Bubonic Plague

Bubonic plague was one of the most feared diseases of the ancient and medieval worlds.
Nobody could tell what caused it, and most people who got it died within a few days, screaming in pain. And when one or two people in a village got it, usually it spread to everyone else, and many of them died.
Plague caused a fever, and black spots on your chest sometimes, and sometimes great big black swellings on your armpits and at the top of your legs. That's why they called it the Black Death. These swellings got hard like rocks and hurt, and then in a day or two people usually died. There was no effective treatment, though of course people tried all kinds of things, from magic to surgery. Sometimes people did get better on their own, if they had good nursing care and were very healthy to begin with.

Today we do know what causes bubonic plague. Fleas carry it in the blood they suck; if a flea bites an infected person or animal (usually it's rats) and then bites you, then you'll get it too. People do still get bubonic plague, even today. But today we can cure it with antibiotics, and so most people who get it live.

The first time we know of people getting bubonic plague was in Constantinople about 570 AD. Many people died. Later the plague spread to Europe. There was a very serious outbreak of plague in the 1300's in France, England, Germany and Italy, which killed about one out of every three people in Europe.

Plague epidemics were much worse in places where people were crowded together and didn't get enough to eat. Archaeologists find that crowded villages and cities had more bedbugs, lice, and fleas, which bit the rats and then bit people and so spread the disease.

Probably bubonic plague germs first existed in Africa, where they infected Egyptian rats who lived along the Nile River. These Egyptian rats were used to these germs and had adapted to them, and it didn't kill them. But when trading ships accidentally brought the black rat from India and Central Asia to Egypt, the black rats caught these germs and, not being adapted to them, died of the plague. This helped to spread the plague to people.

More about bubonic plague (with pictures)
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