Pest over Europa.

Six-part series examining the plague from two angles: the disease as we know it from the last 400 years incorporating the latest scientific research, and the history of society and culture, focusing on the changes the plague brought about in the short and long term. Part 1: How the plague came to Europe in 1347 and the effect of the plague on people and society. The general view was that the plague was a punishment sent by God and could not spread from person to person. Part 2: How society changed when a second epidemic of plague arrived; the nobility could not protect people from the the plague and the religious systems changed. Part 3: Living under the threat of further outbreaks of plague, many people looked to physicians for help, but they were philosophers whose theories were related to the constellation of the stars and planets. In Northern Italy the health commission was established and their developments spread to Northern Europe. Part 4: Recent research suggests that the mediaeval plague was not bubonic plague but another disease; some researchers believe the Black Death was an emerging disease (a zoonosis from Ethiopia). The symptoms and characteristics of the first plague are compared with those of an outbreak of Bubonic plague in Asia in the late 19th century. Part 5: As people became resistant to the plague there was a sense that each person should take responsibility for their own life and of having power over nature and disease. Physicians became more confident in their research and studied the human anatomy. Part 6: The last outbreaks of the plague in Venice (1630), Copenhagen (1711) and Marseille (1720). The methods of attempting to contain the disease are covered.