The Black Death And how it all began

The plague doctors back when the black death was around were very different to how doctors are in this day and age. Back then doctors didn’t wear white coats and latex gloves, instead they wore nothing but leather. The reason for this is because they believed that bacteria can’t go through hard surfaces like leather, which we know is true. They also wore pointy masks shaped like a birds’ beak and no they didn’t want to look like birds. They used them because they put herbs and flowers in the beak so that they couldn’t smell the smell of death (also referred to as miasma). They carried around a cane so that instead of touching the dying patient with their leather covered hands, they poked them with the stick. Plague doctors weren’t very knowledgeable about diseases back then (unlike professional doctors that we have today) so most plague doctors were normal people trying to help the sick. The plague doctors masks also sometimes had bright red eye pieces because they wanted to protect their eyes from poisonous air and they believed that red glass helped ward off evil.

How the plague came to be in Eyam The plague first came to be in Eyam because a tailor’s assistant opened a package from London. Turns out that there were fleas in the package. The tailor didn’t know so he shook the piece of fabric and the fleas got scattered everywhere. Obviously he was the first person to get infected with the plague in Eyam. The plague soon spread to his assistant, his family, his neighbours and then eventually to everyone else in Eyam. So I suppose it would have been nice to have a heads up from London before they sent the package. So in conclusion Eyam had to quarantine themselves.

Symptoms of the plague First of all the plague would kill you in six days so these symptoms would come up pretty quickly and would kill you quite rapidly. The first symptom would be that you start to grow painful buboes (an enlarged or swollen lymph node) in your groin area, your armpits and your neck. The second symptom of the plague is that you would get really bad headaches. After that you would then receive a painful selection of chills, fever, fatigue and weakness. That will all happen within a six day period and after you have suffered all of those symptoms then you will suddenly die in pain and in suffering. Just be glad that the plague isn’t around today but if it was we have the right doctors to kill the bug. How would people know if a household had the plague? To make people know that particular household had the plague they would paint a giant red cross on their front door and write the words “lord have mercy on us”. That idea was a good idea because that told people to stay away because that house had the black death.

How could they buy supplies if the coins were infected? To answer that question, they used a well called mompesson’s well. To buy food and other supplies that Eyam needed they would use mompesson’s well so that they could pay the people outside of Eyam for the supplies that they needed. In order to make sure that the people outside of Eyam didn’t get this deadly disease they would put vinegar in the well. They would then put the coins that they needed to into the well in order to pay and the vinegar would disinfect the coins. How clever is that? ! The people of Eyam would also make little coin sized holes in the wall and they would sometimes put the coins through the hole soaked in vinegar. Did you know that mompesson’s well is still there to this day? Well you do now so why don’t you take a trip up to Eyam and see it for yourself.