EUROPE'S DIRTY "LITTLE SECRET"
by eric d. graham
While Donald Trump denied describing certain nations as "shithole countries" during a meeting in which he rejected a bipartisan deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, he must have forgotten about the Black Death, which was one of the most devastating outbreaks in human history, killing between 75-200 million people, which was 60% of Europe's total population.
Why Is this relevant, in relationship with Trump's alleged comments? Because, the plague that stuck Europe in the mid-14th Century, according to a research team from the universities of Oslo and Ferrara suggest that it was a result of human filthiness known as human "ectoparasites", which is "largely ascribed to human fleas and body lice” that caused the "Black Death."
Yeah, the "so-called least racist person, you ever knew" might need to be careful about calling other countries "shitholes" after reading this.
Especially, after the Telegraph reported about all the nastiness in Europe at the time, where people rarely washed, hence the term "dirt poor and filthy rich."
In which, most citizens walked bare foot on a ground that were covered with the excrement from both people and animals for they had no public plumbing.
Matter of fact, some urban legends suggest the song and nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o' Rosie" originally described the plague, specifically the Great Plague of London, or the Black Death. Even though, folklorists reject this idea as simply "Fake news", which contain the lyrics "Ring-a-ring o' roses, A pocket full of posies,ashes ashes. We all fall down."
According to the History.com, however, the Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October 1347 when 12 Genoese trading ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through the Black Sea.
The people who gathered on the docks to greet the ships were met with a horrifying surprise: Most of the sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those who were still alive were gravely ill.
They were overcome with fever, unable to keep food down and delirious from pain.
Strangest of all, they were covered in mysterious black boils that oozed blood and pus and gave their illness its name: the “Black Death.”
The Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbor...."
While the History.com gives a detail account of the plague that ravaged Europe, they fail to mention that it was the Moors (African Muslims) who introduced Europe to soap and washing by building hundreds of public bathing houses.
With that said, I encourage everyone to "politically" to read Walter Rodney's book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and "culturally" to read Katherine Ashenburg's "The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History," which she says, "One of the dirtiest bodies was the King's body.
This is because somewhere between the 18th Century people (of Europe) feared water...Louie the XIV, during his long life was given (ONLY) a bath twice...."
