Black Plague Research Paper

know of the Black Plague and the rats that are associated with it. What they don’t know is that the plague originated in a different part of the world than they may expect. It actually began in parts of Asia where uncleanliness was as common as drinking water. A bacteria known as Y. Pestis took hold of rats. "Yersinia pestis (Y.Pestis) is a gram-negative, rod-shaped coccobacillus, a facultative anaerobic bacterium."(Wikipedia). Though it was not rats that transferred this bacteria to the homo sapiens, it was the fleas. Fleas and various other insects with a similar blood diet would drink the blood of a rat that was infected with Y. Pestis. Then the disease would begin to work its

A good example of this would be when the Black Death began appearing in Europe. Doctors did not know of this illness or how to treat it. This led to many different treatments appearing throughout history Many of the Plague Doctors proposed Blood Letting which was composed of lancing through veins and letting 'bad blood' drain from the wounds before stuffing the open veins with a mixture herbs. Another similar to this was lancing the buboes which was where the boils where cut open to the infection drained from the body. Many other cures were proposed, some more gruesome than others. There were some though that fell into a much gentler range. One was bathing the diseased in a mix of vinegar and rose water. Some were mixes of herbs which were to be worn so the air around the patient could be purified. A common one was drinking herbal teas with crushed egg shells and flower petals. Though none of these methods would be able to cure this plague and the poor people that this treatments were being practiced on would surely

Even though modern medical practices and cleanliness lower the risk of infection it is still very possible for one to get infected in todays society. It had taken scientists many years to find out how Y. Pestis was transferred from person to person. Though it was eventually discovered that the Black Death was transferred by a type of germ called bacillus which travelled through the air, pneumatically or by the bite of and infected animal or insect. But even though there were only fifteen cases of plague during 2015 the plague is becoming more common each year. This is believed to be because of the fact that doctors have still yet to find a cure of vaccine for this infectious disease. Doctors have been able to slow the rate in which a patient with the plague would die and in the rare case with an unknown mix of medication even save some patients, though they are unable to single out the medication which would cure