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Bubonic Plague Dbq Essay

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The Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death. No one ever knew exactly how many died, just that there were too many to keep track of. The plague was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia Pestis, originally dwelling in the soil it spread to the burrowing rodents. Fleas which clung to the rodents leeched out their bacteria infected blood, thus transferring the host of the bacteria to the flea. The fleas would then proceed to bite a human, giving them the bacteria of the dreaded plague (Doc E). Even today we do not know exactly where the plague originated from. What we do know is that the plague entered Europe through Italian merchants from the city of Caffa(Kaffa). The Italian merchants were there and also the local Mongols of the area, they …show more content…

Knowing they had little time before they would all die they catapulted the bodies over the city walls, infecting those within the city. This shows early biological warfare, by the time the merchants figured out that the plague was spreading throughout the city it was too late, trying to flee they boarded their ships heading for Sicily. When they got there, they docked in Messina, bringing the plague to Europe(Video). There were many horrific symptoms of the Bubonic Plague, the most common and notable were swollen lymph nodes in the groin, armpit, or neck, fever, chills, fatigue, and coughing up blood. People would be alive one day and dead the next. There were many theories on why this happened, some thought it was a punishment from God (Doc BE) or a supernatural force (Doc BB). Today the plague does not affect us as much as it had in the 1340-50s, this is due to modern medicine. Because the plague hasn’t changed much genetically, we have been able to develop antibiotics to treat it (Doc E), making our selves safer than those back then. October 3, 1348- Paris (Doc A, AA). The rumors were true, the plague is

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