I am developing a plague doctor uniform (see /r/plaguedoctor, there's a whole community built around it), and I'm a nerd for historical accuracy.
It is common knowledge that plague doctors stuffed the 'beak' of their masks with fragrant herbs to prevent the 'bad air' that they thought spread disease. From the Wikipedia, I tried to find those citations in publicly available samples of Dangerous Garden: The Quest for Plants to Change Our Lives, but was unable to find that information. I would love to find a primary or secondary source that discusses what herbs and other proposed cures were used in a plague doctor's mask. Additionally, any resources about the miasma theory of disease would be very useful.
Thank you so much for your time.
Hello, I'm back to share what I've found. I purchased a used copy Dangerous Garden: The Quest for Plants to Change Our Lives by David Stuart and published by Harvard University Press in 2004, as well as The Scented Ape: The Biology and Culture of Human Odour by D. Michael Stoddart and published by Cambridge University Press in 1990. Both are sources I stumbled upon while attempting to find information about what herbs that plague doctors used inside of their masks to prevent the spread of disease. The bolding I've included is for emphasis.
From The Scented Ape, readers learn that the beaked masks were not the only ways scent was used to prevent disease:
Other than Divine Intervention (a robust immune system notwithstanding!) the only palliative against the plague available to doctors was a sweet odour. They ordered huge fires of pine, fir and other scented woods to be lit in the streets - one for every eight horses - and kept alight night and day. Sometimes flowers of sulphur would be thrown onto the flames, filling the air with thick yellow acrid fumes which made the eyes and nose stream and tore at the throat.
While Stoddart mentions the plague doctor costume and their “beak-like projections that were regularly filled with fresh herbs and dried petals,” he doesn’t go into detail about the herbs used. Also, Stoddart doesn’t seem to recognize that the plague doctor costume we love to analyze wasn’t invented or popularized until the 17th century. However, he does introduce two more methods of disease prevention used during the plague:
If the physician was a man of substance he would have had a plague torch carried in front of him….Into the small burner at the top of the torch would be placed some charcoal onto which the physician’s assistant would sprinkle resins and gums to perfume the air for his master. Around the house of the dead would be sprinkled plenty of plague water - water to which some aromatic substance had been added - in a further attempt at a cordon sanitaire.
Stoddart also introduces the handheld pomander: “Early pomanders were small sandalwood boxes or cloth sachets filled with amber, incense and sulphur, and they would be sniffed enthusiastically while the examination was in progress.”
In Dangerous Garden, Stuart gets more specific:
It was believed that the plague was spread by a cloud of poisonous gas, or a miasma, colourless but deadly, which it was hoped could be side-stepped by breathing through a strong-smelling bunch of flowers, or air filled with perfumed smoke. In southern Europe, rosemary was the most commonly burnt plant, but in northern Europe...people tried different ones. In the post city of Leith, near Edinburgh, which was sorely afflicted by plague in 1645, Alexander Abercrombie was deputed to gather heather from all around the town. This he burnt inside the affected houses.
Finally, Stuart answers my main query in a caption for a copper engraving: “The mask’s beak contained perfumed plants such as thyme, roses and carnations, thought to filter the foul air that was believed to carry the disease.”