Causes and symptoms
It is generally believed that 1346, when the Tatar army attacked the Black Sea port city of Faka, it used a trebuchet to throw the bodies of people who died of the plague into the city, which was the first germ war in human history. The plague originated in Central Asia, and its carrier was a woodchuck. 1348, an epidemic called plague began to spread all over Europe. The disease spread from China to the Middle East along the caravan trade route, and then was brought to Europe by ships. According to the relevant data of our country, there was an epidemic plague in the14th century, which was called "Black Death" at that time, and it was popular in Asia, Europe and North Africa, and also in China. In Europe, the Black Death raged for three centuries, killing more than 25 million people. )
One symptom of the Black Death is that there are many black spots on the patient's skin, so this special plague is called "Black Death". For people infected with this disease, painful death is almost inevitable, and there is no possibility of cure.
The pathogen that caused the plague was carried by fleas hidden in the fur of black mice. /kloc-in the 0/4th century, there were many black mice. Once the disease occurs, it will spread quickly. During the period of 1348- 1350, a total of 25 million Europeans died of the Black Death. However, the epidemic did not stop there. It happened again and again for the next 40 years.
So many people died of the Black Death that there was a shortage of labor. The whole village is deserted, the farmland is barren, and the grain output is declining. Famine occurred in many parts of Europe after the Black Death.
In addition, according to textual research, the outbreak of the Black Death was also related to the massacre of so-called witches in medieval Europe. Because Europeans thought cats were witches' pets and assistants at that time, cats were wiped out in large numbers, so that cats disappeared in Europe at that time for a long time. Rats, an important transmission medium of the Black Death, grew geometrically in this broken biological chain, creating the most important conditions for the outbreak of the Black Death.
According to statistics, the Black Death killed Europeans at that time at the ratio of 1/3, but it was good news for cats, because cats caught mice, so they were very popular at this time. But once the Black Death is over, cats will fall out of favor again.
Fleas on Indian rats are the disseminators of deadly plague or "Black Death".
In the whole16th century and17th century, serious plagues occurred.
disaster
/kloc-In the middle of the 0/4th century, Europe suffered a devastating plague, also known as the Black Death. It spread westward from Central Asia and appeared in the Black Sea on 1346. At the same time, it spread to the Mediterranean Sea in the southwest direction, and then spread to the Baltic Sea along the coast of the North Pacific Ocean. Around 1348, the Black Death was prevalent in Spain. By 1349, it had spread to Britain and Ireland, 135 1 year to Sweden, and 1353 to Baltic countries and Russia. Only distant areas and sparsely populated areas are not harmed. According to today's estimates, about 1/3 to 1/2 people died in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and India.
The Black Death may be a plague of swollen lymph glands. This infectious disease caused by bacteria still exists today and is equally dangerous. This pathogen is carried by flea saliva. Infected fleas may first suck the blood of infected mice, and then jump on the human body after the mouse dies, and spread bacteria to the host through blood. The Black Death got its name because of its terrible symptoms. The patient will have a big, dark and painful tumor, which will ooze blood and thick juice. The infected person will have a high fever and be insane. Many people die within 48 hours after infection, but a few people can resist this infectious disease and survive.
In this way, the population of many towns has been greatly reduced, from lords to serfs, and these people are of certain value to society. They are either engaged in agriculture or other jobs, and once they move to cities, they will accelerate the spread of the plague.
In the later period of the epidemic of the Black Death, due to the invention of soap, its infection probability decreased and eventually became extinct. At present, the Black Death virus only exists in laboratories in a few countries, such as the United States.
The Black Death is the most mysterious disease in history. From 1348 to 1352, it turned Europe into a death trap, and this road of destruction destroyed the population of Europe13, totaling about 25 million people! In the next 300 years, the Black Death visited towns in Europe and Asia, threatening those who survived the robbery. Although it is impossible to accurately count the number of deaths in Europe, the records left by many towns have witnessed amazing losses: Russia 1467,127,000 people died; 1348, Lubeck, a German chronicler, recorded 90,000 deaths, and the death toll on the highest day was as high as 1500! In Vienna, 500 ~ 700 people die every day; According to the records in Molinsk, Russia, only five people survived in 1386!
