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Plagues have swept through humanity ever since communities have gathered together in concentrated groups. In this collection of resources, we look at just some of the pandemics that raged throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, from the plague that ripped through Athens in the 5th century BCE to the most destructive of all, the Black Death of the 14th century CE. We examine not only the causes, spread and casualties of these awful events but also the lasting effects on the societies they ravaged. If there is one consolation, humanity has always survived and life has, somehow, and often with great difficulties and sacrifices, found a way to go on.
Medieval doctors had no idea about such microscopic organisms as bacteria, and so they were helpless in terms of treatment, and where they might have had the best chance of helping people, in prevention, they were hampered by the level of sanitation which was appalling compared to modern standards. Another helpful strategy would have been to quarantine areas but, as people fled in panic whenever a case of plague broke out, they unknowingly carried the disease with them and spread it even further afield; the rats did the rest.
Mark is a full-time writer, researcher, historian, and editor. Special interests include art, architecture, and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share. He holds an MA in Political Philosophy and is the WHE Publishing Director.
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Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 26 March 2020. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
