Read the passage from “The Masque of the Red Death.” This passage describes an event based in history often referred to as the Black Death. What is it, and what caused it?
From “The Masque of the Red Death”
The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
A.
an infection of malaria that was transmitted to humans by mosquito bites
B.
a breakout of tuberculosis transmitted by airborne saliva (coughing)
C.
a plague that infected rats and was transmitted to humans by flea bites
D.
an influenza epidemic that was transmitted between humans by contact