Although the treatment of the epidemic doctor may be useless, their countless generations of 'disciples' stepped on their corpses and finally conquered the Black Death.
Round rose
Bouquet full of pockets
Ashes ashes
You all have to fall!
This British nursery rhyme 'Roses' can be described as the British version of 'lost the handkerchief', the children form a circle, and when the last sentence is finished, they will bow down.
Behind the simple nursery rhymes, however, lies a tingling history. This song describes the tragedy of the Black Death epidemic in Europe: At that time, many people were emotionally mad before they died, ran to the streets to dance, and then fell violently. Urban and rural corpses spread flowers on the corpses to cover their stinks. The burnt ashes floated in the air.
· A painting depicting the tragedy of the time
From the 14th century to the 17th century, the plague plagued Europe many times, from Venice in Italy, Paris in France, and London in the UK. The Black Death killed one third of the European population. It was not until the 17th century that European population density remained the same as in the 13th century.
With such a disaster, many nobles and civilians have fled the town, but there is still a special group 'retrograde' into the epidemic area, even if it is helpless. This group is a disease doctor wearing a beak mask.
Social collapse
In 1347, the Black Death swept Europe. The plague has claimed at least one-fifth of tenant farmers in Britain. From London, England to Florence and Venice, Italy, the death toll is estimated at more than 100,000 in each city.
The bustling city of the past became a world of purgatory instantly, and some people suddenly lost their breath unconsciously while walking on the street. All black dead patients' homes were marked with black ink to remind people not to approach. But in the end even the person who wrote the note was dead.
An unprecedented epidemic came, when education and social assistance were rushed. The church pushed the 'temporary punishment‘, thinking that the epidemic was a punishment from God to the world. In order to 'dispel' the epidemic, many churches organized local people to pray and confess collectively, but the crowd gathered instead and infected more people.
In addition to prayer and repentance, churches and monasteries played a role in the treatment of disease. But the medical conditions at that time were really too backward.
· Due to extensive contact with patients, the clergy's death rate during the Black Death was close to half, forcing the Pope to allow ordinary people to listen to short shrift.
In medieval England, doctors were broadly divided into priest doctors, physicians, surgeons, kings and pharmacists. The priest doctors and physicians are well educated and they offer high prices, so they mainly serve the aristocracy. But once encountering incurable diseases, priests and physicians can only take the patient to repent with God.
Both priest doctors and physicians are ashamed to have blood on their hands. At the time, surgery was considered scornful, and surgeons were as scorned as hairdressers. Doctor King is a mysterious existence. The people believe that the king's touch can cure all diseases.
Compared with the present, medicine at that time was not scientific at all, and the practitioners were not necessarily full-time. The priest works part-time as a doctor, the hairdresser does surgery by the way, the spice shop owner acts as a pharmacist, and the monastery treats patients. Going to the monastery, whether the illness can be cured, depends on the patient's remorse.
18th-century painter Franz Anton Maubert's 'Quack', depicting the scene of a barber doing surgery
So when people are sick, the first thought is not to see a doctor, but to pray. This kind of social treatment system relying on luck and fatalities was fragile under the 'scythe' of the Black Death and instantly collapsed.
The monastery, which is mainly responsible for treating patients, is particularly deadly. In the fall of 1348, the Black Death arrived in England. Less than a year later, 142 monasteries in England died, and about half of ordinary monks went to God. All monks of the Norwich Monastery at the time were all ill.
The monasteries often serve the functions of healing, saving people, and residents' self-governance. The grass-roots monasteries have suffered heavy casualties, religious activities cannot be carried out, and the influence of the church has weakened. Even the social order has collapsed. People have escaped. Many of the survivors simply give up and enjoy themselves early. .
Some people ran away from the mountains and forests to isolate themselves from the world. Many rich people held the idea of 'there is wine today and are drunk' and squandered their money in the tavern all the time. Some even thought that the Black Death was some kind of gas or demon. , So the family moved to the sewers and sewers to hide.
'Dance of Death' murals popular for Black Death
Of course, the governors of the kings of various countries and the towns and cities must not watch the social order at their own sites collapse. The Black Death has weakened the church-led bailout system. At this time, the task of 'combatting the Black Death' fell on the secular government and civil citizen groups. The kings and the governors of the towns also need to maintain the basic administrative system operations, such as counting casualties, organizing epidemic prevention, and understanding the waste of Liangtian towns .
The spread of the Black Death was almost out of control, causing many and many doctors to refuse to see a doctor, and many officials were afraid to enter the affected area. However, many doctors still take the risk to go to the epidemic area to treat patients. This group is collectively called 'Plague doctor'.
The disease doctors are hired by the government and some non-governmental organizations, and their salaries are paid by the city government, so no matter they are rich or poor, they can be treated by the disease doctors. It's just that their treatment is terrifying.
Bird Beak 'Death'
The dress of the epidemic doctor is scary enough.
The costumes of these disease doctors at the beginning were very diverse, but they all wore thick robes and face masks to prevent inhalation of the disease-causing 'belt gas'.
In 1619, a French doctor named Charles invented the famous beak masks, which resembled beaks on their noses. The beak space will be filled with ambergris, mint leaves, geranium, and even opium. The disease doctors tried to use these aromas to cover the 'belt gas', and there were lenses on the eyes. The sick doctor is also known as the 'Doctor Schnabel' because of the stinging mask. Disease doctors will also be equipped with long sticks to reduce direct contact with patients.
Whenever it is early in the morning or night, while the moon is shining, a sick doctor wearing a thick black robe with a mask holding a stick will appear at the street entrance and in the village to check for death and injury from house to house.
These disease doctors are not all medically trained doctors. The shortage of doctors after the Black Death broke out in the 14th century, soaring demand has made doctors' incomes soar five times in just four years. Many 'Jianghu Langzhong' who had not attended medical school have been entangled in the team of disease doctors under the temptation of high salaries. Some counterfeit goods use the opportunity to be close to the patient, tampering with the will after the death of the patient, and obtaining someone else's property.
The team of disease and epidemic doctors could mix in any “counterfeit goods”. This was because the “treatment” of the Black Death at that time was too simple and too easy to use. No matter whether it is a Black Death or any disease, the treatment is either bathing or bleeding .
At that time, the western medical community generally believed in Hippocrates' 'body fluid method.' They believe that there are four main body fluids in the human body: blood, sputum, black bile and yellow bile. In addition to the condemnation of God ’s death, people also have to use “blood therapy” to balance body fluids because of the imbalance of body fluids.
· One-Page Guide to Medieval Bleeding
In order to treat patients, the disease doctors use special tools to pierce the patient's egg-sized swollen body, then squeeze the pus, and sometimes even use leech and toad to suck the pus. After some doctors bleed blood, they poured mercury back into the patients and baked them with fire. Some patients will also ask the epidemic doctor to beat him with a stick to purify their sins.
Every time a disease doctor enters a house or a house to start 'treatment', a heartbreaking scream will be heard everywhere. Ineffective therapies are bound to accelerate the death of black-dead patients. So when the epidemic doctor wore a bird's beak and appeared in front of his house, his house would be dead. Later, the beak mask of the disease doctor's iconic costume even became a symbol of death, evoking people's inner fear of death.
Shocking and ineffective therapies have almost destroyed the reputation of the profession. After the Black Death, many survivors were angry at the church and doctors because they could not be prevented and cured. Many studies in later generations also sneered at medieval disease doctors.
However, disease doctors are neither angels nor deaths. They are only brave individuals. They 'heal' not the patient but society.
Fearless brave
Although all the treatments of disease doctors are ineffective, this is already the 'best' medical method that can be obtained at that time. The medical treatment of the disease doctors is still backward, but in the face of the previously unknown brutal illness, they choose to stay behind for treatment and research.
The beak mask has never been able to stop the plague virus, and the doctors treating the disease have an extremely high mortality rate. In 1348, all doctors in Montpellier, a small town in southern France, were spared in the battle against the 'black death.' In Venice, twenty-four excellent physicians fell. Even the Pope ’s doctor died of the Black Death.
