The Plague's Place in History
"The pestilence deeply affected individual and family behavior and consciousness. It put severe strains on the social, political and economic systems...Nothing like this had happened before or since in the recorded history of mankind and the men and women of the fourteenth century would never be the same" (Norman F. Cantor). General scientific opinion is that, among other very deadly diseases like H.I.V. and the West Nile virus, the bubonic plague came to the world from the southern region of Africa and swept up through the Nile Valley in to Europe and the rest of the world. Though it had occurred numerous times before and would occur numerous times later, the most significant attack of the bubonic plague on the world would be in 1348 and 1349. In these times it would come to be known as "The Black Death," "The Pestilence," and quite simply "The Plague." During these years it devastated the Western world especially England. Many believe that in fact that the Black Death ushered out the old world and allowed for the new world that we see today to be born. Though the plague was in fact a harsh blow t
The only thing that the plague could be compared to today would be nuclear war. That was the tremendous impact that it had on the world. In the short time that it "visited" with England and the rest of Europe it wiped out one third of their populations. As the quote at the top of my paper said "...Nothing like this had happened before or since in the recorded history of mankind." That right there is what really sums up the amount of pain, terror, and death it caused in the world. Nothing else has even come close. Back during the Cold War when everyone was afraid of Communism and nuclear war, compared to this, it was no big thing. The A-bomb's development and testing, when compared to the plague, it's no big whoop. The book In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor, as horrible and miserable as it was, it was nothing compared to the plague. So what I'm trying to say here is that it was the biggest biomedical disaster the earth has ever seen and humanity was drastically changed by it. The question is, were we changed for the better of for the worse? Where would we be now if the Black Death had never occurred? Would we s
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Approximate Word count = 773
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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