Response To The Black Death

As a seemingly dreary atmosphere crept through European towns and cities, local citizens were being, to their dismay, succumbed to a fatal disease they knew little of. The Black Death, in its monstrous form, strangled the life out of every being it came in contact with. It drained its prey of their faith, hope and a perseverance to keep fighting. Having no one to turn to, no one to get a definitive answer or solution from, these victims acted out, and reacted in ways that were outrageous, sensible, and everything in between. As one historian wrote, “…From our perspective, some responses were fruitless, ridiculous or dangerous; other responses were more positive – but all made sense within the context of the time”. With little knowledge on disease and germs, these civilians were forced to work with what they knew, what they heard, and what they witnessed, to work. The most commonly seen responses were a belief in Divine Intervention, a weakened church system, the use of scapegoats, and escaping the disease. These reactions, not surprisingly, were correlated with the long-term and short-term outcomes after the plague ran its course – impacting the population, the church system, and work …show more content…
All of these accumulated cause-and-effect situations brought together an underlying connection to medical treatment and advancement, which leads to the point that the Black death, at it’s birth, caused heinous reactions, which lead to short and long-term effects on the population and world, and changed the way people view