An interesting doctor

Obverse

The obverse depicts someone in a plague doctor mask, a modern doctor’s coat and stethoscope and holding a bottle of medicine. The figure appears to be in front of cracked stained-glass windows, all with a blue tinge.

Plague Doctor

The Plague, or the Black Death, first struck Western Europe in 1348 and is believed to have wiped out around 50% of the world’s population at the time. The disease itself made a number of comebacks over the years, most notably in the 1600s. With symptoms ranging from a high fever, lumps around the armpits and legs, vomiting and painful spasms, death usually followed in 5 days. Medical practitioners at the time were wholly unprepared for such a virulent disease and no contemporary treatments were effective against it. There was little recourse but to hope you wouldn’t be next to be struck down.

During times of plague, a town’s general doctors were at an increased risk of contracting the disease from casual exposure, and thus it was deemed safer to assign specific doctors to plague patients. Since many established doctors fled their homes and private practices rather than expose themselves to the disease, many of the doctors who remained were inexperienced. Although some who became plague doctors were recent medical trainees or doctors who had trouble finding work, others had no medical training at all but were the only people willing to work with plague patients. Many of the duties fulfilled by plague doctors were actually outside the realm of medical treatment, such as recording the number of infections and deaths, witnessing wills, performing autopsies, and keeping journals and casebooks to help with the development of treatments or preventive measures.

During earlier outbreaks (including the previously mentioned 1348 Black Death outbreak), there was no universal uniform worn by doctors treating plague victims. Physicians typically continued wearing their ordinary robes or clerical dress. Many added practical coverings—shawls, cloaks, simple masks or cloths—intended to reduce exposure. Folded linen or cloth improvised face masks were common, as were leather or textile gloves and aprons where available. Heavy cloaks, long gowns, hoods and wide-brimmed hats were worn both as normal dress and as protection, sometimes specifically waterproof.

Reliance on fumigation and scents: Instead of standardized protective gear, contemporaries preferred carrying aromatic substances (herbs, vinegar-soaked sponges, pomanders) near the nose to counter “miasma.” This practice influenced later beaked mask designs.

In the 17th century, a famous French doctor, Charles de L’Orme, perfected the plague doctor mask, giving it the look we recognize today. The full outfit, which covered the plague doctor from head to foot, consisted of an outer garment tightly enclosed around the mask. The plague doctor mask covered the physician’s face in the shape of an oval with two open round holes located in the eyes. These holes were sealed by two pieces of glass, while the lower part of the face was covered by a powerful, hooked nose resembling a long beak – the plague doctor mask’s trademark feature. On both sides of the “beak”, two horizontal cuts were made to let air pass through. The beak was meanwhile filled with aromatic herbs to filter and purify the air breathed by the plague doctor intended to prevent contagion.

The design of the mask and the aromatic herbs were due to the belief that the plague was caused by “bad air”, also known as “Miasma theory“.

Modern interpretations of the costume, tend to be very stylized:

(Doctor Malfatto from Assassin’s Creed. Image: Assassin’s Creed Fandom).

Here is a picture of a surviving example of a plague doctor outfit:

(Image of a surviving plague doctor outfit from Newcastle.co.uk).

Stethoscope

The stethoscope was invented in 1816 when a young French physician named René Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec was examining a 40-year-old female patient named Marie-Melanie Basset who had shortness of breath. Laennec was embarrassed to place his ear to her chest and perform immediate auscultation, which was the method of auscultation used by physicians at that time. He remembered a trick he learned as a child about how sound travels through solids. He rolled up 24 sheets of paper, placed one end to his ear and the other end to the woman’s chest. He was delighted to discover that the sounds were not only conveyed through the paper cone, but they were also loud and clear. He named this process mediate auscultation.

Laennec preferred to have his instrument simply called Le Cylindre, as he thought naming such a fundamental instrument was unnecessary. He did not approve of the names his colleagues had given the instrument, and decided that if it should be called anything, it should be called the stethoscope. The word stethoscope is derived from the Greek word stethos meaning chest and scope, a French word derived from the Latin scopium meaning ‘a viewing instrument’.  

(One of Laennec’s original stethoscopes made from wood and brass. From EMS Museum).

Laennec was a skilled woodturner; he had set up a small shop in his home with a woodturning lathe and stocked different types of wood. He created a stethoscope from a turned piece of wood with a hollow bore in the center. It was made of two pieces: one end had a hole to place against the ear, and the other end was hollowed out into a funnel shaped cone; there was a plug that fit into this cone, which had a hollow brass tube placed inside it in order to listen to the heart. The stethoscope could be used without the tube to examine the lungs. The stethoscope was described as being 12 inches long and 1.5 inches in diameter with a 3/8 inch central bore hole throughout its length. His stethoscope could be bought for 2 francs along with the purchase of the Treatise on Mediate Auscultation.

A binaural version of the stethoscope, closer to today’s version, was invented by Arthur Leared in 1851.

Lab coats

The figure on the medallion is pictured wearing a modern medical coat & stethoscope (invented in 1816).

