What were the major epidemics of the middle ages?
which was the most devastating?
why were they so feared?
what factors contributed to the spread?
what were some of the strategies used to by people to prevent these diseases?

During the middle ages, people suffered from many diseases, including smallpox, dysentery, leprosy, respiratory illnesses, malaria, and syphilis. In those times, people died from measles, scarlet fever, and tuberculosis.

The most notorious of diseases from this time was The Black Death, also known as the Great Plague, Bubonic Plague, or the Plague, or less commonly the Black Plague, was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history.

Ole J. Benedictow, a Norwegian historian has calculated that the Black Death could have killed as man as 50 million people in the 14th century, or 60 per cent of Europe's entire population from 1346 - 1353.

Strategies used to attempt to prevent the spread of the disease included isolating those who are infected by barricading them into closed areas until after they have died, shipping bodies away in mass numbers, wearing beaked masks that were packed with sweet smells, such as dried flowers, herbs and spices in an attempt to filter the plague when working with patients.

after the civil war, and with the termination of slavery, the south was faced with a big problem; what was supposed to happen and how they were supposed to deal with the freedom and the rights that black people and freed slaves had gained as a result of the north defeating the south and forcing the end of slavery. first, most, if not all, of the workforce of the south came from slaves and they did not have an option to replace the loss of said workforce. second, particularly in the south, people were convinced that black people were lesser, less intelligent, less capable and less smart than whites. this posed a huge problem for them. also, southerners were faced with another issue; freed slaves now had a say in how their lives would be lived and the right to politically choose the way they would be governed. people in the south did not want to accept this, none of this and this opposition and the conflicts that arose from it, not to mention the afereffects of the war, forced the congress of the time to enact and enforce the reconstruction plans that had been proposed by president andrew johnson.

the phenomenon that would be cited as evidence of increased economic interdependence between europe and the americas is  the development of mercantilism.

this theory suggests that the wealth of a country depends on its economic assets, or capital.

hope this : )