The Plague Disease Europe

Plauges broke out all over Eurpoe between the fiftenth and the sevententh century, plague affected millions of Europeans and killed so many of them. It would be terrifying to be in  their place, wondering if or when you would become effected and probably die. Plague could even cause people to act in strange and devious ways. The documents given some ways how people react in those kinds of situations, and more importantly they give us info on what it was like during those times. After doing an analyis on these documents it is shown that the plague caues men and woman to behave irrationally in an attempt to grasp or abuse the situation, and causes much panic around Europe; because millions of Europeans had died and in places  bodies were everywhere and everything is bleak.

During plagues some Europeans abused the situation for money, but what's even worse about it is some would go to the lengths of murder to aquire this money. Johann Wyer, a German physician, wrote in his book "The Deceptions of Demons" (doc 2) that fourty people in Western Lombardy were paid to smear ointment on the gates of the town to spread the plague so that the heirs of the sick could obtain their inheritances more quickly. Now these is very devious of the heirs and it can be struck as horryfing that these heirs to fortunes would actually pay people to ecentially murder their relatives, all for money. A relatively similar situation occurs in Barcelona where Miguel Parets, a tanner in Barcelona, writes in his diary (doc 7) that many nurses were needed at the time of the 1650's but weren't easy to come by. He goes on to claim that many times did the nurses make the patients die faster so they could collect the fees they agreed on. Wyer and Parets both experiance situations where people exploited the horrible situation of plague in order to get money, and that these people

would essentially kill or assist in the death of innocent individuals. POV In Weyer's response to plague it can be noted as odd that he's a German Physician writing about an event that happened in Lombarady. It is known that during the middle ages and the Renaissance that there is not many doctors, because in order to be a doctor you would need to come from a rich family. So maybe the reason he showing concern in this event was that some of the people who got sick and died were some of his clients, considering that it is already known that the people who died were rich because they were being killed for money; and because his clients are being killed he's worrying about having less buisness so in turn less money. It can also be noted that the title of Weyer's book Deception of Demons seems to be more of religious related book rather than a medical book. One thing rather odd about Parets response is that he is a tanner writing about what the nurses are doing, how does he know about the nurses killing off the patients and more importantly why would he even care? It could be theorized that the reason Parets cares about the situation is for the same reason Weyer cares about the death of Europeans in Lomabardy, since it is potiently their customers than they worry that if these deaths stays constant than they would lose money. Parets could be knowlegable about the more rapid deaths caused by the nurses is because maybe he saw an instense were a nurse had somehow made someone sickly die faster, however if that's true then how does he know that other nurses are doing the same thing? To put it simply he doesn't, he just saw the one situation and assumed that the other nurses were doing the same thing as the one he saw.