We can laugh at this, but miasma was the accepted medical paradigm for over 1,500 years and was only overthrown with the rise of Germ Theory in the 1860s. This was because the prevailing wisdom at the time was that plague was spread by miasmatic air. The face cover wasn’t a super stylised ceramic or paper mache beak but a waxed leather over-the-head hood with a pouch for aromatics at the nose area. Almost from the beginning the Medico della Peste was being satirised. The idea was to create an impenetrable barrier where the contagion would not have contact with the physician’s body. It was just a theory on protective equipment for doctors modelled after lightweight waxed leather armour. He certainly did not act as a plague doctor, which I will explain more below. We have no evidence L’Orme wore it or even treated plague victims. The get-up we know as the plague doctor or Medico della Peste costume was first theorised by Dr Charles de L’Ormein 1630. Part IV: The Sweet Smell of Plague Preservatives.Part III: An Apple of Whale Poop a Day Keeps The Black Death at Bay.Part I: The Scented History of the Plague: A Primer.The Scented History of the Plague Series: While doctors used aromatics to protect themselves from ‘miasma’ for centuries, the steampunk Bird Man cosplay wasn’t really a thing, a least not as you know him.

The plague doctor! An ominous but heroic figure that was a staple of medieval life. Such nightmare fuel could only spring forth from the fever dreams of a Dark Age mind, right? His beak stuffed with aromatic herbs, a foolish talisman against death from a more ignorant epoch. A pale beak glimpsing out from beyond his broad-brimmed hat. A dark figure, robed in black, carrying his long examining stick like a scythe.

The plague doctor mask