![]() Plague doctors were known as municipal or "community plague doctors", whereas "general practitioners" were separate doctors and both might be in the same European city or town at the same time. In France and the Netherlands, plague doctors often lacked medical training and were referred to as " empirics". Plague doctors rarely cured patients, instead serving to record death tolls and the number of infected people for demographic purposes. Most severe were the plagues of 1630 and worse, that of 1575 in which a third of the population of Venice was wiped out. Across Europe and especially in Venice, the plague was a recurring phenomenon. In one case, a plague doctor was a fruit salesman before his employment as a physician. It was a sort of memento mori on the last day of Carnival. In many cases, these doctors were not experienced and trained physicians or surgeons, instead being volunteers, second-rate doctors, or young doctors just starting a career. Some plague doctors were said to charge patients and their families additional fees for special treatments or false cures. Plague doctors had a mixed reputation, with some citizens seeing their presence as a warning to leave the area or that death was near. 1 I can scarcely imagine how terrifying it must have been to live in a city terrorized by bubonic plague. So, for all the bizarreness of the ‘beak doctor’ costume, it does make sense given the theories of the time.Wikimedia Commons has media related to plague doctors. Of the 18 men registered as plague doctors in Venice in 1348, five died. They could prod or move clothing about from further than at arm’s length. A final practical use a doctor had for a cane was to keep a patient (and, during the plague, suspected plague carriers in the street) at a distance. During the 17th-century European plague, physicians wore beaked masks, leather gloves, and long coats in an attempt to fend off the disease. Such canes could also be a vessel for a pomander within the handle. Many mixed potions, powders, and tonics and then gave them to their patients in an attempt to create a cure, and sometimes, they just ended up killing people faster. If they could afford a good cane they were clearly successful. Medieval plague doctors had a horribly depressing job, and the struggle to find something that worked was real. The final element a plague doctor’s costume is given in the poem as:įor centuries a cane was a symbolic accoutrement for a physician – a well-crafted cane, with a fancy handle would give a patient confidence in the abilities of their doctor. The oiled and waxed, often floor-length coats worn by the doctors, along with hoods, hats and gloves, would have been effective barriers against the biting of fleas, as well as being easier to wipe clean. ![]() ![]() We know that the disease was spread so virulently by fleas, borne on rats (recent reports suggest that gerbils were the original carriers in Asia) that flourished in what was described as London’s ‘most beastly durtie streets’. The rest of the costume was, ironically, more likely to be effective during the Great Plague of 1665. They could be stuffed with herbs and good smells to combat the disease in the air. How would you do this? Have nice smells to hand – or, rather, to nose! Thus the doctors wore beak-like masks. This theory was called miasma theory.Īvoiding breathing in this disease-bearing stench was vital. The Black Death of 1348 was a devastating outbreak of the bubonic plague that hit all of Europe. If you walked into a bad-smelling room the foulness was caused by the presence of disease – the air was polluted. The most famous and deadly outbreak was the Black Death, which struck the city in 1348. There was a longstanding belief that diseases travelled through the air. So what was the thinking behind an outfit that might actually frighten the more delicate patient?
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