It appears that the only contemporary sources which claim witness to this infamous costume are based in Italy during the 17th century. Often, these plague doctors were the last thing a patient would see before death therefore, the doctors were seen as a foreboding of death. Depictions of the beaked plague doctor rose in response to superstition and fear about the unknown source of the plague. The beaked plague doctor inspired costumes in Italian theatre as a symbol of general horror and death, though some historians insist that the plague doctor was originally fictional and inspired the real plague doctors later. Most depictions come from satirical writings and political cartoons. Plague doctors wore a mask of some form since at least 1373. The exact origins of the Plague costumes are unclear but have been dated back to Italy and France. However, the costume was not worn by all medieval and early modern physicians studying and treating plague patients. The plague doctors would also wear gloves, boots, a wide-brimmed hat, a linen hood, and an outer over-clothing garment. As an attempt to purify the air they breathed (it was believed that good smells would 'cancel out' the diseases, and people would often walk around with a flower under their nose), the wearer would fill the mask with herbs and spices (commonly lavender). Some plague doctors wore a special costume consisting of an ankle-length overcoat and a bird-like beak mask. Main article: Plague doctor costume Plague doctor outfit from Germany (17th century). This advice varied depending on the patient, and after the Middle Ages, the nature of the relationship between doctor and patient was governed by an increasingly complex ethical code. Plague doctors also sometimes took patients' last will and testament during times of plague epidemics, and gave advice to their patients about their conduct before death. In certain European cities like Florence and Perugia, plague doctors were requested to do autopsies to help determine the cause of death and how the plague affected the people. Plague doctors practiced bloodletting and other remedies such as putting frogs or leeches on the buboes to "rebalance the humors." A plague doctor's principal task, besides treating people with the plague, was to compile public records of plague deaths. Of eighteen doctors in Venice, only one was left by 1348: five had died of the plague, and twelve were missing and may have fled. Pope Clement VI hired several extra plague doctors during the Black Death plague to tend to the sick people of Avignon. The city of Orvieto hired Matteo fu Angelo as a plague doctor in 1348 for four times at a normal doctor's rate of 50 florins per year. In this satirical work, Fürst describes how the doctor does nothing but terrify people and take money from the dead and dying. After De Lorme, German engraver Gerhart Altzenbach published a famous illustration in 1656, which publisher Paulus Fürst's iconic Doctor Schnabel von Rom (1656) is based upon. According to Michel Tibayrenc's Encyclopedia of Infectious Diseases, the first mention of the iconic plague doctor is found during the 1619 plague outbreak in Paris, in a biography of royal physician Charles de Lorme, serving King Louis XIII of France at the time. History Īn early reference to plague doctors wearing masks is in 1369 when Johannes Jacobi recommends the use of masks, but offers no physical description of the masks themselves. 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. In one case, a plague doctor was a fruit salesman before his employment as a physician. 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. These physicians were hired by cities to treat infected patients regardless of income, especially the poor, who could not afford to pay. Wikimedia Commons has media related to plague doctors.Ī plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of bubonic plague during epidemics mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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