The Black Death Plague Doctor

The plague presented itself in three interrelated forms. The bubonic variant (the most common) derives its name from the swellings or buboes that appeared on a victim's neck, armpits or groin. These tumors could range in size from that of an egg to that of an apple. Although some survived

The Plague's Progress

the painful ordeal, the manifestation of these lesions usually signaled the victim had a life expectancy of up to a week. Infected fleas that attached themselves to rats and then to humans spread this bubonic type of the plague. A second variation - pneumonic plague - attacked the respiratory system and was spread by merely breathing the exhaled air of a victim. It was much more virulent than its bubonic cousin - life expectancy was measured in one or two days. Finally, the septicemic version of the disease attacked the blood system

No doctor's advice, no medicine could overcome or alleviate this disease, An enormous number of ignorant men and women set up as doctors in addition to those who were trained. Either the disease was such that no treatment was possible or the doctors were so ignorant that they did not know what caused it, and consequently could not administer the proper remedy. In any case very few recovered; most people died within about three days of the appearance of the tumours described above, most of them without any fever or other symptoms

During the period of the Black Death and the Great Plague of London, plague doctors visited victims of the plague.

A plague doctor's duties were often limited to visiting victims to verify whether they had been afflicted or not. Most urban plague doctors were essentially volunteers, since the real doctors would have fled to the countryside, knowing they could do nothing for those affected

What I am about to say is incredible to hear, and if I and others had not witnessed it with our own eyes, I should not dare believe it (let alone write about it), no matter how trustworthy a person I might have heard it from

This pestilence was so powerful that it was communicated to the healthy by contact with the sick, the way a fire close to dry or oily things will set them aflame. And the evil of the plague went even further: not only did talking to or being around the sick bring infection and a common death, but also touching the clothes of the sick or anything touched or used by them seemed to communicate this very disease in the person involved.

It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out...Civilization decreased with the decrease of mankind. Cities and buildings were laid waste. Roads and way signs were obliterated, settlements and mansions became empty, dynasties and tribes grew weak. The entire inhabited world changed...It was as if the voice of existence in the world had called out for oblivion and restriction, and the world responded to its call.

As the graveyards did not suffice, fields were chosen for the burial of the dead...A countless number of common people and a host of monks and nuns and clerics as well, known to God alone, passed away

Hysterical people, of course, do not think clearly. Jews were getting sick less frequently because they lived apart from the rest of the population. But, as Boccaccio points out in the Decameron's Introduction, other people were living apart too. And they were still getting sick. Why not the Jews?

On Valentine's Day, 1349, about 2,000 Jews were massacred in Strasbourg. (Six hundred years later, Jews were killed in Strasbourg again - this time by the Nazis.) The town council had resisted arresting them. What proof did anyone have of Jewish "evil" doings? But the town council was "deposed," on February 9-10, clearing the way for massive arrests on Friday the 13th.

On Saturday - that was St. Valentine's Day - they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery.

Nostradamus was most famous Plague Doctor during Black Death years

Michel de Nostredame was probably the most renowned Plague Doctor – he is widely known as Nostradamus. He recommended his patients to drink only boiled water, to sleep in clean beds and to leave infected towns as soon as it was possible.

Nostradamus can indisputably be said to have been ahead of his time, at least in terms of medical practice. His treatment of the Black Death involved removal of the infected corpses, fresh air and unpolluted water for the healthy, a herbal preparation rich in Vitamin C, and (in contravention of contemporary medical practise) not bleeding his patients.
Nostradamus was successful in lessening the impact of the Black Death in the capital of Provence, Aix. The grateful citizens gave him a stipend for life.

Nostradamus is said to have predicted his own death. When his assistant wished him goodnight on July 1, 1566, Nostradamus reputedly pronounced, "You will not find me alive at sunrise." He was found dead on July 2, 1566.

Nostradamus was interred standing upright in the Church of the Cordeliers of Salon. However, his story does not end there

The man who opens the tomb when it is found
And who does not close it immediately,
Evil will come to him
That no one will be able to prove.

Reputedly, the soldiers who desecrated his tomb for the final time were ambushed on their way back to base and killed to the last man.