English

The black death

The elizabethan era was cursed with a disease known as the black death, or now renamed today as the bubonic plague, it was a huge epidemic that broke out throughout europe and was not centered on largely populated areas like london, but also affected the country side and villages. During the elizabethan era, there was no escape from the plague.

The bubonic plague itself means painful swellings, this is due to the diseased lymph nodes. The swellings, which are symptoms of the plague, can appear in armpits, legs necks or the groin area. Victims suffered high fevers, delerium, vomit, muscular pains, bleeding in the neck and mental disorientation. The illness produced in the victim include a intense desire to sleep, which if did happen, quickly proved fatal.

The main reason for this disease was because of the poor hygene of the elizabethan people, and the massive numbers of already infected rodents. The black death was always caught from an infected animal or person, the victims would often die within two to four days. No medical knowledge of that time could have stopped or prevented the disease, pesthouses and red marked homes were setup to quarantine the disease, but the plague had already spread much too far.

In the 16th and 17th century those who fell to the bubonic plague would be sealed in their houses, people would sometimes be ordered by the government to stay in their homes. And then other times the plague had reached such a level that a death warrant would be signed, allowing whole families to be literally bricked into inside their homes until they had died. No one could enter the house and no one could leave, this was the horror that followed the black death, not only now was the disease killing people, but also people were killing each other. The watchmen that stood at the doors of these bricked houses were hired however to keep the families alive for a little while as they could. Every once in a while, the victims would lower baskets from the windows for the watchman to put food into. Plague pits were also becoming numerous, these pits were basically giant graves for 20-50 people, and would become larger and larger as years went by. Old pits that were closed by the government to prevent the spread of the disease had to be reoponed because the current holes had filled to capacity. The disease was still spreading like mad, until one day a medieval doctor had the brilliant idea of not throwing the corpses into the streets and leaving them there near the approximation of other people, this alone may have prevented thousands of deaths.

1563 in London alone over 20,000 people died because of the disease. This epidemic claimed between a 1/2 and a 1/3 of the total London population. Charts show that 1000 people died in august and 1600 a week in september, the disease was growing fast, because of this many bussiness including places of entertainment such as the globe theater had to be closed to contain the disease and not let it spread even more along the locals due to close contact.

The churches of the time gave treatment to the plague, but very little could come from them. Food was still in short supply and only the rich could receive treatment from a educated physician. The elizabethan physicians were strange and eerie looking, and to some they were considered quite frightening. They wore long dark robes with pointed hoods, leather gloves, boots and odd masks. Dried blood and ground of toads were worn at the waists and it was customary to douse themselves with vinegar and chew on angelica before viewing a victim. As ridiculous as this may sound, it did provide some protection against the plague, the heavy clothing and mask acted as a simple ventilation system, and the gloves and boots provided protection against the fleas.

During the elizabethan years, many crazy mixes of herbs were given and used for treatment of the disease, of course most were futile and the victims died anyways. The treatment for headaches at the time were sweet smelling herbs such as roses, lavender, sage and bays. Treatment for stomachaches were wormwood mint and balm. Lung problems were treated with liquirice and comfrey. Vinegar was used as one of the best cleaning agents and thought it had the power to kill the disease. Bloodletting was the most popular of the medical theories, and was used to cleanse the blood of bad blood or the greenish scum mix that was a aftermath of the disease. No one was safe from the disease, not even the queen herself.