Finally, the plague doctor costume wasn’t designed to “frighten infections away,” but rather keep the doctor from being exposed to potentially harmful miasmata in the air.ĪBOVE: Public service announcement poster issued by the U.K.’s Ministry of Labour and National Service between 19 When the costume was invented in the seventeenth century-long after the end of the Middle Ages-it wasn’t a “quack” idea in fact, it was designed in accordance with the best scientific and medical information available at the time. Furthermore, the plague doctor costume wasn’t actually worn during the Middle Ages at all. Unfortunately, while the message about using First Aid is certainly one worthy of dissemination, all the information presented in this poster about the plague doctor costume is completely inaccurate.įor one thing, as I discuss in this article I wrote in May 2019, the Middle Ages were not the time of universal superstition and ignorance that they are normally portrayed as and there were actually many important ideas and innovations that came out of this period of history. The poster is clearly intended to appeal to people’s desire to be scientific and reasonable in contrast to those dumb medieval people. Today we prefer science to spells and prevention to cure. “The medieval quack wore this head-dress to frighten infections away. For instance, a public service announcement poster issued by the U.K.’s Ministry of Labour and National Service at some point between 19 shows a cartoon version of a plague doctor mask with the warning: ![]() Examples of this idea can be traced back to at least the early twentieth century and probably even before that. Stephen Colbert is far from the first person to cite the plague doctor costume as an example of medieval stupidity and backwardness. In fact, while the plague doctor costume was undoubtedly flawed in a number of ways, it was an important step in the right direction and it probably actually did provide doctors with some degree of protection against the plague.ĪBOVE: Screenshot of the dancing plague doctor from Stephen Colbert’s monologue on 30 September 2019 about Donald Trump’s impeachment Nonetheless, it is important to point out that the plague doctor costume is, in fact, far from the dumbest thing humans have ever come up with. I’ll admit that I personally found the dancing plague doctor hilarious. The camera immediately cut to person wearing a plague doctor costume dancing to a soundalike version of the 1991 song “Get Ready for This (Orchestral Mix)” by the Dutch dance music group 2 Unlimited. “The president of the United States just tweeted the phrase “pro-shark media,” which means we’ve officially entered the dumbest time in human history, beating the previous dumbest time, when we thought a spooky bird mask could protect you from the black plague. Near the end of the monologue, Stephen tells a joke in response to the news that President Donald Trump had retweeted a tweet from a novelty twitter account called “Trump But About Sharks,” which tweeted quotes from Donald Trump only with words replaced to make them about sharks. ![]() For instance, in the 30 September 2019 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert gives a monologue in which he talks about Donald Trump’s then-ongoing impeachment. In popular culture, plague doctor costumes are almost universally presented as examples of how stupid and superstitious people supposedly were during the Middle Ages. How plague doctors are normally portrayed in modern culture Plague doctor costumes were undoubtedly flawed, partly due to limited understanding of how disease was spread and partly due to technological limitations, but the idea behind them was actually a good one and they probably did provide doctors with some degree of protection from the plague. In reality, the plague doctor costume was only invented in the seventeenth century and the beak was supposed to protect the doctor by supposedly filtering infectious vapors from the air he breathed, not by “scaring” the disease. Another misconception is that the costume was totally ineffective. ![]() Another misconception is that the costume was supposed to protect the doctor by “scaring” the disease away. One misconception is that this costume was worn during the Middle Ages. There are a lot of unfortunate misconceptions out there about the infamous bird-beaked costume worn by plague doctors.
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