THE LIMIT BETWEEN KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING
THE LIMIT BETWEEN KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING
Prof. Dr. Kadircan KESKİNBORA
Bahçeşehir University Faculty of Medicine
HBT Magazine 31 October 2016
The frequent plague, an extremely dangerous and contagious disease, brought an unprecedented disaster to Europe in its terrible attack in the 14th century.
The plague started in China and Central Asia and spread all over the world from there. The plague reached Europe through Asian traders selling plague-infected furs they bought from China to Europe. Researchers say that fleas and mice living on the ship are also effective in the spread of this disease.
In addition, at that time, the chief of the Crimean Tatars, Janibek, besieged the Genoese port and threw his own plague-infected men into the city with a catapult, infecting the Italians with the disease. The first cities to encounter the plague that infected Italians were Genoa, Messina and Venice. Afterwards, the Plague Epidemic came to Paris in 1348, affected London in 1349, and after Scotland and Scandinavia, it reached the homeland of the Tatars, where it started. In Florence, 45,000 out of 90,000 people, in France, 125,000 people, in England, 1,000,000 people, and in Venice, 75% of the population died from the plague epidemic
Although Christians saw this epidemic in which they were helpless as "the wrath of God", they found the solution by taking refuge in some idols and saints, to which they attributed holiness, and by resorting to some objects inherited from the saints. They were moving the remaining belongings around the cities, thinking that they would be a cure for the epidemic. Thus, the clergy took over the work of medicine. They also tried to treat the epidemic with crosses, candles, and exorcisms.
In fact, one of the most common ways to appease God's anger was to kill the Jews who were thought to have caused the epidemic . As the epidemic could not be prevented, societies became afraid. They ran away from it to escape, causing it to spread even more. In this sense, "burning of plague victims", "witch hunting" and "Jew hunting" were famous in Western societies in the darkness of the Middle Ages.
In Switzerland and southern France, people found Jews guilty and burned hundreds of them. This actually infected the whole world as a more terrible example than the plague epidemic. In Narbonne and Carcassone, the bigoted people took out their anger on the British, who were considered enemies of the Kingdom. The British were torn to pieces on the walls of these cities and thrown into the fire.
In his expert report on the terrible plague epidemic in 1348, the professor of the University of Montpellier attributed the responsibility for the spread of the plague to the patient's gaze and advised the physician or priest to close the patient's eyes or cover them with a cloth before examining and touching them.
They believed that the foul-smelling air in the sky was caused by meteorites falling from above, or, as Kunrat von Megenberg said, "gushed from the veins of the earth" with earthquakes and caused trouble to people in the form of plague.
Belgian physician Simon de Covino states that the whole fault lies in the great conjunction between Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, 14 degrees below Aquarius, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on March 20, 1345, and states that "the most hostile celestial bodies, especially Saturn, were infinitely negative." It has an effect and that is why, above all, the angel of death rises!” he said.
- Although this epidemic was called the "Great Death" in the 14th century, it was defined as the "Black Death" in later years. The reason for this is that, according to general belief, the skin turns black due to subcutaneous bleeding as a result of this disease. In fact, this name is used in a figurative sense, where "black" means gloomy, troubled, sorrowful. The Black Death had a huge impact on Europe's population and changed Europe's social foundations. The Black Death, which was also a huge blow to the Roman Catholic Church; It has led to the persecution of minorities, especially Jews, Muslims, foreigners and beggars. The uncertainty of daily life pushed people to live that day, and this was reflected in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, written in 1353.
The Plague Epidemic, which he describes in detail in the introduction of the Decameron, is the most striking and vivid document of the attitude of the European society towards this terrible disaster: “Although it would not be heartening to explain how the citizen avoided the citizen (…) brother avoided brother, uncle avoided nephew.” Most of the time, the woman was running away from her husband. Mothers and fathers were seen leaving their children alone (…) many died in the streets day and night; Even their neighbors were not aware of the death of most of those who died in their homes until the smell of their corpses spread around (…) two or three corpses were being carried in the same coffin at the same time. There was only one coffin for a husband and wife, two or three brothers, or father and son (…) No matter how many funerals there were, there would be no crowd to mourn and shed tears, nor would there be anyone to light candles. So much so that in those days, human death was not as important as chicken death today.”
The general opinion about the plague epidemic of this terrible year was this:
“It is the result of the influence of the heavenly bodies, or the result of God's anger at our unjust actions and his desire to discipline mortals. Neither any knowledge nor any human measure is of any use… Therefore, one must perform religious ceremonies and repent before God, not once but many times.” And so the epidemic was given additional support as people gathered together again and again.
Ve böylece insanlar tekrar tekrar bir araya toplandığından salgına ek destekler verilmiş oluyordu.
For the Islamic world, which was well aware of the dangers of infection caused by contact, the plague had neither a metaphysical nor a magical side. The boundary between cool-headed judgment and superstition was - at the time in question - the boundary between the enlightened Islamic Civilization and the intellectually "backward" Christianity.
It was calculated that the world population, which was 450 million before the epidemic that lasted between 1347-1351, dropped to 350 million. While the population of Europe was more than 75 million, the population dropped to approximately 50 million when one third of the European population died in the epidemic.
RESOURCES
- Barry S, Gualde N. The Biggest Epidemics of History (La plus grande épidémie de l'histoire, inL'Histoire, June 2006, article from the whole issue is dedicated to the Black Plague, pp. 38-60).
- Tuncer A. Infectious Diseases and Prevention in Public Health, Ankara, 1983, pp.3-5.