Traders in Crimea have been besieged for three years by Tartar hordes from Central Asia. The black death breaks out among the Tartars. The Tartars use their siege machines for fling their dead inside the walls of the fort. The disease spreads to the people inside the fort. The Tartars flee. The survivors from inside the fort set sail for Europe bringing the disease with them.
The symptoms and signs of the septicemic plague included:
- Fever and chills.
- Extreme weakness.
- Abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.
- Bleeding from your mouth, nose or rectum, or under your skin.
- Shock.
- boils the size of apples.
- Blackening and death of tissue (gangrene) in your extremities, most commonly your fingers, toes and nose.
- Sudden onset of fever and chills
- Headache
- Fatigue or malaise
- Muscle aches
- Cough, with bloody mucus (sputum)
- Difficulty breathing
- Nausea and vomiting
- High fever
- Headache
- Weakness
- Chest pain
How did the people with the black death try and cure it? Here are some of the cures they tried:
- Rubbing onions, herbs or a chopped up snake (if available) on the boils or cutting up a pigeon and rubbing it over an infected body.
- Drinking vinegar, eating crushed minerals, arsenic, mercury or even ten-year-old treacle!
- Sitting close to a fire or in a sewer to drive out the fever, or fumigating the house with herbs to purify the air.
- People who believed God was punishing you for your sin, 'flagellants', went on processions whipping themselves.
- In the 1361 - 1364 outbreak, doctors learned how to help the patient recover by bursting the buboes.
- Doctors often tested urine for colour and health. Some even tasted it to test.
