The Black Death

Ring around the rosyPocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes!We all fall down!

What is the Black Death?

• Also known as the Black Plague

• Caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestitis.

Three types of the Plague

• Bubonic Plague

• Septicemic Plague

• Pneumonic Plague

Bubonic Plague• Most common form• Mortality rate 30-75%• Symptoms

– enlarged lymph nodes– headaches– nausea– aching joints– high fever– vomiting

Septicemic Plague• Most rare form

• Mortality rate close to 100%

• Symptoms– high fever– skin turns deep shade of purple– abdominal pain– bleeding into the skin and other organs

• As many as 800 people died every day

Pneumonic Plague

• The bacterium infect the lungs• Most contagious because is spread by cough• Symptoms

– high fever– chills– difficulty breathing– cough with blood

How do you get the plague?

• Bacterial disease spread to humans and other animals from fleas.

• Disease contracted by:– bit by infected fleas– contact with an infected animal– inhaling infectious droplets

Europe and the Plague

• 1347-1351

• 1/3 of the European

population died

• The Plague was so terrible that many thought it was the end of the world.

• No cure available at the time.

• No idea how it spread

The children’s rhyme Ring

Around the Rosy came about at this

time.

Ring Around the Rosy

• Rosary beads give you God’s help

Pocket full of posies

• A pocket full of posies was used to stop the odor of rotting bodies, which was once thought to cause the plague.

• Also used by doctors to protect them from the infected plague patients.

Ashes, ashes!

• The church burned the dead when burying them became to laborious.

We all fall down!

Death

Do you still think Ring Around the

Rosy is a nice cute song for

kids?