It’s the beak that lends the attire of the medieval plague doctor its surreal quality, but it wasn’t there just to scare National Treasure: Amelia Earhart Designed a New Future for Women Who ...

A 1619 outbreak of plague in France, rooted largely in Paris, led to the first medical mask. As the disease killed some 80 percent of those it afflicted, French doctor Charles De Lorme invented an ...

Mesny dismissed the younger doctor and refused to believe his theory that the plague was pneumonic. Mesny then visited a hospital without covering his face and died within days. Suddenly, masks ...