black death intro

What am I?

My tongue has turned brown and my breath has started to stink!

I am feeling a bit dizzy and weak!

Small boils are starting to appear under my arms and between my legs!

Small black blotches have spread all over my body!

The boils under my arms have grown to the size of apples!

I am starting to vomit and cough

up blood!

I am sweating

and getting a

fever!

I am dying!

1347

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WHEN ?HOW ?

WHO ?

WHAT ?

WHY ?

WHERE ?

In the 14th centuryA deadly disease struck,Your family and strangers would die,It was just sheer bad luck!Death to the infected normally came in a week,Rats on a ship were to blame, so to speak.From Asia, to Europe, then to EnglandIt started at sea but quickly spread to land!

From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411

Medieval Art & the Plague

Bring out your dead!

Symptoms

My tongue has turned brown and my breath has started to stink!

I am feeling a bit dizzy and weak!

Small boils are starting to appear under my arms and between my legs!

Small black blotches have spread all over my body!

The boils under my arms have grown to the size of apples!

I am starting to vomit and cough

up blood!

I am sweating

and getting a

fever!

I am dying!

The Symptoms

Bulbous

Septicemic Form:

almost 100% mortality rate.

Task

Guess the right order that the symptoms occurred.

Write them into the 6 boxes in your storyboard and produce an illustration for each one

Causes

Scientific reasons?

Magic / Superstition?

Religious reasons?

Some people said it was a punishment from God

Others blamed a French sailor who arrived in England

If you touched the dead or the sick you would catch the plague

Jews were believed to have caused the plague by poisoning the wells

Plague was from the Heavens and fell down as rain onto those who had sinned

The main cause was the position of the planets, if they were close together, terrible things were to come

Medieval Art & the Plague

S I N

CuresWear a

magpie’s beak around your

neck

Cut a hole into your skull to let out evil spirits

Hold sweet herbs to your

mouth to drive away the bad

air

Sit in a sewer and the bad

smells will leave no room for black death

Swallow the powder of

crushed emeralds

Drink a glass of your own wee

twice a day

Open your veins and let a pint of blood pour out

Kill all the cats and dogs in

town

Shave a chickens bottom

and strap it to your sores

March around town whipping

yourself and ask for God’s forgiveness

Run away to another town or countryside

Clean up the streets of filth

and rubbish and burn clothes of

victims

Slice the buboes open and squeeze

out the poison the seal the wound with

poo

Wash yourself with vinegar

and rose water

Eat bread, fruit and vegetables but no meat or

fish

Attempts to Stop the Plague

A Doctor’s Robe

“Leeching”

Attempts to Stop the Plague

Flagellanti:Self-inflicted “penance” for our

sins!

From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411

Lancing a Buboe

Death Triumphant !:A Major Artistic

Theme

Task

1. Write down all the cures that might have made things BETTER

2. Write down all the cures that might have made things WORSE

Cures that worked Cures that did not work

Task

Imagine you are the Lord of the manor. You have to explain to the villagers what the cause of the Black Death is. Plan your answer like this so you

cover all possible explanations

Causes Suggested CureScientific reasons

Magical / superstition

Religious reasons

Other Cures…

“Bleed and make the patient vomit. The swellings should be softened with figs and cooked onions. Swellings should be cut open!”

“Toads should be thoroughly dried in the sun and placed on the buboes. The toad will draw out the puss into its own body!”

Real Cause

• http://www.activehistory.co.uk/main_area/1sts/black_death/animation.html

The Culprits

The Disease Cycle

Flea drinks rat blood that carries the

bacteria.

Flea’s gut cloggedwith bacteria.

Bacteriamultiply inflea’s gut.

Flea bites human and regurgitates blood into human wound.

Human is infected!