Archaeologists believe that many of the houses in the Old Town were built using bricks and stones from Kaunas Castle. During the Middle Ages, thick stone walls defended against robbers and foes, but not from the plague.
The plague epidemics in Kaunas happened up to 13 times between 1531 and 1710. The plague generally moved from one community to another, and only in rare cases was it possible to defend oneself. In 1580, King Stephen Bathory took an unplanned detour on his way to Vilnius to visit Kaunas. He was presumably hoping to buy time and wait for the plague to pass through Vilnius.
The epidemic of 1710-1711 took the lives of all Kaunas Jesuits. During plague epidemics, trade and production activities ceased, and organizations responsible for state governance and city administration were compelled to close. The disease could even spread between people via the bite of an infected flea... A person infected with the plague would have fever, shivers, diarrhoea, nausea, and stomach pain. Later, painful, swollen lymph nodes (buboes) would appear beneath the skin. This feature gained the pandemic the nickname "bubonic plague".
Sufferers often fell into comas, with death striking them when the heart stopped. People struggled immensely to endure the pain caused by the plague. The writer Daniel Defo, who survived the plague epidemic in 17th century London, recounted that those who could no longer bear the swelling or the pain of treatment would simply drown themselves in rivers. The streets were filled with the bodies of those beginning to decay.
In the prayer books and hymns of the Evangelical Lutherans of Minor Lithuania, we can also find accounts of the plague:
"The intensity of the plague has spread, littering the world with corpses,
So that graves cannot contain them, one cannot bury another.
On the field lie the bodies of the dead, dogs are eating them and crows,
Toddlers are cast out, thrown away into the waters."
The horrible memories of the epidemic are also documented in Lithuanian mythological tales: "God, do not let us to see what we experienced. I would sooner die than walk among the dead. Corpses are everywhere. The animals walk while mooing. Cows stroll with swollen udders, and pigs squeal with hunger. Scary."
According to historical archives, when a family member became ill during the plague, the yard of the house was designated as a plague center and even boarded up. The plague nurses used leather masks with long beaks filled with juniper to keep the incoming air clean. Victims filled the streets in heaps. Several stories have been made on the disease known as the Black Death.
The Plague wanders around the old town at night, knocking on the gate.
People respond with: "Who is there?" And the plague wonders, "What are you doing?"
People respond: we're sleeping. The next morning, all the remaining inhabitants of this house had died.
The next time the Plague walks at night. He approaches the yard, knocks on the gate, and inquires:
- What are you all doing?
People respond we are praying.
So, what do you think? Everyone in the home woke up alive in the morning. Unfortunately, we cannot defend ourselves against the plague victims' ghosts that roam the old town. However, such a form of defence evolved throughout the Middle Ages.
It's remarkable that plague guardians who visited infested areas were often healthy themselves. Later, scientists discovered that they could be protected by the essential oil found in horsehair because the guardians had such regular and close contact with these animals.
According to many heartbreaking stories, mothers were unable to allow their sick and remorseful children into their homes. The families were vast, and infecting the remaining children was simply too dangerous.
In another case, superstitious villagers killed a little child whom they suspected of drinking animal blood. When the child acquired the disease, blood streamed from his mouth, and the animals had already died before... The kid was stabbed in the chest with a wooden spike, as is customary in vampire mythology.
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