But what’s the reality behind the iconic mask? Not Just Any Doctor Plague doctors were government contractors. When the plague struck a European town, the local government hired a doctor ...

The Plague Doctor’s eerie beak mask was designed to protect against “evil” smells thought to cause disease. But the truth behind this creepy costume will shock you!

Their head gear was particularly unusual: Plague doctors wore spectacles, de Lorme continued, and a mask with a nose “half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two ...

a mask with a long, bird-like beak, which was stuffed with dried flowers, herbs, and spices. (Today, you might recognize it from the “plague doctor” costumes worn during the Carnival of Venice ...

With their dark, heavy robes and beaked masks, the plague doctor will forever be associated with the bubonic plague, even though they first appeared in France and Italy in the 1600s, nearly 300 ...

A 1619 outbreak of plague in France, rooted largely in Paris, led to the first medical mask. As the disease killed some 80 percent of those it afflicted, French doctor Charles De Lorme invented an ...

What kind of face mask have you been using? Join the conversation below. The crow-like plague-doctor mask of 17th- and 18th-century Europe is one of the earliest and creepiest protective coverings.