Generally, a person may be punished for sedition only when he or she makes statements that create a Clear and Present Danger to rights that the government may lawfully protect (schenck v. united states, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 [1919]).
The epidemic reached its zenith in the years 1348 to 1350, though the disease never vanished entirely. It is widely believed that the cause of the Black Death was bubonic plague, an infectious and fatal illness spread by rodents and the fleas infesting them.
Death came swiftly, usually within a few days, for most people with the plague. Septicemia, or blood poisoning, sometimes resulted from germs entering the bloodstream after buboes were lanced. Some survived for as long as two weeks before succumbing. About 70 percent of people who contracted the Black Death died.