Plague Activity

Background Reading

In October 1347, Italian ships on the Black Sea en route to and from China dock in Messina, Sicily -- their crews are dead or dying. Whatever is killing them quickly spreads ashore. Within a month, it passes through Sicily and moves back out over water. By January 1348, it has penetrated France via Marseille and North Africa via Tunis, and by July 1348, it spreads through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Eastern Hungary, and Southern England. This is all the more amazing given that at this time it took a person one to three months to travel from London to Rome. The plague died out in the winters and was resurrected in the springs. At the end of 1349, it had spread throughout the British Isles and Scandinavia and continued to move east.

The death toll was massive -- the "official" figure is one-third of Europe dead between 1348 and 1351, when it temporarily abated, but keep in mind that in some towns the death toll was 90 percent -- in others 10 percent. Further, the poor and anyone else living in close quarters (monks, for instance) died at a higher rate. Many monasteries were completely wiped out, but the death rates among the nobility and the nobility of the church were very low. Understandably, people wanted to know why this was happening to them. Here are the four prominent hypotheses of the day:

The claim of academics and physicians: The plague was the result of a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars on March 20, 1345.

The Roman Catholic Church's claim: God's wrath -- it was a punishment for the people's sins.

The claim of the mayors and town-controlling nobles: Poor sanitation. Dumping waste in the streets leads to sickness (a revolutionary claim at the time -- no one actually knew this to be true).

The claim of the masses (i.e., everyone else): The Jews are poisoning the wells.

Here is the "evidence" used by each group, respectively, to support its claim:

Medicine at the time was based on astrology and astronomy. Most physical sickness was attributed to poor alignment of the stars. The conjunction had happened, and it was a rare celestial event. Other events had been tied to celestial causes. Many were waiting to see what the triple conjunction would cause, and when the Black Plague occurred, they felt that they had found out.

The Church said, "Look around." Plunder, looting, rape, prostitution, war, and drinking were everywhere. God's wrath had shown itself in destructive ways before -- the people of Noah's time were hit with a flood, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

The sanitation workers were among the first to die, and other diseases were suspected to be related to poor sanitation.

Christians tortured "confessions" out of Jews. The Jews were believed to be "jealous" of the Christians (because, it was thought, the Jews knew "in their hearts" that they were damned). The lepers had been blamed for poisoning the wells and causing the typhus outbreak in 1320 (after the Black Plague, it was believed that the Jews set them up to it).

Here are some problems people at the time saw with the evidence:

Nobody but the academics and physicians believed their explanation!

If God's wrath already has descended, there's no reason to change one's behavior. The attitude was roughly, "If we're already doomed, why alter our behavior?"

Later sanitation workers appeared to be immune (unknown to the people, they'd been exposed and had developed a resistance). If it really was poor sanitation, why weren't they still dying? In fact, this immunity among sanitation workers caused many people to think the sanitation workers had magical powers. People followed them on their street-cleaning routes, trying to absorb some of the immunity. Others, more desperate, actually applied waste to themselves, thinking that it would keep the disease away.

So many Jews died too (Why would any community poison itself?). The other problem is that the plague was present in areas where no Jews lived.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Monday, March 2, 2009

The Church Did it

A logical fallacy is defined as an "argument" in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/. The claim that the plague happened because god was punishing everyone for sinning is not valid support. Monks were among the first to be affected by the plague. A monk is a "a man who has withdrawn from the world for religious reasons, esp. as a member of an order of cenobites living according to a particular rule and under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience" (dictionary.com). Monks are among the most religious people, they dedicate their lives to living a sin free life. So the claim that god was punishing everyone for sinning makes no sense since the higher death rates were in monasteries. Most were completely wiped out since monks live in close quarters and the plague spread quickly. Why would God punish people that do not sin and dedicate their lives to religion? It just doesn't support the claim. Another reason I feel the claim has no premise is is that people have been sinning for as long as religion has existed, people sin year year round. They don't stop for one season and continue in the next. So the claim is not supported by the fact that the plague died out in the winter and resurrected in the Spring. If God was angry and created the Plague, I don't think he would stop for one season and continue for the next.

