The Terrible Time

Contents

INTRODUCTION PAGE 2

THE BACTERIA THAT CAUSED IT ALL 3-4

HOW IT SPREAD 5-6

THE STAGES 7-8

THE SUMMARY 9-10

A dire time to be in was the  bubonic plague ; because of the amount of people that died from the plague, which was one third of Europe!

I know that is a lot of people,and this only happened in a few years.

This plague was caused by a bacteria Yersinia pestis, was found in samples of bones and teeth from plague victims.This bacteria is a micro-organism .

Now I bet your wondering hmm what is a micro-organism ? Well I’ll explain that on the next page.

The plague seems to have started in China in the 1330’s.

In 1347, armies attacking the town of Caffa in the Crimea, catapulted plague corpses (DEAD BODIES) into the town. The Italian merchants took the plague with them to Sicily in October 1347.

In June 1348 Black Death arrived at Melcombe Regis (in Dorset).

By the end of the year it had spread throughout the south of England.

During 1349, the plague spread north of England.

The Scots – thinking that God was punishing the English – invaded the north of England, where their army caught the plague. In 1350, therefore, the plague spread through Scotland.

The first plague died out in 1350.

The plague returned between 1361 and 1364, and five more times before 1405.

It started with the bubonic plague which gave you black swellings in your armpits or groins.

A variant of the disease was pneumonic plague, which attacked the lungs. Victims died quickly, in one or two days.

The mortality rate in this case was 90%.

Another variant was septicaemic plague, which infected the blood. Again victims died quickly and the mortality rate was 100%

Too sum up the bubonic plague was a painful disease, with black buboes, or swellings, in the groin and armpits, which lasted up to a week. There was some chance of surviving if the buboes burst;also it had some gruesome stages that were really painful . I wouldn’t want to be alive at that time would you?