The colleagues fell one by one, but the epidemic doctors went fearlessly into the epidemic area to take care of the patients every day. They instructed the remaining survivors to carry the corpses to be burned, and used the surviving monastery to isolate the healthy people from the patients. Keep the remaining survivors.
· 1665 scene of people carrying dead bodies during the London Plague
Another important task for disease epidemic doctors is to entrust the official registration of the number of deaths caused by disease in this town.
During the period of social collapse, it was the disease doctors who maintained the basic social organization capabilities. The pope fled, the king fled, but the doctor would not.
Many disease doctors also play the role of grass-roots epidemic prevention organizers. The Italian disease doctor Gentili organized people to ignite smoke on the street and wanted to remove the 'smell' that caused disease in rooms and cities. Dr. Agramont suggested that the municipal government prohibit the disposal of animal waste and dead bodies near the municipality. In the 16th century, when the Black Death ravaged Britain, Nathaniel, a disease doctor in London, also called on local sheriffs to pay attention to urban hygiene and ensure that streets, sinks and canals are cleaned.
· Nostradamus is also a well-known epidemic doctor. He put forward correct precautionary measures such as clearing the infected person's body, ventilating fresh air, drinking clean water, and not bleeding the patient. However, his fame now mainly comes from his 'Prophecy Urban legend, the Internet is full of miracles that he predicts every epidemic and war, but it seems he has not had time to predict this new type of coronavirus.
These doctors fighting the Black Death epidemic also inadvertently advanced medicine. After many doctors tried all kinds of prayers and treatments that were ineffective, they began to suspect 'body fluid' and 'temporary punishment', and new medical ideas were emerging.
Before the 14th century, dissection of corpses was contraindicated. In 1348, Pope Clement VI approved the disease doctors to have the privilege to dissect the corpses. This virtually let a glimmer of light penetrate into the dark ages of medicine.
Many epidemic doctors and scholars seized this opportunity to risk their lives to collect and dissect the corpses in the epidemic area to find the cause. They used their lives to get 'first-hand information' on the Black Death. From 1348 to 1362, 20 faculty members at the University of Paris School of Medicine fell on the journey of research and treatment of the Black Death, accounting for nearly half of the total number of teachers.
Although the cause of the Black Death was still unknown to medieval epidemic doctors, new medical textbooks began to spread, and surgical and anatomy knowledge was written into medical textbooks. The dean of the Pope and the King of France, Guy de Chauliac, wrote a book called The Cyrurgie based on anatomy of plague patients, laying the foundation for surgery.
The status of surgeons is also rapidly increasing. In the late 15th century, surgeons were considered true scholars at the University of Paris Medical School. People are gradually abandoning religious perspectives to study medicine. The advancement of medicine is one step closer to the study of microbes and the mystery of the Black Death for future generations.
· Yersinia pestis causing multiple plagues
The epidemic of the Black Death that ravaged Europe for centuries gave birth to the Renaissance. By the 19th century, plague raged in Southeast Asia. The microbiologist Yersin came to the affected area and found the plague bacillus through dissection sampling. The cause of the black death that has plagued humankind for centuries has been found.
In the Middle Ages, disease doctors had to live alone because of their special occupations, and they were feared and confused. In the Black Death epidemic that even his destiny could not grasp, the King was helpless, the Pope was helpless, and even God was helpless. But batches of epidemic doctors bravely wore masks and turned into patron saints. They appeared in towns and villages to check the epidemic day after day.
The disease doctor's treatment may be useless, but their countless generations of 'disciples' stepped on their corpses and eventually conquered the Black Death.
Do you love such plague doctors? Do you want to be as brave as they are? Do you want to cosplay them? If your answer is yes, then you would be interested in Takerlama's deluxe handmade plague doctor masks. Our Medieval Steampunk Black Death Plague Doctor Bird Beak Masks are Made of high quality PU leather and metal accessories in steampunk style. It fits mostly on all adults and teens. It has a headband on the back that can be adjustable for perfect fit. Just click the photo of the mask and view more details.
