Septicemic (or septicaemic) plague is a deadly blood infection, one of the three main forms of plague. It is caused by Yersinia pestis, a gram-negative bacterium.
Like other forms of gram-negative sepsis, septicemic plague can cause disseminated intravascular coagulation, and is, without treatment, almost always fatal (the mortality rate in the medieval times was 99-100 percent). Septicemic plague is the rarest of the three plagues that struck Europe in 1348, the other forms are bubonic and pneumonic plague (see the section on septicemic plague in medieval times). This disease is contracted usually through the bite of an infected rodent or insect, but can also be contracted through an opening in the skin or by cough from another infected human. The septicemic plague occurs when the bacteria multiply in the blood, causing bacteremia and severe sepsis. In septicemic plague, bacterial endotoxins cause disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), causing tiny clots throughout the body and possibly ischaemic necrosis (tissue death due to lack of circulation/perfusion to that tissue) from the clots. DIC results in depletion of the body's clotting resources, so that it can no longer control bleeding. Consequently, there is bleeding into the skin and other organs, which can cause red and/or black patchy rash and hemoptysis/haemoptysis (coughing up or vomiting of blood). There are bumps on the skin that look somewhat like insect bites; these are usually red, and sometimes white in the center. Untreated, septicemic plague is usually fatal. Early treatment with antibiotics reduces the mortality rate to between 4 and 15 percent. People that contract this disease must receive treatment in at most 24 hours or death is almost certainly inevitable. In some cases, people may even die on the same day they contract it.
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Note: Septicemic plague may cause death before any symptoms occur
The septicemic plague was the least common of the three plagues that occurred from 1348 to 1350[2] (the other two being the bubonic plague and the pneumonic plague). Like the others, the septicemic plague spread from the East through trade routes on the Black Sea and down to the Mediterranean Sea. Thus major port cities such as Venice and Florence were hit the hardest. The three plagues that are part of the Black Death were a major factor in the Peasant's Revolt of 1381.