Plagues in medieval Poland
Abstract
We are living in a time when we are suddenly faced with challenges that plagued our ancestors. All over the world we have well-equipped, modern medical laboratories, eminent scientists, we can send humans into space, but in the face of invisible viruses or bacteria we are still helpless, like people in the Middle Ages, when an extremely virulent strain of Yersinia pestis caused a black death pandemic. Most likely, it had come to Europe from the Caucasus on a ship carrying infected people to Messina in 1347, and from there it spread throughout the continent. The famous black death probably did not cause any major perturbations in Poland, but this does not mean that no miasma existed there. The walled up cities, lack of ventilation, neglect of personal hygiene – all this caused various diseases to spread, most often cholera.
Keywords
pests; pandemic; infectious diseases; plague; cholera; medieval times; black death
University of Silesia in Katowice Poland
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