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 [1]

I am of the opinion that there are at least two sides to the “science coin” shall we say. The first side, which was addressed in my first and third episode, is a science that is every growing. A science that is making magnificent strides in the way of helping other people improve their quality of life and making minor medical problem obsolete. However, on the other side of the “coin” is a very dark and vengeful medicine, one that spreads and kills with no reason or explanation as to how it started or how to stop it. For Modern society that disease is HIV/AIDS but for the people of the Middle Ages it was The Black Plague. Never in history has such an enormous portion of the population been affected by something of this nature. To explain in raw numbers, “The plague came to Europe in the fall of 1347. By 1350 it had largely passed out of western Europe. In the space of two years, one out of every three people was dead. Nothing like that has happened before or since.” (Knox)
  
     To understand how bad it was, one must first have a better understanding of its background. Although it is said that no one really knows why the plague erupted, it did so in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s (Knox).  It has been speculated that the mini Ice Age of the 14th Century might have had something to do with it coming out of it’s dormant state (Knox). “Because the disease tended to follow trade routes, and to concentrate in cities, it followed a circuitous route: the Near East, the western Mediterranean, then into northern Europe and finally back into Russia. The progress of the plague very neatly describes the geography of medieval trade.” (Knox) But what about the disease itself? It’s said to travel from rodent to flea to human, killing all three organisms in the process. Symptoms of the disease usually include “high fevers and aching limbs and vomiting of blood. Most characteristic is a swelling of the lymph nodes. These glands can be found in the neck, armpits and groin. The swelling protrudes and is easily visible; its blackish coloring gives the disease its name: the Black Death. The swellings continue to expand until they eventually burst, with death following soon after. The whole process, from first symptoms of fever and aches, to final expiration, lasts only three or four days. The swiftness of the disease, the terrible pain, the grotesque appearance of the victims, all served to make the plague especially terrifying.” (Knox)

    Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the Plague was its medical treatment. As we have learned already, the medical advancements of the Middle Ages was greater that history would have you believe. Scientists and medical practitioners were making plenty of advancements. Which is why I find it so shocking that the Egyptians were able to perform brain surgery but civilians were fighting off the greatest and deadliest plague of all time with scents, spells, and charms. Attempts to cure or stop the plague from spreading focused less on true medical practices and more on the strange and outlandish (Knox). This has to be one of the main reasons that the death toll rose as high as it did. But massive population loss wasn’t the only ramification of the plague. The economy suffered as devastating blow as both consumers and producers suffered a great blow. But it wasn’t just farmers, bankers and laborers that died from the plague, a great number scholars also died from the Plague. Again, the death of so many great minds was one of the contributing factors to the massive let down of medicine during a time of horrible disease and death. It’s basic mathematics, if one-third of a population dies obviously all fields are going to be hard it including the medical field and if there is no one to investigate, study, research and experiment then new medicines and cures won’t come into being and the death and suffering will only continue.
   
  

[3]
 The complete and total breakdown of the medical community during the Black Plague has to be one of the strangest things about the entire scenario. It seems as though all semester in our course work we have learned about how all fields of science were actually much more advanced then has been perceived throughout history and yet is seems that during a time when people needed scientists and doctors and new discoveries and continued studying the most there was a complete breakdown in the system. An entire population was dying in record time and numbers and it seemed as though medicine simply stood by and watched. My first and third episodes discusses marvelous advancements made by progressive thinkers that far surpassed their parameters of time and resources but this episode is to show that no matter comes before of after, during mass hysteria systems will fail people, which is exactly what happened during the Black Plague.

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References:
"The Black Death, 1348," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2001).

Knox, E.L. Skip. "The Black Death." The Middle Ages. June 2004. Boise State University. 17 Nov 2008 <http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/>.

Notes:
1.    My primary source was a first hand account of the plague written in 1348. I used this as background information for the episode.
2.    My secondary source was a webpage from a professor at Boise State University and was set up much like Prof. Magruder’s site is setup. This is where I got the quotes I used in the episode.
3.    Image information to follow.

Image Information:
[1] Plague 6
website: The Black Death, 1348
weblink: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm

[2] Plague 1
website: The Black Death, 1348
weblink: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm

[3] Plague 2
website: The Black Death, 1348
weblink: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm