The Black Death was a plague that swept through Europe in the 1300s that killed somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of their population. It was carried by fleas, which lived on rats, which could easily stow away on ships and be transported from country to country. The disease peaked in Europe between 1348 and 1350.

the black death

There were three types of plague associated with this time period that took hundreds of thousands of lives, and their symptoms varied. If you had been so unfortunate to get the bubonic plague (which was very likely, as it was the most common of the three during the black death), you would first feel general uneasiness. Like that feeling that something is wrong, but you can’t quite place your finger on what. It would soon be followed by nausea, vomiting, headaches, and very painful joint aches. You would develop a fever of somewhere between 101 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and likely be dead within eight days. The mortality rate for the bubonic plague was somewhere between 30 and 75%

The second most common had a mortality rate of 90-95% and was known as the Pneumonic plague. There was a bad fever associated with this as well. But its main calling card was a bloody, phlegm-y, cough which became more free flowing and a bright red color the further the disease progressed.

The final and least common of the three plagues of the black death was the septicemic plague. Though it was not as common as the other two, it had a nearly one hundred percent mortality rate and the symptoms associated with it were mainly a high fever and purple patches on the skin due to blood clots and internal bleeding. The septicemic plague wasn’t a coughing, sick-sick, kind of illness, you see. It was a multiple organ failure kind of illness.

There have been modern cases of ‘plague’ as recently as 1995, but nowhere close to the epidemic that it was back then. So far, only one modern case has been resistant to antibiotics. Let us hope that it does not mutate and become as dangerous to us as it was to the people of the medieval times.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow

As a child Mathew played the game of operation countless times. He decided before he was ten years old that he wanted to be a doctor -a surgeon to be exact- and he plowed through his schoolwork like a man possessed. His parents didn’t have the money to put him through medical school, but did he care? No. He managed to win scholarships and grants and got through medical school just fine on his own.

Doctor and Nurse

Once he was finally in the position that he had so craved throughout his younger years, he found that something was off, something was missing. When it came time to pick his team, he close wisely and carefully, but there was one woman who caught his eye. She was a brunette named Charlotte, and the only one of his team members that he picked on impulse. He couldn’t say why he did it, only that he saw something in her that he recognized in himself, and that he suspected she might be helpful to him later on.

Weeks later during a routine surgery, that moment came. He was removing the tonsils from a man, an average joe, when he realized what was missing. He had already removed the organs in question, and logically should have been stitching the man back up, but instead he held his and out towards Charlotte and asked for the scalpel. He risked a glance, and though he couldn’t see it, he could feel her smiling under the surgical mask as she quickly handed him the item. Before the others in the room could stop him, he turned his attentions to the man’s face and began to remove his lower jaw. He knew this was what he had been missing, the satisfying moment that he had waited all his life for. Above the panicked voices and hurried footsteps coming towards him, he could hear her giggling.

She’d been a good choice indeed, he thought. Perhaps if he ever got out of prison he would ask her out to dinner.

A partner in crime medicine can be hard to find, so be sure to choose carefully who you want to be your trusted assistant when you dress in doctor or nurse costumes this Halloween. Be sure to splash on a little fake blood for effect, Mathew wouldn’t have it any other way.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow