Video: Why did plague doctors actually wear beak masks?
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In the middle of the XIV century, a plague came to Europe from the territory of modern Mongolia. In two centuries, it has claimed the lives of 80 million people. The creepy costumes of the plague doctors became one of the symbols of horror, poverty and grief of that time. After all, if people saw healers with a mask-beak on the streets of their cities, it meant only one thing - misfortunes came to them.
It is believed that the plague doctor's costume was invented by the Frenchman Charles de Lorme in 1619; before him, doctors did not wear a single pattern of clothing. Pants, long coat and gloves made of waxed leather. They were supposed to protect doctors from physical contact with those infected.
The most colorful part of the plague doctor was the mask. It resembled the beak of a bird. This is no coincidence, because earlier people believed that the infection was carried by birds. But the “beak” also had a practical purpose: a bunch of medicinal strong-smelling herbs was embedded inside it. Doctors believed that if you do not inhale the stinking smell emanating from the sick and corpses, this will save them from infection.
In addition, doctors constantly chewed garlic, and put sponges soaked in incense into their ears and nostrils. In order not to lose consciousness from such a mixture of aromas, two holes were made in the "beak". A wide-brimmed black hat indicated the status of a healer.
Every plague doctor always had a long cane with him. With it, he touched the patient, checked the pulse, examined the affected areas of the skin. With this cane, doctors fought off people who ran up to them with pleas to stop the excruciating pains.
Despite their protective suits, doctors became infected as often as everyone else. Their methods of treatment by bloodletting and the imposition of toads on abscesses were ineffective, since the true sources of the disease were unknown at that time. Plague was transmitted not through unpleasant odors, but through the bites of fleas, rats, contact with contaminated products, tissues, and airborne droplets.
The beak mask is so unpleasant to look at that it easily made the list. 10 most creepy masks of the past
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