PPE and pestilence: The origins of medical masks

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It was more than a century ago during the Manchurian plague when masks were taking their place as the most visible tool of epidemic control. FMTNews FMTLifestyle

Quarantines, contact tracing, and other measures adopted by governments today to slow the spread of the new coronavirus all echo plague responses over the centuries.

But it was not until the mid-1800s that scientists identified microbes and developed “germ theories” to explain the mechanics of infection.Before then, “masks for contagion control were more in the nature of amulets to frighten away evil influences,” Summers told AFP. Born in Malaysia and educated at Cambridge, Wu struggled to be taken seriously as he attempted to convince colleagues the plague was not only transmitted by fleas on rats, like bubonic plague, but also that it was spreading from one human being to another.

Those leading the public health response had two major problems, said Summers, the author of a book about the Manchurian plague. The nascent use of photography in world newspapers also drew attention to the masks, helping to “define the way we imagine epidemics”, he said.For hundreds of years — long before the concept of germs — people have covered their faces to try to ward off disease.

“A wide-brimmed hat could defend the head, and a mask with a protruding beak extending from the nose could carry aromatic herbs that would protect the wearer from the fatal miasmatic smells.”

 

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