THE BLACK

PLAGUE
HIGHBER MOGH CH MARAK
MURCHANA MAHANTA BARMAN
ABU HIND MD ABDULLAH
ASANUR ISLAM
MONSURUL AMIN MAZUMDER
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INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND REASON OF

OF THE THE PANDEMIC
PANDEMIC

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AFTERMATH STEPS FOR CONCLUSION

OF THE PREVENTION
PANDEMIC
 INTRODUCTION

◦ The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-
1300s.
◦ The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of
Messina.
◦ People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and
those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus.
◦ Plague is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic bacteria usually found in small mammals and their
fleas.
◦ There are two main clinical forms of plague infection: bubonic and pneumonic. Bubonic plague is the most
common form and is characterized by painful swollen lymph nodes or 'buboes'.
 BACKGROUND OF THE PANDEMIC
◦ Plague can be a very severe disease in people, with a case-fatality ratio of 30% to 60% for the bubonic type, and is
always fatal for the pneumonic kind when left untreated.
◦ The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes
westward to the Mediterranean and northern Africa.
◦ It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350.

◦ This first wave further extended into a 500-year-long pandemic, the so-called Second Plague Pandemic, which lasted
until the early 19th century.
◦ The origins of the Second Plague Pandemic have long been debated. One of the most popular theories has supported
its source in East Asia, specifically in China.
◦ To the contrary, the only so-far available archaeological findings come from Central Asia, close to Lake Issyk Kul, in
what is now Kyrgyzstan.
 REASON OF THE PANDEMIC

◦ The plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis.

◦ The bacillus travels from person to person through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas
and rats.
◦ The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system, causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the
infection can spread to the blood or lungs.
◦ Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant
symptoms—fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains—and then, in short order, death.
 YERSINIA PESTIS

◦ Yersinia pestis, bacterium in the family Yersiniaceae (order Enterobacterales) that causes plague.
◦ Yersinia pestis is classified as a Gram-negative coccobacillus, being spherical to cylindrical in shape and
having a thin peptidoglycan cell wall surrounded by an outer lipopolysaccharide membrane.
◦ It is also a facultative anaerobe, able to grow either with or without free oxygen.
◦ Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague. This occurs when an infected flea bites a person or
when materials contaminated with Y. pestis enter through a break in a person’s skin. Patients develop
swollen, tender lymph glands (called buboes) and fever, headache, chills, and weakness. Bubonic plague
does not spread from person to person.
 AFTERMATH OF THE PANDEMIC
◦ A cessation of wars and a sudden slump in trade immediately followed but were only of short duration.
◦ A more lasting and serious consequence was the drastic reduction of the amount of land under
cultivation, due to the deaths of so many labourers. This proved to be the ruin of many landowners.
◦ The shortage of labour compelled them to substitute wages or money rents in place of labour services in
an effort to keep their tenants. There was also a general rise in wages for artisans and peasants.
◦ The city’s population was so diminished that the project of enlarging the cathedral was abandoned, and
the death of many great painters, such as Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, brought the development of
the first Sienese school to a premature end.
◦ A rough estimate is that 25 million people in Europe died from plague during the Black Death.
◦ The population of western Europe did not again reach its pre-1348 level until the beginning of the 16th
century.
 PREVENTION OF BLACK PLAGUE

• Make your home and yard inhospitable to rodents (mice, rats, squirrels) and other wild animals. Don’t
leave places for them to hide or food for them to eat. This means cleaning up clutter, brush and other
items and being careful when feeding animals.
• Use flea control products for your pets, especially those who are allowed to roam freely. Take sick pets to
the veterinarian immediately.
• Don’t let pets who roam freely sleep in your bed.
• Wear protective clothing — especially gloves — if you handle dead animals.
• Use insect repellent if you go into wooded locations or other places that may expose you to fleas. Look
for repellents that use DEET or permethrin.
 CONCLUSION

◦ The conclusion of “The Plague” leaves a bitter taste.

◦ Plague outbreaks would continue long after the Black Death pandemic of the 14th century but none
would have the same psychological impact resulting in a complete reevaluation of the existing paradigm
of received knowledge.
◦ Europe – as well as other regions – based its reactions to the Black Death on traditional conventions –
whether religious or secular – and, when these failed, new models for understanding the world had to be
created.