How You Could Have Survived the Black Plague

The Black Death was a period in 14th century Europe where three variations of the plague, bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic, wiped out an estimated 60% of Europe. Today, that's equivalent to 450 million people. Today, we're exploring how you could have survived the Black Plague. But before we get started, do us a solid, hit that Subscribe button, turn on notifications, and leave a quaint yet memorable comment. Grab a mask, grab some gloves, and chug that emergency. We're going plaguing. We might have evolved as humans in technology and science, but viruses and our basic biology have not. As would be the case in 2019, if you want to avoid getting the plague, it's best to start by avoiding places where large crowds congregate. The pneumonic plague was spread through air droplets, or airborne, if you will. So the more people around open mouth coughing and sneezing, the more chances for infected humans to get their plague all up in each other. The bubonic plague, however, was spread from flea bites associated with infected mice. Rodents infected with plague riddled fleas would transfer the disease from flea to human in the right social conditions as well. Infected people often didn't realize they were spreading the disease because they didn't realize their plague infested bodies were crawling with super fleas that could dump their sick host behinds for a more healthy body up to two meters away. Being more than two meters away from plague infested fleas was one way you might have avoided the Black Death. May as well stay home and binge read the Bible. Hey, while you're there, seal it up and never leave. Italy's myriad points of entry, being surrounded by water, meant many different opportunities for the plague to enter the European nation. Once word of the Black Death reached Milan, the leader at the time, a brutal and no-nonsense man named Yahurd, ordered the houses of those inflicted with the plague to be boarded up, locking in any occupants inside and preventing their sick hands from touching a thing outside of their doors. And while this approach was extreme and brutal, dooming otherwise healthy members of the victim's families trapped inside a diseased coffin, the city of Milan ended the Black Death with only a 15% mortality rate, by far the lowest of any major Italian city. They did have to make some sacrifices in both innocent lives and social activities, such as rummaging through the remains of the recently deceased. Italy may be known for its yummy lasagna, but man did one Florentine writer paint a real delicious picture of what the streets of Florence were like during this time. Mass burial sites were layered with victims and dirt akin to one making lasagna with layers of pasta and cheese. Exposure to the plague, even from the deceased, could soon turn you into an ingredient of this nightmare lasagna. So loved ones often would abandon their dead into the streets without burial. Game of Thrones wasn't around to teach the people of the 1300s to always burn the dead. As the body count was rising, so did the amount of bodies decaying in the streets. A group emerged called the Bikini, not related to the bathing suit. They were men of lower social stature, themselves inflicted with the plague, to remove the deceased from the cities. Unfortunately, some did eventually also turn to robbery and murder. But nobody else was going to go near a pile of highly infectious corpses. So Italy just sort of had to deal with it. The Bikini helped keep the streets clear, while rich people were able to gather their diamonds and fur and get the hell out of these plague-riddled streets. Though they didn't think to burn the bodies, they did consider the magical healing power of fire. One notable survivor of the plague was Pope Clement IV. Despite the fact that a whopping one third of the cardinals in Avignon, where the pope lived, succumbed to the disease. Doctors had advised Pope Clement to sit in a ring of fire in order to avoid contracting the disease. And it worked. He was never infected. Rats saw the ring of fire around an otherwise healthy body and said, no thanks, man, and kept scurrying around for more convenient, less flammable targets with fewer obstacles. And human beings, too, tend to avoid walking into a ring of fire in order to conversate with the pope. In 1666, the devil's year, the Great Fire of London decimated the city. But it also killed off a large population of rats and fleas, who were conduits of the bubonic plague. Very few things in life make less sense than old-timey doctor uniforms. But again, their knowledge of contagion wasn't nearly as advanced as ours. Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio lamented in texts that physicians were woefully unprepared for handling cases of the plague due to their ignorance of treating the disease. Earlier physicians may have inadvertently contributed to the spread of the disease from not using adequate protection against contamination themselves. After years of treating the illness, doctors eventually designed a plague uniform to protect themselves. And let's face it, it looks really cool. First worn by trend-setting Dr. Charles Delorme in France, this late-century stunner included a long overcoat, hat, and a pointed mask that, yes, made him look like a bird. The beak of this mask worn by adult men was believed to have provided protection from infection because it was filled with pleasant-smelling items like rose petals and mint. Doctors believe the foul error, called miasma, spread disease so naturally to counteract this, one would just surround themselves with pleasant smells. With his getup, the leather outfits prevented flea bites. That, or the fleas were justifiably terrified of human-sized birds. Staying alive during the Black Death epidemic could be a real bummer. But in order to stay alive, it wasn't a good idea to spend your time with the flagellants. Flagellants, for those who don't know, is a person who subjects themselves or others to flogging, either as a religious discipline or for sexual gratification. They were religious zealots who would whip the ever-loving sin right out of you, and man, was the Black Death their time to shine. Since many Europeans believe God sent the plague as a punishment for their sins, they would seek atonement for these sins by publicly whipping themselves. Despite being properly shamed in the public square, you