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...