Search -
The Black Death: A History of Plagues 1345-1730
The Black Death A History of Plagues 13451730 Author:William Naphy, Andrew Spicer THE FIRST OUTBREAK WIPED OUT HALF OF EUROPE'S POPULATION ADN WAS THE SINGLE GREATEST CATASTROPHE IN HUMAN HISTORY -- THIS ILLUSTRATED HISTORY CHRONICLES THE FIRST PANDEMIC AND ALL SUBSEQUENT OUTBREAKS. — By 1340, Europe was beset by a host ot problems. Even the ploughing of marginal land had failed to produce enough food to feed the ever... more »-growing population. Poverty, unemployment, and vagrancy were all on the increase. However, by 1400 the situation had changed. There had been a dramatic change by from a wholly unforeseen and unexpected quarter: The Black Death. This horrific disease ripped through towns, villages and families. Men, women, children, young and old succumbed to a painful, drawn out death as pustules, abscesses and boils erupted over their bodies. Within a few decades this virulent and unknown disease had wiped out up to half the population.
Subsequent attacks of the disease, coming almost every decade, so limited thee population that it was not until the eighteenth century that it managed to surpass the levels of 1340. For over three hundred years, Europeans were stalked by death. In the end, this mysterious disease that had terrorized, terrified and killed millions, disappeared as inexplicably as it had appeared.« less