Research Guides: Pandemics and Epidemics: The Plague/The Black Death (Year 1350)

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Use the mind map above to narrow down a broad topic. Click on "View in Credo" to see article results.

"What the Great Pandemic Novels Teach Us"
"The initial response to the outbreak of a pandemic has always been denial. National and local governments have always been late to respond and have distorted facts and manipulated figures to deny the existence of the outbreak. In the early pages of “A Journal of the Plague Year,” the single most illuminating work of literature ever written on contagion and human behavior, Daniel Defoe reports that in 1664, local authorities in some neighborhoods of London tried to make the number of plague deaths appear lower than it was by registering other, invented diseases as the recorded cause of death."
"What Social Distancing Looked Like in 1666"
"Humanity has been surviving plagues for thousands of years, and we have managed to learn a lot along the way."

Subject terms to use in Academic Search Complete to give you more resources on the same topics as the articles below:

The Black Death
(Abstract) " Describes the calculation of Black Death casualties in Europe in the 14th century. Cause of the bubonic plague; Features of the Black Death and plague epidemics; Patterns of the territorial spread of the tragedy."
How Europe Exported the Black Death.
(Abstract) "The article discusses the transmission eastward of the mid 14th century bubonic plague known as the Black Death, after remaining in Europe for a couple centuries before its bacterium strain emerged in disease outbreaks in Asia during the 18th through the 19th centuries. The article references plague DNA from the disease's victims."
“Plague Genome: The Black Death Decoded.”
(Abstract) " The article focuses on the genome reconstruction of Yersinia pestis, a bubonic plague bacterium, which was recovered from the Black Death victims' remains at East Smithfield, England. It says that when Alexandre Yersin linked Y. pestis to plague, scientists suspected that the pathogen was also behind a spate mass die-offs. It mentions the book "The Decameron," by Giovanni Boccaccio, which contains clues and symptoms of the pathogen. It adds that fleas spread the disease to human."

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Science Musem (London) - "Bubonic Plague: the First Pandemic"
"he impact of the bubonic plague epidemics of the past still echo across the centuries, reminding us of the devastation that disease can inflict on communities."
Univesity of Iowa Library Rare Books Collection - "The Black Death: The Plague, 1331-1770"
"Medieval people called the catastrophe of the 14th century either the "Great Pestilence"' or the "Great Plague." Writers contemporary to the plague referred to the event as the "Great Mortality." Swedish and Danish chronicles of the 16th century described the events as "black" for the first time, likely to refer to black as glum or dreadful denoting the terror of the events."

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Curious Minds - "The Bubonic Plague, Or: A Flea’s Worst Nightmare"
In the 19th century, two brave (and some might say – insanely brave) French physicians took to the streets of Hong Kong and Bombay and risked their own lives in the name of ridding Mankind – and the fleas – from their worst nightmare: The Black Death. This is their story and the story of the humankind’s bitter enemy throughout the ages: the Bubonic Plague. (Transcript available)
Scientific American- "Teeth Tell Black Death Genetic Tale"
"DNA from the teeth of medieval plague victims indicates the pathogen likely first arrived in eastern Europe before spreading across the continent." (Transcript available)

Pandemics and Epidemics: The Plague/The Black Death (Year 1350)