirty black death. It took families to
new levels of hard times whenever they would be torn apart and decimated by the plague. The
