The Symptoms of the Disease

    In many cases, bubonic plague symptoms tend to develop within one to six days after exposure, and range from enlarged lymph nodes to diarrhea to vomiting. If left untreated, the condition is often fatal. Less than 10 percent of people with the disease go on to develop bubonic plague meningitis. Symptoms of bubonic plague meningitis can include stiff neck, fever, headache, and coma. Others can include Common symptoms of this disease include:  

• Fever
• Buboes (tender, enlarged lymph nodes in the armpits, neck, or groin, ranging in size from 1 to 10 cm, in 70 percent of patients)
• Headache
• Abdominal pain
• Chills
• Diarrhea, which may be bloody
• Nausea
• Decreased appetite
• Tiny broken blood vessels (called petechiae)
• Vomiting.  

    The period between becoming infected and the start of symptoms is called the plague incubation period. If they are not treated immediately, symptoms can rapidly worsen, and death may occur. As in the case of this microbiologist who was experimenting with the yersinia pestis bacterium, he stood no chance against the Black Death. He was searching for a vaccine for this epidemic, but rather ironically, he was killed by the disease he was searching a cure for. He was dead in a rather rapid time frame. What happens in general terms with this plague is when left untreated, yersinia pestis can quickly multiply in the bloodstream, possibly causing septicemic plague, or even progress to the lungs, causing pneumonic plague. If bubonic plague treatment is administered early, the mortality rate is 15 percent; however, the mortality rate is 50 to 90 percent if it is not treated.