would not be immune from contracting the plague. In fact, flagellants exacerbated the problem because they were well-traveled and spread the disease wherever they'd land, which is probably not good because in order to survive the plague, you should probably. Think of this as the equivalent of putting a bubble around your city and denying entrance to anyone suspected of carrying the plague. Armed guards were stationed at city entrances ready to deny entry to anybody with the look of a low-grade fever. And while this work kept people from entering the cities, it also contained those people already inflicted inside the city. Beyond armed guards, some European cities stopped allowing ships to dock in their ports. Ships from the east were the first to carry the plague into Europe. Once that was established fairly quickly, ports became a little more picky about which ships were allowed to dock. By 1348, Venice had established a 30-day, why don't you go hang out over there and not talk to anybody for a while, for travelers and goods suspected of carrying the plague. Later, this was bumped up to 40 days, or as they say in Italy, quaranta days, hence where we get the term quarantine. These actions slowed down the spreading of the illness, but it didn't do enough. Tens of thousands of people still died in Venice from the Black Death. They maybe should have. Plague law is the law. We're talking no ships, sealing up homes, and curfews. Several European cities went full martial law when it came to combating the spread of the disease. And with a mortality rate of 80%, who can blame them? Landlocked Pistoia in northern Italy couldn't very well turn away ships and close down ports, but they could load up the restrictions on imports, exports, travel in general, trading in markets, and funerals. But Pistoia still lost a jaw-dropping 70% of its inhabitants. With all these percentages being depressingly high, it's easy to forget that some people did come down with the plague in this era and actually survived it. It wasn't because they tied live chickens around their bibulous plague bumps or drank a refreshing glass of chilled arsenic. They just had immune systems that could fight this stubborn killer because they took care of themselves. This was the time before keto diets and CrossFit gyms, but even the people of internet-less times had to understand arugula was healthy. Recent research has shown what is still true now. If you were in poor health before you contracted the disease, your odds of succumbing to it were substantially higher. The mortality rate was higher amongst people who already were in poor health, be it malnourished, rotting teeth, or a weakened immune system. Healthy people, while not immune to infection, had a higher survival rate. So listen to your yogi. Start those juice cleanses. But also, don't listen to your yogi. And you get your butt outside in that chilly air because your chances of survival were greater in the winter. Unlike our modern-day flu and common colds, the plague prefers a more tepid climate, showing up in greater numbers during the warmer summer and spring seasons. In fact, the plague was nearly nonexistent in the winter, just like today, when it's always fishy, when Brenda calls in sick for the flu in July. But if you wanted to survive an epidemic of n times proportions, you could always pack up the kids and move to Norway. Unfortunately, the plague eventually evolved to be all, maybe I do like cold weather, you losers, and spread to all of Europe, including icy cold Norway, which had 30 plague outbreaks alone between 1348 and 1654, none during the winter. The plague likes to keep us guessing. I wonder if the people of the 14th century thought about being born with immunity. Because, oh yes, there was a genetic immunity. Some people get ageless skin. Some people get crystal blue eyes. And some get genetic immunity to a disease with an 80% mortality rate that took a big bite out of Europe's ass. The Roma people, in particular, had certain gene clusters that protected them from becoming sick. Researchers found several genes, actually, that may have protected certain people from coming down with the plague. Lucky Roma. No, not completely. They could still contract the illness, but there was a genetic variation that triggered an immune response to Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that was doing all of this population wiping of a continent of people. As established earlier, the Europeans believe full heartedly two demonstrably false assumptions about the spread of this disease. Number one, the thick stench of sick permeating the atmosphere was the physical embodiment of the disease itself. While the disease was airborne, it, of course, doesn't technically have a smell itself. And number two, this was all happening because God was mad as hell because of all the sin. There was no TV yet. Of course, there was rampant sin. Do you know how boring 1328 was? They also didn't have books or research or the knowledge we have now, thanks to the lessons learned during that time with how diseases spread. They could be forgiven for avoiding extremely foul air and picking up an extra rosary bead or two. And if that didn't work, my favorite tip for how to survive the plague, the screw it. Our old pal Boccaccio noted some of the Florentines that vowed to carouse and make merry and go out singing and frolicking and satisfy the appetite in everything possible. Europe was being completely decimated by this painful, ill-understood disease that seemed to take down one in three people. And thousands upon thousands did everything we've laid out here today to avoid the plague, and they still got it. So some Europeans wised up and said, then I'm going to the bar. They danced. They drank. They ate. They lived their dang lives because they knew more than anybody that this bacteria was probably, ultimately, sadly, unavoidable. And what was the life expectancy in 1400 anyway? 30? So they said, screw it. And you know what? They died just as often as those that only drank in moderation. Cheers to you, 1300 Europe. You walked so we could run. You can still get the plague today, but now it's cured fairly easily with antibiotics, a wonderful new invention we can't ever possibly fully appreciate because we've never had to consider moving to Norway to avoid the Black Death. So do you think you would have survived the Black Death? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.