As I am placing Scarecrow during the plague I think that it
will be a clever idea to have him designed to look very similar to a Plague
Doctor. That way he can easily apply his theories on patients/test subjects. It
could also be where he got his inspiration from as in the comics he wears a
mask that filters out his own gas.
I will now look into the background history of a plague
doctor and the outfit that protected them during a plague.
Plague doctor
A plague doctor (Italian: medico della peste,) was a special
medical physician who saw those who had the plague. They were specifically
hired by towns that had many plague victims in times of plague epidemics. Since
the city was paying their salary they treated everyone, the rich and the poor.
They were not normally professionally trained experienced physicians or
surgeons, and often were second-rate doctors not able to otherwise run a
successful medical business or young physicians trying to establish themselves.
Plague doctors by
their covenant treated plague patients and were known as municipal or
"community plague doctors", whereas "general practitioners"
were separate doctors and both might be in the same European city or town at
the same time. In France and
the Netherlands
plague doctors often lacked medical training and were referred to as
"empirics". In one case a plague doctor had been a fruit-seller
before his employment as a physician.
In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some doctors wore a beak-like mask which
was filled with aromatic items. The masks were designed to protect them from
putrid air, which (according to the miasmatic theory of disease) was seen as
the cause of infection. Being a plague doctor was unpleasant, dangerous and
difficult. Their chances of survival in times of a plague epidemic were slim
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