650 years ago, the Black Death spread all over Europe, which was the most horrible plague in European history. Decameron is a masterpiece with the theme of plague written by Boccaccio (1348 ~ 1353), one of the most important figures in the history of European literature. The introduction talks about the serious epidemic situation in Florence. He described how the patient suddenly collapsed in the street and died, or died in his own house until the body smelled rotten, and the neighbors didn't know what happened next door. Travelers see barren villages, open wine cellars, ownerless cows wandering in the streets, but no sign of local residents.
This disaster was called the Black Death at that time, but it was actually a plague. The symptoms of plague were first recorded by a Florentine named Boccaccio in 1348: the first symptom was a lymphatic lump in the groin or armpit, and then a bluish-black herpes appeared in the arms, thighs and other body parts, which was the reason for the name of the Black Death. Few people are spared, almost all patients will die within 3 days, usually without fever symptoms.
The Black Death first appeared in a small town in Central Asia in 1338, and spread to India in the south around 1340, and then spread westward to eastern Russia along the ancient trade route. From 1340 to 1345, the Russian steppe was shrouded in the shadow of death. /kloc-in the winter of 0/345, the Tatars attacked Faka, the territory of Genoa, and the siege could not be stopped. The Tatars became angry and threw the bodies of the Black Death patients into the city. As a result, the plague prevailed in the city, most of the residents of Faka died, and only a few fled to the Mediterranean region. However, they are accompanied by a terrible epidemic.
1347, the iron hoof ravaged by the Black Death first crossed Constantinople, the largest trading city in Byzantium. By 1348, the Black Death had broken out in Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Syria, Egypt and Palestine.
1352, the Black Death attacked Moscow, and even the Grand Duke of Moscow and the Orthodox Patriarchate capital died one after another. The Black Death has spread to all levels of society, and no one can escape the reality of death.
Soon, this cruel phenomenon has been everywhere in Europe. In Marseille, France, 56,000 people died of the plague. In perpignan, only one of the eight doctors in this city survived the clutches of the plague; The situation in avignon is even worse, with 7,000 houses abandoned by the epidemic. A church in Paris handled 4 19 wills in 9 months, 40 times more than before the plague broke out. In Belgium, the bishop became the first victim of the plague. Since then, the death knell has been wailing for the new dead. Even the famous hundred-year war between Britain and France in history was forced to stop temporarily because of the outbreak of plague.
/kloc-at the end of 0/348, the plague spread to the hinterland of Germany and Austria. Wherever the god of plague went, thousands of people were swallowed up by the plague. 960 people died in Vienna in one day, and13 of the clergy in Germany died of the plague, which made it impossible for many churches and monasteries to maintain.
In addition to the European continent, the plague also crossed the English Channel through fleas from mice on sailboats and spread to the smallest villages all over Britain. The rural labor force has been greatly reduced, and some tenants in the manor have even died. People living in medieval towns in England lived in high density, with piles of garbage and sewage. To make matters worse, they know almost nothing about infectious diseases. At that time, the way people handled the bodies was very simple, and the workers who handled the bodies themselves did not have protection, which contributed to the spread of diseases. In order to escape death, people tried various methods. They prayed to God, ate delicious meat and drank good wine ... The doctor tried to cure or alleviate this terrible symptom. They used all kinds of drugs and tried all kinds of treatments, from laxatives, emetics, bloodletting therapy, fumigation, burning lymph nodes or putting dried toads on them, and even taking a bath with urine, but death kept coming to the world. Some people who are deeply bound by religion think that this is a divine punishment caused by the fall of mankind. They marched in European towns, beating each other with iron-tipped whips and humming, "I am the most guilty." In Mainz, Germany, there is 1? Twenty thousand Jews were burned alive as the disseminators of the plague, while Strasbourg had 1? 60,000 Jews were killed. Only a few sober people realize that animals may spread diseases, so they focus their hatred on domestic animals such as cats and dogs. They killed all the livestock. The streets are full of rotting bodies of cats and dogs, and the rancid smell is suffocating. From time to time, a flustered domestic cat jumped over the dead body, and a group of people with cloth wrapped in their noses and mouths chased after them with wooden sticks. No one will pity these weak creatures, because they are regarded as the disseminators of the plague.
