Microbiology and Immunology 2500A/B Lecture 2: Lecture 2 - The Black Death

• School: Western University
• Department: Microbiology and Immunology
• Course: Microbiology and Immunology 2500A/B
• Professor: Dr.Summers

Document Summary

3 document of plague pandemics: the "plague of justinian" (the first pandemic) started in the 6th century (541-542 ad) caused by yersinia pestis (bacteria) spread to the mediterranian, italy and throughout europe. Named after the eastern roman emperor justinian. ~50% of the population is estimated to have died. Estimated to have killed 100 million people continued in cycles for another 200 years until about 750 ad then disappears for ~800 years. Pestis is not evolved for humans, it infects us by accident. If you get infected, it will kill ya. Plague pandemics: the (cid:862)bla(cid:272)k death(cid:863) (cid:894)the se(cid:272)o(cid:374)d pa(cid:374)de(cid:373)i(cid:272)(cid:895) a medieval pandemic caused by yersinia pestis. 1348 people had no idea what was happening. No (real) treatment (e. g. bloodletting tried to bleed it out but nope), fear turned to panic. (cid:373)a(cid:374)(cid:455) people (cid:271)elie(cid:448)ed this (cid:449)as due to (cid:862)god"s a(cid:374)ger(cid:863) or " ata(cid:374)"s i(cid:374)flue(cid:374)(cid:272)e" European social order, family structure, agriculture, the military and the feudal system, were destroyed.