James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons Senior Honors Projects, 2010-current Honors College Spring 2015 The medical response to the Black Death Joseph A. Legan James Madison University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019 Part of the Bacterial Infections and Mycoses Commons, European History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Infectious Disease Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Medical Humanities Commons, Medieval History Commons, and the Medieval Studies Commons Recommended Citation Legan, Joseph A., "The medical response to the Black Death" (2015). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-current. 103. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/103 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Honors Projects, 2010-current by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Medical Response to the Black Death _______________________ An Honors Program Project Presented to the Faculty of the Undergraduate College of Arts and Letters James Madison University _______________________ by Joseph Andrew Legan May 2015 Accepted by the faculty of the Department of History, James Madison University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors Program. FACULTY COMMITTEE: HONORS PROGRAM APPROVAL: Project Advisor: John Butt, Ph.D., Philip Frana, Ph.D., Professor, History Interim Director, Honors Program Reader: Alison Sandman, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History Reader: Timothy Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, History Table of Contents List of Figures 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 Biomedical Context 6 The Black Death in Europe 10 The Black Death Outside of Europe 20 The Medical Response in Europe 25 The Medical Response in the Middle East 36 Other Responses to the Plague 47 Effect on Medicine 53 Conclusion 59 Appendix 62 Annotated Bibliography 67 2 List of Figures 1.