Plague doctor

A plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of the bubonic plague.[1] In times of epidemics, these physicians were specifically hired by towns where the plague had taken hold. Since the city was paying them a salary, they treated everyone, wealthy or poor.[2]

Copper engraving of Doctor Schnabel (i.e., Dr. Beak), a plague doctor in seventeenth-century Rome, circa 1656

However, some plague doctors were known to charge patients and their families additional fees for special treatments or false cures.[3] Typically, they were not experienced physicians or surgeons at all; rather, they were often either second-rate doctors unable to otherwise run a successful medical practice or young physicians seeking to establish themselves in the industry.[1] They rarely cured their patients; rather, they served to record a count of the number of infected people for demographic purposes.

Plague doctors by their covenant treated plague patients and 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.[1][4][5][6] In France and the Netherlands, plague doctors often lacked medical training and were referred to as "empirics". In one case, a plague doctor had been a fruit salesman before his employment as a physician.[7]

In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, some doctors wore a beak-like mask that was filled with aromatic items. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air, which (according to the now-obsolete miasmatic theory of disease) was seen as the cause of infection. The design of the mask and clothing has been attributed to Charles de Lorme, the chief physician to Louis XIII.[8]

History

The plague has caused three major pandemics.[9] The first one was the Justinian plague and caused near 100 million deaths.[10] The Justinian plague spread around the Mediterranean sea during the 6th century. The second pandemic caused by the plague is known as the Black Death.[9] The Black Death killed approximately one-third of Europe’s population during the Middle Ages.[10] The last plague pandemic occurred in the 19th century and started in China.[9] It killed roughly 12 million people.[10] At first, nobody recognized the magnitude of the danger of this disease. In the hospital, sick people were not isolated from the others. Within a few weeks of the first infections, communities experienced ever-increasing death rates. The medical staff were among the first to die because they were constantly exposed to the plague. The non-infected people went about their business as if nothing were happening. Then, when the effects of the Black Death could no longer be ignored, people started to panic.[11] The large losses of people in a town created an economic disaster.[12] Trade suffered and wars were abandoned, but this only lasted temporarily. As a consequence of the population decline and therefore a labour shortage, wages soared and those living solely from monetary wages became subject to a reduction in real income and rampant inflation. [13]

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 the written work of royal physician Charles de Lorme at that time in service of King Louis XIII of France. After De Lorme German engraver Gerhart Altzenbach published a famous illustration in 1656, where in turn publisher Paulus Fürst’s iconic "Doctor Schnabel von Rom'' is based upon. Fürst describes in this satirical work how the doctor does nothing but terrify people and take money from the dead and dying.[13]

The city of Orvieto hired Matteo fu Angelo in 1348 for four times the normal rate of a doctor of 50-florin per year.[5] Pope Clement VI hired several extra plague doctors during the Black Death plague to tend to the sick people of Avignon. Of 18 doctors in Venice, only one was left by 1348: five had died of the plague, and 12 were missing and may have fled.[14]

The iconic outfit of the plague doctors rose up as a response to superstition and fear about the unknown source of the plague.[15] Often, these plague doctors were the last thing a patient would see before they would pass away, therefore the doctors were seen as a foreboding to death. The beaked masks can still be found in today's Carnival of Venice. [16]

Costume
Plague doctor outfit from Germany (17th century).
A beaked Venetian carnival mask with the inscription Medico della Peste ("Plague doctor") beneath the right eye
Main article: Plague doctor costume

Some plague doctors wore a special costume. The garments were invented by Charles de L'Orme in 1630 and were first used in Naples, but later spread to be used throughout Europe.[17] The protective suit consisted of a light, waxed fabric overcoat, a mask with glass eye openings and a beak shaped nose, typically stuffed with herbs, straw, and spices. Plague doctors would also commonly carry a cane to examine and direct patients without the need to make direct contact with them.[18]

The scented materials included juniper berry, ambergris, roses (Rosa), mint (Mentha spicata L.) leaves, camphor, cloves, labdanum, myrrh, and storax.[7] Per the then-widely accepted miasma theory of disease, it was believed this suit would sufficiently protect the doctor from miasma while tending to patients.[19]

