The "Science" Behind the Plague Doctor Costume
November 7, 2015 2:01 PM   Subscribe

One of the most distinctive masks worn during the Carnival of Venice is “Il Medico della Peste,” or “The Plague Doctor.” But the distinctive bone-white mask and black clothing was actually the 17th century equivalent of a biocontainment suit. Albeit one based on very shaky science.
posted by filthy light thief (15 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
17th century Gordon Freeman!
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:22 PM on November 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is fascinating information--something whose supposed pragmatism also makes it intensely creepy, just as the biohazard suits descended therefrom.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:25 PM on November 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


There's a (probably actually used, not costume) plague doctor's hood in the Renaissance section of the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Creepy as fuck.

And then my creepy-as-fuck friend made a creepy-as-fuck replica, presumably so he could check us all for buboes.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:48 PM on November 7, 2015 [16 favorites]


This Eyes Wide Shut cosplay is getting out of hand.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:54 PM on November 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


The image at the top of the third link calls to my mind Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy". Would love to know the provenance of the original image.

The explanation that the bird mask was an attempt to ward off disease vector is haunting because the logic is so dreamlike:

What was with the bird's beak? Well, a common belief at the time was that the plague was being spread by birds. (We now know that rats and fleas were responsible for spreading the Black Death.) The doctors may have thought that dressing up in a bird-like gas mask, the plague would be transferred from the patient to the garment. This beak piece was also filled with vinegar, sweet oils, and other strong-smelling chemicals to mask the stench of death and unburied bodies.
which logic is made horrifying given the pragmatics of masking odors.

Another thing that intrigues me is how tantalizingly close the design of the plague doctor's suit was to the actual biological vector of the disease.

Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year published in 1722 comes just before Pasteur's experiments confirming the Germ Theory of disease and it, too, is tantalizingly close about the empirical cause of the spread of Bubonic plague.

Weird and haunting stuff.
posted by mistersquid at 2:56 PM on November 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


presumably so he could check us all for buboes.

Now I need a plague mask and a BUBOE INSPECTOR t-shirt.
posted by Justinian at 2:56 PM on November 7, 2015 [20 favorites]


That Deutsches Historisches Museum hood really does look strikingly similar to some modern hazmat equipment.

I think it would have worked pretty well, too. I mean, the oil cloth would probably have been decent protection from fleas, and the mask would have provided some barrier against suspended droplets being inhaled. As with modern personal protective equipment, the most dangerous part of using it would be taking it off... Because you could still have fleas or bacteria riding around on the outside.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


The science behind some modern infection control practices isn't that much better than what is described in the article. And anyone who has worked in an operating room for any period of time knows that surgical masks can be doused with herbal extracts (oil of wintergreen in particular) to ward off the evil humors of, say, a fecal disimpaction.
posted by TedW at 6:08 PM on November 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


They really did design a hazmat suit along very familiar lines. The sentence about resembling birds seems like a reach -- it looks more like they needed a snout/beak shape to get the "filtration" through the perfumed packing, in keeping with the miasma theory.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:26 PM on November 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


The Glasgow artist Joseph Davie features the plague doctor (with or without beak) heavily in his work
posted by aeshnid at 4:09 AM on November 8, 2015


I've spent a lot of time in the Deutsches Historisches Museum staring at that hood. It's even creepier in person somehow. It really looks like something out of a nightmare, or a Hieronymus Bosch painting. I can't imagine being sick and having someone bending over me wearing that; I'd be terrified.
posted by colfax at 5:33 AM on November 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


That Mental Floss portrayal sure isn't very sympathetic. It looked like a bird, woooo, magical thinking! I first ran across this on cellarspider's tumblr which was much kinder, foregrounding how they took measures against all the transmission vectors that seemed plausible at the time, which measures were pretty reasonable in the absence of knowledge of microorganisms.

Also thence: other less effective preventative measures included travelling groups of plague-infected flagellants, who by doing super-earnest, skin-breaking penance hoped to lift God's wrath. Can't win 'em all.
posted by finka at 6:28 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


And then you can have a Plague Doctor in your party as you attempt to defeat the antediluvian horrors of the Darkest Dungeon.
posted by Vindaloo at 9:00 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Is this mask having a cultural moment? I've run across it in about half a dozen unrelated places lately. I guess I was vaguely aware of it before, but it suddenly seems to be everywhere. Just coincidence, perhaps.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:48 AM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


The image at the top of the third link calls to my mind Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy".

That was the Halloween that solidified my path of 'costumes which require an explanation on a card to hand out', because goddamn did I get tired of explaining no, I was *not* the Spy v Spy guy.
posted by FatherDagon at 9:43 PM on November 8, 2015


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