st as pneumonia can sometimes be a complication of influenza or even a common cold. Not everyone who contracts the plague dies, but the chances of recovery in the fourteenth century were slight. Sometimes the buboes will burst and drain, and then the victim may recover. With modern medical treatment, particularly antibiotics, the morality rate can be reduced to five percent. Usually in a plague epidemic, all three different forms of the infections are present.Bubonic plague is spread by the bite of a flea that has previously bitten an infected rat. In this form of plague, there are not enough plague bacilli in the bloodstream of a human victim to cause infection in another human being. (Ziegler 23). In the septicemic form of plague, however, there is a high concentration of bacilli in the bloodstream. Some medical authorities believe that in this form some may be carried from one human victim to another Pulex irritans, a flea that uses man as its primary host. Human fleas are common pests in medieval Europe (Ziegler 25). Plague bacilli can also enter the bloodstream of a person who handles an infected rat or human through a break in the skin. This method or infection, however, is rare. Pneumonic plague is the only form of plague which can be spread easily from one human being to another. During the disease the victims commonly cough up blood and mucus. The tiny droplets of mucus coughed or sneezed into the air contains plagued bacilli. These bacilli are breathed in by others. Once in the lungs of a new victim, the bacilli multiply and produce another case of pneumonic plague. The people of the fourteenth century knew nothing of the plague bacilli. Their descriptions of how the disease spread and what forms it took tend to be sketchy and incomplete. As a result, there is no general agreement as to the exact cause of the medieval pandemic. Most medical authorities believe that the pandemic was essentially bubonic plague and...