The underlying assumption that made me believe this claim was false was the fact that monasteries were completely wiped out. The plague targeted most people religious and non religious. It just dosnt add up if God was punishing people for being sinful why would he punish the ones that are leading a sin free life. This automatically lead me to believe this claim had to be false.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Astronomical

The fact that a plague of disease that killed millions of people was a result of three planets alining is just ridiculous. If the plague was caused by this then why did it only effect people in Europe and not in Asia. The alining of three planets cannot just target one area of the earth, if this was the reason then why was it Europe. Also due to the planetary orbits then it is very likely that the alining of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars would of aligned at least one more time in history, but there is no other case of such a plague as the "Black Plague." Also, why was it only the alining of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars and not three other planets that caused the sickness and death?

The only reason that the was given as a reason for the plague was because scientists of the time needed something to blame the plague on and also need to find a result for the alining of the planets. So they decided to kill two birds with one stone and just said one had caused the other. To believe that the "Black Plague" was caused by the three planets alining just doesn't seem reasonable or logical, I guess that's what makes it a logical fallacy

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Jews and Us

I’ll choose the claim of blaming the Jews for this horrendous ordeal. The first Logical Fallacy I’ll address is this claim that “ The Jews were believed to be “jealous” of the Christians ( because, it was thought, the Jews knew “ in their hearts” they were dammed). Now when I read this I think, isn’t so convenient for the Christians to have declared this “Prophecy”, this “Message”, about the Jews. Without going into any historical context, about how tough the Jews have proven to be over the centuries, haven’t all us humans proved one thing, and that thing being our desire to persevere. All our peoples have at one time or another been oppressed and have proven time after time to rise above. So this argument can be thrown out, based on what we humans have proved that we are, and none have ever succumbed to being dammed.

The next Fallacy I’ll tackle, is the Jews commissioning the Lepers to handle their dirty work poising the waters. It’s probably easy to laugh this one off based on modern day knowledge of how difficult it would be to pull off such an elaborate scheme. But then I’ll try to put myself in this time period, when you if dying of pneumonia, the Doctors of that time told you that pray for the stars to align. This is a time, where centuries before, Seas were parted and a Divine Man walked on water. So the fact is that I believe that there is a great chance that if we were living at that time, “Group Think” and also Racism” would have probably made this crazy notion plausible.

The assumption and my personal reactions are that the claims of “Blaming the Jews” is no different than blaming Hip Hop for Crime, or blaming Homosexuals for Aids. In every corner around the world, whether its peoples of different races or ethnic backgrounds, we have not changed much over time. Though we are now beginning to explore and possibly improve our most detrimental defect as humans, good old fashion racism is the culprit here.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Sanitation...

From my understanding, a logical fallacy is a logical step in an argument which is incorrect allowing for a conclusion to be drawn. It is certainly understandable how the people of that era could reach such conclusions about the causes of the Black Plague. The evidence given in regards to sanitation is one of the logical fallacies because it is definitely plausible that the widespread dumping of waste in small towns could have cause and or spread the debilitating infectious disease. However, it was later discovered that the Black Plague was indeed caused and spread by rodent and flea bites. This surely is a good explanation as to why the sanitation workers were the first to die.

The second logical fallacy is the "poisoning of the water supply". This reasoning isn't irrational for the people during this specific time period. The evidence for these beliefs was that they tortured confessions out of the Jews. Which in itself shows that they were indeed overpowered by these people.

The underlying assumption of this claim is that there were definitely other forces at work and that the Jewish people had something to do with it. I definitely feel that the assumption previously stated is unfair and is further from the truth. Their reasoning for their belief doesn't add up nor make any sense.