Bubonic Plague - Research Paper Example

In Third Pandemic during the mid 19th the Bubonic plague caused mass epidemic in parts of Central Asia, China and India with the Plague of Pune in 1897 being the most infamous amongst all. This paper attempts to take a brief look at the aftereffects of the epidemics caused mainly by Bubonic plague in the Demographic and Socio-Economic sectors. An in depth look is taken at the impact of the plague in Europe (14th century) and in South-east Asia (late 19th and early 20th century). (Weapon of Mass Destruction; Dufel and Cronin; “The outbreak of bubonic plague in Pune in 1896-97”, 2010) The catastrophic and cumulative impact of the Bubonic Plague depicts an example of the way an ailment can terrorize human civilization.

The worst victim of the Bubonic plague has been Europe in the mid 14th century. However the aftershocks of the plague continued to the end 14th century and by that time almost half of the European population has perished. The deaths of more than a million people over the decades during the epidemic of ‘Black Deaths’ left a deep structural change in the European society, especially among the urban population. The early effects of the epidemic were reflected with a resurgence of hostile attitude towards the Jews.

Anti-Semitism gained strong grounds as the Jews were looked upon as conspirators who had inflicted the plague epidemic upon the Christian community. The fact that Jews were significantly affected by the death tolls could not convince them. An important social effect was the near disappearance of the clergy class in Europe. As the then living conditions and arrangements of the clergies helped easy transmission of the plague a large section of the priests and nuns in the churches of Europe fell prey to the epidemic (Spiro).

The following table shows the impact the plague had in terms of death toll: Besides this the epidemic clearly