Outbreak Of The Plague Among Animals example essay topic

The Black Death Sometime about 1338 AD, an earthquake or some other natural calamity began what would become the most terrible outbreak of any disease known to man. After outbreaks in Asia, which stretched from China to India, Persia, Syria, and Egypt and Asia Minor, this disease traveled along the Silk Road to the town of Kaffa. The disease rode inside small insects, which could live between six months and a year without the benefit of a human or animal host. The insects in turn probably traveled along the Silk Road hidden safely inside marmot furs, which were a popular and ready source of fur of the time.

It took many years for the disease to make the long trip over the Silk Road to Kaffa. Traders would bypass towns that had outbreaks of the disease. But by 1346, the plague, Yersinia pestis, had reached the Black Sea port of Kaffa, and was ready to make its final jump via the trade ships to Europe. In the year 1346, war broke out in Kaffa between the Christian Italian merchants and the Muslim citizens in the area. The Muslims asked their Khan for help in expelling the Christians from the city. Yersinia pestis found the ideal situation to spread itself among the population.

Rats lived among humans in close proximity. The thatch roofs of the dwellings and poor sanitation of the time caused a dramatic increase of the rat population. Ceratophyllus fascia tus, the fleas that carry Yersinia pestis, migrated easily from rat to stock to human, so that by the end of a year of siege, the plague erupted among the forces of the Muslim army. The Mongol Prince, Jani berg, recognized that the disease that afflicted his forces was extremely infectious, and ordered the dead from his army be catapulted over the walls of the city and into the opposing army. This early example of germ warfare was well documented by Gabriele de Mussis, who wrote: What seemed like mountains of dead were thrown into the city, and the Christians could not hide or flee or escape from them, although they dumped as many of the bodies as they could into the sea. And soon the rotting corpses tainted the air and poisoned the water supply, and the stench was so overwhelming that hardly one in several thousand was in a position to flee the remains of the Tarter [Mongol] army.

Moreover, one infected man could carry the poison to others, and infect people and places with the disease by look alone. No on knew, or could discover, a means of defense. The plague ravaged the city of Kaffa. As it gripped the city, the Italians fled to the sea on their boats. The rats carrying Yersinia pestis went along with them. The arrival of Yersinia pestis in Europe is a well-documented event.

Harpur's, Revelations (page 60) states that in October 1347, a merchant ship entered the port of Messina, Sicily from the Crimea. Oarsmen who were dying were navigating the ship, and the rest of the crew was already dead and decomposing, or dying. Historian James Harpur wrote: When the Messin ians were lifting the corpses off the vessel, they noticed that the bodies had large black swellings in their armpits and groins. It was the ominous coloration of these lumps that would later give rise to the name of the Middle Ages most deadly plague: the Black Death. Death and disease were no strangers to the population of the Middle Ages.

Most towns were filth-ridden and sanitation was either ignored or unknown to them. But the plague was a visitation of annihilating ferocity. It is estimated that some twenty million people died in Europe. In England, the population was reduced by one-third during the initial outbreak of plague, and by 1400, it is believed that only about two million people were still left alive. Similar stories of devastation are well documented from other areas of the world during the spread of the plague.

In China, it is believed that the population was halved between 1200 and 1393. The Black Death ravaged the Islamic world, and the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes were decimated also. So many people died during the time that the plague was present, that it was not until 1600 that the population of Europe reached its pre-plague levels. For three years the Black Death ravaged Europe.

The doctors of the time failed to realize how the disease was transmitted. Because the plague shifted constantly, but gradually, they believed that some airborne poison was to blame. They believed that it either traveled on the wind or was propelled by its own mysterious volition. The written documents of the period disagree on many points regarding the disease; how it was transferred, its origin, and its physical appearance.

But they all agree that it was caused by the atmosphere becoming infected. Coughing and sneezing were one of the many symptoms of the Black Death. This probably gave rise to the Middle Ages nursery rhyme: Ring a ring o roses, A pocket full of posies, A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down. Undoubtedly, this rhyme was some form of folk memory of the Black Death.

Yersinia pestis is a very efficient and simple disease. The flea bites an infected rat or animal and ingests the bacilli. The rod-shaped bacilli then multiply within the digestive tract of the flea, which grows to a solid mass. This blockage prevents the flea from digesting the blood it relies on for survival.

The flea, sensing unstoppable hunger then bites again and again its host, injecting the host with the bacilli which causes the plague. When the host dies, the flea simply moves on to another host, normally another animal. When the human population experiences an outbreak of the plague, there must first be an outbreak of the plague among animals. The Black Death develops very rapidly when it invades a human.

