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Quiz about The Problem of the Plague
Quiz about The Problem of the Plague

The Problem of the Plague Trivia Quiz


In 1348-9, the Black Death killed twenty million people, a third of the population of Europe. The effort to explain exactly what caused this pestilence has gone on for hundreds of years - here we sample theories from medieval and modern times.

A multiple-choice quiz by CellarDoor. Estimated time: 7 mins.
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Author
CellarDoor
Time
7 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
43,008
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Difficult
Avg Score
5 / 10
Plays
3688
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: Guest 47 (7/10), Guest 204 (2/10), Guest 31 (7/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. The plague in the sixth century was thought by medieval doctors to have been caused by what reptiles in the rivers? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. A more tragic misconception was that Europe's traditional scapegoats -- the Jews -- were somehow responsible. Throughout northern and western Europe, Jews were forced under torture to confess to having caused the Black Death by doing what? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. The most widely held modern belief is that bubonic plague was carried by fleas living on what common pest? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. One explanation for the entry of the Black Death into Europe is that an invading army besieged a diseased city in the Crimea ... and the citizens did what? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. A competing medieval theory for how the Black Death reached Europe involved three infected ships which stopped first at what Italian city before being driven from port to port, not allowed to stop and unload, spreading pestilence in their wake? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. In Paris during the Black Death, the king convened a group of scholars who announced that the plague was caused by what? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Modern academics Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe claim that bubonic plague is a classic example of what disease vector they call 'vertical transmission'? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. The invention of microscopes enabled doctors to identify the bacillus that causes bubonic plague. What is its name? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. A significant percentage of plague victims never developed the telltale buboes, or painful welts, that give bubonic plague its name; medieval plague victims also succumbed more quickly than is typical of bubonic plague sufferers. To explain these inconsistencies, modern historian Graham Twigg proposed that the bubonic plague epidemic was combined with an outbreak of what other disease? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. The inconsistencies in the symptoms are more conventionally explained by the fact that the plague bacillus causes not only bubonic plague, but two other diseases as well. This theory holds that the Black Death was a combination of what three varieties of plague? Hint



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Mar 26 2024 : Guest 47: 7/10
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Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The plague in the sixth century was thought by medieval doctors to have been caused by what reptiles in the rivers?

Answer: serpents

Serpents, snakes, and dragons were closely associated with each other and with evil in the medieval mind; after all, it was a serpent who had tempted Eve in the garden. Although no one saw waterborne snakes in the 1348 epidemic, many believed that poisoned breath from snakes in the far East had spread through the air and caused the Plague.
2. A more tragic misconception was that Europe's traditional scapegoats -- the Jews -- were somehow responsible. Throughout northern and western Europe, Jews were forced under torture to confess to having caused the Black Death by doing what?

Answer: poisoning wells

The accusation was laughable but the results were not. Thousands of Jews were burned by local governments, slaughtered by mobs, or exiled from the cities they had inhabited for generations. Pope Clement VI was able to protect the Jews living near him in Avignon, and some bishops also protected the Jews in their dioceses, but most clerics were perfectly content to take their confiscated property.

A few secular governments, such as the city council of Strasbourg, also attempted to protect the Jews in their jurisdictions; these governments were overthrown by angry mobs and replaced with more anti-Semitic ones.

It was the aftermath of the Black Death that led so many Jews to settle in Poland, where there was little anti-Semitism until the mid-1600s.
3. The most widely held modern belief is that bubonic plague was carried by fleas living on what common pest?

Answer: rats

Rats were everywhere in the Middle Ages, and frequently stowed away on board cargo ships. This would explain the plague's transmission to places like England and Iceland, across a barrier of water from the continent.
4. One explanation for the entry of the Black Death into Europe is that an invading army besieged a diseased city in the Crimea ... and the citizens did what?

Answer: flung infected corpses over the walls

It is not known, however, whether bubonic plague can be caught from cadavers.
5. A competing medieval theory for how the Black Death reached Europe involved three infected ships which stopped first at what Italian city before being driven from port to port, not allowed to stop and unload, spreading pestilence in their wake?

Answer: Genoa

Although the story has appealing parallels to legends like that of the Flying Dutchman, it is no longer considered particularly plausible. The chronicler Louis Sanctus of Beringen, however, recorded it as fact in April of 1348.
6. In Paris during the Black Death, the king convened a group of scholars who announced that the plague was caused by what?

Answer: an astrological problem: Saturn in the house of Jupiter

Although all of these theories were advanced by scholars in 1348, the king's commission decided the answer was in the stars.
7. Modern academics Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe claim that bubonic plague is a classic example of what disease vector they call 'vertical transmission'?

Answer: Pathogens arrive on earth in an 'organic rain' from passing comets

Their theory is seriously undermined by their argument that ALL diseases MUST have come from space (since no bacteria could have evolved on Earth, oh no) and by their fundamental misunderstanding of Darwin's theory of evolution. In epidemiology, vertical transmission refers to the transfer of diseases from mother to fetus.
8. The invention of microscopes enabled doctors to identify the bacillus that causes bubonic plague. What is its name?

Answer: Yersinia pestis

Called Y. pestis for short. E. coli is responsible for most modern food poisoning associated with beef, although humans could not survive without its presence in our guts.
9. A significant percentage of plague victims never developed the telltale buboes, or painful welts, that give bubonic plague its name; medieval plague victims also succumbed more quickly than is typical of bubonic plague sufferers. To explain these inconsistencies, modern historian Graham Twigg proposed that the bubonic plague epidemic was combined with an outbreak of what other disease?

Answer: anthrax

Anthrax, a cattle disease, would also have spread more quickly than a rat-borne disease.
10. The inconsistencies in the symptoms are more conventionally explained by the fact that the plague bacillus causes not only bubonic plague, but two other diseases as well. This theory holds that the Black Death was a combination of what three varieties of plague?

Answer: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic

Bubonic plague is distinguished by the aforementioned buboes and takes the longest to kill its victims. It is spread only by flea bites, as far as is known. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs, kills more quickly than bubonic plague, and is harder to diagnose; it can be spread through the air, much like tuberculosis. Septicemia, a disease of the blood, kills the fastest of all and is hardest to recognize; it is, however, much rarer than the other two.

It is commonly believed that most plague victims suffered from two or three of these varieties at once -- which would certainly explain how they died so quickly.
Source: Author CellarDoor

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
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