Why plague doctors wore those strange beaked masks？
瘟疫时期的医生为什么要戴着那些奇怪鸟嘴面罩？
In the 17th century, people believed these outfits could purify poisonous air. They were wrong.
17世纪时，人们认为这样的面罩可以净化有毒的空气，但是他们错了。
The plague was once the most feared disease in the world, capable of wiping out hundreds of millions of people in seemingly unstoppable global pandemics and afflicting its victims with painfully swollen lymph nodes, blackened skin, and other gruesome symptoms.
瘟疫曾经是世界上最可怕的疾病，它在难以阻挡的全球大流行中杀死了数以亿计的人，受害者会出现淋巴结肿胀，皮肤变黑等其他可怕症状。
In 17th-century Europe, the physicians who tended to plague victims wore a costume that has since taken on sinister overtones: they covered themselves head to toe and wore a mask with a long bird-like beak. The reason behind the beaked plague masks was a misconception about the very nature of the dangerous disease.
在17世纪的欧洲，医治瘟疫病人的医生开始穿着这样的衣服：他们把自己从头到脚遮住，并带着一个长长的鸟嘴面具。从那时起，这种衣服被蒙上了一层阴影色彩。这种鸟嘴面具背后是是人们对于这种可怕疾病本身的误解。
During that period's outbreaks of the bubonic plague—a pandemic that recurred in Europe for centuries—towns gripped by the disease hired plague doctors who practiced what passed for medicine on rich and poor residents alike. These physicians prescribed what were believed to be protective concoctions and plague antidotes, witnessed wills, and performed autopsies — and some did so while wearing beaked masks.
鼠疫爆发期间（鼠疫曾在欧反复爆发并流行数个世纪），很多受到鼠疫影响的城市都开始聘用鼠疫医生，他们对穷人和富人同等对待医治。这些医生开出被认为是有效的药水和瘟疫解药，见证遗嘱，以及解剖遗体，一些医生在做这些事情的时候都带着鸟嘴面具。
[Charles de Lorme, a plague doctor who treated 17th century royals, is often credited with the uniform]
【Charles de Lorme, 瘟疫医生，17世纪为很多皇室服务，被认为是鸟嘴面具和防护服的发明人】
The costume is usually credited to Charles de Lorme, a physician who catered to the medical needs of many European royals during the 17th century, including King Louis XIII and Gaston d'Orléans, son of Marie de Médici. He described an outfit that included a coat covered in scented wax, breeches connected to boots, a tucked-in shirt, and a hat and gloves made of goat leather. Plague doctors also carried a rod that allowed them to poke (or fend off) victims.
这套服装的出现通常被归功于Charles de Lorme, 他在17世纪曾为许多欧洲皇室成员提供医疗服务，包括国王路易十三和Marie de Médici（路易十三的母亲）的儿子Gaston d'Orléans。他描述了一套防护方法：“在外套上涂一层香蜡，长裤和靴子连在一起，衬衣塞到裤子里，同时戴上羊皮做的帽子和手套。此外，瘟疫医生还要随身携带一根拐杖，用来在必要时刻驱赶或者击退瘟疫病人”。
Their head gear was particularly unusual: Plague doctors wore spectacles, de Lorme continued, and a mask with a nose “half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two holes, one on each side near the nostrils, but that can suffice to breathe and carry along with the air one breathes the impression of the [herbs] enclosed further along in the beak.”
“他们的面罩要很不寻常：瘟疫医生都带着护目镜，”de Lorme 继续描述道，“面罩上有一个半英尺长，像鸟嘴一样的‘鼻子’，里面充满香水并只开两个孔，一侧一个并且开在靠近人鼻孔的位置，以保证医生能够正常呼吸，此外‘鼻子’里还放有干花，草药等用来过滤医生呼吸的空气” 。
Though plague doctors across Europe wore these outfits, the look was so iconic in Italy that the "plague doctor" became a staple of Italian commedia dell’arte and carnival celebrations—and is still a popular costume today.
