The Black Death: Eradicating Pandemics In Human History

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Brooke Fowers Hightower Per. 7 12/15/12 The Black Death During the Black Death, medieval medicine was more of a blending of Church beliefs and trendy superstitions rather than of science and true medical understanding. In 1348-1350 about half of Europe’s population was wiped out due to fleas on rats coming over from China (Svendsen). The Black Death is one of the most devastating pandemics in human history. Religion became a huge mayhem, food was short, prices inflated, and people started to do anything they possibly could to get better, not matter how tremendous they might have been. The number of deaths could have been decreased if proper medical practices were used instead of allowing religious beliefs to take over during the…show more content…
Monks believed people were only sick because God was punishing them for something they had done. The Church believed that illness was a physical sign of sin or weakness of the soul. Both severe physical and mental illnesses were blamed on oneself for taking the “wrong path” at some point in ones life. Some people in Europe blamed the Jews for poisoning the water or practicing witchcraft (Knox). But on the contrary, most public officials believed that it wasn’t revenge from God, it wasn’t the Jews or even a weakness of the soul, but just a disease (Knox). They authorities tried to do every thing they could to deal with the outrageous problems, but there was only so much they could do, so once the government failed people would turn to ridiculous extremities (Knox). Only the wealthy were typically able to afford an exorcist or a confessor so the common folk would have to make do with the superstitions and “hack physicians” who knew very little about illnesses that dealt with human anatomy. Plague Doctors were hired to come in to towns or affected areas to “cure” the sick, but they were not even trained physicians or surgeons, so that alone was a rather large risk, but also understandable because the people experiencing this were very desperate to get healthier. The doctors would wear masks that had “beaks” on them to be used as filters that were filled with perfumes that were thought to be used as cleaning vapors. People thought that by hanging a wreath of garlic bulbs in a house would prevent from diseases, wearing a camphor ball to prevent illness and turning shoes upside down under a bed before falling asleep would prevent from disorders (James). The Church would use religion and other myths to try and fix the current situation but if anything, these methods made things worse
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