Apparently I badly want to go on my “stop making fun of plague doctors, they were ahead of their time and doing the best they could with the primitive equipment they had available” rant.
They weren’t stupid.
They shoved herbs in their breathing hose because they knew the air was bad and hoped it would help, and *they were right* in theory. The plague itself was not an airborn virus, but they couldn’t know that and it wasn’t the only thing killing people at the time anyway, and they covered *all* their bases. If they’d had the technological knowhow to make air tanks, or even better air filters, they would’ve. They just made the best air filters they could.
What we think they wore isn’t exactly what they wore, and what they actually wore would later be repurposed into scuba suits (and thus spacesuits too) and *actual hazmat suits*, because the theory was sound, the materials were just lacking, and honestly what they did with the materials they had was hardcore.
they wore full face protection which avoids the most obvious mucosal transmission routes
INCLUDING GLASS IN THE EYEHOLES. They invented safety goggles before most of the world had nailed down corrective eye glasses yet
they wore additional head protection to cover seams in their mask/hoods
they oiled and waxed all their clothes to make it fluid-resistant
they wore separate but tight fitting equally if not more fluid-resistant gloves and/or armcuffs so they could keep hand contamination to a minimum even when dressing/undressing AND they only wore the suit in areas they thought was contaminated and took it off before entering uncontaminated areas
they may have used herbed vinegar to clean, and if the stories are true this was clever because 1) it’s available and portable 2) pretty effective as far as medieval disinfectants go versus the damage it does the the user (as opposed to what they had for bleach at the time, and the actual percentage level in alcohols at the time which was mostly insufficient for task as well as being needed for more important things); vinegar is *still* a decent disinfectant even now
It honestly took doctors well into the twentieth century to get that level of obsessive attention to hygiene and cross-contamination back. A whole lot of babies and mothers wouldn’t’ve died, for instance, if a plague doctor instead of an obstetrician supported the birth because A PLAGUE DOCTOR WOULD KNOW TO WASH THEIR GODDAMNED HANDS.
Actual plague doctor’s outfits:
Who was responsible for turning plague doctors into laughingstocks instead of primative but honoured medical and scientific predecessors anyway?
Was it the Victorians? It was probably the Victorians. Those pretentious sanctimonious jerks ruined everything.
the woman who dated 40+ guys, got them to buy her iphones, and then sold them to buy a house
the woman who traded one singular rick and morty sauce for a car
don’t forget the woman who charged a bunch of dudes money to attend an orgy but never promised any women would be there so they all just showed up to find nothing but men
The girl on Tinder whose profile said “send me $5 and see what happens” and after they sent her money she blocked them
the girl who pretended to be a republican and got old white conservatives to fund her tuition
