Crisis and Recovery: The Bubonic Plague

There have been many epidemics that have plagued our planet over the last few thousand years; some, however, were more devastating than others. Epidemics often cause major disruptions in a society, besides simply killing people. They affect the amount of people in the workforce, which in turn can disrupt the production of goods and the food supply needed for a society.

The famous Bubonic Plague killed around a third of the population of Europe in the 1300s. The population of Europe in 1340 was about 73.5 million, and the plague affected over 20 million people. Today, Europe’s population is 508,450,856, meaning that if the plague were to have the same effects today as it did in the 1300s, it would kill around 102,000,000 people!¹

The Bubonic Plague originated in the fleas carried by rodents like rats, squirrels, and prairie dogs, which transmitted the disease from one to the other. The disease spread from southwestern China to eventually the Black Sea ports of Caffa and Tana by 1346, and by 1348 it had reached northern Europe.² The disease caused about the same symptoms in all of its victims, such as a fever, and pain so strong that they were not able to keep down any food. The name of this disease came from the fact that the people would become covered in black boils that oozed puss and blood.³ The photograph to the right is an exhibit at the Eyam Museum showing what an infected person would have looked like. The disease was highly contagious and was deadly because it worked so quickly; its victims could have been healthy one day and gone the next.

This image is of a doctor’s mask, which is similar to the masks that doctors used during the plague. These masks were believed to have protected them from breathing in the infected air. However, the masks were not very effective since many doctors contracted the disease.

This epidemic did not affect European countries in just one way, it caused major problems in many aspects of life for many areas. The continent had been battling famine and food shortages before the plague struck; then afterwards it left them in an even more compromising situation. There was a shortage of workers in the workforce, which meant that all aspects of production were affected, from food to goods and services. Try to imagine one third of the people you connect with on a regular basis completely gone. That would be a third of all the doctors, the workers you’ve encountered at the grocery store, a third of all the teachers, and even a third of one’s entire family. While this is happening, one’s entire country might already be going through a devastating famine. It is incredible that Europe was able to recover from this disaster and now has one of the largest populations in the world. The continent was able to recover from losing over a third of its population, in one of the most notorious epidemics in our world’s history, and now thrives as a largely populated and diverse part of the world.