Right now, one of the most scary things we can imagine is the outbreak of the Ebola virus. It started out as a small outbreak, building slowly, then more rapidly and farther reaching. And, now it has reached our shores here in the US. It is something, even with our contemporary precautions and haz-mat suits, to be taken very seriously. In our quest to combat illness, we have perhaps distributed way too many antibiotics, and we now have resistant strains! These germs are more powerful and take more effort to eradicate!
The plague, or bubonic plague, is a deadly infectious disease caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia Pestis, named for French biologist Alexandre Yersin. Previously known as the Black Death, the word plague comes from the Latin meaning PLAGA or "blow or wound". I guess all the black, bleeding sores would seem like blows or strikes to the body.
I think back to the Black Plague in the 15th Century in England, and how, without benefit of our medical knowledge now, it wiped out hundreds of thousands of people.
For our purposes herein, I looked into the 18th Century, and their were plagues, indeed! At the beginning of the 1700's, plague was prevalent in Constantinople and along the Danube. By 1703 it caused great destruction in eastern Europe, spreading westward to parts of Germany and even as far as Scandinavia. Along the way more than 283,000 people died. In Sweden, more than 40,000!
In 1713, it spread through Austria and Bohemia, but then disappeared in Europe after a great hurricane in February 1714. Back again in France from 1720-22, with a contagion coming with a ship to port in Marseilles. Over the course, eventually 89,000 died, causing England, neighbors across the channel, to institute the idea of enforced quarantines and published pamphlets on the disease and what to watch for.
Finally, in 1743 in Sicily a famous plague outbreak is known not only for fatalities, but for the theory of contagion. Sicily was free of plague from 1624, and they were proud of their efforts to arrest the disease with quarantines. Then, in 1743, a ship arrived from Corfu, with some suspicious deaths. They burned the ship and its cargo, but soon after, a suspicious form of the disease was noticed in the hospital in the poorest part of town. The plague's tool was close to 50,000 lives, and then became extinct! Here, perhaps, was the first indication that dirty and flea-infested conditions might promote disease!
The famed Venetian carnival mask with its long beaked nose is the "Il Doctore", coming from the mask that was worn by doctors coming to visit the sick. Along with a long leather coat, the physician wore the mask which contained herbs in its nose. Breathing the herbs created a filter, it was thought, for the doctor against the germs emanating from the patient and the room!
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