You’re probably familiar with the “plague doctor” mask, most often associated with the infamous Black Death of the fourteenth century, and the later outbreaks of bubonic plague that recurred in Europe for centuries afterward.  The mask, which included spectacles and a long, hollow beak, was certainly distinctive, but its unusual look was more than just aesthetic.  The beak would be filled with herbs and spices that would produce pleasant smells, which were believed to protect the doctor from invisible “poisonous emanations” in the air, called “miasma,” which created harmful imbalances in a person’s “humors,” or bodily fluids.  The presence of this poisonous air was signified by foul smells, often arising from rotting carcasses or vegetables, and the mask’s beak shape was meant to “give the air sufficient time to be suffused by the protective herbs before it hit the plague doctor’s nostrils and...(Read Full Article)