Known as the most notorious pandemics in human history, the plague first emerged in Europe in the mid fourteenth century and continued to spread sporadically throughout until the eighteenth century. The cause and spread of the disease, that killed 25 million people in the first wave alone, was never understood until years later. This adequate lack of scientific and medical knowledge resulted in three common reactions: fear, superstition, and exploitation.
This atrocious disease, more than anything, instilled fear in the people of Europe. These people would sometimes resort to ruthless or irrational measures. A number of educated people placed survival as chief and did not bother showing up to school. In the meantime, most of the rich fled in fear. Some rich, nevertheless, still worried about unnecessary luxuries such as the fact that their wigs could be contaminated with the disease Many merchants, that Daniel Defoe noted, suffered greatly from the slowdown and eventual halting of trade between European nations. The government and some doctors played a role in attempting to halt the spread of the disease by needless or inhumane means. Houses were sealed with the victims buried inside and many citizens died of starvation, locked inside their homes in fear of leaving the premises.
Another way people reacted to the mysterious disease was through superstition or religious customs, such as blood letting. However, without knowing the cause or remedy for such a sickness, anything sounded plausible. Some great thinkers and physicians could not even conclude a rational explanation and blamed it on the wrath of god and the sinful people of the cities. Even Erasmus believed it was caused from the unsanitary conditions of the city and the peoples’ homes. Several common people assumed superstitious methods such as wearing toads around their neck to extract the disease may help. Other common folk believed that sacred items that came into contact with holy entities could save a victim. Many Christians, such as the priests, believed that moral and compassionate duties performed by them would guarantee immunity. Or some Christians would just trust that the whole dilemma was in God’s hands and he would do what is best, as expressed by Sir John Reresby.
Unfortunately, during anytime crisis, some group will manage to exploit the less fortunate. The leading party behind this example is the rich. The wealth had the resources to flee the disease stricken cities, directing the illness towards the poor. Greed was even a factor in the exploitation of friends and family for inheritances and money. Johann Weyer noted that some individuals applied infected ointment on the bolts of the town gates to spread disease, in hopes of receiving inheritances quicker. It is believed that some nurses facilitated the death of an infected person to collect their fees for handling the sick faster.
The dire effect of the plague is evident but the actual degree will never be known. According to Francois Botti, a local physician in Paris, over 800 people died a day of the plague. Botti’s statistics, then recorded in the city’s obituaries, exposed the true extent of the outbreak. This detail would only continue to fuel the fear, superstition and exploitation of the unrelenting disease among the European people.