In 1348 the Black Death started to spread in Europe, transmitted by parasitic fleas that lived in the fur of the rodents, in particular the rats which hid in the holds of the ships. This is because the illness was transmitted through contact with the animal infested by these fleas: these parasites with their bite transmitted the disease to men who, after a week, they usually started to feel sick. The increase in diffusion was caused by inadequate sanitation and living conditions, in addiction to a poor personal hygiene. The person affected by the Black Death had symptoms such as fever and headache, blain and strong cough.
However, at that time, there were not enough scientific knowledges to understand how the transmission among the population was possible. The widespread ignorance of those years induced people to believe that the plague was a chastisement from God for the bad behavior of men. As a result, they began to persecute the Jews and blamed them for the spread of the disease. The church was the first that supported this theory and, during the plague period, consented to the killing of many men who were considered heretics. Instead, for the doctors of the Middle Ages, the cause of the illness was to the found in the air. This because they believed that the humidity of the air made it easier for the Black Death to grow and infect people. The doctors used to wear beaked masks, leather gloves and long coats in order to protect themselves from the plague disease. They usually administered kinds of herbs and tobacco as a cure to their patients, but, unfortunately, all of this was not enough to cure the symptoms.
Nevertheless, the bubonic plague allowed the peasants to redeem themselves socially. In fact, the epidemic had killed a large part of the population: in particular, in that period, a lot of commoners were killed by this. This created several problems for the landowners and the nobles because there were a lot of tiring and dangerous jobs that none of the nobility wanted to take the risk of doing. For this reason, the few peasants who could do those jobs asked for better conditions and a salary boost. Although the plague brought many deaths, the commoners were able to pretend a facilitation of the employment conditions.
In recent years, modern society has been affected by a pandemic caused by COVID virus. This disease forced all of us to stay at home in order not to get infected. The behavior of the society caused by the COVID was very similar to the behavior of the medieval society for some aspects. For example, when the plague rapidly spread in Europe, in particular the church started to blamed the Jews for this diffusion. A similar thing has happened recently with the rapidly spread of the COVID from China in Europe. In fact, in the first period of the pandemic, lots of people started to accuse people of Chinese nationality to be responsible for the diffusion of the covid.
Finally, according to what has been written, it can be deduced that history repeats itself over the years, as in the case of the plague, which definitely disappeared only in the 1800s.