Public servants

Their principal task, besides taking care of people with the plague, was to compile public records of the deaths due to the plague.[7]

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 played a role.[20] Plague doctors became witnesses to numerous wills during times of plague epidemics.[21] Plague doctors also gave advice to their patients about their conduct before death.[22] 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.[23][24]

Methods

Plague doctors practiced bloodletting and other remedies such as putting frogs or leeches on the buboes to "rebalance the humors" as a normal routine.[25] Plague doctors could not generally interact with the general public because of the nature of their business and the possibility of spreading the disease; they could also be subject to quarantine.[23]

Notable Renaissance plague doctors

A famous plague doctor who gave medical advice about preventive measures which could be used against the plague was Nostradamus.[26][27] Nostradamus's advice was the removal of infected corpses, getting fresh air, drinking clean water, and drinking a juice preparation of rose hips.[28][29] In Traité des fardemens it shows in Part A Chapter VIII that Nostradamus also recommended not to bleed the patient.[29]

The Italian city of Pavia, in 1479, contracted Giovanni de Ventura as a community plague doctor.[5][30] The Irish physician, Niall Ó Glacáin (c.1563?–1653) earned deep respect in Spain, France and Italy for his bravery in treating numerous people with the plague.[31][32] The French anatomist Ambroise Paré and Swiss iatrochemist Paracelsus, were also famous Renaissance plague doctors.[33]

Footnotes
  1. Cipolla 1977, p. 65.
  2. Cipolla 1977, p. 68.
  3. Rosenhek, Jackie (October 2011). "Doctors of the Black Death". Doctor's Review. Archived from the original on 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2014-05-06.
  4. Ellis, Oliver C., A History of Fire and Flame 1932 , Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p. 202. ISBN 1-4179-7583-0
  5. Byrne 2006, p. 169.
  6. Simon, Matthew, Emergent Computation: emphasizing bioinformatics, Publisher シュプリンガー・ジャパン株式会社, 2005, p. 3. ISBN 0-387-22046-1
  7. Byrne 2006, p. 170.
  8. "The "Science" Behind Today's Plague Doctor Clothes". Gizmodo. June 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
  9. Stenseth, N.C. (2008). "Plague, past, present and future". PLOS Medicine. 5 (8): 9–13. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050003. PMC 2194748. PMID 18198939 – via Google Scolar.
  10. Kool, Jacob; Weinstein, Robert (2005). "Risk of Person-to-Person Transmission of Pneumonic Plague". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 40 (8): 1166–1172. doi:10.1086/428617. PMID 15791518 – via Google Scolar.
  11. Clark, R.S. (1998). "The Black Death: a parallel of perilous projects". IEEE Software. 15 (2): 60–61. doi:10.1109/52.663786 – via IEEE computer society digital library.
  12. Wray, Shona-kelly (2009). Communities and Crisis: Bologna during the Black Death. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17634-8.
  13. Black, Winston (19 May 2020). "Plague doctors: Separating medical myths from facts". livescience. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  14. Byrne 2006, p. 168.
  15. Mussap, J.C. (2019). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/imj.14285 "The Plague Doctor of Venice" Check |url= value (help). Internal Medical Journal - Royal Australasian College of Physicians. 49 (5): 673. doi:10.1111/imj.14285. PMID 31083805. S2CID 153311347 – via Google Scolar.
  16. Mussap, J.C. (2019). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/imj.14285 "The Plague Doctor of Venice" Check |url= value (help). Internal Medical Journal - Royal Australasian College of Physicians. 49 (5): 675. doi:10.1111/imj.14285. PMID 31083805. S2CID 153311347 – via Google Scolar.
  17. Christine M. Boeckl, Images of plague and pestilence: iconography and iconology (Truman State University Press, 2000), pp. 15, 27.
  18. Byrne 2008, p. 505.
  19. Irvine Loudon, Western Medicine: An Illustrated History (Oxford, 2001), p. 189.
  20. Wray 2009, p. 172.
  21. Wray 2009, p. 173.
  22. "The Plague Doctor". Jhmas.oxfordjournals.org. 2012-04-02. Archived from the original on 2013-02-12. Retrieved 2012-06-12.
  23. Gottfried 1983, p. 126.
  24. Gottfried 1983, pp. 127–128.
  25. Byfield, Ted, Renaissance: God in Man, A.D. 1300 to 1500: But Amid Its Splendors, Night Falls on Medieval Christianity, Christian History Project, 2010, p. 37. ISBN 0-9689873-8-9
  26. Hogue, John,Nostradamus: the new revelations, Barnes & Noble Books, 1995, p. 1884. ISBN 1-56619-948-4
  27. Smoley, Richard (2006-01-19). The essential Nostradamus: literal translation, historical commentary, and ... By Richard Smoley. ISBN 978-1-4406-4984-4. Retrieved 2012-06-12.
  28. Pickover, Clifford A., Dreaming the Future: the fantastic story of prediction, Prometheus Books, 2001, p. 279. ISBN 1-57392-895-X
  29. "Excellent et moult utile opuscule à tous/ nécessaire qui désirent avoir connoissan/ ce de plusieurs exquises receptes divisé/ en deux parties./ La première traicte de diverses façons/ de fardemens et senteurs pour illustrer et/ embelir la face./ La seconde nous montre la façon et/ manière de faire confitures de plusieurs/ sortes... Nouvellement composé par Maistre/ Michel de NOSTREDAME docteur/ en medecine... by Nostradamus". Propheties.it. Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2012-06-12.
  30. King, Margaret L., Western Civilization: a social and cultural history, Prentice-Hall, 2002, p. 339. ISBN 0-13-045007-3
  31. Stephen, p. 927.
  32. Woods JO (1982). "THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN IRELAND; by J. OLIVER WOODS, MD, FRCGP, Page 40". Ulster Med J. 51 (1): 35–45. PMC 2385830. PMID 6761926.
  33. Körner, Christian, Mountain Biodiversity: a global assessment, CRC Press, 2002, p. 13. ISBN 1-84214-091-4

