Man's Mortal Enemies 5 



The Black Death 



Diseases — hundreds of them — are always with us. But 

 most of the time they attack only a small proportion of the 

 population at a time. But not always! Every once in a 

 while the pages of history have been blackened by pesti- 

 lences that have spread throughout whole populations, at- 

 tacking almost everyone and killing high percentages of those 

 so afflicted. And of the many pestilences that have left their 

 trail of dead and dying and human suffering, none has struck 

 more terror into the hearts of men than has that dreaded 

 disease, bubonic plague — the most terrible epidemic of which 

 was the infamous Black Death of the l4th century. The 

 Black Death, however, was not the only serious epidemic, for 

 there had been a number of outbreaks of plague before the 

 l4th century, and there have been a number since. 



In the 6th century, during the reign of Justinian I, the 

 last of the Roman Emperors, plague came out of the Orient 

 and struck Constantinople in the year 532. It soon spread 

 to Italy and the rest of Europe, and killed half the population 

 of the Roman Empire. Shortly thereafter the Roman Em- 

 pire collapsed, and its collapse was due, at least in part, to the 

 widespread changes brought about by the ravages of the 

 plague. 



But for widespread destruction, the epidemic known as 

 the Black Death is in a class by itself. Introduced into Con- 

 stantinople from Asia in the spring of 1347, it quickly spread 

 through Greece and the Mediterranean Islands, reached Sicily 

 in October, passed on to Naples, Genoa, and Marseilles — 

 where four-fifths of the population are reported to have died 

 — and reached Dalmatia before the end of the year. It was 

 well established in southern France, Italy, and Spain early in 

 1 348, reached Paris by June, and was in England and Ireland 



