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Medico Della Peste: I am the Plague Doctor

About the Author

For me, from the textured and worn canvas of history, no image represents the absolute horror and plight of human endeavour than the Plague Doctor. As if pulled from the mind of a scribe dedicated to gothic horror, we are faced with a terrifying image that once walked through the poorest villages of Europe, to and across bridges that led to the castles and stately homes of noble families. Disease is perhaps the only true unifying and pluralising condition in human history: the swollen buboes afflicted the skin of prince and princess as it did the peasant. Indeed, I am struck by the words of French physician Charles de Lorme – a figure well known for wearing the ‘beak mask’ design - who spoke: “Are the lives of kings, princes and great men less exposed to disease and longer than common people and peasants?”

What began as morbid curiosity has burgeoned into my temperate obsession. From the sinister elongated mask, a grotesque anthropomorphised ornamentisation of the human face, to the cloak that renders the wearer genderless and detached from their dying brethren, the image is wholly associated - like the Grim Reaper, Memitim, or even the notion of God – with death. Despite this, the image of the plague doctor is also one of sensitivity, albeit and naive one. From the philanthropic purpose arose a number of all-too-human-absurdities, enhanced by the comedic form of this ‘healer’: Plague Doctors were not medical practitioners, merely recruits or students; upon the European landscape they were in fact quite rare; the death rate was high as the suit did little to protect them; in choosing to be Plague Doctors, they imposed self-isolation from wider society; they most likely propagated and spread the disease in the areas where they were instructed to help; plus their main purpose, to end this brief list of facts, was to catalogue deaths for public records and perform legal duties, as opposed to comforting the sick and dying. One can easily imagine a Plague Doctor poking a dying child crudely, using his stick with a certain degree of ignominy; though this may only be because Plague Doctors are now firmly associated with the fantastical and horrific. It is such congruences that fascinate me and I seek to understand.

But why does the image of the Plague Doctor continue to fascinate us? Historical kitsch – the antithesis of truth and logic - has ensured that the costume is remembered, as much in popular culture as intellectual circles. Whilst I understand what I have uttered here is mostly bullshit, the image of the Plague Doctor has haunted, troubled and amused me – in a concoction that often accompanies such fears – for some time. A relatively understudied social-historical figure, little is known about the plague doctor. As it is, I would, one-day, like to write a book or long article, solely associated with the lives and practices of Plague Doctors, as well as their impact upon 20th - 21st century medicine, thought, art and literature. This small blog can serve as my own naive introduction to the topic.

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November 1, 2010

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