, Research Paper

The devastation and desolation caused by the? Black

Death? of the Middle Ages was a phenomenon left to

admiration at in text books of historical Europe. An

unstoppable pestilence swept the continent taking every bit much as

80 per centum of the European population along with it

( Forsyth ) . However, Today the universe is plagued with a

similar lifelessly disease. The AIDS epidemic continues to be

incurable. In an essay written by David Herlihy, entitled

? Bubonic Plague: Historical Epidemiology and the Medical

Problems, ? the historic bubonic pestilence is compared with

the current AIDS epidemic of today. Harmonizing to his

research, AIDS will likely turn out to be the pestilence of the

millenary ( Herlihy p. 18 ) . If one compares the

epidemiology and societal impact of these diseases they

turn out to be rather similar. The current AIDS epidemic has

the possible to be the most unsafe and destructive

pestilence of the millenary. No 1 knows precisely how the

AIDS virus erupted. However, one soon dominant

theory provinces that AIDS originated from monkeys in Africa

that transmitted the HIV virus to worlds through bites

( Forsyth ) . As people migrated it reached Haiti and so

spread to America ( Clark p. 65 ) . The bubonic pestilence, excessively,

was a self-generated epidemic. The Black Death occurred

because a B was carried by fleas that fed off the

blood of worlds and transmitted the deathly B in the

procedure ( Packer ) . It began in China and spread by

migration throughout all of Europe and even America

( Forsyth ) . Attempts to incorporate both diseases were wholly

unsuccessful. AIDS is now an international job as was

the bubonic pestilence. Like the bubonic pestilence did in the

Middle Ages, AIDS is distributing at an dismaying rate. In

1994 17 million people around the universe were

infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, and four

million had developed the disease ( Packer ) . It is estimated

that by the twelvemonth 2000 more than 40 million people, 90

per centum in developing states will be infected ( Packer ) .

The Black Death of the Middle Ages exterminated a 3rd

of the population of Europe in merely four

old ages. Besides, like the

bubonic pestilence, AIDS was one time merely found among certain

delineated societal groups: ( Herlihy p. 18 ) drug maltreaters and

homophiles in this state and in cocottes and their

contacts in Africa. Due to the early epidemiology of AIDS

instances, it was believed that merely certain populations in

specific countries were infected. Aidss may hold started out in

little communities, but it spread rapidly and widely. We

are now cognizant that the HIV virus is non limited in its

choice of hosts. Anyone can go septic despite

one? s background. Similarly, the pestilence of the Middle Ages

was one time believed to merely infect the destitute. Royalty

was speedy to larn. Peoples of assorted societal statures

finally became victims. Socially people responded in

similar manners to these flagellums. When AIDS foremost

arrived, households frequently withdrew from their loved one? s

because they were ashamed or they did non desire to cover

with the heartbreaking battle of a long painful decease of a

household member. Society shunned AIDS victims, fearing the

contagious menace of any contact. During the Middle Ages

households would put their ailment relatives in the streets to decease. It

was excessively much of a hazard to help the septic because

normally those who did became infected every bit good. It was

even believed that one could go septic merely through

a stare from person who was infected. Soon and in

the yesteryear, infected peoples have been disregarded and

feared. It is because of superstitious notions and biass that

societies live in ignorance and fright. When compared with

the bubonic pestilence of the Middle Ages, the epidemiology

and virulency of the AIDS virus are strikingly similar. ? If

history remains a dependable usher, this epidemic excessively will run

its barbarous class, distributing acute wretchedness. Then it will take

its topographic point in the background of the ecosystem, alongside the

beings that cause grippe, pox, rubeolas and a host

of other infections. ? ( Maning ) The similar features of

the bubonic pestilence and the HIV virus threaten AIDS to be

the most unsafe and destructive pestilence of the

millenary as David Herlihy proposed.