Abstract
The concept of the plague doctor, as it comes down to us from history – wearing a mask, a long robe, hat and gloves, and carrying a cane – is compiled from at least three sources, each of them having their own intrinsic obliquity: the prints from 1656, the descriptions in Michel de Saint-Martin’s book about Charles de Lorme, and the print and description in Jean-Jacques Manget’s plague treatise from 1721. This article focuses on the description of the plague suit in Charles de Lorme’s biography by Saint-Martin. This biographer had a reputation for being eccentric and gullible, and there are assertions in his book that are demonstrably incorrect. Still, if Saint-Martin’s description is to be trusted, then de Lorme’s plague suit bore hardly any resemblance to the well-known images of the plague doctor, whose historicity is already very dubious. The habit of merging these contradictory data commenced in the context of retrospection when ppe gained renewed relevance around the turn of the twentieth century. Scholars and educators should be aware of this when they use depictions and descriptions of plague doctors in the context of the history of medicine.
1 Introduction
The French physician Charles de Lorme (1584–1678) is often credited with having invented the plague costume, complete with protective mask. However, the appearance of this costume has generally been misrepresented or misinterpreted. Features that are lacking in the original sources, have been added at later dates and originating from different contexts. This practice has resulted in an erroneous and anachronistic idea, that continues to influence perceptions of this costume, its relevance within the history of personal protective equipment (ppe), and of medical responses to plague epidemics in history.
Marion Maria Ruisinger has quite recently advanced the convincing argument that there is very little evidence to prove the historicity of the plague suits that we find depicted in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.1 Numerous popular as well as scholarly publications about the plague or protective attire in general, nevertheless, continue to refer to these depictions, and in such instances it is customary rather than exceptional that Charles de Lorme is named as the inventor.
This article aims to correct the prevailing misconceptions surrounding de Lorme’s plague costume, by examining the original descriptions in comparison with other sources, and the author who compiled them. The hope is that this will contribute to a more cautious approach among scholars and educators in medical and other disciplines when referring to the phenomenon of the plague costume in history.
2 Easy Ways
Michel de Saint-Martin (1614–1687) mentioned Charles de Lorme’s plague costume on two occasions. These text passages have been summarised, paraphrased and complemented in secondary sources that are often mistaken for the original. We should first look, therefore, at the primary texts.
He never forgot his suit of Morocco leather of which he was the author, it dressed him from his feet to the head in the shape of a pantalon, with a mask of the same Morocco leather to which he had attached a nose as long as a half foot in order to ward off the malignancy of the air […]3
Monsieur de Lorme […] had himself made a suit of Morocco leather, that is very difficult for the bad air to penetrate: he put garlic and rue in his mouth; he put frankincense in his nose and ears, covered his eyes with spectacles, and in this equipment, he helped the sick and he cured almost everyone to whom he gave remedies.6
The pantalon of Monsieur de Lorme was a garment that covered his whole body from the head to the feet, it had an opening on the front and one on the back, to enable the bodily needs, Monsieur de Lorme considered that the garment contributed much to his staying warm during the winter […]7
[H]e wore directly over his shirt a well-known piece of clothing, called a pantalon, that reaches from the height of the shoulders until the soles of his feet, made of a very heavy ratteen […]8
This other pantalon is obviously meant to keep the body warm, but it can be safely assumed that the plague-pantalon was made after the same pattern. The more generic meaning of pantalon, as can be found in several French dictionaries from the seventeenth century, is an item of clothing in which short pants and stockings form a single piece.9 In all, this gives very little reason to doubt that de Lorme’s plague suit was of a type we would today describe as a ‘coverall’, with integrated footwear. In a medical context, and combined with a mask, it is an apparel that foreshadows the modern-day hazmat suit.
The image of the prototypical plague doctors wearing masks, gloves and long robes, finds its origin in a handful of engravings dating from 1656, that have ever since been reproduced in countless popular and scientific publications.10 These are broadside prints, and they contain strong allegorical and satirical tendencies, the meanings of which are beyond the scope of this article to discuss in any real depth. Such a discussion, moreover, would militate against one of the objectives of this article which is to separate these prints from descriptions of the plague costume attributed to Charles de Lorme. Several remarks can be made with regard to the sartorial details depicted in these engravings, however. First, it is important to note that the use of gowns of a smooth material – not only by doctors, but also by clergymen, sick-bearers, disinfectors and law enforcement officers – is confirmed by reliable sources.11 The wearing of this form of gown was not as widespread as is often assumed, but a fair amount of Italian, and, to a lesser extent, French references can be found, the majority of them dating from the first half of the seventeenth century.12
Although the garments that we see in the prints differ substantially from descriptions of de Lorme’s suit, it still is tempting to assume that the beaked mask does resemble the device that is mentioned by Saint-Martin. But in fact, this is even more problematic: Saint-Martin’s descriptions appear to contradict each other, where the one mentions a mask of Morocco leather, while the other details a pair of spectacles only. When we consider the fact that de Lorme had already stuffed his nose, mouth and ears with various substances (a self-protective measure he shared with many others), it seems a little excessive to then wear a protective hood or a kind of balaclava that covered the head entirely. By “spectacles” (besicles), various sorts of glasses can be meant. Perhaps we should think here of a type of dust goggles as were used by horse riders. French dictionaries define these as a band that is tied around the head, to which eyeglasses are attached.13 One dictionary from 1693 uses the phrase “une sorte de masque” (a type of mask), making it plausible that the “mask” that Saint-Martin mentions in the first passage, is actually synonymous with the “spectacles” of the second.14 This conjures an image of de Lorme’s mask as a head band with integrated glasses, to which a nosepiece is attached. Saint-Martin doesn’t specify whether de Lorme covered his mouth, so here we can only guess.
What can be said, is that the nosepiece wasn’t intended to act as a filter. This is a particular persistent anachronism, and the assumed analogy with the covid-19 masks of our own era has given fuel to an endless multiplication of this misconception. With “malignancy of the air”, Saint-Martin refers to the corruptness of the air itself, not something that is borne in the air that could be filtered out. Charles de Lorme was already very cautious of the dangers of corrupt air, especially air coming from certain directions. This is recounted by Saint-Martin in a short chapter entirely devoted to this subject. In it, he compares the devastating power of the winds on the human body with the effect of a cannon shot into a city wall; the chapter concludes with the warning that such pestilential winds could enter the human body through the mouth, the nostrils, the eyes, the eyebrows and the ears.15 De Lorme went to great lengths to advise people against these “deadly enemies”, by keeping doors and windows closed and by avoiding stairwells and porches.16 We can therefore imagine his heightened apprehension and vigilance in times of plague.
De Lorme was by no means the first to think of the winds as possible carriers of disease. The authoritative Report of the Paris Medical Faculty from 1348, compiled as an immediate reaction to the epidemic that became known as the ‘Black Death’, already warns the reader against the winds that can carry corrupt air from distant places and cause the outbreak of the disease.17 De Lorme’s fear, however, bordered on obsession – and this is very significant in the light of our subject; he seems to have suspected a deadly danger in the tiniest draught. The elongated nose is an apparatus to neutralise this hazard when circumstances demanded that one had to leave the house. The suit enveloped the body as if it were a chamber with all the windows closed.
The idea that the nosepiece was filled with herbs and other odorous materials stems – again – from the engravings of 1656. These all have captions in which details of the image are elucidated, and about the beak it is said to be filled with aromatic substances.18 This idea is supported further by a resurgence of the image of the masked plague doctor in 1721, this time in the context of the gruesome plague epidemic that ravaged Marseille in 1720–1722. Like in 1656, broadsides with a plague doctor wearing a beaked mask appeared, and an image of the same was added as a frontispiece in a plague treatise by the Genevan physician Jean-Jacques Manget. The book included a description of the costume as well, and both picture and text became very well known (see Fig. 1).19 The author had never seen the plague, let alone a plague doctor, and the image looks so satirical that it seems out of place in a learned work such as this.20 Manget clarified the matter in another treatise on the plague that he published in the following year, where he wrote somewhat indignantly that the print and the description had been added to the book by the publishers without his involvement.21 He subsequently distanced himself from the image, reporting that he had seen similar prints when he was still young, but had never taken them seriously.22
Frontispiece from Jean-Jacques Manget, Traité de la Peste: Recueilli, des Meilleurs Auteurs Anciens et Modernes. Et enrichi de Remarques et Observations Theoriques et Pratiques (Geneva, 1721).
