Plague doctor

Doktor Schnabel von Rom ("Doctor Beak of Rome"), engraving by Paul Fürst, 1656

A plague doctor (Italian: physici epidemeie, Dutch: pestmeester, German: Pestarzt), was a special medical physician who saw those who had the bubonic plague.^[1] They were specifically hired by towns that had many plague victims in times of plague epidemics. Since the city was paying their salary they treated everyone, the rich and the poor.^[2] They were not normally professionally trained experienced physicians or surgeons, and often were second-rate doctors not able to otherwise run a successful medical business or young physicians trying to establish themselves.^[3] Plague doctors by their covenant treated only plague patients and 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.^[4][5][6][7] In France and the Netherlands plague doctors often lacked medical training and were referred to as "empirics". In one case a plague doctor had been a fruit-seller before his employment as a physician.^[8]

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some doctors wore a beak-like mask which was filled with aromatic items. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air, which (according to the miasmatic theory of disease) was seen as the cause of infection.^[9] Being a plague doctor was unpleasant, dangerous, and difficult. Their chances of survival in times of a plague epidemic were slim.^[10][11]

History

Pope Clement VI had hired several extra plague doctors during the Black Death plague. They were to attend to the sick people of Avignon. 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.^[12]

The first epidemic of bubonic plague dates back to the mid 500s, known as the Plague of Justinian.^[13] The largest epidemic was the Black Death of Europe in the fourteenth century. In medieval times the large loss of people due to the bubonic plague in a town created an economic disaster. Community plague doctors were quite valuable and were given special privileges. For example, a normally well guarded procedure of autopsies was freely allowed by plague doctors to allow research for a cure of the plague during the Middle Ages. The city of Orvieto hired Matteo fu Angelo in 1348 for 4 times the normal rate of a doctor of 50-florin per year.^[6]

So valuable were plague doctors that when Barcelona dispatched two to Tortosa in 1650, outlaws captured them en route and demanded a ransom. The city of Barcelona paid for their release.^[6]

Costume

Main article: Plague doctor costume

Some plague doctors wore a special costume, although graphic sources show that plague doctors wore a variety of garments. The garments were invented by Charles de L'Orme in 1619; they were first used in Paris, but later spread to be used throughout Europe^[14] The protective suit consisted of a heavy fabric overcoat that was waxed, a mask of glassed eye openings and a cone shaped like a beak to hold scented substances.^[15] Some of the scented materials were amber, balm-mint leaves, camphor, cloves, laudanum, myrrh, rose petals, storax.^[8] This protected the doctor from miasmatic bad air.^[16] A wooden cane pointer was used to help examine the patient without touching.^[17][18]

Public servants

Plague doctors served as public servants during times of epidemics starting with the Black Death of Europe in the fourteenth century. Their principal task, besides taking care of plague victims, was to record in public records the deaths due to the plague.^[8]

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 played a role.^[19] Plague doctors became testators and witnesses to numerous wills during times of plague epidemics.^[20] Plague doctors also gave advice to their patients about their conduct before death.^[21] 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.^[22]

Methods

Plague doctors practiced bloodletting and other remedies such as putting frogs on the buboes to "rebalance the humors" as a normal routine.^[23] Plague doctors could not generally interact with the general public because of the nature of their business and the possibility of spreading the disease; they could also be subject to quarantine. ^[24]

Notable medieval plague doctors

A famous plague doctor who gave medical advice about preventive measures which could be taken against the plague was Nostradamus.^[25][26] Nostradamus' advice was the removal of infected corpses, getting fresh air, drinking clean water, and drinking a juice preparation of "rose hips".^{[27] [28]} In Traité des fardemens it shows in Part A Chapter VIII that Nostradamus also recommended not to bleed the patient.^[28]

The Italian city of Pavia in 1479 contracted Giovanni de Ventura as a community plague doctor.^[6][29] The Irish physician, Niall Ó Glacáin (c.1563?-1653) earned deep respect in Spain, France and Italy for his bravery in treating numerous victims of the plague.^[30][31] Paracelsus was also a famous medieval plague doctor.^[32]

Footnotes

1. ^ Cipolla, p. 65
2. ^ Cipolla, p. 68 3/4 down page
3. ^ Cipolla, p. 65
4. ^ Ellis, p. 202
5. ^ Cipolla, p. 65
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Byrne (Daily), p. 169
7. ^ Simon, p. 3
8. ^ ^{a b c} Byrne, 170
9. ^ Irvine Loudon, Western Medicine: An Illustrated History (Oxford, 2001), pp. 184, 189
10. ^ Cipolla, pp. 65-69
11. ^ Robert S. Gottfried, The black death: natural and human disaster in medieval Europe (Simon & Shuster, 1983), p. 49.
12. ^ Byrne, 168
13. ^ Gordon, p. 471
14. ^ Christine M. Boeckl, Images of plague and pestilence: iconography and iconology (Truman State University Press, 2000), pp. 15, 27.
15. ^ Byrne (Encyclopedia), p. 505
16. ^ Irvine Loudon, Western Medicine: An Illustrated History (Oxford, 2001), p. 189.
17. ^ Pommerville, p. 9
18. ^ O'Donnell, p. 143
19. ^ Wray, p. 172
20. ^ Wray, p. 173
21. ^ The Plague Doctor
22. ^ Robert S. Gottfried, The black death: natural and human disaster in medieval Europe (Simon & Shuster, 1983), pp. 126-8.
23. ^ Byfield, p. 37
24. ^ Robert S. Gottfried, The black death: natural and human disaster in medieval Europe (Simon & Shuster, 1983), p. 126.
25. ^ Hogue, p. 1844
26. ^ The essential Nostradamus: literal translation, historical commentary, and ... By Richard Smoley
27. ^ Pickover, p. 279
28. ^ ^{a b} Excellent et moult utile opuscule à tous/ nécessaire qui désirent avoir connoissan/ ce de plusieurs exquises receptes divisé/ en deux parties./ La première traicte de diverses façons/ de fardemens et senteurs pour illustrer et/ embelir la face./ La seconde nous montre la façon et/ manière de faire confitures de plusieurs/ sortes... Nouvellement composé par Maistre/ Michel de NOSTREDAME docteur/ en medecine... by Nostradamus
29. ^ King, p. 339
30. ^ Stephen, p. 927
31. ^ THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN IRELAND, by J. OLIVER WOODS, MD, FRCGP, Page 40
32. ^ Körner, p. 13

References

Primary sources

• Nostradamus. The Prophecies of Nostradamus, self-published 1555 & 1558; reprinted by Forgotton Books publishing 1973, ISBN 1605065072
• Nostradamus. Traité des fardemens et confitures self-published 1555

Secondary sources

• Bauer, S. Wise, The Story of the World Activity Book Two: The Middle Ages : From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance, Peace Hill Press, 2003, ISBN 0971412944
• Byfield, Ted, Renaissance: God in Man, A.D. 1300 to 1500: But Amid Its Splendors, Night Falls on Medieval Christianity, Christian History Project, 2010, ISBN 0968987389
• Byrne, Joseph Patrick, Daily life during the Black Death, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 0313332975
• Byrne, Joseph Patrick, Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, ABC-CLIO, 2008, ISBN 0313341028
• Cipolla, Carlo M. 'A Plague Doctor', in Harry A. Miskimin et al. (eds), The Medieval City, Yale University Press, 1977, pp. 65-72. ISBN 0300020813
• Ellis, Oliver C., A History of Fire and Flame 1932 , Kessinger Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1417975830
• Fee, Elizabeth, AIDS: the burdens of history, University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0520063961
• Haggard, Howard W., From Medicine Man to Doctor: The Story of the Science of Healing, Courier Dover Publications, 2004, ISBN 0486435415
• Hogue, John,Nostradamus: the new revelations, Barnes & Nobles Books, 1995, ISBN 1566199484
• Gordon, Benjamin Lee, Medieval and Renaissance medicine, Philosophical Library, 1959
• Heymann, David L., The world health report 2007: a safer future : global public health security in the 21st century, World Health Organization, 2007, ISBN 9241563443
• Kenda, Barbara, Aeolian winds and the spirit in Renaissance architecture: Academia Eolia revisited, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 0415398045
• King, Margaret L., Western civilization: a social and cultural history, Prentice Hall, 2002, ISBN 0130450073
• Körner, Christian, Mountain biodiversity: a global assessment, CRC Press, 2002, ISBN 1842140914
• O'Donnell, Terence, History of life insurance in its formative years, American Conservation Company, 1936
• Pickover, Clifford A., Dreaming the future: the fantastic story of prediction, Prometheus Books, 2001, ISBN 157392895X
• Pommerville, Jeffrey, Alcamo's Fundamentals of Microbiology, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2010, ISBN 076376258X
• Reading, Mario, The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus, Sterling Publishing (2009), ISBN 1906787395 </ref>
• Simon, Matthew, Emergent computation: emphasizing bioinformatics, Publisher シュプリンガー・ジャパン株式会社, 2005, ISBN 0387220461
• Stephen (Sir Leslie), Robert Blake, Christine Stephanie Nicholls, Editor Sir Sidney Lee, The Dictionary of national biography, Volume 14, The Dictionary of National Biography, Robert Blake, Authors Publisher Oxford University Press, 1909
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• Wray, Shona Kelly, Communities and crisis: Bologna during the Black Death, ISBN 9004176349