The Bubonic Plague

It was a sad, sad class last week.  Unfortunately, most of our classmates didn't make it through the plague. They all dropped DEAD!  


You see, I, the horrible teacher, had some "infected" lotion (full of red glitter) that I put all over my hands. Some of the kids wanted to know what it was and they touched it, too. Then we played some games like Ring Around the Rosies, London Bridges, and Round the House. 


When we sat down, and I checked everyone, there were only THREE kids who did not have any germs (red glitter) on them. They were the lucky ones.  Everyone else perished.


Okay, they didn't really perish, but what was it like to get the plague? How did you get it? Where did it come from?


Think of chickenpox, mumps, and measles with flu, fever, whooping cough and really, really bad acne and you still haven't got anywhere near the yucky, scary horridness of the dreaded Black Death.


In 1348, when the dreaded bubonic plague first sailed into London from China there weren't any microscopes or scientists in white lab coats. They didn't know what had hit them. In England a million people died, about on in every three people. In some poorer areas of London the plague could come knocking on every door in the street.


Life in the Middle Ages was an ideal breeding ground for diseases: and London life, where families were packed together like sardines, without a nice field or forest to use as their toilet, was even dirtier.


Most families squashed in together in one smelly, filthy room. Often their pigs and chickens or cows might keep them company in the house. The mud floor would be covered with a greasy, slimy mess of scraps from the family dinner, decaying old bones, ancient straw, and assorted garbage. The roofs of their homes were made of mud and straw and the whole structure was made of wood. They didn't have toilets so they would use their living room as one! (Even the rich didn't mind pooing in the corner of their banquet room and getting a serf to take it away!) 


But these houses were great for rats and fleas. In fact, it couldn't have been better.


Here is how you would have caught the Black Death in 1348.


A flea carrying the deadly plague bacillus visits one of the rats living in your filthy house. The flea infects the fat, which dies horribly. Then the flea jumps to another rat. Soon all the rats are dead so the flea jumps to you. It finds a fleshy part of your body, like the groin, armpit, or neck.


Now what happens?


You get a high fever (105 F), followed by aches, vomiting, and convulsions.


Black boils appear in your groin, neck and armpits. They start olive-sized, then grow to egg size, and can get as large as an apple.  You start coughing and sneezing.


The boils (or buboes) soon begin to spread over your arms, thighs, legs and stomach.


They ooze with blood and putrid pus.


You start to stink. Your breath, sweat and spit are so rancid that your family can't be near you without the urge to vomit. Your urine forms a thick blackish red liquid.


You start coughing up blood. This means that the bacillus is now in your blood stream. You are probably dead within three days.






No one knew what to do. They had a lot of strange ideas on how to cure you, but of course nothing worked.  Doctors would wear these strange costumes when they visited patients.






The beaks would be full of sweet herbs, to avoid catching the plague.  One doctor complained that the head-to-toe robes he wore to keep the infection off were useless as they only kept off the fleas!  Ha!

Here were some of the doctors theories on how you got the plague...

Poisonous gases let off by the belly of the earth


Looking at an infected person


Dogs and cats (In London thousands of dogs and cats were rounded up and killed. There was even an official dog-killer. Unfortunately it meant that all the rats the cats and dogs might have killed were left scot-free)


Drinking from poisoned wells. Prejudices flourished in times of fear and in many places they blamed Jews for poisoning the wells.


God's vengeance for their wicked ways.

**This is an excerpt from a fascinating book on plagues called The Black Death and Other Putrid Plagues of London by Natasha Narayan.




And now, not to be outdone, here is a Horrible Histories plague song.  Take a look.


Bring out your dead!  Bring out your dead!