El jinete del caballo pálidoLa muerte negra

Abstract

We start the paper with a reminder of the terrible epidemic of black death that devastated Europe in the 14th century. We describe the Yersinia pestis bacterium and the disease that it produces: the plague. To relate disease and literature, between the frequent references that appear in literature books of the last eight centuries, we choose three narrations; we select them by their disparity of criteria, excellent and different style, how to use the disease as a main topic and the distance at the time of its publication. One of the authors is based on personal experiences, in his interpretation of the disease. The other two authors used the most influential clinical publications in their time to describe the plague: “Internal Medicine” written by A. von Domarus (1930) and his successors (p. Farreras et al., 1960, and C. Rozman, 1985) and “The Principles of Internal Medicine” (1998) written by T.R. Harrison. Boccaccio in “The Decameron” avails itself of the plague for his writing of tales, Camus in “The plague” uses his narration to indoctrinate his concept of life, and the last one, Follet with “World without end” builds an entertaining and easily digestible story that has the merit of describe the disease and the social landscape that originates with great efficiency.