虽然当时整个欧洲的瘟疫医生都穿着这种服装，但是在意大利，这种看起来很有代表性的‘瘟疫医生’造型还成了当地喜剧节目和狂欢节庆典的主打服装，直到如今，这种打扮也很流行。
[Venetians dress as plague doctors to celebrate the city's Carnival. This year, the last two days of the event were canceled due to concerns regarding coronavirus.]
【威尼斯的人们装扮成瘟疫医生，庆祝城市嘉年华。但是由于今年新冠肺炎的流行出现，最后两天的活动被提前取消了】
But the forbidding ensemble was not just a deathly fashion statement: It was intended to protect the doctor from miasma. In the times before the germ theory of disease, physicians believed that the plague spread through poisoned air that could create an imbalance in a person’s humors, or bodily fluids. Sweet and pungent perfumes were thought to be able to fumigate plague-stricken areas and protect the smeller; nosegays, incense, and other perfumes were common in the era.
然而这套“禁忌服装”并不只是一种致命的时尚宣言：它的出现是为了保护医生远离瘴气，在病菌理论出现之前的时代，医生们认为瘟疫是通过有毒的空气传播的，这种有毒的空气会造成人的体液失衡，他们认为香甜或者有刺激气味的香水可以用来净化瘟疫爆发地区的空气，同时可以保护那些嗅觉灵敏的人们。在那个时期，芳香味很浓的花束，焚烧的香还有其他一些香水变得很常见。
Plague doctors filled their masks with theriac, a compound of more than 55 herbs and other components like viper flesh powder, cinnamon, myrrh, and honey. De Lorme thought the beak shape of the mask would give the air sufficient time to be suffused by the protective herbs before it hit plague doctors’ nostrils and lungs.
瘟疫医生在他们的面罩中填满一种叫Theriac的东西， 这种一由超过55种草药和其他成分（如毒蛇肉粉，桂皮，没药，蜂蜜等）组成的混合物。De Lorme 认为鸟嘴形状的面具可以是的呼吸进来空气有足够的时间被这些有保护作用的草药浸透过滤，然后在被吸入瘟疫医生的鼻孔和肺部。
In fact, plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, bacteria that can be transmitted from animals to humans and through flea bites, contact with contaminated fluid or tissue, and inhalation of infectious droplets from sneezing or coughing people with pneumonic plague.
实际上，瘟疫是由鼠疫耶尔森菌引起的，这是一种可以通过动物传播给人类，也可以通过蚊虫叮咬，接触被污染的液体或者组织，以及在鼠疫病人打喷嚏或者咳嗽时吸入传染性飞沫等途径播传播。
Three horrific plague pandemics swept across the globe before its cause was ultimately uncovered—the Plague of Justinian, which killed up to 10,000 people a day circa A.D. 561; the Black Death, which wiped out up to a third of Europeans between 1334 and 1372 and continued with intermittent outbreaks as late as 1879; and the Third Pandemic, which ravaged much of Asia between 1894 and 1959.
瘟疫出现的原因被真正发现以之前，有三次可怕的瘟疫在全球范围内大流行。公元561年流行爆发的查士丁尼瘟疫一天造成了多达10000人死亡。1334年至1372年间出现的黑死病，造成多达三分之一的欧洲人死亡，并且直至1879年前还在间歇性爆发。1894年至1959年，瘟疫第三次大流行，并且大部分主要在亚洲地区肆虐。
Ultimately, the plague doctors’ outfits—and methods—didn’t make much of a difference. “Unfortunately,” writes historian Frank M. Snowden, “the therapeutic strategies of early modern plague doctors did little to prolong life, relieve suffering, or effect a cure.”
最终，瘟疫医生的服装和治疗方法，并没有起到很大的作用。“很不幸”，历史学家Frank M. Snowden曾在书中写到，“早起那种瘟疫医生的治疗策略并没有起到延长生命，缓解痛苦，或是治愈的效果”。
Plague doctors may have been immediately recognizable, but until the rise of the germ theory of disease and modern antibiotics, their costumes didn’t provide real protection against the disease.
瘟疫医生可能一眼就能够被认出来，但是直到病菌理论和现代抗生素出现之前，他们的服装并没有为他们提供真正的防护。
