Blog 4: Black Death


Something that caught my attention was the plague that spread all over in the early fourteenth century. The plague, also known as as the pestilence, and later know as the Black death killed many people. It was spread along the trade routes of the Mongol Empire, which was transmitted by flees to humans. In 1409 it eventually reached East Africa, likely by the Chinese maritime expedition. The Black Death was quite an epidemic that started from one place and began spreading all over the continents. Survival rates were low and I begin to wonder how far along their science was at the time, that there were unable to find a cure for this disease or at least helped stop the amount of people infected by it. Was it that there were no doctors at the time and all the medication given where remedies from home? The deaths of these people must have had a great impact on the trade as I assume that people infected by it must have been exposed to the transportation or someone exposed to it.

It is saddening to know that many people died for the disease. I can totally relate to what happened during this era because this personally happened to my family. My mom’s brother died at the age of two from a suppose flu. He had the symptoms of fever, coughs, and diarrhea. My grandmother would try to cure him with home remedies because the doctor was expensive and two hours away in horse transportation. She gave him and did everything she could and my uncle eventually passed away. My mother and her sister share the story and still wonder the real reasoning upon the death of their brother. Was it that he had some sort of disease or infection? Was it because of the lack of resources that he died of dehydration?  Although in the U.S you can easily go to a hospital when not feeling well, there are many countries, like Mexico, that still have trouble finding an efficient health care clinic or hospital near their home. Although reading this chapter may seem like this only happened during that time era it actually still happens today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog 8: Global Urbanization & Global development and Inequality.

After analyzing and looking at the snapshot global urbanization from 1950 and 2014 its interesting to see how world’s population has grown over time. In 1950, the highest population country and city was New York City in the U. S. In 2014, the highest population country and city is Tokyo, Japan. This is interesting because Tokyo, japan was the second highest country in 1950 and reached the highest in 2014, while New York City decreased to the 9 th place in 2014. Although New York, U.S is in the 9 th place it still has a high population of 18.6 million. As for Tokyo, Japan they have a population of 37.8 million in 2014, 25.5 million difference from Tokyo japan in 2014 than New York City, U.S in 1950. Overall, the populations in all countries in 2014 show higher number than those in 1950. After analyzing the global development and inequality snapshot of 2011, it confirmed that poor countries suffer a lot. Those with fewer income such as Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Myanma...
Read more

Blog 5: Portugese Empire & Slave Trade

It was interesting to learn about the Portuguese Empire of Commerce, where the learned that the merchandise ships through the Indian Ocean were not heavily armed and lacked support of weapons and security, which the Portuguese ships had. This gave them the opportunity to take advantage of no power dominating the seas to outmaneuver naval forces since their cannons would crush coastal fortifications. The Portuguese created the “trading post empire” in the Indian Ocean, leading them to ask merchants for a pass to pay duties of up to ten percent, blocking the Red Sea route to the Mediterranean. Although they thought they were going to conquer most of the trade like in the European, they never succeeded in controlling them. Reading about the Atlantic Slave trade was very informative, where slaves were being transported all over the country just as merchandise or products. Slave trade definitely enriched Europeans and Euro American. Something that interested me w...
Read more

Blog 7: China and Ottoman Empire & The Great War

  It was interesting to learn that although China and Ottoman Empires were really centered of what their outcomes, neither of them was able to create industrial economies or strong states to defend themselves over the European intrusion. China and Ottoman were able to rise new nationalist conceptions of society which were important for their future. China’s imperial system collapse in 1912 followed by the revolutionary upheaval. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I led to the existence of Turkey which was placed in the old empire where Arab and European lost their provinces. It was heart breaking to read that when the Great War started most Europeans believed that he men would be back home for Christmas, but did not happen because war was on for more than four years. Extended battles were happening for many months creating a whole lot of destruction and tragic. The war seemed to mimic the enlightenment values of progress, tolerance, and...
Read more