Return of the Bubonic Plague?

I wrote this for my English class and decided to post it here. Hopefully, you enjoy it!! There is some really gross stuff in this, so be warned; if you have a weak stomach, I would advise against reading this.

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Nowadays, the Bubonic Plague, an ancient killer, is all but forgotten. Sure, everyone remembers that it killed millions of people in its time, but it is no longer a modern concern. It is even a nursery rhyme that children all over the world sing until they learn the meaning. Due to the better sanitation, medicines, and treatments of today, they have little reason to lose their heads worrying about this illness.

But what if it returned?

It never actually disappeared. Small modern outbreaks recur all the time, usually in third-world countries. But it is easily treated with success. However, if it mutated into something more devastating, then it would spread quickly and kill millions. There was a worldwide panic over COVID-19. What would happen if an even more devastating disease struck?

There are three kinds of plague. The most well-known is the Bubonic Plague, named for the buboes, or swollen lymph nodes, that burgeon up to the size of an egg. The Bubonic Plague can infect the entire body, causing Septicemic Plague, or it can infect the lungs, causing Pneumonic Plague. People with Pneumonic Plague have trouble breathing or even cough up blood. While the Bubonic Plague may be fatal without treatment, Pneumonic and Septicemic Plague are fatal without treatment.

There is currently no vaccine for the Bubonic Plague since it is easily treated with antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, gentamicin, and doxycycline. But diagnosis takes a long time. It takes at least two days to incubate the bacteria. If you start displaying symptoms of the Bubonic Plague, you should get to the hospital as soon as humanly possible. (“Bubonic Plague (Black Death): What Is It, Symptoms, Treatment”)

The Plague has been around for thousands of years, even since Bible times. An outbreak of the plague was mentioned in 1 Samuel when the Philistines grew tumors that were associated with rodents, even though the disease is in the fleas they carry.

Within a week of infection, people died of the Plague. There were labor shortages. Countries like Italy lost a lot of power. Christians blamed Jews for the spread of the plague, claiming that they were poisoning the wells, and cats for being the creatures of the devil. Both were persecuted. Public baths were also blamed due to the miasma theory, the theory that the plague was spread easily through the air, so people stopped bathing, which precipitated the spread of the plague.

A modern outbreak occurred in Los Angelos when a man died after he handled a dead rat. Thirty-three other people perished because of the disease. The response was agonizingly slow because of misdiagnosis. Several patients were misdiagnosed before doctors realized what they were really dealing with. (Rice and Galbraith)

Back to medieval times, the Black Death spread breathtakingly fast- literally, because twenty-five million people lost theirs forever. No one knew a cure. Everyone was terrified out of their minds. Quarantines were proposed, but no one could keep everyone in an infected city.

During a war between the Caffa and the Mongolians, the plague began sweeping through the ranks of the Mongolians, and they had the brilliant but morbid idea to catapult bodies infected with the plague over the walls where the Caffa dwelt. This is one of the earliest examples of biological warfare.

The Caffa fled their city and spread it wherever they went, docking at Italy. This was the catalyst that set the Black Plague pandemic into motion.

No one had any idea how to cure it. They came up with all kinds of absurd ideas, using animals, whether dead and chopped up, or live and stripped, and spreading or strapping them to the buboes of an infected person.

Wealthy people crushed emeralds and mixed it with mortar or pestle and drank it. Poorer people drank arsenic or mercury, which only killed them faster. Theriac was popular among the wealthy as well, and they either drank it as a liquid called treacle or applied it as a paste.

Another cure was known as Four Thieves, although it was more preventative. It was made of cider, vinegar, or wine mixed with herbs. It was allegedly used by four grave robbers who robbed those who died of the plague. It is still made today, but people know it does not cure the plague.

They believed that the Black Death was spread by bad air, so everyone carried flowers with them, not only to block the smell of rotting corpses, but because they believed it would fumigate the lungs. Infected people would sit by hot fires because they thought the illness would be drawn out through sweating. They also believed that setting an infected person near a sewer would draw the illness to the foul air of the sewer and take it away. This was a ludicrous idea, just like all the others.

Bloodletting, the stereotypical medievial cure for just about anything, was often prescribed. Sometimes doctors would lance the patient’s buboes and apply a paste made of herbs, roots, and flowers. Herbal treatments might not have been a terrible idea.

And here is the most disgusting, incredibly unsanitary prescription of all:

Human waste.

People would be forced to drink urine or have feces smeared over the infected areas. Honestly, it was wise for people to flee from infected cities…

Because of the doctors.

But thankfully, despite all the havoc it wreaked on European society, it brought several changes. It ended the Feudal system and elevated women’s status, and the Plague pandemic even marks the end of the Dark Ages. (Mark)

But the fact that the plague killed twenty-five million people in only a few years isn’t the scariest thing. The scariest thing is that the antecedent of the Black Death, a devastating illness that caused universal paranoia during the Medieval Ages was little more than a tummy bug.

Yersinia Pestis, the bacteria that causes the bubonic plague, is preceded by a bacteria called Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis that only causes symptoms similar to scarlet fever. It is common to recover from Y. Pseudotuberculosis within two weeks, but it mutated twice into an illness that devastated and terrified medieval European societies.

There could be another mutation. Remember, the plague still exists, and could easily mutate. And if Y. Pseudotuberculosis was a tummy bug before two mutations, imagine how bad a future mutation of Y. Pestis could be.

However, there is better medical knowledge, sanitation, and treatments. This means that the plague wouldn’t kill nearly as many people as the Black Death did in medieval times. (Fessenden)

Then there is also the fact that people travel a lot more often nowadays, so if the illness had delayed symptoms, modern people could spread it just as fast. And then there is also the COVID shutdown to consider. If people lost their heads over a tiny cough that is only dangerous to old people, then imagine what the government would say in order to instill more terror into our hearts every time they hear the name of this possible disease.

Humans are lucky, however, that the usual hosts of the bubonic plague are fleas that usually stick to rats. But if there was a large rat extermination, then humans would become the flea’s unlucky hosts. Or if an infected rodent was eaten by a cat, people come in contact with felines almost every day, and cats could easily infect people. So, if a mutation of Y. Pestis did indeed manifest, then humankind would become infected one way or another. (Hogenboom and Wagner)

People need to remain vigilant and be prepared for a future outbreak of the plague. People need to continue healthy hygiene practices, avoid contact with rodents, and above all, watch for symptoms of the Plague. The sooner it is diagnosed, the better your prognosis, and you wouldn’t want to be the cause of a plague outbreak.

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Works Cited

“Bubonic Plague (Black Death): What Is It, Symptoms, Treatment.” Cleveland Clinic, 17 June 2021, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21590-bubonic-plague. Accessed 24 April 2023.

Fessenden, Maris. “These Two Mutations Turned Not-so-Deadly Bacteria Into the Plague.” Smithsonian Magazine, 6 July 2015, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-two-mutations-turned-not-so-deadly-bacteria-mass-murdering-one-180955816/. Accessed 24 April 2023.

Hogenboom, Melissa, and David Wagner. “Could bubonic plague strike again?” BBC, 28 January 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-25916296. Accessed 1 May 2023.

“Maps and Statistics | Plague | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 November 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html. Accessed 24 April 2023.

Mark, Joshua J. “Medieval Cures for the Black Death.” World History Encyclopedia, 15 April 2020, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1540/medieval-cures-for-the-black-death/. Accessed 24 April 2023.

Rice, Damien, and Matt Galbraith. “.,.” ., - YouTube, 16 November 2008, https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30792-0/pdf. Accessed 24 April 2023.