“A pocket full of posies,
Ashes!Ashes!
We all fall down”
I am sure that you have heard small children singing this, or maybe even you sang this growing up. The best part was when you fell down at the end. That said, it is said that this rhyme actually as a very dark origin. Urban legend has it that children during the black plague would sing this tune when they would see the carriage filled with bodies dead from the plague. But is this true? If we look closely at the lyrics, it is safe to assume that there must be a ring around a red bump or blister. The next line with the posies; posies are a very fragrant flower that was believed if smelled it would protect the sniffer from contracting a disease that they then believed were carried by a foul smell. The “Ashes! Ashes!” most likely refers to the burning of the bodies to keep the plague from spreading even in death. But why does the “We all fall down” come at the end? Was it to predict that the rest of the population would die? Or, as many folklorists believe, was that just a curtsy. In the flowing I will examine the different plagues and see if any of them match these lyrics.
First up is the is the most famous, but the less deadly, bubonic plague. I know it is called the Black Death, but the next two are far worse. That said, this specific plague did the most damage; most of the population of Europe, 30%-60% dead, in only 7 years. That 30 to 60 percent translates to 75 to 200 million of Europeans in the late 1340's to the mid 1350's were dead. This plague has been traced back through Asia where the infected rats came from through way of boat travel to Europe. Now one of the symptoms of the black death were the appearance of buboes, swollen lymph glands. You must be thinking, “Ah-ha! The ring around the rosie!” but there were no rings around these buboes, and these were not rosie, or any form of red. If anything they started off looking like a skin coloured bump, but as the plague progressed it would either ooze pus and bleed if popped, or it would turn black. The reason it would turn black is because the plague made that area of skin die, so it would rot. People with noticeable buboes would, of course, be outcast because coming in physical contact with this person would most likely infect that person. This psychical contact is the main reason that this plague did so much damage. It came to Europe in the winter, and in the winter families would huddle together for body heat; but if just one member had the black plague, it was not long before the rest of the family had it too. Although, it did no just start out as buboes, some of the first symptoms included headaches, vomiting, and aching joints. It sounds like the flu at first, but once the person manifested the buboes, the people who were treating the infected person already, most likely, already had contracted the black plague.
Ashes!Ashes!
We all fall down”
I am sure that you have heard small children singing this, or maybe even you sang this growing up. The best part was when you fell down at the end. That said, it is said that this rhyme actually as a very dark origin. Urban legend has it that children during the black plague would sing this tune when they would see the carriage filled with bodies dead from the plague. But is this true? If we look closely at the lyrics, it is safe to assume that there must be a ring around a red bump or blister. The next line with the posies; posies are a very fragrant flower that was believed if smelled it would protect the sniffer from contracting a disease that they then believed were carried by a foul smell. The “Ashes! Ashes!” most likely refers to the burning of the bodies to keep the plague from spreading even in death. But why does the “We all fall down” come at the end? Was it to predict that the rest of the population would die? Or, as many folklorists believe, was that just a curtsy. In the flowing I will examine the different plagues and see if any of them match these lyrics.
First up is the is the most famous, but the less deadly, bubonic plague. I know it is called the Black Death, but the next two are far worse. That said, this specific plague did the most damage; most of the population of Europe, 30%-60% dead, in only 7 years. That 30 to 60 percent translates to 75 to 200 million of Europeans in the late 1340's to the mid 1350's were dead. This plague has been traced back through Asia where the infected rats came from through way of boat travel to Europe. Now one of the symptoms of the black death were the appearance of buboes, swollen lymph glands. You must be thinking, “Ah-ha! The ring around the rosie!” but there were no rings around these buboes, and these were not rosie, or any form of red. If anything they started off looking like a skin coloured bump, but as the plague progressed it would either ooze pus and bleed if popped, or it would turn black. The reason it would turn black is because the plague made that area of skin die, so it would rot. People with noticeable buboes would, of course, be outcast because coming in physical contact with this person would most likely infect that person. This psychical contact is the main reason that this plague did so much damage. It came to Europe in the winter, and in the winter families would huddle together for body heat; but if just one member had the black plague, it was not long before the rest of the family had it too. Although, it did no just start out as buboes, some of the first symptoms included headaches, vomiting, and aching joints. It sounds like the flu at first, but once the person manifested the buboes, the people who were treating the infected person already, most likely, already had contracted the black plague.
Next I will address the less well known pneumonic plague. The perpetrator for this plague is a bacteria named Yersinia pestis. Remember how I started talking about the black plague and called it the less deadly? This is why, the pneumonic plague has a mortality rate of 90 to 95 percent. This means that if it were to hit a hugely populated area, everyone in the area has a 10 to 5 percent chance of living. Another reason, and I believe the main reason, this one is so prevalent is because unlike the bubonic plague which you have to be in contact with an infected person, this one travels by air. It infects the lungs, and with this infection in the lungs one of the first signs of the infected person is the coughing up of blood. Even when they do not cough up blood their saliva is either very water or just bloody. Other early symptoms are fever, headache, weak limbs, similar to those of the black plague. But unlike the black plague in which infected persons die within eight days, persons infected with the pneumonic plague have less than 2 days.
The last plague I will speak of is the most terrifying, but thankfully, contracting it is very rare. This plague is called the septicemic plague. The reason I call it the most terrifying even though it is not the most common, the mortality rate for this one is 99 to 100 percent; this means that those with it have 1 to 0 percent chance of living. Septicemic plague is sort of an evolved form of the pneumonic plague because the septicemic plague in infects the blood. Now the septicemic plague can lead to the pneumonic one if it spreads to the lung tissue, but the pneumonic plague cannot lead to the septicemic one. This is why the septicemic plague is so rare; a very low percentage of persons with pneumonic plague lead to the septicemic plague. Although, with the rise of modern medicine the mortality rate drops drastically from 99/100 percent to 4/15 percent. That said, that is only if it is caught quickly, if not the infected person has about or less than 24 hours to live. Symptoms in humans include, but not limited to, bleeding under skin (which leads to purple areas of the skin), diarrhea, organ failure, and gangrene (which would cause the extremities to turn black). If you realized, I said “in humans,” the reason being is that animals also can contract the septicemic plague. Their symptoms include, and again but not limited to, depression, vomiting, fever, and perhaps coma. Even though these are the symptoms for both humans and animals, the subject may die before any of them are apparent.
Europe, the world, has been attacked by many a plague, but none that seem to show likeness to the “Ring Around the Rosie” rhyme; at least one of the ones which I had just addressed. I do not mean to make you paranoid, reader, but if you ever to venture to Europe or Asia, try not to venture too deep as you may encounter a person or an animal infected. In fact just going into your backyard maybe dangerous; reason being is because rats, squirrels, even rabbits may be a carrier of the septicemic plague. So...feel free to venture! But do not get out of hand or you might catch a plague...or just influenza, which has a few plague symptoms but of which you will most likely recover from and survive.
Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.
Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.
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