Until the late 1800s, physicians dressed in black, as it was considered formal. Medical encounters were considered serious and formal matters. Clergymen also wore black for the same reason.

Lab coats made their first appearance in the late 1800s, at the height of the age of scientific progress. It has been said they evolved from the protective apparel worn in other industries, like the durable aprons of the blacksmiths or beekeepers’ suits. Its original purpose was to protect the scientists from the chemicals they worked with and help avoid contamination from dirt, dust, and microbes from their clothes and skin. Shortly after, in the late 19th century, the humble coat began not only to be associated with scientists but also with medical practitioners. The field of medicine gained more credibility as they linked themselves closer to the reputable scientific area. Lab coats took on a new status, as patients linked the coats to trustworthiness, authoritativeness, knowledgeability, and compassion.

Why white? White is often associated with hope, purity, and transformation. This was appropriate for the 18th century when science was taking off as a profession. But there are also practical reasons for the colour choice, such as being the cheapest fabric available and dyeing the lab coats another colour would have cost more. White also makes it easy to spot any fluid or chemical stains and holds up better under frequent washing and bleaching. 

Glass Bottles

The doctor on the medallion is carrying a clear glass bottle with a red liquid inside. But when did that become a thing?

The first known glass bottles emerged around 1500 BC in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Mesopotamia. Early civilizations likely discovered glass-making accidentally while firing pottery kilns with sand and mineral additives. These initial glass vessels were thick, small containers formed by continuously working and shaping the molten glass by hand.

Primitive ancient bottles were considered luxury items and were primarily used to store valuable perfumes, oils, and ointments. With the advent of glass blowing techniques around the 1st century BC in the Roman Empire, hollow glass containers became more widespread, facilitating the storage and transportation of liquids throughout the empire. 

But it wasn’t refined to a thin, useable clear glass until much later.

Venetian glass blower Angelo Barovier invented transparent glass with little color during the 15th century AD. Called cristallo, the beautiful glass was heavily exported to other countries. Artisans left Venice during the late 1500s for the better life of northern Europe. They established factories and introduced the art of glassblowing to apprentices in their new home. By 1575, English glassmakers were highly skilled in the art of Venetian glass.

Reverse

The reverse of the medallion has a clock set at 8:55 (Does anyone know a potential reason for that?) with the dates 1347-1351 in the centre – that was the rough years of the black death in Europe, as covered above. I can’t read the text above the centre? If you can, please let me know!

The Clock

Humans have used various methods to measure time. Sundials were among the first types of clocks. The ancient Egyptians started using obelisks to measure the sun’s shadow as early as 3,500 BC. They developed water clocks, which were also used in Babylon, ancient Greece, Persia, Mesopotamia, India and ancient China.
Other types of clocks included the timestick, used in India, Tibet and Persia, and the candle clock, used in ancient Japan, ancient China, Mesopotamia and England. Interesting Engineering has more information on some of these early clocks.

The first fully mechanical clocks were developed by Christian monks in 14th Century medieval Europe. The clocks were installed in monasteries to coordinate prayer and work schedules.

These early clocks used a complicated system of pulleys and weights to operate a striking mechanism. They were installed in churches and town halls, making timekeeping a public activity. The invention of the spring mechanism in the 15th Century revolutionised clockmaking, enabling the development of smaller, more portable clocks.

Salisbury Cathedral Clock, circa 1386, Salisbury, England. Image: RAU Antiques).

Thanks to earlier advances in physics by Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci, 17th-century inventors discovered that clocks could be regulated by harmonic oscillators, leading to a boom in their production. With this finding came the production of pendulum clocks, which were some of the first motion clocks, the first of which was created by Christiaan Huygens in 1656.

Clocks have continued to develop and the RAU Antiques article I have quoted here goes into much more detail.

On the medallion, I was thinking that perhaps there was an error in the Roman Numerals. We have looked at Roman Numerals previously, and of course the number 4 is generally written “IV” in Roman Numerals. The clock face on the medallion instead has “IIII”. I had seen that used as an ancient form of “IV” and Monochrome-Watches explain that it is common on clocks, although it is hard to narrow down exactly why. The part which actually confused me was, if you are going to use “IIII” should it not also have “VIIII” for “9”? While that can be used under the same notation, many of the clocks depicted in the Monochrome Watches article do use “IIII” for 4 and “IX” for 9. So, it is an accurate, if curious detail.

I’m not quite sure who the figures either side of the clock face on this piece are – if you know, please do get in touch! The one on the right appears to be a saint, as he has a halo. I was going to dive into the history of halos in art, but, since this piece is already running long, perhaps we’ll leave it there.

Lastly, the piece itself is an Equilateral curve heptagon (7-sided), about 25mm diameter, similar to a 1991-1994 Jamaica 25 cents & about 3mm thick. I really only picked this piece up out of curiosity and interest in the design. And I’m glad I did, since I have learnt quite a bit writing it up! What do you think? Do YOU have any “trinket” pieces like this with no real value or historical significance on their own, but which are fascinating nonetheless? Do comment below!