PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Any cures?
There were many desperate and half-witted attempts at cures for the plague. And, as you might have guessed, few to none of them worked. But I am going to share my picks for the most interesting or just straight outrageous cures there were.
EMERALD STEW.
This one involved crushing and eating emeralds which, I know, sounds appetizing. Especially when the "emeralds" were usually crushed up glass sold overpriced. Which I'm sure ended up in a lot more harm then "healing" because glass can sometimes be sharp and it is not advised to be eaten.
- This one involved crushing and eating emeralds which, I know, sounds appetizing. Especially when the "emeralds" were This usually crushed up glass sold overpriced.
Witchcraft
This one was weird it involved taking a hen and rubbing it on your sores while drinking your own urine TWICE a day.
FART SNIFFING
The craziest cure I found that was attempted was that because they thought diseases where caused by smells, doctors encouraged people to save their own farts and sniff them when the plague came to town.
HOW THE CRUSADES PAVED THE ROAD FOR THE PLAGUE
CRUSADES
Looking back on the plagues results one must think that the stars aligned for such a horrific event and in a way, they did. The crusades brought new ideas new things, and with these things it brought trade and , in short, this trade and new travel broke the old system of feudalism as a whole and the trade caused easy spreading of the disease.
RELIGIOUS EFFECTS OF THE PLAGUE.
Religion governed the decisions of mostly everyone during the time of the plague or, before the plague.
See, when the plague struck Europe, the church tried and tried to keep up with all the death but eventually had to pass laws forbidding ringing the bell and, to the terror of many had to start digging mass graves.
This was truly terrifying for people because now with the mass burials and lack of priests they where terrified of death.
Before this, death was a thing to embrace, the last bridge to eternal life. They were told what was going to happen when they died and those rituals were now quickly thrown together burials usually without a priest.
This brought out the worst and best of the church, the church as a whole, was being questioned and looked down on but, many priests would give their lives trying to help people get buried the way they were told they were going to be buried.
WHAT WERE PLAGUE DOCTORS?
Plague doctors were "doctors" during the plague using many different cures. A lot of them were self appointed and had no real qualifications and used the opportunity to cash in on the plague selling their so called "cures."
The plague doctors wore wax coated cloaks, hats, gloves, pants, boots and, that long beak like mask thing was actually full of flowers and other scented things because they thought diseases were caused by smells.
WHERE WEALTHIER PEOPLE LESS LIKELY TO DIE?
The plague killed what the historians believe to be roughly half of the population in Europe. It was not partial to wealth. It took down anyone it could get its hands on and did so effectively. If infected you would die in one or two days usually.
But the rich had more opportunity for travel and usually liked to be secluded from the general masses making them less likely to catch the plague in the first place.
