The Black Death Bubonic Plague DBQ

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The Black Death was a dark age that caused the downfall of European civilization by killing nearly half of it’s population. The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague, was a disease that spread from Asia to Europe. The Black Death spread through trade routes from China by infected fleas on rats during the 14th century. The plague affected all aspects of society, economic structure, and morals through it’s large death toll that killed millions of people in Europe.
Economic structure was severely diminished as a consequence of the plague. Shopkeepers, peasants, nobles, and even the clergy were affected. Even worse, the physicians were ignorant of the of the cure for the disease, so very few people were left untreated. (Doc 1)..Since the physicians couldn’t seem to stop the plague, their advice had very little profit. (Doc.1).This is explained in document 1, written by Boccaccio. Boccaccio wrote about the plague in his famous book, The Decameron. His perspective in his writings is unique because it was published in 1350, during the time of the plague .Several doctors took advantage of the devastating times and many overcharged desperate families for
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Anyone who had the symptoms of the plague were predicted to die within 3 days (Doc.1). This is what made the plague so difficult to treat and why very few were actually cured. Because so many people were dying, every church would dig large trenches and pile all the bodies in there to bury them. (Doc 3.) Document 8 also states that hundreds of people died everyday, so they were all thrown in large ditches and buried. In total, 52,000 people died in Siena. (Doc.6) That is a large death toll just for one city. The rapidness of the plague spread to nearly all parts of Europe and Asia. (Doc.7) This shows how severe the effects of the plague were. Consequently, the Black Death is the worst epidemic in all of history.