Plague doctor

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Colored copper engraving by a plague doctor from Paul Fürst , Der Doctor Schnabel von Rom , ca.1656

A plague doctor (alternatively: plague doctor , plague-Medicus , Pestheiler ; colloquially: Beak doctor , Dr. Schnabel ) was a doctor , the plague victims treated.

history

In times of epidemics , plague doctors were called in especially by cities with high numbers of victims. As city workers, they treated everyone, rich and poor.

The first bubonic plague outbreak in Europe was Justinian plague in the mid-6th century. The highest number of victims in Europe was recorded in the 14th century during the outbreak of the Black Death . The plague doctors employed were given special privileges as they were particularly valuable to the cities. In order to find a cure, for example, they were allowed to perform autopsies , although these were otherwise prohibited.

Evidence shows that some doctors have consistently made patients and their families pay extra for special treatments and / or bogus medicines. Most of them were second-class doctors and surgeons who could not or not yet establish themselves properly. The plague doctors were seldom able to cure patients, mostly they only documented the number of people affected for demographics .

Plague doctors were considered so valuable, however, that in 1650 Barcelona paid a ransom to criminals who captured two plague doctors on their way to Tortosa. In 1348, the Italian city ​​of Orvieto hired Matteo fu Angelo at four times the normal doctor’s salary of 50 florins a year.

dress

To protect themselves from the breath of the plague, people held smelling apples , scented sponges or herbal bags in front of their noses. Juniper , amber , lemon balm , spearmint , camphor , cloves , myrrh , roses or styrax were considered effective fragrances . The idea for a nose case in which one could accommodate these protective fragrances should go to Charles de L'Orme, first doctor at the court of Louis XIII. to go back. From this the beak mask developed, which in the literature became the characteristic of the plague doctor. However, beak masks are only documented in Italy and France and were more of a marginal phenomenon. Its appearance became popular, especially through a few prints and engravings, and has been associated with the image of the plague doctor in the public consciousness, especially since the 19th century. Thomas Bartolin describes such a mask for the first time in 1661, which was used during the plague in Rome in 1656, and adds an illustration of a doctor with a beak mask to his book, which reproduces a picture sent to him from Rome. Jean-Jacques Manget published another illustration in 1721 relating to the plague in Marseille. According to these descriptions, the clothes of a plague doctor consisted of a waxed cloth coat serving as a protective suit, a beak mask with two eye openings made of glass, gloves and a staff. In this way contact with the infected could be avoided. "All later pictures of plague doctors are based" according to Marion M. Ruisinger "on these two variants." Later representations do not prove the use in other places. The beak mask is therefore not proven before the 17th century and only with reference to Rome in 1656 and Marseille in 1720. Use of the beak mask during other plague events is not documented. Beak masks, which were acquired from the trade for museums in Berlin and Ingolstadt at the beginning of the 21st century, are of dubious authenticity.

Later these masks were also a defining element of the Venetian Carnival .

Methods

Plague doctors administered bloodletting or placed frogs and leeches on the bumps to " restore the balance of the humors ". They were not allowed to socialize because the danger of spreading the plague was too great because of their occupation; some were in quarantine quarters .

literature

  • Stefan Bresky and Sabine Witt: Caution, contagion? in: DHM-Magazin Historic Judgment, Volume 2, 2020, pp. 94–97.
  • Marion Maria Ruisinger: The plague doctor mask in the German Medical History Museum Ingolstadt . NTM Journal for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 28, pp. 235-252 (2020) Online
  • Sonja Kastilan: Once only Doctor Schnabel helped . In: FAZ.net , October 16, 2010

Web links

Commons : Plague Doctor  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Carlo M. Cipolla: A Plague Doctor. In: Harry A. Miskimin, David Herlihy, Abraham Labe Udovitch (eds.): The Medieval City. Yale University Press, New Haven 1977, pp. 65-72, here: p. 65 ( PDF ).
  2. ^ Carlo M. Cipolla: A Plague Doctor. In: Harry A. Miskimin, David Herlihy, Abraham Labe Udovitch (eds.): The Medieval City. Yale University Press, New Haven 1977, pp. 65-72, here: p. 68.
  3. ↑ Benjamin Lee Gordon: Medieval and Renaissance Medicine. Philosophical Library, New York 1959, p. 471.
  4. ↑ Jackie Rosenhek: Doctors of the Black Death. Doctor's Review, October 2011, accessed October 10, 2017 .
  5. ^ A b Joseph Patrick Byrne: Daily Life during the Black Death. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 2006, ISBN 0-313-33297-5 , p. 169.
  6. ^ Joseph Patrick Byrne: Daily Life during the Black Death. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 2006, p. 170.
  7. ^ The following on the history of the beak mask from: Marion Maria Ruisinger: The plague doctor mask in the German Medical History Museum Ingolstadt . NTM Journal for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 28, pp. 235-252 (2020) Online ; see. History of the Black Death and the Plague Doctor . In: Plague Doctor Masks . ( plaguedoctormasks.com [accessed October 10, 2017]).
  8. ↑ Thomae Bartholini: Historiarum Anatomicarum & Medicarum Rariorum Centuria , Copenhagen 1661 Online
  9. ^ Jean-Jacques Manget: Traité De La Peste , Geneva 1721 Online
  10. ^ Marion Maria Ruisinger: The plague doctor mask in the German Medical History Museum Ingolstadt . NTM Journal for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 28, pp. 235-252 (2020) Online
  11. ^ German Medical History Museum Ingolstadt, website , German Historical Museum Berlin, website
  12. ^ Ted Byfield: The Renaissance. God in Man, AD 1300 to 1500. But Amid its Splendors, Night Falls on Medieval Christianity. Society to Explore and Record Christian History, Edmonton 2010, ISBN 0-9689873-8-9 , p. 37.
  13. ^ Robert S. Gottfried: The Black Death. Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe. Simon & Schuster, New York 1983, p. 126.