Fletcher Armstrong is the south east director of the Center for Bioethical Reform.















*****







Father abandoned child, wife husband, one

brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and

sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or

friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they

could, without priest, without divine offices … great pits were dug and piled

deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds both day and night

… And as soon as those ditches were filled more were dug … And I, Agnolo di

Tura … buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those

who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and

devoured many bodies throughout the city. There was no one who wept for any

death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end

of the world.















That’s a quote from the Italian chronicler

Agnolo di Tura about the effects of the Black Death, which did a

deadly circuit of Europe in the 1340s and 1350s, killing perhaps a third of the

population or more. It returned at various intervals for centuries, causing

more localized but sometimes just as deadly epidemics. But don’t let that get

you too paranoid, this disease can be now easily cured with antibiotics, which

weren’t available in the fourteenth century.







Nevertheless, the Black Death is something

that still haunts the culture of Europe and beyond. The danse macabre, with its awkward dancing skeletons, is still a

common image, as is that of the plague doctor, with the black gown and long

beak-like plague mask.







The southern German village of Oberammergau