Frequently recurred , epidemic every generation between 14-18th century, disrupted population  Affected economic life\religion\popular culture  Created a new piety\cults of plague saints\passion plays  Sermons\religious pamphlets over theodicy, justify god's ways towards man  Question a just and loving God punishing innocents and children  Plague also led to some questioning a good God existing at all, would not indiscriminately killed  Not atheism but rather a mute despair  Had a psychological impact on human beings to their mortality and their God  Impact on literature and culture  Genre of plague literature (Defoe, Boccaccio, Camus, Manzoni) created  Affected European painting and architecture (most churches dedicated to redeemer\plague saints)  Sculpture, rise of plague columns in Vienna\Austria  In modern times: Seventh Seal by Bergman , impact intellectually on the medical paradigm of disease, tested humoral framework that was in existence  Girolamo Francastoro develops theory of contagonism as a response to holes in Hippocrates's theory (vast numbers of people have same humoral imbalance at precisely the same time)  Francastoro eliminated mediation of humors, disease caused by a poisonous chemical but did not understand how it was transmitted  Plague caused by a chemical not by a living entity Three Western Pandemics  Three pandemics in the West o Outbreak= small surge in morbidity and mortality in a given area  Influenza in New Haven o Epidemic = bigger surge over a larger area o Pandemic= epidemic that goes transnational, hits internationally \ continents\global

 Three pandemics of plague, each had a subset\series of recurring visitations that lasted for centuries  Plague was also seasonal, epidemic began in spring\summer, faded away in winter  Hot and wet months favorable to fleas and thus the plague, needed warmth\humidity for eggs to hatch  Inactive in cold\dry climate  First pandemic lasted for two centuries after 541 AD, called plague of Justinian o First appearance of bubonic plague as a player in world history, hit Africa\Asia\Europe  Killed around 100 million people but poor records lead some to question of it was even bubonic plague at all (may have been another disease)  Probably was bubonic plague according to most recent studies  Second pandemic was from 1330s (in Middle East) to 1830s o 5 centuries of plague, began with Black Death,  Erupted in Central Asia in 1330s, arrived in Europe in 1347  From 1347 to 1350s, called Black Death, first wave of second pandemic  Afterwards, called bubonic plague, plague, or pestilence o Possibly transmitted via a Genoese merchant ship arriving from Black Sea in 1347  Hit Italy first as Italy was at center of Mediterranean trade routes, always at risk during this time  Killed 1\3 of Europe's population  Plague returns once a generation after 1350s for many centuries afterwards, many local epidemics  Florence in 1348, 50% of population dies  Boccaccio's Decameron discusses this  1576-1577 and again in 1630 in Milan  Manzoni's The Betrothed and the Column of Infamy written  1656 Naples  1665-1666 London  After this, plague vanquished in Western Europe in end of 17th century and middle of 18th century 