(#3) St. Anthony's Fire
St. Anthony's Fire, caused by eating grains contaminated with the Claviceps purpurea fungus, is also known as ergotism. The ergot fungus grows on moldy grains and, once ingested, can cause redness, swelling, and gangrene. Rye was produced and consumed in large quantities by the poor and was especially susceptible to the ergot fungus, so the disease affected the lower classes in the greatest numbers.
When one is first struck with St. Anthony's Fire, red spots appeared on the flesh. The initial burning soon becomes excruciating as limbs swell; people often hallucinate, with some in the past believing they were in a fight with the devil. Sometimes, people have convulsions, but as their extremities begin to rot, toes, fingers, ears, and even arms or legs can fall off. Based on an account of the St. Antony's Fire outbreak that struck southern France during the 10th century:
The afflicted thronged to the churches and invoked the saints. The cries of those in pain and the shedding of burned-up limbs alike excited pity; the stench of rotten flesh was unbearable.
In 944 CE, 40,000 people in France perished from St. Anthony's Fire, and monastic hospitals were built throughout Europe to treat victims.
(#2) Bubonic plague
- Disease or medical condition
The Black Plague spread from Asia into Europe during the mid-14th century, resulting in millions of casualties in the process. No one was immune from the Black Plague, a general term for the three different types of plague caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. Most commonly spread by infected fleas carried on cargo ships, the plague could manifest in bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic forms.
The bubonic plague affected one's lymphatic system, causing swelling and discoloration of the areas around the lymph nodes - known as buboes. The pneumonic plague infiltrated the lungs, while the septicemic plague resulted when the bacteria entered an individual's bloodstream. The pneumonic was the most dangerous and infectious because it could be transmitted through airborne blood droplets.
According to 14th-century Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio, the plague affected "men and women alike... at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits… waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.”
Other symptoms included fever, vomiting, body aches, and, more than 50% of the time, loss of life. The Black Plague terrified everyone:
One citizen avoided another, hardly any neighbour troubled about others, relatives never or hardly ever visited each other. Moreover, such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they had not been theirs.
There were so many cadavers in many medieval towns and cities that they reportedly "[f]illed every corner... Although the cemeteries were full they were forced to dig huge trenches, where they buried the bodies by hundreds."
(#5) Tuberculosis
- Disease or medical condition
Called the "white plague," "consumption," or "king's evil" during the Middle Ages, symptoms of tuberculosis include a fever and persistent coughing that can result in expressing white phlegm or blood. When the lymph nodes in one's neck become enlarged, the disease is also called scrofula.
Tuberculosis was believed to be contagious, but there were assertions that royalty could cure the disease with a simple touch. As early as the 11th century, King Edward the Confessor in England and Philip I in France conducted ceremonies to touch individuals suffering from scrofula. Those afflicted and touched received "touchpieces," or gold coin amulets, signifying the event.
Tuberculosis mostly afflicted poor town dwellers living in less than hygienic conditions.
(#7) Bacterial Infection
Communal living during the Middle Ages made the transmission of disease and infection particularly troublesome. In medieval hospitals, infection was common due to a lack of cleanliness. Patients often suffered due to the prevailing "laudable pus" theory. Physicians believed that pus was a good sign and necessary for healing. If pus didn't appear, a doctor might find ways to produce by digging at the damaged area or finding another way to produce an abscess.
Not all doctors favored manipulating things to the point of abscess, however. Henri de Mondeville, a 13th and 14th century French surgeon, advocated for cleanliness and the closing of gashes and cuts as opposed to letting them openly fester. Mondeville even went so far as to recommend using wine as a disinfectant.
(#6) Dysentery
Also known as "the flux," dysentery was endemic during the Middle Ages, common in medieval towns, cities, villages, monasteries, and among groups of soldiers. Dysentery results from bacteria or parasites in water or contaminated food and causes bloody diarrhea, fever, and dehydration.
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours (d. 397 CE), described his own bout with the disease as so bad that he "completely gave up any hope of living."
The cause of dysentery was generally unknown during the Middle Ages. During the 13th century, Arnau of Vilanova recounted the case of a youth who had "uncontrolled dysentery" and was asked by his physician where he got his food and water. The boy responded he got water from a stone cistern. The doctor advised him to stop drinking what he believed was "calcinated water" resulting from the stone and cement that lined the cistern. He supposedly quickly recovered after he stopped drinking the water.
We know now that "calcinated water" was not the problem, but because the doctor inadvertently stopped him from drinking from a tainted water source, he did improve. In another instance, however, the disease was attributed incorrectly and the physician's advice had no effect on the patient; Vilanova mentioned an open roof allowed the wind to bring in dysentery.
Generally, no one was safe, a fact 15th-century Italian polymath Girolamo Savonarola made clear when he observed that pestilential dysentery affected "not only in the same house but also in an entire locale, and with [the affliction] moving from a child of ten or fifteen to a sexagenarian." Savonarola himself came down with dysentery in 1495.
(#9) Pneumonia
Both pneumonia and pleurisy were common during the Middle Ages, and once the writings of Galen were translated into Latin during the 5th century, distinguishing between the two conditions became more clear. According to Galen's Therapeutics to Glaucon, both pneumonia and pleurisy were respiratory diseases, but the former presented with a fever, difficulty breathing, and chest pain.
Some individuals showed signs of redness and had difficulty laying down, often attributed to "humor in the lungs." In contrast, pleurisy also included chest pain, but the discomfort could radiate through the shoulders and down into one's groin. Both afflictions could result in coughing up blood. The important distinction was that pneumonia could lead to pleurisy, but the latter could also result from traumatic damage as well. Treatments for both were determined based on the cause.
Galen's contributions to understanding pneumonia were taken up by 12th-century philosopher and writer Moses Maimonides. He described the symptoms of pneumonia as "acute fever, sticking [pleruitic] pain in the side, short rapid breaths, serrated pulse and cough, mostly associated with sputum."
Being able to identify pneumonia made the plague outbreak of the 14th century more complicated, however. When individuals exhibited the symptoms associated with pneumonia, it was assumed they had the more dangerous of the two diseases. According to historian Ole Jorgen Benedictow, plague patients often coughed up blood regardless of what type of plague they had, making it difficult to assess how many cases of pneumonic plague truly presented themselves during the 14th century.
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About This Tool
The Middle Ages was called the Dark Age for no reason. People at that time were indeed living in fear, especially the poor, who faced constant religious wars and deadly infectious diseases. In the mid-fourteenth century, a plague swept across Europe, killing tens of millions of people, and reducing the population of Europe by one-third. That plague was also called the Black Death.
Many infectious diseases had even regularly repeated outbreaks, common diseases were malaria, diphtheria, flu, smallpox, and leprosy in the Middle Ages, which caused more deaths than ever. The random tool lists 13 dangerous infectious diseases you might suffer in a Medieval city.
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