No war has claimed as many human lives as the medieval plague. Many people now think that plague is just one of the diseases that can be treated. But imagine the XIV century. As soon as the word “plague” was uttered, panic horror appeared on the faces of people …
The city "shot" by corpses
When in 1347 the Golden Horde Tatars laid siege to the city of Kafu (present-day Feodosia) in Crimea, among them were plague patients. Khan Janibek ordered his soldiers to catapult the corpses of the dead through the fortress walls so that the defenders of the city were infected and surrendered without a fight. But the Genoese, who were on the defensive, threw the bodies into the river. The river flowed into the sea, into the very bay where Janibek's ships were stationed. So the disease returned to his troops again.
For reference: in 1266, the protege of the Golden Horde in the Crimea, Mangu Khan, handed over Kafa to the possession of the Genoese.
The besieged did not surrender. Janibek also persisted, ordering again and again to shoot the dead from the plague. Finally, he achieved his goal: an epidemic broke out in the Genoese camp. Not knowing how to get rid of her, they began to leave Kafa. Janibek entered the deserted city, filled with corpses and rats. From that moment on, nothing is known about the fate of the khan. He hardly saved himself from illness in the plague city …
And the Genoese expelled by him fled to their native places: to Genoa, Venice, Florence, Sicily, to the Balkans - and carried the plague virus with them.
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A deadly skating rink passed through Europe
On the decks of the ships returning from the Crimea, sailors and soldiers lay side by side, either killed or dying "from a pestilence that had penetrated to the very bones." Those who came to meet them knew nothing about this disease.
The epidemic that broke out soon began to rapidly cover vast territories. On November 1, 1347, the "black death", as the plague was called because of the dark spots that appeared on the bodies of dying people, roamed in Marseilles. By January 1348, it had reached Avignon and then quickly spread throughout France. Pope Clement VI, having ordered to dissect corpses in order to find the cause of the disease, fled to his estate near Valencia, locked himself there in a secluded room, constantly burned a fire to smoke the infection, and did not allow anyone to come to him. In the spring of 1348, the plague was already raging throughout Spain and in all the major ports of southern Europe. In the Mediterranean, ships were found full of corpses, drifting at the behest of the winds and currents. One by one, despite desperate attempts to isolate themselves from the outside world, Italian cities “surrendered” to the epidemic. That same springturning Venice and Genoa into dead cities, the plague reached Florence.
In the summer of 1348, the "black death" appeared in Paris, soon found itself in the ports of southwestern England, and by the beginning of 1349 covered all of London. In 1349 she skated across Scandinavia and Germany, in 1350-1351 - across Poland. On the territory of medieval Russia, the plague appeared at the beginning of 1352, moving from north-west to south.
So many people were dying from the disease that huge mass graves had to be dug for the corpses. However, they too quickly overflowed, and the bodies of many victims remained rotting where death caught them. They tried not to approach the corpses. As Boccaccio noted then, "a person who died of the plague caused as much participation as a dead goat."
By 1352, the plague had spread throughout the continent. Some regions, such as Scandinavia, are almost completely depopulated. The Norwegian settlement in Greenland died out to the last man. Death mowed down everyone - young and old, rich and poor.
Many turned to religion for help. It is the Lord, they argued, that punishes the world steeped in sins. Some joined the processions of the flagellants (a medieval Christian sect) who publicly flogged themselves with iron-tipped leather whips. Many tried to escape from the plague cities, others locked themselves tightly in their homes. There were also those who, in the face of inevitable death, tried to finally spend time in all kinds of pleasures ("a feast during the plague").
According to the data that have come down to us, from 1347 to 1352 about 34 million people died from this disease, which was about a third of the total population of the European continent.
Plague Spreaders
The main centers of the epidemic in medieval Europe were dirty, overcrowded seaports. The ships that entered them carried not only people and goods, but also rats that live on almost every ship, greedily devouring the stored provisions. When ships arrived at ports where there were sick people, ship rats mingled with local relatives covered with plague microbe fleas. The rats then returned to the ship and brought infested fleas with them. At first, fleas fed on rat blood, but soon the “nurses” began to die, and fleas spread to people as a new source of food.
The spread of plague, like other infectious diseases, was facilitated by complete unsanitary conditions in cities. Many residents drank water from contaminated sources; boiling water was not yet widespread. Sewage was poured into the streets. In the places of their accumulation, carriers of infection immediately appeared - rats, in whose fur plague fleas swarmed.
This is how the "black death" killed millions of people. Only those who, as one chronicler wrote, "drank wine, ate fried meat and trusted in the Lord," were saved.
The great Paracelsus himself was powerless
Medieval citizens were most struck by the unpredictability of the plague. Why did only one tenth of the population die in one city, and a good half in another? Now we know that at the same time, people were mowed down by three different strains (types) of plague. Bubonic plague was the most common, but its two other "rivals" - pulmonary and primary septic plague - were distinguished by even greater ferocity.
Pneumonic plague developed when the infection entered the lungs. Sneezing and coughing, a sick person spread microbes in the air, from where they got into the respiratory organs of other people. And so the plague swiftly captured the entire district, killing quickly and mercilessly.
If a plague microbe found itself (after a human bite by an infected flea) in the circulatory system, death occurred after a few hours. More than once it happened that the victim went to bed, unaware of the illness, and did not live until morning. This form of plague is now called primary septic.
Since no one knew the true cause of the disease, there was no idea how to treat it. Doctors tried the most bizarre remedies. One such drug included a mixture of 10-year old molasses, finely chopped snakes and wine. According to another method, the patient had to sleep first on the right side and then on the left. Of course, there was no sense in such treatment. The great Paracelsus recommended an abundant drink, prepared some kind of medicine. He himself escaped, but his entire family died.
Dance till you drop
At the end of the plague pandemic, Western Europe underwent yet another terrifying test that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives - the St. Vitus dance epidemic.
It is believed that it began during the feast of St. Vitus. On this day - before the plague pandemic - fun always reigned on city and rural streets, people feasted and danced together. Now the exhausted, desperate people, who had just miraculously escaped a terrible death, drank wine, began to dance and … could not stop. And so they fell dead. An ominous contagious "fun" was passed from one urban area to another, from village to village, leaving behind lifeless human bodies. It often happened that the entire population of the city danced, from young to old. Especially in this sense then the South German lands suffered.
Patients with dancing, according to legend, were healed only after they got to the chapel of St. Vitus.
This epidemic is still a mystery. In modern medicine, St. Vitus's dance, or chorea, is a nervous disease that manifests itself in a kind of convulsive disorder of movements. Many involuntary muscle contractions occur even when the patient is completely at rest. Chorea mainly affects children under six years of age. And, of course, the disease is not transmitted from person to person.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century № 3. Author: Igor Voloznev