In the medieval era the Black Death was more than just a thorn in the lion's side. During that time, few people reached what is now our national life expectancy. The death rate of the Black Death haunts us to this day. The Black Death, if it returned today with a drug-resistant strain, could easily devastate the world and everyone in it. Arguably, it would be similar to Stephen King's The Stand... except there would be no Hollywood to turn it into a movie, no writers to turn it into a book, at least for a number of years. The Black Death can easily be considered the worst disease to ever strike humanity. The plague hit Europe and the rest of the world hard three times. The Black Death still exists today, although it is not as fatal as before due to the miracles of modern medicine. “Between 1900 and 2010, there were 999 confirmed or probable cases of human plague in the United States” (CDC). Yes, it still exists, even in the United States. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Plague throughout history has come to devastate countries for long periods of time. “The Black Death is thought to have originated on the arid plains of Central Asia, where it then traveled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea in 1346,” (BBC), the Silk Road being the ancient version of the highway . The Silk Road transported everything from silk to gold to diseases such as the plague, usually carried by rats that snuck into the transported goods. The three major plague episodes occurred in the 6th-7th centuries in Constantinople and then in the 1300s in Europe, ending the last major epidemic in Asia and India in the late 1800s. In a sense, especially considering the number of ways in when it comes back, it's almost like the flu on steroids... except luckily it doesn't tend to come back every year. Due to the strength of the Black Death, a “resistance to AIDS” (Damen) is found in European populations. Europe never seems to have a respite: by the beginning of the 19th century the threat of the plague had diminished, but it was quickly replaced by a new disease (CBC). Cholera quickly became Europe's next big killer, going back to the Black Death. When the Black Death hit Europe in the 1300s, it began to spread to Italy, and then quickly spread deeper into Europe. True contagion arises from diffusion. “The plague is said to have three forms” (Horrox), all horrible. One way infects the lungs and eventually makes breathing impossible. If one were unlucky enough to get it, they would die in less than two days. The second form starts mainly in the armpits and spreads. The third (regardless of gender) spreads mostly to the genital area of ​​the body and kills you anyway. A few key symptoms of the plague are what helped lead to its naming, most notably the fact that an infected person's skin begins to turn black due to gangrene. Gangrene is a condition that occurs when tissues become infected and improperly treated. It causes the skin to turn various shades of green, until it becomes completely dead and black. Another common symptom is identified as buboes. Buboes are similar to pimples, accept that they are hundreds of times larger and are less easy to open, although they ooze pus and blood when opened. Often, if an infected person's buboes began to shrink, they survived the plague, although this was rare. “Rats… are not the cause of the plague” (Damen). Rats, although necessary for the survival of the plague, are not the cause of it; the real cause is rat parasites, which.