Fun Facts About the Bubonic Plague

We’ve had some pretty disappointing epidemics in the last thirty years. I’ve had my barbwire wrapped baseball bat sitting in the closet while I watched Ebola, Bird Flu, and SARS go by, just waiting for my chance to finally go full Negan. Everyone flipped their shit like Y2k but nothing ever came of it. People more focused on hating the gubment, than their own self-preservation (like anti-vaccers) said it was all a conspiracy to ….do…something? Scientists and governments freak out when they think there might be a global outbreak because they paid attention in history class and are aware of what happens when the invisible bugs that constantly attack our bodies finally get the upper hand. Freaking out and being wrong is better than being complacent and having to worry about corpses piling up on the sidewalk.

Here are some fun facts about the plague.

I’ll just start off with the best part. We still have the bubonic plague today! Here in the United States, we can count on an average of four cases of the Black Death a year, mostly around New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. If you really want to roll the dice on being a twelfth century statistic you should head on down to Madagascar.

Thankfully, the Plague is caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis, which can be treated with antibiotics. That means even people too stupid to get vaccinated against diseases that have ravaged humanity for centuries can still have their lives saved by those doctors they hate so dang much. Enjoy not having polio, you ungrateful sumbitches.

The Bubonic Plague is most famous for killing like half the motherfuckers in Europe but it got there by following the Silk Road from Asia. Also, it wasn’t just one big ass outbreak. There were a shitload of them, for like hundreds of years. India and China got FUCKED up by the plague but us Westerners don’t ever hear about it. I mean, it’s not like they account for half the population of Earth or anything.

In 1347 Kipchak Khan Janibeg and some Venetian homies were laying siege to a Genoese outpost in what is now Crimea. Things were going pretty well but somebody forgot to wash their hands and wound up bringing a case of the plague with him. Kipchack’s army started dropping like flies. Fearing defeat, Kipchack started catapulting his dead comrades over the city walls to infect the other army. A bunch of Genoese soldiers took one look at the rotten, diseased corpses falling out of the sky and were like, “That ain't in my job description.” They jumped on their boats and sailed home, bringing the plague with them.

Venice had a bad habit of getting fucked over by the plague due to it being a major trading port. The word Quarantine comes from the Venetian ‘Quaranta Giorni,’ which means forty days. That was how long you had to hang out on a nearby island full of infected people and not die before they’d let you into the city. It wasn’t an ideal scenario for people trying to come into Venice, illustrated by the mass graves on Lazzaretto Vecchio aka Quarantine Island, but it worked out pretty well for the people already in Venice. If you wound up on Poveglia aka Plague Island, you might as well spend the two days you have left on Earth digging a hole for yourself as a courtesy to anyone who might trip over your corpse.

According to the “Florentine Chronicle of Marchione” by Coppo Stefani; It was a common practice at the time to ring the church bells when someone died but they had to stop because people were going insane from listening to the bells ringing all goddamn day and night. Shit got so bad in Italy that when a person got sick their friends and family would be like, “I’m gonna go find a doctor.” Then they’d just leave and never come back.

An interesting side effect of the plague was the beginning of a shift in the stratospheric class divide at the time. Landowners and noblemen made their fortunes off the backs of peasants. When all the peasants started dying, no one was working the land. Rich people started worrying about crops getting planted so they had to pay higher wages to convince the people who were left alive to work their land instead of the Duke of Cockknockershire down the road.

For some reason, the go-to human instinct in times of trouble is to find someone else to blame, and the Jews have historically been Germany’s favorite whipping boy. In 1348 well intentioned God-fearing men wearing “Make Germany Great Again” baseball caps massacred thousands of Jews to try and earn God’s favor. Not only did it not work, but it would be another hundred years before you could get a decent bagel within two hundred miles of the Rhine River.

At the time they didn’t call the Bubonic plague “The Black Death.” They called it “The Great Mortality” or “The Pestilence.” Whichever of the three, they all made great names for metal bands in the 13-1600’s.

Sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6