Citation: European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health 81, 1 (2024) ; 10.1163/26667711-bja10033
wellcome collection, public domain.Where these remarks can be seen as another confirmation of the implausibility of the existence of the plague costume, the damage was already done, for the description in the treatise from 1721 came as a welcome and – since it was believed to have been written by a respectable physician – trustworthy source with which to retroactively fill the gaps of de Lorme’s costume, adding details such as the shape of the nosepiece (like a beak), nostrils (one on each side of the beak), the model of the boots, described as “more or less à la Polonoise”, and the shirt tucked in with the breeches.23
Other features where the insert in Manget’s tractate accords with the prints from 1656, but not with de Lorme, are the cane, the hat, and the gloves. Even if it was likely that a noble gentleman would not go out without a hat and a cane, these details are not mentioned by Saint-Martin, so we can’t tell if these were essential accoutrements for de Lorme’s plague costume. It is unlikely that he wore gloves though, because he had to be able to feel the pulses of his patients. This diagnostical procedure, which separated the Doctores medicinae from barbers and surgeons, remained a constant through the ages. Many plague treatises therefore emphasise the importance of thorough hand cleaning after each examination.24
3 Star-Struck
So far, we have treated Saint-Martin’s description of Charles de Lorme’s plague suit as if it were more or less credible. Next, we will see that some caveats should be applied in this regard.
Charles de Lorme was not just any doctor. He was private physician to three French kings, and many of his other patients belonged to the rich and the nobility. This eminence explains the esteem in which he is held by Saint-Martin, palpable on every page of Moiens Faciles. Saint-Martin, moreover, wrote the book four years after de Lorme’s death, and more than sixty years after the alleged invention of the plague suit.25 On the details of the suit, there are no other sources that support his assertions, as is the case with the majority of biographical information about de Lorme. The biographer tends to glorify his subject and to exaggerate his deeds. Almost in the same breath as the second passage about the plague costume, for example, Saint-Martin attributes to de Lorme a remarkable achievement consisting in the cure of more than 10,000 soldiers of dysentery by having them crouching naked for a few hours above the smoke from a fire of old shoes.26
We have seen already that de Lorme was very apprehensive of the dangers that the winds contained. If Saint-Martin’s account is to be believed, his manner of coping with this threat might strike us as bizarre. But Saint-Martin admired de Lorme to such a degree, that he adopted for himself many of de Lorme’s peculiarities. This, in combination with the biographer’s already colourful character, made him subject to a range of anecdotes, some of which may have been romanticised or embellished. But his own writings are enough to attest to his having an oddball personality.27
Many of the stories told about him were about the way he dressed.28 He wore seven pairs of stockings and six caps in the summer, nine during the winter, a feat that earned him the nickname Saint-Martin de la Calotte.29 He had his trousers and justaucorps lined with hare-skin, a material of which he was particularly fond, as he used to sleep on it as well. And he wore a pantalon. This made him the laughing stock of his circle, but the abbot himself was utterly convinced of its benefits.30 His referring to this firmly held belief in Moiens Faciles is just one of the many occasions wherein the dividing line between biographer and his subject becomes a bit blurred.31 This gives rise to the question of whether, in addition to adopting many of his subject’s peculiarities, might not Saint-Martin have also projected some of his own convictions on to de Lorme? For where it is sometimes hard to believe all the oddities that Saint-Martin attributes to de Lorme, it seems even more improbable that two persons were inclined to such extravaganza.
To judge by its rarity today, Moiens Faciles must not have been printed in very large numbers. Those who happened to obtain a copy of one of the editions, probably read it for its value as entertainment. It is very unlikely that any of its contents was taken seriously by physicians or other scholars.
