Who does not know that this is the mask of the plague doctor. Plague doctors never really had that name. This term appeared much later and is used to refer to medieval doctors, as well as doctors of the Renaissance, who were involved in the implementation of a set of measures to counter the plague.
She always surprised me. It looks creepy and the person looks like some kind of bird. Well, that's what the crow's beak and the plague have to do with it! I was never interested in this, but it turned out that the answer to the question was completely banal and the mask bore a completely utilitarian meaning.
It is clear that in fact it is only part of the protective suit that the doctors used to avoid catching the plague. It is believed that the design of the mask was inspired by images of the Egyptian god Thoth with a bird's head. The bird's head was believed to protect against disease.
The unusual mask was the prototype of the modern respirator and was supposed to protect the doctor's respiratory tract from the "disease-causing odor." To do this, numerous well-smelling herbs were stuffed into the beak of the mask, which, among other things, helped a person breathe in the conditions of the stench from dead bodies. But the most important thing is that a filter, which was made from a tampon soaked in vinegar, was clogged into the tip of the nose.
The very same protective suit with a mask appeared thanks to the efforts of the French doctor Charles de Lorme in 1619. Its development became the first protective suit for work in dangerous conditions in the history of mankind. Subsequently, the costume of doctors influenced world culture. People, far from science and healing, immediately surrounded the image of the gloomy "bird healers" with a mystical halo. Thanks to him, the characteristic Venetian bird mask appeared.
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