Book Review

Many have said that the Black Death or the plaque was a horrible event that
struck across Europe hundreds of years ago. It took many lives destroyed class
structures and cause great suffering to the family members of those who died. !nd this
horrible period of our history has ended with no effects on our modern life today" or does
it# I believe that the Black Death or plaque has a big part of our ordinary day lives but
we $ust haven%t linked the connection between them yet. &e $ust take these things for
granted like the profession of doctors pharmacist and other types of medical fields. 'his
plaque also effects our current population by a huge margin. 'his horrible disease also
could have affected other parts in history like the &orld &ar II. 'he Black Death has left
behind many terrible scars to Europe%s history while at the same time brought us a better
future.
(ne of the effects of the Black Death was the rise of Doctors or )hysicians
because for the need to heal and treat the sick. !s shown in
)hysicians too were in demand. Boccaccio again laments that
*the numbers +of physicians, had increased enormously because the
ranks of the qualified were invaded by people both men and women
who had never received any training in medicine.- ./erlihy 012
But as said above that many of these newly instated )hysicians had absolutely no training
at all thus lead to the rise in demand for education. 3o many college4universities were
founded 'here is a list universities that were established because of this plaque
'hus 5ambridge 6niversity acquired four new colleges the foundations
of which can be associated with the Black Death. 7onville was
established between 1809 and 18:1" 'rinity /all in 18:;" 5orpus
5hristi in 18:<" and 5lare /all in 18=<. (>ford acquired two new
colleges? 5anterbury in 18=< and @ew 5ollege 18A<. ./erlihy A;2
'he Black Death was a terrible thing for the people of that century but it has left modern
day Europe with many learning institution for people like us to learn.
!s we all know already that plaques usually don%t leave behind positive
outcomes it actually depends on how you look at that makes it positive or negative. 'he
Black Death killed many people as we all know but was it so bad for it to happen# !
Man named 'homas Mathus doesn%t think so" he believes that the plaque was the earth%s
handy work to solve over population as stated in
In it he concluded that human populations would tend to e>pand up to
and beyond the limits a reckoning was inevitable. 'he reckoning took
the form of famines epidemics wars and the soaring morality resulting
from them. 'hese *positive checks- as he called them violently reduced
the community%s numbers to a siBe that its resources could support.
./erlihy 812
I don%t truly believe that this is earth%s response to overpopulation but it does make one
thing though. But opinions aside this nasty plaque did contribute to our current world
population. If the plaque hadn%t occurred we would have run low on resources long time
ago. It is sad to think that many lives had been sacrificed for the greater good of all.
!nd finally another effect that the Black Death brought was the hatred of Cews. In
early 1809 many rumors that the Cews were putting poisons in wells and other water
sources is what caused the plaque thus leading to violent treatment of Cews as stated on
*Early in 1809 the rumor arose that the Cews of northern 3pain and southern Drance were
poisoning the 5hristian wells and thus disseminating the plaque.- ./erlihy =:2. 'he
hatred of Cews isn%t problem today but during &orld &ar II it might have been one of
the reasons that /itler blamed 7ermany%s horrible situation on the Cews and using them
as escape goats.
3o as I stated before the Black Death wasn%t really all negative outcomes it did
bring us more health professionals we see today and the large amount universities in
Europe. /ow ever it is regrettably that this plaque took the lives of so many people that
there isn%t an e>act number as to how many people were lost but people have speculated
that it took A;E9; percent of the overall population in Europe.
*'he Black Death and the 'ransformation of the west- by David /erlihy isn%t
e>actly a novel that I would often normally read because it isn%t a story that the author is
creating. 'his novel was more of an essay in my opinion" this novel was like in depth
research into the effects and causes of the Black Death. !s you can see in the citations
above that his style of writing is advance but in the style of formal essay not as fictional
or nonEfictional story teller. I must say that the author did a great $ob on this novel
because it was well organiBed. 'he first chapter he discusses the disease and the effects of
the disease and different opinions on why this epidemic broke out of control. 'he second
chapter was on the societies that the people lived in like economic situations and how the
plaque affects each class. !nd finally the third chapter was on individual life styles of the
people and how the plaque affects religion and education. !nother e>ample that proves
that this is indeed an essay is the long list of sources he used in e>plaining to us the views
of other authors on the Black Death. But I can honestly say that this book has broadened
my horiBons to the Black Death. Before I $ust thought of the Black Death as a disease that
killed many people a long time ago but after reading this book I learned more about the
daily lives of people of that century" from the individuals to the community as a whole. If
you compared this novel to our normal history te>t" our history te>t is lacking a lot of
information on this sub$ect.