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources
  • Bauer, S. Wise, The Story of the World Activity Book Two: The Middle Ages : From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance, Peace Hill Press, 2003, ISBN 0-9714129-4-4
  • Byrne, Joseph Patrick (2006). Daily Life during the Black Death. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-33297-5.
  • Byrne, Joseph Patrick (2008). Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues. ABC-Clio. ISBN 978-0-313-34102-1.
  • Cipolla, Carlo M. (1977). "The Medieval City". In Miskimin, Harry A. (ed.). A Plague Doctor. Yale University Press. pp. 65–72. ISBN 978-0-300-02081-6.
  • Fee, Elizabeth, AIDS: the burdens of history, University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0-520-06396-1
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  • Heymann, David L., The World Health Report 2007: a safer future : global public health security in the 21st century, World Health Organization, 2007, ISBN 92-4-156344-3
  • Kenda, Barbara, Aeolian winds and the spirit in Renaissance architecture: Academia Eolia revisited, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 0-415-39804-5
  • O'Donnell, Terence, History of Life Insurance in its Formative Years, American Conservation Company, 1936
  • Pommerville, Jeffrey, Alcamo's Fundamentals of Microbiology, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2010, ISBN 0-7637-6258-X
  • Reading, Mario, The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus, Sterling Publishing (2009), ISBN 1-906787-39-5
  • Stuart, David C., Dangerous Garden: the quest for plants to change our lives, Frances Lincoln ltd, 2004, ISBN 0-7112-2265-7
  • Wray, Shona Kelly (2009). Communities and Crisis: Bologna during the Black Death. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17634-8.
  • Fitzharris, Lindsey. "Behind the Mask: The Plague Doctor." The Chirurgeons Apprentice. Web. 6 May 2014.
  • Rosenhek, Jackie. "Doctor's Review: Medicine on the Move." Doctor's Review. Web. May 2011.
  • A Plague Doctor Real cases of plague doctors by Carlo M. Cipolla. Excerpt from the book The Medieval City (1977)
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