At that time, one in four Europeans died of the Black Death. When the terrible plague broke through the English Channel and landed in Southampton, almost all the residents of this coastal city died of the plague, and they all died quickly. Few people can stay in bed for two or three days after illness, and many people only have half a day from onset to death.
The Black Death dealt a heavy blow and had a far-reaching impact on all aspects of society at that time. In the same year that the Black Death landed on British soil, livestock on British soil were not spared. In a pasture, 5000 sheep died suddenly. Their bodies smelled bad, and even wild animals and birds wouldn't touch them. The prices of all livestock have fallen sharply, and even the living can rarely keep their property. A horse that was originally worth 40 shillings can only be sold for 6? Five shillings, a strong bull can only sell for four shillings, a cow 12 pence, a calf 6 pence, a sheep 3 pence and a fat pig 5 pence. Cattle and sheep wander in the fields, left unattended and left to die in farmland and ditches.
The following autumn, the reward of a reaper for working for others increased greatly, and it could not be less than 8 pence a day. We must feed him. Many crops rot in the ground because no one can afford the cost of harvesting. In the plague era, labor shortage became the most serious social problem.
At this time, the king issued an order that no matter the workers harvesting crops or other employees, they were allowed to ask for higher wages than in previous years, and those who violated them would be severely punished. But the workers simply ignored the king's orders. Anyone who wants to hire them must pay much more than in previous years, otherwise your crops or fruits will rot in farmland and orchards. When the king learned that his orders were not carried out by employers or employees, he fined all church landlords, manor owners, knights and landlords; And impose fines ranging from 100 shillings and 40 shillings to 20 shillings on all free agricultural workers. Later, the king sent people to arrest many employees and put them in prison. They have to pay a large fine to the king, and a large part of the employees who are not arrested are hiding in the forest. Similarly, the king also disposed of many artists.
When the plague raged in England, Scots also came to fish in troubled waters. When they heard that there was a plague among the British people, they thought their curse had finally come true, because they had been cursing: "Let the British people suffer from the plague!" " "God must be punishing the British now. So, the Scots gathered in the Sakka forest, ready to help God completely destroy the English. But at this time, death caught them, and in a few days, 5000 Scots died. The rest were ready to return home, but they were countered by the English, killing more than half of them.
Plague village
Yam, a small village in Derbyshire, England, has another nickname, called "Plague Village". But this title is not a shame, but an honor. 1665 In early September, the village tailor received a bag of cloth from London, and he died four days later. Five people died at the end of the month, and the villagers realized that the bag of cloth had brought the Black Death from London to this small village. In the panic of the plague, the local rector persuaded the villagers to make a brave decision: cut off contact with the outside world to avoid the spread of the disease. This is tantamount to suicide. A year later, outsiders came here for the first time. They thought they would see a ghost village, but they were surprised to find that although 260 of the 350 residents in the village were killed by the plague, a small number of them survived.
A woman sent her husband and six children away in a week, but she never got sick. Grave diggers in the village personally buried hundreds of dead people, but they were not affected by this disease with a mortality rate of 100%. These survivors are as exposed to pathogens as the dead. Are there any genetic factors that make them less susceptible to infection? Because the death registration system has been implemented in Shanyao Village since the 1630 s, there has been almost no population movement for hundreds of years, and historians can accurately trace the descendants of survivors according to their genealogy. On this basis, scientists analyzed the DNA of the descendants of 1996 plague survivors, and found that about 14% people had a special genetic variation called CCR5-△32.
This mutation has not been discovered for the first time. Not long ago, it also confronted humans in the study of HIV. It prevents HIV from entering immune cells and enables people to resist HIV infection. The plague more than 300 years ago, through this genetic variation, has a wonderful connection with the modern plague AIDS that was born not long ago.
Hemorrhagic fever black death
Recently, however, two British scientists have added new weight to the Black Death. The relationship between plague and CCR5-△32 was overturned by experiments, but this did not prevent Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan of Liverpool University from linking the Black Death with this mutation. Because they have long suggested that the Black Death is not bubonic plague, but a hemorrhagic fever caused by virus, which may be similar to Ebola hemorrhagic fever. They have published the Biology of Plague, The Return of the Black Death and other works, and elaborated relevant viewpoints in detail.
