ABSTRACT
The plague recurred in vast swaths of the world, especially in Europe and the lands of the Ottoman Empire, from the fourteenth into the nineteenth century, with many virulent outbreaks. Symptoms of bubonic plague include high fevers, convulsions, vomiting, and severe pain in the limbs. A significant distinguishing factor in bubonic plague, which is frequently mentioned in early modern sources, is the bubo—a swollen mass at key lymph nodes, often in the armpits, groin, or neck area. Bubonic plague can be spread to humans by insects, typically fleas that infect certain animals, as well as by other humans. As a zoonotic disease, plague persists in cycles of exchange of the bacterium between rodent hosts, with fleas typically serving as vectors of transmission. The bubonic plague was both destructive and long-lasting, in many ways reshaping the way that people understood and interacted with the world and one another.
