Bubonic Plague

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The Black Plague

In England during Elizabeth’s reign, there were many diseases but none could compare to The Plague, also known as the Black Death. “The Black Death serves as a convenient divider between the central and the late Middle Ages.”(Knox, pg. 1) This was the fastest growing and most popular disease of this time. The only disease that is much worse is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome viruses. This disease has killed more people then any recorded event or major epidemic.

“The Black Death erupted in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s. No one really knows why. The plague bacillus was alive and active long before that; indeed Europe itself had suffered an epidemic in the 6th century. But the disease had lain relatively dormant in the succeeding centuries. We know that the climate of Earth began to cool in the 14th century, and perhaps this so-called little Ice Age had something to do with it.” (pg. 2) The Human Immunodeficiency Virus, more commonly known as HIV, is the virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, more commonly known as AIDS. Unlike the Bubonic Plague, the origin of AIDS is unclear. What is known is that the first case of AIDS in the United States was in 1981. Without a clear understand of its origin,
it is difficult to create a vaccine for it and there currently is no cure. There is one theory about the origin of HIV. It is hypothesized that HIV came about in chimpanzees located in west-central Africa. (“The Origin of AIDS & HIV”)

A common misconception is the bubonic plague was the deadliest and was the only form of the plague. But in reality, there were two other types of this plague: the pneumonic and the septicemic plagues. Even though the bubonic version was the most feared and spread the fastest, it still wasn’t the most lethal; in fact, it had the lesser fatality of the three plagues. The pneumonic and the septicemic plagues hav...