This subject is also featured in a MetaFilter front page post (FPP) titled "The 'Science' Behind the Plague Doctor Costume" on the site MetaFilter from 2015. [0

This subject is also featured in a MetaFilter front page post (FPP) titled "The 'Science' Behind the Plague Doctor Costume" on the site MetaFilter from 2015. [0] The FPP links to a Mental Floss article on the "Anatomy of 14th Century Bubonic Plague Hazmat Suits". [1] What struck and haunted me about the "science" of Bubonic plague equipment was how so very close those cultures were to understanding the transmission of many diseases (though, ironically, not Bubonic Plague) and the Germ Theory of disease itself. Quoting (in part) what I wrote then: > Daniel Defoe's _Journal of the Plague Year_ published in 1722 [2] comes just before Pasteur's experiments confirming the Germ Theory of disease and it, too, is tantalizingly close about the empirical cause of the spread of Bubonic plague. [3] Humans have come quite a ways toward understanding the science of infectious diseases, but given the many ways diseases propagate, one can't help but wonder how close we are to our 14th-century forbears when looked from the vantage of what we may know in 28th century. (That is, 14th century : 21st century :: 21st century : 28th century) [0] https://www.metafilter.com/154520/The-Science-Behind-the-Plague-Doctor-Costume https://www.metafilter.com/154520/The-Science-Behind-the-Pla... [1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/49217/anatomy-14th-century-bubonic-plague-hazmat-suits http://mentalfloss.com/article/49217/anatomy-14th-century-bu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Journal_of_the_Plague_Year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Journal_of_the_Plague_Year [3] https://www.metafilter.com/154520/The-Science-Behind-the-Plague-Doctor-Costume#6277119 https://www.metafilter.com/154520/The-Science-Behind-the-Pla...