Plague doctors: Separating medical myths from facts
You’ve seen them before: mysterious figures, clad from head to toe in oiled leather, wearing goggles and beaked masks. The plague doctor costume looks like a cross between a steampunk crow and the Grim Reaper, and has come to represent both the terrors of the Black Death and the foreignness of medieval medicine.
However, the beak mask costume first appeared much later than the middle ages, some three centuries after the Black Death first struck in the 1340s. There may have been a few doctors in the 17th and 18th centuries who wore the outfit, including the iconic beak mask, but most medieval and early modern physicians who studied and treated plague patients did not. ...
The plague doctor getup, and especially the beaked mask, has become one of the most popular costumes in the "Carnevale," or Carnival of Venice in Italy. In fact, some historians have argued that the beaked plague doctor was nothing but a fictional and comedic character at first, and that the theatrical version inspired genuine doctors to use the costume during the outbreaks of 1656 and 1720.
Without more informative written reports and images from this period, which can help us understand under what circumstances the outfit was used, it is impossible to tell which came first: the plague doctor's protective outfit, or the carnival costume. ...
Although the beak mask costume has since become a theatrical and macabre symbol of a primitive time in medical history, in truth it represents how for centuries physicians, scientists and health officials have thought about the spread and prevention of plague. The costume represents changing ideas about the causes and transmission of disease, about the relationship between doctors and patients, and about the role of the state in protecting public health.