Masks, Manchuria and the Pneumonic Plague

In medieval Europe, bubonic plague ravaged whole countries. The cause of the Black Plague, as it was called, was believed to be miasma: the spread of disease through unpleasant odors.

You’d think this would have been enough to encourage regular bathing: in fact, it was not.

In order to treat this bacterial infection, doctors of the day would don a plague mask, a leather structure resembling a bird’s beak. The masks had nostrils they filled with incense, which they believed would not only protect them from disease, but would help cure the infected.

It in fact did neither. The plague lasted around a century. Uncounted millions died.

In the 1700s, scientists and doctors began to have a rudimentary understanding of the nature of bacteria, thanks to the invention of the microscope. The discovery of antibiotics was still a century away. There was still no cure for bacterial or viral disease, only the possibility of prevention by isolation.

Shift to early 20th century Manchuria, China. A plague breaks out with a mortality rate of 100%. Again, there was no cure. If you contracted this disease, you died in a matter of days. Dr. Wu Lien-teh was brought in to assess the situation. His observations led him to the conclusion that, unlike the bubonic plague, which was spread by fleas, this disease was being spread by air.

You caught the pneumonic plague by breathing in the presence of someone who had the pneumonic plague.

Girard Mesny, a prominent French doctor, said some incredibly racist things about Dr. Wu. Dr. Mesny had dealt with the bubonic plague in India and was convinced the outbreak in China was identical. To prove his point, Dr. Mesny visited a plague ward, with nothing covering his face.

Girard Mesny died several days later.

The death of Dr. Mesny led to a general consensus that Dr. Wu was correct in his assessments. As a cure for bacterial infections was still decades away, his solution was twofold. First, he suggested social isolation, as a way of preventing the transmission of a then incurable disease. Next, he developed simple cloth facial masks to prevent the spread of pathogens aerosolized through breathing.

The pneumonic plague was completely eliminated from humans by 1911 through a combination of strategic social distancing and the wearing of basic cotton masks to prevent the transference of germs.

Were it not for these two innovations from a Chinese doctor, pneumonic plague might have killed every living human. It served as a precursor to prepare for the Spanish Influenza, which arrived a decade later.

Moral of the story: wear your goddamn mask.