Halloween Horrors II 31st October 2022
The Doctor Will See You Now
"Speaking of unpleasant ways to go, the Plague was another nasty way one may have met an untimely death. Predating the era of the guillotine during 1346-1353, anywhere between 70-200 million people from Western Eurasia to Northern Africa. Unlike the predominately swift execution of the guillotine, the plague a.k.a the bubonic plague, took its victims but killing them from the inside out.
Let’s take another trip down memory lane, when in October 1347, 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. To the horrifying surprise of the gathered citizens, most of the sailors were dead or dying slowly, covered in boils and pus. This was the start of something biblical. Over the next few years, one third of Europe's continent would succumb to the grotesque symptoms of the plague.
First, they would get fevers and chills, then would come boils oozing with pus and blood. Sometimes their lymph nodes would swell to the size of apples, as the plague attacked their immune system with devastating effect. They would drown in their own vomit and diarrhoea whilst suffering tremendously from agonising aches and pains. That was before the inevitable death took them to their early grave of course.
How did this terrifyingly contagious diseases spread so rapidly without warning and with complete indiscrimination?
The French Biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered the germ ‘Yersinia Pestis’ at the end of the 19th Century. This dreaded little bacterium travelled from person to person through the air as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. This is how the plague was so calamitous with its destruction.
If you thought the plague was a thing of the past, then you are very much mistaken. Plague epidemics have occurred in Africa, Asia and South America. Since the 1990’s, most human cases have occurred in Africa, according to The World health orginisation. Don’t worry, antibiotics have taken up the fight against this deadly pest so it is highly unlikely we will see the type of destruction that plagued Medieval times…"
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Happy Halloween 2022 by Stoke ChiroWritten by Jeremy Pizer, Osteopath at Stoke Chiro Spinal Health Centre
Image credit: Artefact, Alamy (via National Geographic)