Scott and Duncan reported in the Journal of Medical Genetics in March, 2005 that they established a mathematical model to simulate the relationship between the population change in Europe and the frequency of the above-mentioned gene mutation by computer, indicating that the pressure to promote the spread of this mutation comes from the "hemorrhagic fever plague". Smallpox only threatened Europe from 1 700 to 1 830, and its epidemic time and frequency did not reach the level previously thought, so it could not be the main factor that caused the increase in the frequency of this gene mutation.
Scott and Duncan told reporters: "When 1996 published the results of CCR5-△32 mutation, we immediately realized that the plague in Europe promoted the frequency of this mutation." They said, "In fact, the reasoning is obvious: the distribution of △32 mutation is the same as that of plague in Europe, indicating that the latter promoted the increase." When talking about the Black Death in Europe, they said, "We propose that these infectious diseases are caused by a viral hemorrhagic fever, which also uses CCR5 receptors to enter the immune system. △32 mutation provides similar genetic resistance for viral hemorrhagic fever infection. "
According to the records of papyrus, hemorrhagic fever existed in the Nile valley of Egypt from BC 1500 to BC 1350. For more than 2000 years, hemorrhagic fever broke out in a large area on the east coast of the Mediterranean. For example, in 700-450 BC and 250 BC, hemorrhagic fever occurred in Mesopotamia. According to Thucydides, a Greek historian, the symptoms of the plague in Athens from 430 BC to 427 BC were very similar to the Black Death. Justinian plague originated in Ethiopia and spread along the Nile Valley. In 54 1 year, it arrived in Syria, then in Asia Minor, Africa, Europe, and in 542 it arrived in Constantinople. It lasted until 700 ad, during which it broke out many times. Byzantine historian Procopius recorded the details of the plague, and its symptoms were very similar to those of the plague in Athens and the Black Death.
CCR5-△32 mutation may have appeared 2500-3000 years ago. These hemorrhagic fevers, which appeared repeatedly in the early stage of human civilization, increased their frequency from the initial single mutation to 1/20000 before the Black Death. Then after the great cleaning of the Black Death, its frequency increased to about 10% now. It is generally believed that the Great London Plague of 1665- 1666 was the last crime of the Black Death, but Scott and Duncan said that the hemorrhagic fever plague did not disappear after that and continued to be active in northern Europe and Russia until the19th century, which may explain why the mutation frequency between northern Europeans and Russians is the highest now.
Scott and Duncan believe that to trace the source of hemorrhagic fever, we should go back to Kenya and Ethiopia, the cradle of human beings, where human ancestors and animals have the longest history. The incubation period of the disease is as long as 37 ~ 38 days (consistent with the effective isolation period of 40 days first discovered by Italians in14th century, but not in line with the characteristics of bubonic plague). Even in the Middle Ages, such a long time was enough for infected people to carry the virus far away. If it breaks out again in the contemporary era when transnational transportation is very convenient, it will cause great disaster.
Recently, there is a new theory about the origin of the Black Death. In the 6th century A.D., there was a catastrophe on the earth: because the agriculture on the earth was completely destroyed, a catastrophic famine broke out all over the world, which finally triggered the Black Death that ravaged Europe, which made people talk about it. According to British media reports on February 4th, the latest scientific research finally found the root of the disaster: a small comet that collided with the earth!
According to the information obtained from the impact point formed by the comet on Jupiter in 1994, after the comet hits the earth, the dust will spread around in the air under the great impact force and soon cover the whole world. Professor Derek said: "This period coincides with the epidemic period of infectious diseases in Europe. At that time, Europe was under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire. People thought that this was the first time that the Black Death appeared in Europe. " Without sunlight, life on the earth could not carry out photosynthesis, so the harvest was generally poor, which brought many people food and clothing worries when the productivity was underdeveloped at that time. Because many people starved to death, their bodies were left in the streets, people didn't have enough to eat, and their body's resistance to diseases was very weak, so the Black Death immediately spread in the European continent.