As an attempt to purify the air they breathe (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. 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 away. 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 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. History Īccording to Garrett Rays 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, serving King Louis XIII of France at the time. 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 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 that could not afford to pay. Ī plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of bubonic plague during epidemics mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries. His nose-case is filled with herbal material to keep off the plague. 1656, of a plague doctor of Marseilles (introduced as 'Dr Beaky of Rome').

Plague doctor ingrid