{"id":2678,"date":"2016-09-27T05:09:36","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T05:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2678"},"modified":"2026-02-21T11:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:40:38","slug":"symptoms-of-the-bubonic-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/symptoms-of-the-bubonic-plague\/","title":{"rendered":"Symptoms of the Bubonic Plague: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Symptoms of the bubonic plague included influenza like systems, including: sudden fever, chills, and headaches. However, these symptoms were generally followed by painful, swollen lymph nodes in the groin, armpit, or neck. Other symptoms could include fatigue, muscle aches, and sometimes vomiting or blackened skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHAT WAS THE BLACK DEATH?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Black Death<\/a>\u00a0is one of the most important events in Western history and is the most famous pandemic in all of human history.\u00a0 A pandemic is the term used to describe the spread of an infectious disease over a wide area including the entire planet.\u00a0 The Black Death occurred during the 14th century and ravaged human populations throughout Asia and Europe as it spread along trade routes and through trading ports.\u00a0 Throughout history it has also been referred to as the \u2018Great Mortality\u2019 and \u2018Great Pestilence\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black Death is the term that historians use to describe the spread of the bubonic plague.\u00a0 It is believed that the plague first began in Central Asia and spread to Europe through vast trade routes such as the Silk Road<\/a>.\u00a0 Historians studying the spread of the plague discovered that the disease was spread by fleas that are commonly found on rodents such as rats and mice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Silk
Silk Road Map by History Crunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The lack of medical understanding during the time is evidenced by the remedies or cures that people believed would work.  For instance, some believed that the plague was spread by \u201cbad air\u201d and thought that they could cleanse the air with the burning of incense.  This belief led to doctors of the period wearing strange outfits with masks that looked like the beak of a bird.  Believing that the plague was spread through the air, the doctors would fill the nose area of the mask with incense in order to overpower the \u201cbad air\u201d.  However, it also served to mask the smell of death, which was a common reality due to the large number of dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Where
The bubonic plague was spread when infected fleas from rodents bit human beings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

SYMPTOMS OF THE BUBONIC PLAGUE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In reality, the bubonic plague was spread<\/a> when infected fleas from rodents bit human beings and the disease entered their bodies.\u00a0 As stated earlier, the plague had several main symptoms.\u00a0 The primary symptom was the black lumps that grew in the infected person\u2019s armpits and groin.\u00a0 This was caused when the bacteria of the disease inflamed lymph nodes in the body.\u00a0 The lumps would become large and after a period of time would often ooze pus and blood.\u00a0 Another common symptom of the plague was gangrene fingers and toes.\u00a0 This meant that the disease killed the area around the fingers and toes and effectively caused them to die.\u00a0 As the disease took hold, several other symptoms were common including: fever, cramps, seizures, vomiting, extreme pain and difficulty breathing.\u00a0 Often, those that were infected died soon after in just a matter of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Black
A plague doctor wore very characteristic clothes during outbreaks of the plague. (1656)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were several significant symptoms of the Bubonic Plague, which caused the events of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. This article details the main symptoms of the Bubonic Plague.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,42],"tags":[85,15,83],"class_list":["post-2678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-ages","category-black-death","tag-black-death","tag-history","tag-middle-ages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2678"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5526,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions\/5526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}