The Mysterious Birth of the Beaked Costume
Charles de Lorme, a plague doctor who treated 17th century royals, is often credited with the uniform. The costume is usually credited to Charles de Lorme, a physician who catered to the medical needs of many European royals during the 17th century, including King Louis XIII and Gaston d’Orléans, son of Marie de Médici. The costume started to appear in the 17th century when physicians studied and treated plague patients. 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. This curious fact challenges our common assumptions about medieval medicine. Contrary to popular belief, no evidence suggests that the beak mask costume was worn during the Black Death or the Middle Ages.
Anatomy of Terror: The Complete Plague Doctor Ensemble
He described an outfit that included a coat covered in scented wax, breeches connected to boots, a tucked-in shirt, and a hat and gloves made of goat leather. The costume consists of a leather hat, mask with glass eyes and a beak, stick to remove clothes of a plague victim, gloves, waxed linen robe, and boots. These doctors transformed into something resembling medieval death itself.
Most of the costume’s components would be made of leather, and the mask included glass or crystal spectacles to protect the eyes. In addition, the plague doctor would also possess a wand or staff to examine or undress the patient without touching them and to measure what was thought to be a safe distance from infectious individuals. Plague doctors also carried a rod that allowed them to poke (or fend off) victims.
The Science Behind the Beak
The beak could hold dried flowers (commonly roses and carnations), herbs (commonly lavender and peppermint), camphor, or a vinegar sponge, as well as juniper berry, ambergris, cloves. The beak could hold dried flowers (like roses and carnations), herbs (like lavender and peppermint), camphor, or a vinegar sponge, as well as juniper berry, ambergris, cloves, labdanum, myrrh, and storax. Plague doctors filled their masks with theriac, a compound of more than 55 herbs and other components like viper flesh powder, cinnamon, myrrh, and honey. De Lorme thought the beak shape of the mask would give the air sufficient time to be suffused by the protective herbs before it hit plague doctors’ nostrils and lungs.
The prevailing view in medical science in the Middle Ages was that disease spread through “miasma,” or bad-smelling air that caused an imbalance in bodily humours, and the substances in the beak were meant to protect against it. The miasma theory (also called the miasmic theory) is an abandoned medical theory that held that diseases – such as cholera, chlamydia, or plague – were caused by a miasma (μίασμα, Ancient Greek for pollution), a noxious form of “bad air”, also known as night air. The theory held that epidemics were caused by miasma, emanating from rotting organic matter.
Fear Made Manifest
Depictions of the beaked plague doctor rose in response to superstition and fear about the unknown source of the plague. Often, these plague doctors were the last thing a patient would see before death; therefore, the doctors were seen as a foreboding of death. The psychological impact was staggering. Few images in medical history are as striking (or as creepy) as those of plague doctors with their long, beaked masks. But why did doctors wear these strange masks, which surely must only have added to the fear felt by people in times of suffering?
To me, the image represented the triumph of fear and superstition over the more noble impulses I hoped would drive me in a time of crisis. How could a physician don such a terrifying costume to approach a suffering or dying patient? Plague doctors had a mixed reputation, with some citizens seeing their presence as a warning to leave the area or that death was near.
The Reality Behind the Myth
There is no proof at all of its use during plague outbreaks in Middle Europe. And the specimens in Ingolstadt and Berlin? Both masks present details which suggest that they were not used as protective clothing at all. 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. 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.
There are only two known artifacts of plague masks, both dated to the 17th century and both found in Germany. Despite contemporaneous outbreaks in other regions such as Italy, there is no historical evidence of plague in central Europe that would correspond to these masks. While plague doctors wore a mask of some form since at least 1373, there is no evidence linking the typical image of the plague doctor costume to medieval plague doctors, and most of the early modern depictions of the costume come from satirical writings and political cartoons.
Unintended Protection
Despite the flawed reasoning, the costume might have offered some genuine protection. Though these particular theories about the plague’s nature were incorrect, it is likely that the costume actually did afford the wearer some protection. The garments covered the body, shielding against splattered blood, lymph, and cough droplets, and the waxed robe prevented fleas (the true carriers of the plague) from touching the body or clinging to the linen. Although the reasoning behind the creation of the plague doctor’s apparel was flawed, in practice, the outfit could have protected the wearer against infectious bodily fluids and respiratory droplets and from the bites of infected fleas.