Large, painful swelling in the lymph nodes in the groin and armpits are often substantial enough to distend the body. High fever always accompanies the plague, often with temperatures of between 102 to 105 degrees. Black blotches that are the result of internal or epidermal hemorrhaging and thirst are also present. The buboes, or swellings, grow larger as the disease progresses. This painful swelling continues until the buboes burst. It has been reported that oftentimes even unconscious patients were roused to an agonized frenzy when the buboes burst.

Gabriele de Mussis, who was the plague's most famous chronicler, wrote: Those of both sexes who were in health, and in no fear of death, were struck by four savage blows to the flesh. First, out of the blue, a kind of chilly stiffness troubled their bodies. They felt a tingling sensation, as if they were pricked by the points of arrows. The next stage was a fearsome attack which took the form of an extremely hard, solid boil. In some people this developed under the armpit and in others in the groin between the scrotum and the body. As it grew more solid, its burning heat caused the patients to fall into an acute and putrid fever, with severe headaches.

As it intensified its extreme bitterness could have varied effects. In some cases it gave rise to an intolerable stench. In others it brought vomiting of blood, or swellings near the place from which the corrupt humour arose: on the back, across the chest, near the thigh. Some people lay as if in a drunken stupor and could not be roused. British historian Philip Ziegler and nineteenth-century historian J.P. Pap on wrote: The medieval doctor was confronted with a situation where a large number of people died suddenly and inexplicable in a given area. The disease was so disgusting that the sick became objects more of detestation than pity.

All the matter which exuded from their bodies let off an unbearable stench; sweat, excrement, spittle, breath, so fetid as to be overpowering; urine turbid, thick, black or red. It was not uncommon to have men who were full of life one day, to be found dead the next. Often, when the boils were lanced, little or no fluid would drain from the abscesses. The Black Death arrived in Europe during a time of superstition and little knowledge about medicine and science. At the height of the plague, Jews were blamed for bringing the Black Death to Europe. The Jews were persecuted and slaughtered by the tens of thousands simply for being Jewish.

Some believed that the evil mist arose from the ground because of an unusual alignment of the planets. There was a belief that the plague was God's way of making mankind atone for sins. Bizarre rituals of self-punishment arose in Germany, Flanders, and parts of France. Flagellants, men and women who would whip themselves with metal tipped scourges to atone for their sins, was just one of the religious sects to grow out of this period. By 1350, the Black Death was subsiding in Europe.

But not before an estimated twenty five million people were dead from this horrible disease. During the three years the plague ravaged Europe, few noblemen died, but of the common folk, more died than could be counted, and also a multitude of monks and other clerks known only to God. It would be five hundred years before the bacilli that caused the Black Death would be identified. Alexandre Yer sin (1863-1943), was a Swiss-French bacteriologist discovered the rod-shaped bacteria in 1894, the year of the last epidemic in China of the Plague. It was not until this last outbreak of the plague that it was discovered that the primary carriers of the plague bacillus are rats and fleas. There are three conditions that are plague-related.

Bubonic Plague causes the classic swelling of the lymph nodes, buboes, fever, and dark blotchy areas of the skin-hence the name, Black Death. Incubation period is from two to six days, and is followed by chills, muscle ache, headache, prostration, restlessness, disorientation, delirium, blood poisoning, and staggering gait. Bubonic Plague is often overlooked in the United States because it is so rare. Often the victim dies or there are multiple outbreaks before the disease is diagnosed. Diagnosis is made through observation of classic buboes and a history of exposure to rodents can strongly support a diagnosis of Bubonic Plague. Confirmation is made though blood smears and cultures of Yersinia pestis.

Primary Pneumonic Plague incubates in about two to three days and is followed by typically acute symptoms; fever, chills, severe headache, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath and cough. The cough generally produces mucoid sputum followed later by frothy pink or red sputum. Rapid prostration, respiratory distress, and death are common symptoms of this disease. Septicemic Plague normally develops without any outward lymph node enlargement, however the victim will show high toxicity, high temperature, seizures, prostration, shock and disseminated intravascular coagulation. Widespread tissue damage follows soon after onset of the disease, and is rapidly fatal without prompt and correct treatment. In both Pneumonic and Septicemic Plague, treatment must begin within eighteen hours of the onset of the disease.

Diagnosis requires an X-ray to show fulminating pneumonia, and stained smear and culture of sputum to identify the bacteria. In these cases, treatment must begin without lab confirmation due to the time constraints on beginning an effective treatment course. Large doses of streptomycin are used to treat the three types of plague. Also, supportive management of fever, shock, seizures, and to replace lost fluid is important.

Blood poisoning and shock is treated using glucocorticoids, heparin treatment controls disseminated Bibliography

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