As the intellectual elite could offer no remedy for the rapidly spreading disease, doctors, who held a lower standing than astrologers or university lecturers, were left to confront the plague and its ugly symptoms. They went about the cities, visiting one plague-stricken house after another. Many physicians wore distinctive costumes and masks that marked their unpleasant vocation, and their repeated visits to a neighborhood signaled that the plague had come.
Most physicians saw their first duty in securing the patient's confession to a member of the clergy, as the purge of sins and the healing of the soul were held all-important. For the treatment of plague symptoms, doctors prescribed a variety of medicines, certain very unpleasant foods and diets, the use of aromatic spices, bleeding, fervent prayer and religious devotion, as well as the total isolation of their patients. They lit fires both within and in front of the houses of.....
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