The Plague Doctor Costume The beak could hold dried flowers (e.g roses or carnations), herbs (e.g. mint), spices, camphor or a vinegar sponge. The purpose of the mask was to remove bad smells, thought to be the principal cause of the disease.
Since the plague was thought to spread by “bad air”, homes were fumigated with incense or simply smoke from burning thatch. People carried bouquets of flowers which they held to their faces, not only to ward off the stench of decomposing bodies, but because it was thought this would fumigate one's lungs.
The purpose of the mask was to keep away bad smells such as decaying bodies and the smell taken with the most caution was known as miasma, a noxious form of "bad air". This was thought to be the principal cause of the disease.
Plague doctors also completely covered themselves from head to toe, and may have carried incense or other burning herbs to ward off the plague.
The wide-brimmed leather hat indicated their profession, they used wooden canes in order to point out areas needing attention and to examine patients without touching them. The canes were also used to keep people away and to remove clothing from plague victims without having to touch them.
The bautta (more typically bauta) was a mask that early modern Venitians wore to cover their identity. Various paintings of the time show men an women wearing it. The bauta presented an elongated area below the nose, which is vaguely reminiscent of the “bird nose” of Carnival plague doctor masks.
Juniper berries were used in Scotland as strong smelling herbs for plague masks. The berries were placed in the beak of the mask and their strong smell was believed to protect wearers from breathing in the plague. Plague masks were used by doctors in Europe.
The miasma theory of contagious disease held that sickness spread through unpleasant aromas. A whiff of 'bad air' could kill you – and the right fragrance just might save your life. A physician wearing a 17th-century plague preventive. Source: Wellcome Collection.
The sick even smelled like they were going to die. Bad breath and odors indicated they were rotting from the inside. Medieval writers tell us that the fevers resulted in delirium -- madmen wandered the streets, shouting wildly.
Rosemary, tansy, lavender, carnation, and feverfew was a popular combination. People carried their posey with them to quickly deploy under their nose should they come across a foul smell that might carry the miasma of the plague.
When someone dies, the body immediately begins the decomposition process and the smell of death can begin. The body will begin to smell due to various gases created by microorganisms during the stages of decomposition.
Sometimes, doctors even burned the flowers and herbs before putting them in the beak. This made smoke that filled the mask for a short time. They believed this would remove the bad smells from the air before the doctor breathed it, preventing the doctors from catching the plague.
The miasmatic position was that diseases were the product of environmental factors such as contaminated water, foul air, and poor hygienic conditions. Such infection was not passed between individuals but would affect individuals within the locale that gave rise to such vapors. It was identifiable by its foul smell.
The eventual weakening of the pandemic was likely due to the practice of quarantining infected people that originated in Venice in the 15th century and is with us to this day. Improved sanitation, personal hygiene, and medical practices also played a role in ultimately slowing the plague's terror march.
Miasma. Some people carried bunches of flowers or burned herbs to purify the air. Some priests ran away from their parishes - refusing to give funerals to infected bodies. They thought the bodies gave off miasma.
Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis. (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century.)
Covid-19 has devastated our world, but there are a few blessings: it very rarely strikes children, and its infection fatality rate — the percentage of those who are infected who die — is much lower than for many other famous plagues. Epidemic diseases like smallpox frequently killed 30 percent of those infected.
While odor from a dead body isn't a biohazard, the odor is definitely something you need to have permanently removed because it will not go away on its own.
As a result of the Black Plague, new sanitary systems were created by public officials, including isolation hospitals and disinfection procedures. Sanitation improvements also included the development of clean water supplies, garbage and sewage disposal, and food inspection.
Most medieval people probably were dirty, and perhaps even smelly, by our standards – however hard you try, it must be nearly impossible to make a cold, muddy river work as well as a power shower and a washing machine. But only a tiny number of medieval people were truly filthy.
1. The Black Death. A plague so devastating that simply saying “The Plague” will immediately pull it to the front of your mind, in the middle of the 14th century—from 1347 to 1351—the Black Death remade the landscape of Europe and the world.
Within just hours an individual could be in agony from a number of these symptoms, if not all of them. The Black Plague, in all forms, is a relatively fast death, but an astonishingly painful one.
The original included several herbs and roots steeped for days in white wine vinegar. Scientists believe the concoction worked against the plague because it repelled insects, including fleas, which spread that disease.
The purpose of the mask was to remove bad smells, thought to be the principal cause of the disease. Doctors believed the herbs would counter the "evil" smells of the plague and prevent them from becoming infected. The costume included a wide brimmed leather hat to indicate their profession.
Antibiotics such as streptomycin, gentamicin, doxycycline, or ciprofloxacin are used to treat plague. Oxygen, intravenous fluids, and respiratory support are usually also needed. People with pneumonic plague must be kept away from other patients and isolation procedures will be followed in the hospital.