A generation or two ago, studying the Black Plague of the Middle Ages was not one of the more interesting subjects sixth and seventh graders had to study.

A few sketches and a lot of words in a textbook describing the bubonic plague of the Late Middle Ages (1340–1400) seemed to be something to be endured to get through the school year.

Things are a lot different today at Salisbury Middle School.

Social Studies teacher Matt Tobias immerses his students in the study in a way that actually makes learning fun and engaging.

Students were seen Oct. 15 wandering the school halls with painful-looking lesions and bruises. These students were the plague's victims who chose to have make-up applied by Tobias and a professional makeup artist, Roxy Germano, of Whitehall, who Tobias brought to help transform the students into poor souls who looked like they were ready to go from door to door begging treats to fill their Halloween bags.

Germano trades under the business name, Makeup by Roxy.

Those students already made up were watching videos on laptop computers with narrated recreations of the horror the plague created in Europe in the 14th century and answering test questions regarding the study.

Europe experienced the most deadly disease outbreak in Western history when the Black Death, the infamous pandemic of bubonic plague, hit in 1347, killing a third of the human population.

It is commonly believed society subsequently became more violent as the mass mortality rate cheapened life and thus increased warfare, crime, popular revolt and persecution.

The Black Death originated in or near China and spread from Italy and then throughout other European countries. Research published in 2002 suggests the plague began in the spring of 1346 in the steppe region, where a plague reservoir stretches from the northwestern shore of the Caspian Sea into southern Russia.

The Mongols had cut off the trade route, the Silk Road, between China and Europe which halted the spread of the Black Death from eastern Russia to Western Europe.

The epidemic began with an attack Mongols launched on an Italian merchant's last trading station in the region in the Crimea. In the autumn of 1346, plague broke out among the besiegers and from them penetrated into the town.

When spring arrived, the Italian merchants fled on their ships, unknowingly carrying the Black Death. Carried by the fleas on rats, the plague initially spread to humans near the Black Sea and then outwards to the rest of Europe as a result of people fleeing from one area to another.

This is not the first year that Tobias has provided a total immersion experience in the social studies curriculum, centering the plague study during the Halloween studies.

One mother contacted by The Press said her son, now in Salisbury High School, still talks of his experience being a "plague victim" in Tobias' class.