The above, of course, doesn’t rule out the possibility that Charles de Lorme appeared in his plague suit in 1619, nor that he saved as many lives as Saint-Martin claims he did. But if it were true, one would suspect that there would have been more accounts of such heroic deeds. In this case, the adagium ‘one source is no source’ would seems to be more than a little apt.
4 New Relevance
When the plague epidemics declined in the eighteenth century, so did the necessity to discuss measures for personal protection. But the literary genre of the biographical dictionary flourished in the same period, and such an eminent physician as Charles de Lorme could not be omitted from these works. His own publications were few, however, and although Michel de Saint-Martin’s reputation was widely known, he left a wealth of biographical particulars about his idol. In his extensive commentaries on Pierre Bayle’s dictionary, Philippe-Louis Joly remarked that, despite Saint-Martin’s obvious foolishness, his book on de Lorme could still provide useful recollections.32 Subsequent lexicographers, who often borrowed their information from Joly, seem to have been even less bothered by possible incongruencies.33 Quite a few references to de Lorme’s attire in these dictionaries make no mention of the mask. Even without a mask, protective clothing was considered noteworthy, which can be taken for another indication that the wearing of such clothing was not a widespread practice.
In the nineteenth century, the increased possibilities for image reproduction kept the memory of the masked plague doctor alive. Pictures that were reproduced from the frontispiece in Manget, or from the 1656 prints, satisfied the demand for amusing tidbits in popular books and magazines, just as photographs of unusual or specialised clothing would do today. Medical publications could feature plague doctors as well, especially when outbreaks of other diseases prompted a renewed interest in protective clothing.34
Both de Lorme and the popular plague-doctor images gained renewed relevance in light of the debates that accompanied the rise of germ theory towards the end of the nineteenth century. The insights afforded by germ theory led some to advocate for the wearing of filtering masks.35 Their detractors would, at times, ridicule the new devices by comparing them to the ludicrous precautions that were taken by physicians in the past, referring to either de Lorme or the popular prints.36
It may be impossible to pinpoint the moment when the first merging of de Lorme’s invention and the images of beak-masked plague doctors occurred, but it may be safe to assume that this took place towards the end of the nineteenth century.37 By the beginning of the twentieth century, nobody doubted the historicity of protective outfits that included masks. Another illustration of this accepted belief in medical circles, is provided a few years later by a staunch advocate of plague masks, the French doctor Charles Broquet. This Pasteurian had himself developed a plague mask, and in an article wherein he described the invention, he referred to both de Lorme and the Manget frontispiece in terms of precursors of his own mask.38 While Broquet’s explanation still concerned the plague, mentioning de Lorme became something of a routine for anyone writing about masks for disease protection in general. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the practice has spawned some spurious analogies, not only in words but also in images, between the plague doctors of the early modern era and contemporary protective equipment.39 This recurs with every pandemic and, of course, has taken on the proportions of an indelible cliché in our own time.
5 Conclusion
Charles de Lorme’s inventorship is disputable, as is the invention itself; but if he was the author of the first full-body plague costume, it bore hardly any resemblance to the outfit of the iconic ‘Doctor Beak’ from the popular prints that were published from 1656 onwards. The long robe, the gloves, the cane, the hat, the hood, and the shape and contents of the nosepiece that we find in these images, do not form part of the description by Michel de Saint-Martin.
In an article in The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2016), Lori Jones and Richard Nevell warn against the spread of misinformation by taking historical disease images out of their context and mislabelling them.40 This warning can be equally applied to historical depictions and descriptions of medical practitioners. The concept of the masked plague doctor has grown so ubiquitous that it impedes our view of historically adopted protective measures and the underlying ideas about contagion. Where the historicity of this plague doctor is already very dubious, the description of de Lorme’s suit by Saint-Martin does very little to enhance its plausibility. Neither can the plague-doctor images be regarded as evidence in support of Saint-Martin’s writings. As the often-quoted description and the illustration of a plague costume in Jean-Jacques Manget’s treatise were added without his assent by an unknown hand whose intentions may have been farcical – or by a publisher wanting to provoke the curiosity of a potential readership –, there is ample reason to question their evidentiary value as well.
