Welcome to London, England, the year is 1330 and the Black Death is going to arrive to northern Europe in nearly 20 years. But what is the Black Death? The Black Death destroyed European nations from about 1340-1400 where about 1/3 of their population died from this terrible disease. Throughout this time period, we as Englishmen or Englishwomen will look at where the Black Death come from, its consequences to Europeans, and compare it to the twentieth century epidemic, AIDS?

For this reporter, a definition of the Black Death means over ¼ of Europe’s population died from this horrible disease. It also means like the modern-day disease of AIDS where numbers of people worldwide are dying from this horrible disease. The big question for this nation is where did the Black Death originated? The Black Death or Europe’s death came from central Asia where deadly fleas or bugs were located on trading vessels from the Indian Ocean over to Europe. It affects Europe very seriously because the disease traveled from central Asia over to the Mediterranean, and up through Europe.

Now, still in London, England, and the year is 1344 where the Black Death will hit England within the next five years. Remember that the Black Death originated from central Asia, probably parts of China or near Indian Ocean areas of the current world. Anyway, here is the main route of the Black Death. It went through the Black Sea, through the Mediterranean and splitter into three different patterns. One route went to Egypt and affected Cairo, a second route went through the Mediterranean and affected northern Africa, and a third route attack all of Western Europe. (Civilization in the West, Third Edition, map page 315) Conditions during this time was incredible terrible. It was that people even did not bathe on a regular basis, which led to filthy conditions in towns and out in the countryside. In fact these filthy conditions were like a "free meal" to the Black Death fleas. For the sake of argument, let’s say that a town call Dog has a population of about 4,500 and lies in the plain of the Black Death. A very filthy community and within about six months, there is no Dog remaining because of the Black Death killed all 4,500 residents of this town. What were the consequences of this disaster? To Europe, it killed about 1/3 of the population on the continent. To the rest of the world, it basically stop international trade, there were no investments. Therefore the world went into a sixty-year standstill because of the Black Death.

Now its London, England, and the year is 1995, approximately five centuries after the black death incident, now there is another epidemic that is hitting worldwide, and this epidemic is AIDS. What is AIDS? AIDS means Accrued Immunity Defiency Syndrome (1998 World Almanac, page 840). The majority of the disease comes from unprotected sex activities. Drawing a parallel to Black Death via AIDS is unlikely. Because the Black Death was highly catch able when a deadly flea bite any individual. Meanwhile, AIDS is a sex disease and can’t be transmitted by other means. However, a very tiny of the world’s population has this disease and could died within five years. Basically, the Black Death was a very quick disease, meanwhile AIDS can take years before the patient(s) dies from this disease.

From London, England, the Black Death was a very quick disease and its mainstay was sixty years (1340-1400). Meanwhile, AIDS isn’t quick disease and takes years before a patient’s dies from AIDS. If you are looking for parallels between these two disease(s) there are very little, because of modern technology and other modern medicine techniques have influenced the number of deaths per year on AIDS. The Black Death didn’t have any modern technqiues during its high period in the 1300s. I wonder how long it will take before someone actually finds a cure for the AIDS virus?