Home > History Fact Finder > Medicine and Disease - What Is The Plague?

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

What is the plague?

Although the term "plague" refers to any contagious epidemic (widespread outbreak) disease, it usually means the bubonic plague, also called the Black Death which occurred during the Middle Ages (A.D. c. 450–c. 1500). This almost-always fatal illness is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and got its name from the swelling of the lymph nodes, or buboes, under the arms. The plague is passed to humans by fleas that have bitten infected rats. In 1343 when the Tartars invaded the Crimea (present-day Ukraine) some of the soldiers had caught the bubonic plague. In an attempt to gain access to an Italian trading post, the Tartars used catapults to launch the dead bodies of their sick comrades over the walls. As a result, many of the enemy became sick and spread the plague to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) and from there to Western Europe. During the mid-1300s, nearly 75 percent of the population in...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Origins
   1. How did early humans cure illness and disease?
   2. Who was the first doctor in history?
   3. What is the Hippocratic Oath?
   4. What are the four humors?
   5. When did biological warfare originate?
   6. Were there hospitals before the Middle Ages?
   7. When was the first North American hospital built?
   8. What advances were made in medicine during the Renaissance?
   9. How old is the concept of public health?
   10. What is Gray's Anatomy?
2. Modern Medicine
   1. When did modern medicine begin?
   2. Who invented vaccination?
   3. When did modern surgery begin?
   4. When was anesthesia first used?
   5. What surgical advances were introduced in the late twentieth century?
   6. Who introduced the use of antiseptics in hospitals?
   7. What are Louis Pasteur's contributions to the study of disease?
   8. When were antibiotics invented?
   9. Why are new antibiotics constantly being developed?
   10. Why is Florence Nightingale famous?
   11. When was the International Red Cross founded?
   12. Who discovered the X ray?
   13. Who was Clara Barton?
   14. What were the Curies' contributions to medicine?
   15. How did Jonas Salk and Albert B. Sabin save lives?
   16. When did the first heart transplant take place?
   17. When was the first test-tube baby born?
   18. When was the first kidney transplant?
   19. What is leprosy?
   20. What is the plague?
   21. Is yellow fever still a deadly disease?
   22. What was the first disease conquered by humans?
   23. Do scientists know when the AIDS virus first appeared?
   24. Who was Typhoid Mary?
   25. Has the flu ever reached epidemic proportions?
   26. What are CT and MRI scans?
3. Psychology
   1. Why are Pavlov's dogs famous?
   2. What is behaviorism?
   3. What were Sigmund Freud's contributions to the study of human psychology?
   4. What does the term "Jungian" mean?
   5. Who was Dorothea Dix
   6. What is depression?

1. Middle Ages