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Black Death Pathology

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1. Introduction Humanity’s history has been shaped greatly by new inventions, ground-breaking theories and an always evolving and advancing understanding of nature, but even more is our society today influenced by its dark chapters in the past. By natural famines and man-made war and catastrophes leading to the death of many. All of these stand in direct correlation to one of the most devastating threats to humanity, and a force to be reckoned with by itself, pandemic diseases. Pestilence, Famine, War and Death, also known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Christian Belief, have had an impact on humanity and its development through the Ages on such an enormous scale that it can never be truly understood. As such, just the complementation of the margin in which our lives have been affected is infinite and gives great nourishment for …show more content…

Benedictow, 2005), others that it was “due to its physical manifestation and its affect [sic!] on society” (AllAboutHistory, 2016) (see: 2.4 Pathology). Furthermore, the word 'plague' probably descended from the Old French word 'plage' or the Late Latin word 'plaga'. In the end of 14th Century, 'plage' meant “affliction, calamity, evil, scourge”, but just a few decades later “malignant disease” (Douglas Harper, n.d.) This appears to be directly linked to the horrendous grip the plague had on the society of that century. Until this day, 'plague' is synonymous with terms like 'infection', 'epidemic' and 'contagion' (anonymous a, n.d.). Beyond that, 'pest' has its root in either the French 'peste' or the Latin 'pestis' (Oxford University Press, 2011). Which translates to “a deadly, esp. an infectious or contagious disease” (Charlton T. Lewis, Ph. D. and Charles Short,

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