The True Nature of Plague
In fact, plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, bacteria that can be transmitted from animals to humans and through flea bites, contact with contaminated fluid or tissue, and inhalation of infectious droplets from sneezing or coughing people with pneumonic plague. Bubonic plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is transmitted through the bite of an infected flea. The plague doctors, believing miasma to be the cause, were not aware of this. The doctors were fighting an enemy they couldn’t understand with tools that accidentally worked.
The Business of Plague Doctoring
A plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of bubonic plague during epidemics in 17th-century Europe. These physicians were hired by cities to treat infected patients regardless of income, especially the poor, who could not afford to pay. In many cases, these doctors were not experienced or trained physicians or surgeons, instead being volunteers, second-rate doctors, or young doctors just starting a career. The profession attracted desperate people willing to face almost certain death.
Some plague doctors were said to charge patients and their families additional fees for special treatments or false cures. Plague doctors rarely cured patients, instead serving to record death tolls and the number of infected people for demographic purposes. Many of the duties fulfilled by plague doctors were actually outside the realm of medical treatment, such as recording the number of infections and deaths, witnessing wills, performing autopsies, and keeping journals and casebooks to help with the development of treatments or preventive measures.
When Medicine Meets Theater
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. In this satirical work, Fürst describes how the doctor does nothing but terrify people and take money from the dead and dying. The beaked plague doctor inspired costumes in Italian theater as a symbol of general horror and death, though some historians insist that the plague doctor was originally fictional and inspired the real plague doctors later.
The beaked costume became the subject of macabre jokes and cartoons as plague doctors themselves became easily recognizable harbingers of disease and death. Such attire became popular at the Venetian Carnival, and the plague doctor was a popular stock character in the Italian commedia dell’arte. 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.
The Horror Spreads Through Culture
Dark Horse Comics’ Death Head prominently features a masked killer with the tagline, “In the woods they found a mask. At home he’ll find them.” Supernatural’s episode Advanced Thanatology (S13E05) involves the ghost of a killer doctor with a collection of beaked masks. Dan Brown’s protagonist, Robert Langdon, hallucinates a vision of hell replete with Plague Doctors in Inferno. These representations are effective entertainment, playing upon common fears of obscured identities and illness. In these cases, the Plague Doctor is separated from the medical context; the murderous figure could as easily be Jason Voorhees, Ghostface, or Michael Myers.
It appears that the Plague Doctor is here to stay, a historical icon rooted deeply in modern anxieties. Anxiety over invisible invaders encourages individuals to desire a barrier, to wrest back a feeling of control. Anxiety over invisible invaders encourages individuals to desire a barrier, to wrest back a feeling of control.
Modern Resurrection During Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020, the plague doctor costume grew in popularity due to its relevance to the pandemic, with news reports of plague doctor-costumed individuals The eerie prescience was impossible to ignore. Madeleine Mant // 2020 is the year of the mask. Whether manufacturing, stockpiling, MacGyvering, sewing, 3D printing, or debating them, masks are (figuratively, if not literally) on everyone’s lips. The spike in face-mask purchasing and crafting in response to COVID-19 fears is not surprising.
That night, as I tossed restlessly in my bed, I imagined what it would have been like to care for patients during the Black Death. I realized I’d been far too hard on my predecessors from the Middle Ages. A 14th-century plague doctor faced risks far higher than mine. Perhaps my error was imagining that patients were more terrorized than comforted by the arrival of such a fearsome figure. Maybe that’s just wrong – maybe patients were comforted that someone had the commitment to set aside his own fear and come to them in their moment of need. Perhaps they were just grateful they were no longer suffering alone.
Legacy of Fear and Hope
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.
The beaked mask, though ineffective in filtering airborne pathogens, represents a significant step in the evolution of personal protective equipment. Plague doctors were both feared and respected, playing a crucial role in recording and attempting to treat one of history’s deadliest diseases. The mask remains a powerful symbol of humanity’s eternal struggle against invisible death, embodying both our deepest fears and our desperate hope to heal.