plague doctor

plague doctor, physician contracted by a government to tend to patients infected with plague during an epidemic, especially the plagues in Europe in the Middle Ages. Plague doctors were contracted by a city or town during an outbreak to treat plague patients specifically. The contract would outline the plague doctor’s responsibilities, boundaries, and pay and would often include the obligation to visit neighbourhoods hit hardest by plague and to treat even the poorest of patients who could not otherwise pay.

During times of plague, a town’s general doctors were at an increased risk of contracting the disease from casual exposure, and thus it was deemed safer to assign specific doctors to plague patients. Since many established doctors fled their homes and private practices rather than expose themselves to the disease, many of the doctors who remained were inexperienced. Although some who became plague doctors were recent medical trainees or doctors who had trouble finding work, others had no medical training at all but were the only people willing to work with plague patients. Many of the duties fulfilled by plague doctors were actually outside the realm of medical treatment, such as recording the number of infections and deaths, witnessing wills, performing autopsies, and keeping journals and casebooks to help with the development of treatments or preventive measures.

During the plague epidemics of the Middle Ages, not much was known about the nature and spread of disease, and various precautions were taken to ward it off. The treatments offered by plague doctors were varied and largely ineffectual. The treatments could involve the draining of blood and fluids from buboes, the swellings that arose among many plague victims, or the prescription of medicines that induced vomiting or urination. Such treatments were usually chosen in an attempt to balance bodily humours (any of four fluids of the body that were thought to determine a person’s temperament and features) in line with the medical science of the time.

Plague doctors are perhaps best known for their iconic costume: a long waxed coat or gown atop leggings connected to boots, gloves, a hat, and a peculiar beaked mask. Most of the costume’s components would be made of leather, and the mask included glass or crystal spectacles to protect the eyes. In addition, the plague doctor would also possess a wand or staff to examine or undress the patient without touching them and to measure what was thought to be a safe distance from infectious individuals. The costume is usually credited to the early 17th-century French court physician Charles de Lorme. During earlier outbreaks there was no known garb particular to plague doctors. The beaked costume became the subject of macabre jokes and cartoons as plague doctors themselves became easily recognizable harbingers of disease and death. Such attire became popular at the Venetian Carnival, and the plague doctor was a popular stock character in the Italian commedia dell’arte. The costume became fashionable again in modern times among costume enthusiasts, having experienced a resurgence in interest especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The beak of a plague doctor’s mask was filled with strong smelling herbs and flowers, such as lavender and mint, or other substances, including myrrh and sponges soaked with vinegar or camphor. Some filled their beaks with a mixture called theriac, a popular cure-all used since the 1st century ce. The prevailing view in medical science in the Middle Ages was that disease spread through “miasma,” or bad-smelling air that caused an imbalance in bodily humours, and the substances in the beak were meant to protect against it. Although the reasoning behind the creation of the plague doctor’s apparel was flawed, in practice, the outfit could have protected the wearer against infectious bodily fluids and respiratory droplets and from the bites of infected fleas.