Plain Polly:

Polly with symptoms:

---

All the facts in this description are real symptoms, cures and preventions people thought worked in the middle ages.

---

This *dramatic pause* is Polly. Polly lives with her husband, parents, mother-in-law and 4 children. Sadly, all of them have breathed in bad air and contracted the black death. They are extremely poor and have little food. Every day, Polly wakes up to her children screaming, her buboes swollen and incredibly painful and her husband having spasms. They have tried all the cures, including: shaving a chicken's bum and strapping her armpit, killing all the cats and dogs in town and painting a red cross on her door, but sadly the whole family are still ill. Polly's sister has already departed this world as a result of the plague, her swollen and bruised body thrown into the communal grave. Polly might never make it. This is Polly. Polly lives with her husband, parents, mother-in-law and 4 children. Sadly, all of them have breathed in bad air and contracted the black death. They are extremely poor and have little food. Every day, Polly wakes up to her children screaming, her buboes swollen and incredibly painful and her husband having spasms. They have tried all the cures, including: shaving a chicken's bum and strapping her armpit, killing all the cats and dogs in town and painting a red cross on her door, but sadly the whole family are still ill. Polly's sister has already departed this world as a result of the plague, her swollen and bruised body thrown into the communal grave.
"I woke up and there was bruises all over me body. 'uge ones. They covered me 'ole chest an' they was bloody n' disgustin'. Then I found a large blob on the side o' me neck. An' that 'urt too. Me 'usband 'ad one aswell, and me children. It were 'orrible. We was told it were the black death an' we was most likely all gon' die. My life were pretty bad anyway, bein' a peasant an' all, but 'avin someone come to yer door an' tell you yous were gon' die, that made me life just... not worth livin' really," said Polly when we asked her about the disease.
The black death is a serious disease. If you have it, you only have days before you pass away. If you think you have it, please call your local plague doctor who can help diagnose the black death and give you some cures to it.

The plague doctor can never catch the plague as he keeps sweet smelling herbs such as lavender up his beak so as not to breath in the bad air!
*WARNING : THE NEXT SECTION CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF THE PLAGUE, IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THIS KIND OF THINGS, PLEASE LOOK AWAY BEFORE SCROLLING*
A lot of people will be going to the plague doctor, so if you have a suspision that you have the black death, you should check your symptoms against the ones here.
Buboes - the main symptom of the plague. They're almost impossible to miss, they are huge blobs located usually on the neck, under the armpits and in the groin area and some can even be as big as eggs.

Bruises - you will start to find huge black spots around your body. They appear mainly on your chest, arms and thighs.

Fever - You will have a strong fever and vomiting, this will usually come on day 2 of having the black death.

Spasms - On day 4 of having the plague, you will start to have severe muscle spasms.
Death - Day 5 of having the disease, you will most likely die.
Although the chances of survival are slim, there are a few cures you could try, as well as ways to prevent it if you haven't yet got it.
Preventions

• Sitting in a sewer so as to get away from the bad air;
  
• Making sure there are no cats or dogs in the town as these animals cause the black death;
  
• Whipping yourself and praying;
  
• Painting a red cross on your door;
  
• Wearing a magpie's beak around your neck.
  

Cures

• Placing a toad on the buboes;
  
• Holding sweet herbs to your mouth;
  
• Drinking a glass of your own wee every day;
  
• Shaving a chickens bottom and strapping it to your buboes;
  
• Swallowing crushed emeralds;
  
• Putting leeches on your buboes;
  
• Covering yourself in steaming cow dung.
  
  

Polly and her family may not make it. It's up to you. All she needs is some more chickens to strap to her armpits to save her life. Please, if you have a heart, give Polly the help she needs. Just 1 diamond could buy enough cats and dogs to kill to save the whole town, and a single comment could supply enough red paint for the whole of England to paint red crosses on their doors. Please, buy a chicken, save a life.