How did it affect medieval and current culture?
During the plague, fear took over Europe. People were constantly afraid of getting the plague, and rightfully so: They could be killed just like their family members that had contracted Black Death. The rich told grim stories and sang sad songs about death and grief. Even the art of the period took on a sort of depressed tone. Many of the paintings depicted skeletons or scenes of death. On of them was “The Dance of Death,” painted during this era. Today, we remember this terrible disease and pray that nothing like it will ever happen again. Although it’s true that we have much better medicine now then in the mid 1300’s, we have a much bigger population, and it covers nearly all the land on earth. This means that if we did have a pandemic, it would spread much faster, especially with factors like air travel thrown in. If a person from North or South America and took a plane to Eurasia, any disease they had could cross the world in less than a day. In England, a sample of Bubonic Plague is kept in a lab. This could theoretically help make a vaccine if the sickness ever did spontaneously break out ever again. Despite this, some experts believe that if a deadly pandemic or epidemic did break out again, we are not prepared enough to fight it, or at least fight it well.