From Plague Doctor to PPE: A Brief History of Pandemic Protection Gear

Love the History Bernadette and what you are wearing too. So awesome.

interesting now I have learned something new from the plague doctor and the black plague :D

aw... the old days two years ago before we worked out that no, they did not isolate the sick, those paintings are accurate, because humans are stupid, selfish trash who will do the lab rat push the pleasure button ad infinitum instead of the get rid of the plague button...

Bernadette in 2020: "We've come a long way since the days of Justinian plague. Rather than relying on religious leaders to appeal to God to lighten up the wrath a little, we have likewise such useful innovations as masks, and social distancing, and science to hopefully flatten curves in a matter of months, instead of two centuries."
Me in 2023: Oh, would that we had listened...

Another thing we use as medical professionals is a PAPR (power air-purifying respirator), which is arguably more comfortable than a mask.

Lol, I am an actual doctor working in healthcare. I love your videos and enjoyed your description of the things I actually wear. Excellent work.

Plague Doctors are cooler and i fear them less then normal doctors. (I mean the outfits.not priest 😅)

We had the black plague a couple of times in Vienna, but also in the 17th century. Back then a so called "Magister Sanitatis" was elected who was a doctor who then was responsible as a sort of first responder for the plague ridden people - without saying this was not a particularly popular job to have. After a while they ran out of actual doctors due to the m dying from the plague themselves so at one point a medicine student who had been a student for 10 years was elected since they thought "well, close enough to an actual doctor" - if I remember correctly he too perished in the plague :(

That older mask looks like a sad platypus.

Question: If you had to re-design a Plague Doctor Outfit that both serves the AESTHETIC and the FUNCTIONAL purposes of the attire (from our modern scientific understanding), how would you do that?
What materials would you use to avoid contamination?
What "tech" would you add to support the health-concerns while simultaneously not impeding the overall look?

Goldman-Sachs is also looking into not curing diseases.
(In reference to the slideshow stating that completely healing patients might be bad for business)

We don't even need to wait for the future to behold the sheer stupidity of anti science humans handling the pandemic

What is the music? I feel like I recognize it - is it a harpsichord cover of something by Jethro Tull?

what if nuclear radiation

i love learning about the ways of science and how it progressed. the fact you compare covid 19 to a plague is a bit overkill, but i ❤this video!!!!!!

Um... Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Years is a novel, presented as an eye-witness acount. It's not a historical document.

As someone who works in the Public Health field and had to wear all that PPE, this was fun. :D

*Is a Biomedical Scientist (which means, I work in a medical Lab). Enjoys the accurate detail of "what we wear, PROVIDED the suez canal is not conjested, or general delivery isn't made impossible by the mere simultaneous need from the entire world, for the same thing."
So, don't fret, my fellow Bernadette, I applaude you for your wise insights, and for presenting them so eloquently.

Social distancing is innate, to clean is to sacrifice, when monkey's groom each other that is a sacrifice, an offering.

For when a monkey is chased away that monkey isn't sacrificial.

Something like that is was anyway,

Really interesting video. Learned some about historiography along the way.

Watching this in 2022 with the line about 2020 turning things upside down and thinking "jeez, little did we know..."

Note that the Spanish flu didn't really start in Spain but it was named after that because Spain was the first country reporting the death toll.

If only it had been a matter of months... sigh, how innocent and naive we were back in ye old days of 2020

I love the point you made at the end.

Honestly, I like the plague doctor costume more than the modern PPE. They are more beautiful and are actually more likely to be effective and comfortable than the modern gowns the nurses wear. Another benefit is that the costume can scare people into staying in lockdown and social distance. Who agrees?

2021 here: science only does so much if people refuse to listen T_T

As a healthcare provider this was great

I am a healthcare worker and i find this very interesting

Me, a frontline health care worker since 2015…and I agree with everything. And I’m a controversial figure in the field of nursing in that I don’t even believe the masks work at all!

Fantastic video! Also this video music kind of reminds me of the Sex and the City theme song

A curious oddity: there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that the plague was spread mostly by body lice once in a population rather than by fleas (who seemed to be more apt as transatlantic carrier vessels). This is especially poignant in the case of the village of Eyam in the UK, which turned into an isolated little hotspot in the middle of nowhere after receiving a shipment of fabric from London (possible recycled from plague victims). The tailor then spread it throughout the village, which, rather impressively, self-isolated throughout the following year despite the terrible death toll.

Not sure if someone has already mentioned this --- but of course, this is European medical history. The Islamic Empire had a basic understanding of isolating patients, social distancing, PPE, etc. from the late 900s. This was in large part because, as Bernadette says, where Christians saw science as anti-God, an "we simply cannot understand," ideology, Muslims saw science as sacred - understanding the world was understanding God.
Europe became more advanced after the Crusades. Invading knights saw the scientific, hygienic, and medical advancements of the Middle East and brought them back (both people and texts) to Europe. This helped usher in the Enlightenment.

My source is "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes," a very interesting book by scholar Amin Maalouf.

I read it last year in a Middle Eastern history course. However, I'm a western student and not specializing in history, much less the Middle East, so just take this as some interesting tidbits rather than hard research :D

Omg I love your top!!!!! I need a pattern! That's beautiful!

Interesting, entertaining video, thank you. Feels like time travel of some kind though being a year in the future.

You would think, with the plethora of scientific evidence that is available, the public perception towards disease and it being a consequence of the wrath of God would be different. Part of my job as a doctor is convincing people that irrespective of god's wrath they do need to get vaccinated and wear masks.

Everytime I see one of those plague masks I just think of "Are you my mummy?"

Goat skinned suits...how am I not surprised.😑

I love the history of medicine; thanks for this ❤️.

She gives me Life is Strange vibes loool

April 29 2021 and we still with the gucking coronavirus

What’s funny to me is that I just read a ton of comments the other day that we’re comparing the Spanish flu and Coronavirus. The only thing I learned from that thread of comments that stood out to me is that during both pandemics there were protests to not wear masks.
I still need someone to confirm to this, but all I have to say is
w h y

I just realized alt teens in the future will use masks to cover their faces-

Me, finally having the spoons to watch this in 2021: oh no

so you have this sewing machine at background as your decoration.... mine is of pfaaf 31 number manufactured in 1927.... and still working.... although its handle is bit loose now i am looking for spare parts to replace that handle.... if could not find then i am planing to attach machine to make it work......

Kinda glad that I didn't have teachers looking that good and kinda not.