When did the symptoms start? What was the first indication she was unwell? What came next? I introduced myself and immediately stepped into the comfortable, familiar choreography of a history and physical exam. I was a walking hazmat suit, unrecognizable beneath heavy gear that was not for her protection but for my own. While taking her history and examining her, I felt a wave of guilt and a sense that I was betraying something important.
I was wearing two layers of gloves, a gown, an N95 mask, and goggles. On a Tuesday morning in March, I stood for the first time outside the door of a patient who I suspected had Covid-19. How could a physician don such a terrifying costume to approach a suffering or dying patient? And the cane? Formalizing a distance between doctor and patient seemed egregious prodding the patient with a cane as a means of examination was unthinkable. To me, the image represented the triumph of fear and superstition over the more noble impulses I hoped would drive me in a time of crisis. I never had much sympathy for the plague doctor. The cane determined how far the doctor would stand from the patient and allowed him to examine patients from that distance. The waxed robe was intended to be similarly protective. The beak was stuffed with fragrant herbs or sprinkled with perfume to combat the miasma that was thought to be the cause of the plague. It was intended to enable physicians to safely care for patients during the Black Death. The figure seems to come straight from central casting for a nightmare.ĭespite its fearsome appearance, the plague doctor’s costume - the “personal protective equipment” of the Middle Ages - had a noble purpose. Where are the dedication and devotion of the man sitting vigil at a child’s bedside in Sir Luke Fildes’s classic painting “The Doctor”? What about the competence and command portrayed in the erect surgeon surveying the operating theater in Thomas Eakins’s “The Gross Clinic”? There is nothing inspiring or comforting about the image of the plague doctor. The plague doctor stands in stark contrast to most other iconic images of medicine.
The same gift shop offered a paper-mache version of the mask for sale to tourists like me. Since that introduction, I’ve seen similar depictions dozens of times - the plague doctor is one of the more common costumes in the Venetian Carnival and a stock character in the commedia dell’arte. The hands were depicted with long, curving fingernails. The most striking feature was the mask, with its goggled eyes and bizarre pointed beak. The head was covered with a broad-brimmed hat with a flat crown. The image was macabre: a sinister, masked figure draped in a dark robe. I first glimpsed a plague doctor years ago, in a framed etching on the wall of a Venetian gift shop. The most trusted, influential source of new medical knowledge and clinical best practices in the world.Įngraving of the Plague Doctor, Paul Fürst, c.
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