It is ironic that the pantalon, a garment for which Saint-Martin was mercilessly mocked during his lifetime and afterwards, was closer to the modern-day hazmat suit than the long robe that we see in the popular prints, while these robes are so often – and yet, mistakenly – presented as a link in the evolution of medical ppe.
Acknowledgement
I thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their valuable comments.
Marion Maria Ruisinger, “Die Pestarztmaske im Deutschen Medizinhistorischen Museum Ingolstadt,” ntm Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 28 (2020), 235–252.
Michel de Saint-Martin, Moiens Faciles et Éprouvés, dont Monsieur de l’Orme premier Medecin et ordinaire de trois de nos Rois, et Ambassadeur à Cleves pour le Duc de Nevers, s’est servi pour vivre prés de cent ans (Caen, 1682). A second edition appeared in 1683.
Ibid., 424–425: “Il n’oublioit jamais son habit de marroquin dont il étoit l’autheur, il l’habilloit depuis les pieds jusques à la teste en forme de pantalon, avec un masque du méme marroquin où il avoit fait attacher un nez long de demy pied afin de detourner la malignité de l’air […]”. (Translations are mine, except when otherwise indicated.)
Michel de Saint-Martin, Portrait en petit de Monsieur De Lorme (Caen, n.d.).
Saint-Martin, Moiens Faciles, 415. As de Lorme’s death is mentioned in Portrait en petit, for example on page 6, the publication date has to lie between 1678 and 1682; see <www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Moyens_faciles_et_eprouvez_dont_M_de_Lor/2vxmAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0>, accessed 17 October 2023.
Saint-Martin, Portrait en petit, 20–21: “Monsieur de Lorme […] se fit faire un habit de marroquin, que le mauvais air penetre tres difficilement, il mist en sa bouche de l’ail & de la ruë, il se mist de l’encens dans le nez & les oreilles, couvrit ses yeux de besicles, & en cet équipage assista les malades, & il en guerit presqu’autant qu’il donna de remedes.”
Idem, Moiens Faciles, 279–280: “Le pantalon de Monsieur de Lorme étoit un habillement qui couvroit son corps entier depuis la teste jusques aux pieds, il y avoit une ouverture par devant, & une par derriere, pour satisfaire aux necessitez du corps, Monsieur de Lorme estimoit que ce vétement contribuoit beacoup à se tenir chaudement pendant l’hyver […]”
Idem, Portrait en petit, 31: “il portoit immediatement sur sa chemise une espece d’habillement tres-connuë, qu’on nomme un pantalon, qui s’étend depuis le haut des épaules jusques à la plante des pieds, lequel étoit fait d’une ratine fort épaisse […]”
Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, 1st ed. (1694), s.v. ‘Pantalon’, <www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A1P0041>; Dictionnaire François, Vol. ii, Pierre Richelet (Geneva, 1688), s.v. ‘Pantalon’; Dictionaire Universel, Vol. iii (P-Z), Antoine Furetière, (The Hague, 1690), s.v. ‘Pantalon’.
One of the better-known engravings of the plague doctor in full attire is Der Doctor Schnabel von Rom by Paulus Fürst (Nüremberg), British Museum, bm 1876,0510.512.
As suitable materials, Ambroise Paré names: camlet, serge, satin, taffetas, Morocco leather and trellis; see Ambroise Paré, Traicté de la Peste: de la Petite Verolle et Rougeolle, avec une Brefve Description de la Lepre (Paris, 1568), 58–59.
For protective robes in Italy, see Carlo M. Cipolla, Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth Century Italy (Madison, WI, 1981), 9–12.
For example, Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, 1st ed. (1694), s.v. ‘Besicles’, online at <www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A1B0136>.
Dictionnaire François, Vol. I, Pierre Richelet, (Geneva, 1693), s.v. ‘Besicles’.
Saint-Martin, Moiens Faciles, 330, 335.
Ibid., 331–332.
Compendium de Epidemia per Collegium Facultatis Medicorum Parisius ordinatum. I used the translation in Rosemary Horrox, ed., The Black Death (Manchester, 1994), 61.
Paulus Fürst’s print Der Doctor Schnabel von Rom, for example, mentions “einen langen Schnabel voll wollriechender Specereij” (a long beak full of fragrant spices).
Jean-Jacques Manget, Traité de la peste: Recueilli des Meilleurs Auteurs Anciens et Modernes. Et enrichi de Remarques et Observations Théoriques et Pratiques (Geneva, 1721). The description is on an unnumbered page just before the title page of the second part, p. 321.
Manget admits in the (unnumbered) introduction of his treatise, that when it comes to experience, he is of no use to the reader.
Jean-Jacques Manget, Nouvelles Reflexions sur L’origine, la Cause, la Propagation, les Preservatifs et la Cure de la Peste (Geneva, 1722), 121.
Ibid., 122.
Manget, Traité de la peste, n.p.
Another method to this end is to use gloves from which the fingers have been cut off, as described in Jean de Lampérière, Traité de la Peste, de ses Causes et de sa Cure (Rouen, 1620), 410.
This means that the year of publication is a quarter of a century later than that of the prints of the Plague Doctor from Rome, another reason to be cautious when attributing the invention to de Lorme.
Saint-Martin, Portrait en petit, 22.
Charles Gabriel Porée, La Mandarinade, ou Histoire Comique du Mandarinat de Monsieur l’Abbé de Saint Martin Marquis de Miskou, Docteur en Théologie, Protonotaire du Saint- Siège Apostolique, Recteur en l’ Université de Caen (The Hague, 1738). This satire is entirely dedicated to l’abbé Michel de Saint-Martin, his unconventional habits and the mystifications that he was the victim of.
Ibid., 87.
For example, Alfred Canel, Recherches Historiques sur les Fous des Rois de France (Paris, 1873), 263.
Saint-Martin even gives us the address of a tailor in Caen who can make pantalons; see Saint-Martin, Moiens Faciles, 280.
Ibid., 331–332.
Philippe-Louis Joly, Remarques Critiques Sur Le Dictionnaire de Bayle: Seconde partie, G-Z (Paris, 1748), 481–482.
For example, Louis Gabriel Michaud, Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Moderne, Vol. 11, De-Do (Paris, 1814), 17.
For example, Louis Joseph Marie Robert, Guide Sanitaire des Gouvernemens Européens, ou Nouvelles Recherches sur la Fièvre Jaune et le Choléra-Morbus, Seconde partie (Paris, 1826).
Thomas Schlich and Bruno J. Strasser, “Making the medical mask: surgery, bacteriology, and the control of infection (1870s–1920s),” Medical History, 66 (2022), 116–134, at 117–119.
Schlich and Strasser give the example of Emile Decaisne mocking Louis Pasteur’s mask by comparing it to the beaked plague mask: see ibid., 119. Another critic noted that the mask designed by the Pasteurian Henri Henrot knew an ancestor in de Lorme’s mask, to which he added that a modern physician should approach “the fire” unharnessed and with an uncovered face: see Augustin Cabanès, “La Peste dans l’Imagination Populaire,” Archives de Parasitologie, 4 (1901), 102–134, at 121–122.
An early author who identifies the costume from Manget’s frontispiece as an actual portrayal of de Lorme’s invention, is Burkhard Reber in “L’Habit des Médecins Pendant la Peste,” Janus: Archives Internationales pour l’Histoire de la Médecine et pour la Géographie Médicale, 1 (1896/97), 298–300, at 299.
Charles Broquet, “Le masque dans la peste: Présentation d’un modèle de masque antipesteux,” Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique, 4 (1911), 636–645, at 637–639, 645. Broquet developed his mask under the circumstances of the plague epidemic in Manchuria 1910–1911; it was the simpler mask developed by Wu Lien-Teh that would end up as the preferred type; for both, see chapter 5, “Plague Masks,” in Christos Lynteris, Visual Plague: The Emergence of Epidemic Photography (Cambridge, MA, 2022), 153–177.
Ibid., 166.
Lori Jones and Richard Nevell, “Plagued by Doubt and Viral Misinformation: The Need for Evidence-based Use of Historical Disease Images,” The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 16 (2016), e235–240.
