Black Death, Precursor to the Renaissance

The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) was a plague that ravaged Europe beginning around 1347 and claimed about 100 million lives. The plague was believed to be spread by blood poisoning due to bacteria infected fleas that infested rats and humans.
Once someone was bitten by an infected flea it could take about 1-7 days for symptoms to show up. However, once the symptoms showed up the infected person often died that very same week. Symptoms included cough, fever, swelling of the buboes, blood in the saliva and eventually a blackening of the body due to disseminated intravascular coagulation where the blood would clot and could no longer distribute oxygen throughout the body which resulted in the shut down of organs and decay of the body.
Here's a clip from Monty Python's Holy Grail that will give you an idea of what things were like during the Black Plague.

kristen
sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/fleas/bdeath/Black.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs