# A modern doctor vs the Black Death **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 12, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520 "2012-10-12T15:20:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/21 "2012-10-12T16:37:46Z")
Would knowing how to make, say, DDT powder be more effective than knowing how to make penicillin? You can only use penicillin on folks who already have the disease. If you can kill the fleas, you can stop the spread. And I imagine it would be easier to get people to spread a preventative powder around than to get a proper dosage into enough people at the right time. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/22 "2012-10-12T16:43:25Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I think we should just assume cooperation because I think the OP is largely asking about the usefulness of 21st century science without 21st century pharma, equipment, support etc. Good point. Fighting the hypothetical and all that. So. DDT? Boric Acid? Other pesticides in addition to regular health protocols? ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/23 "2012-10-12T16:46:51Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Or equally you might be able to create a vast following, and eventually army, just with the amazing stuff you can demonstrate and predict\*. > I think we should just assume cooperation because I think the OP is largely asking about the usefulness of 21st century science without 21st century pharma, equipment, support etc. > > - No, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head either. But you’d have plenty of time to think of some neat tricks, what with no TV and Internet to distract you. All you have to do is show up right before an eclipse. It works all the time! ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/24 "2012-10-12T16:53:49Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Good point. Fighting the hypothetical and all that. > > So. DDT? Boric Acid? Other pesticides in addition to regular health protocols? I think you can forget about synthesising DDT, unless you have a good supply of benzene, hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid. If you do, then you’ll need ethanol too, which isn’t hard to come by. Where can you get benzene from in the Middle Ages? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/25 "2012-10-12T17:05:02Z")
Once the plague goes pneumonic, sanitation and vermin control lose effectiveness. At that point, antibiotic therapy is all that will help. I’m not sure that improved sanitation for one very small locality where the time traveler somehow manages to influence people will make any difference, even for those locals. Goods were shipped from one locality to another and rats along with them. Your hypothetical doctor, in order to make a real difference, would have to arrive in an era well before the plague and\_somehow\_influence a whole society to improve sanitation. Perhaps the solution might lie in\_somehow\_gaining the confidence of a powerful and influential Pope and getting the desired practices adopted into Church dogma. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/26 "2012-10-12T17:45:29Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > I’m a biologist, not a doctor (dammit Jim!) and if I were sent back in time in the OP’s scenario I’d make a stab at isolating penicillin, using basic knowledge of microbiology and chemistry. There’s probably more than a few doctors out there that could say the same. (But perhaps they’d be preoccupied by treating all the actual sick people…) > > The stuff is inside common mold. As a first attempt, I’d isolate a bunch of different mold types, and see if any inhibit growth of bacteria I cultured from my body. Then once I have a good strain, I’d work out a way to grow large batches of it, and then extract the penicillin – basically trying any available solvents, and any tricks I can recall to precipitate out particular substances. > > With the benefit of Google, I can see that the [growth and extraction of penicillin is actually very simple](http://www.biotopics.co.uk/microbes/penici.html). Just grow a big kettle of the right sort of mold, let it ferment for a week. The penicillin is just precipitated out of liquid growing media with the addition of potassium. > > It’d require a lot of trial and error to figure this out with medieval technology, but I don’t think it’s impossible. The hardest part would be trying to get things sterile enough to do any sort of microbiology. There’s no autoclave… but thorough boiling might be good enough. And I’d guess that it would require the patronage of a wealthy noble, just to get all the resources. (E.g. some glass blowers would make everything a lot easier…) > > Growing penicillin in kettles doesn’t scale very well to all of Europe, however. Good hygiene and quarantine techniques would probably do more to stop the epidemic. I don’t think so. While poltices containing mold have been used since ancient times, actually extracting the right species of mold, let alone mass producing the stuff, isn’t going to be easy for your funny-talking time traveler in the 14th century, even if s/he’s got access to a helpful noble or high churchman. It was considered a “daunting” task using 1940s tech, with access to full laboratories of the time and with wartime needs spurring on teams of nobel prize-winning scientists with presumably enormous resources. > **[Penicillin | Mass production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production)** > > As the medical application was established, the Oxford team found that it was impossible to produce usable amounts in their laboratory. Failing to persuade the British government, Florey and Heatley travelled to the US in June 1941 with their mould samples in order to interest the US government for large-scale production. They approached the USDA Northern Regional Research Laboratory (NRRL, now the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research) at Peoria, Illinois, where facil On March 14... Your hypothetical general practitioner would have to largely re-create that work. I seriously doubt it is realistically possible. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/27 "2012-10-12T19:47:28Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > It was considered a “daunting” task using 1940s tech, with access to full laboratories of the time and with wartime needs spurring on teams of nobel prize-winning scientists with presumably enormous resources. They even struggled just working out how to actually give the penicillin to patients. Howard Florey and his team feature in a rather excellent BBC film, called “Breaking the mould”, starring Dominic West as Florey. ---
**Author:** ![Grateful-UnDead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ccd318/32.png) [@Grateful-UnDead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grateful-UnDead)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/28 "2012-10-13T01:47:09Z")
Actually, there is another aspect to this: Sir Fred Holyle, the ex British President of the Royal Society , postulated that the great plagues were caused by airborne bacteria, which finally settled into rats and fleas as convenient incubation hosts (no immediate cite). He linked the periodicity and distribution of the plaques to seasonal air currents, as opposed to transmission by errant rats and fleas. Therefore, assuming his theory to be correct, the concept of attacking rats and fleas may not be the appropriate response. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/29 "2012-10-13T01:54:03Z")
If you could get the church to go along there’d be some chance of instituting hygiene practices. Otherwise no one would listen to you, you might get the witch test, and even if that didn’t happen you’d have no means of disseminating the information past a very small area. You’d be lucky if you could keep one person from dying. ---
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/30 "2012-10-13T02:30:12Z")
> [@Grateful-UnDead](#): > > Actually, there is another aspect to this: Sir Fred Holyle, the ex British President of the Royal Society , postulated that the great plagues were caused by airborne bacteria, which finally settled into rats and fleas as convenient incubation hosts (no immediate cite). This is the same guy who postulated airborne extraterrestrial viruses as the mechanism of evolution. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/31 "2012-10-13T02:45:12Z")
Somebody had knowledge of airborne pathogens. This plague doctor mask and robes was a medieval bio suit. Notice how every inch of skin is covered. Imagine this dude walking the corridors of modern hospitals. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Paul_F%C3%BCrst,_Der_Doctor_Schnabel_von_Rom_%28Holl%C3%A4nder_version%29.png/220px-Paul_F%C3%BCrst,_Der_Doctor_Schnabel_von_Rom_%28Holl%C3%A4nder_version%29.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Paul_F%C3%BCrst,_Der_Doctor_Schnabel_von_Rom_%28Holl%C3%A4nder_version%29.png/220px-Paul_F%C3%BCrst,_Der_Doctor_Schnabel_von_Rom_%28Holl%C3%A4nder_version%29.png) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/32 "2012-10-13T04:58:18Z")
A book series I follow (_1632_, by Eric Flint) has the time-traveling Americans synthesizing chloramphenicol as their primary antibiotic, since it can be synthesized industrially instead of taking your chances with unidentified molds, and since it’s effective against plague. It isn’t used much nowadays because it has a relatively high rate of bad side effects, but not nearly as high as untreated plague mortality. Of course, that series had an entire town sent back, with a fair amount of industrial equipment, and libraries full of books. It’d be a lot harder with just what’s in one man’s brain. ---
**Author:** ![Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/33 "2012-10-13T07:22:56Z")
Yep, like **aceplace57** says, plague doctors wore masks like [this](http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/medico_peste.html) to protect them from the “bad air” which was thought to spread sickness, following the [Miasma theory of disease](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasmatic). This was replaced by germ theory in the 19th century. It’s easy to see how the mask would offer some incidental protection from the microorganisms, even if the logic behind them was flawed. I think the future doctor could avoid the risks of pretending to be some kind of wizard and instead build off Miasma theory by a few simple experiments to prove to the powers that be that germs/viruses were responsible, leading to proper prevention methods. Louis Pasteur was able to prove microorganisms existed in the air using [glass flasks and beef broth](http://science.jrank.org/pages/6408/Spontaneous-Generation.html). \*The argument continued into the nineteenth century, when the German scientist Rudolf Virchow in 1858, introduced the concept of biogenesis; living cells can arise only from preexisting living cells. But the matter remained unresolved until two years later when the great French scientist Louis Pasteur, in a series of classic experiments demonstrated that (1) microorganisms are present in the air and can contaminate solutions; and (2) the air itself does not create microbes. Pasteur filled short-necked flasks with beef broth and boiled them, leaving some opened to the air to cool and sealing others. While the sealed flasks remained free of microorganisms, the open flasks were contaminated within a few days. In a second set of experiments, Pasteur placed broth in flasks that had open-ended, long necks. After bending the necks of the flasks into S-shaped curves that dipped downward, then swept sharply upward, he boiled the contents. The contents of these uncapped flasks remained uncontaminated even months later. Pasteur explained that the S-shaped curve allowed air to pass into the flask; however, the curved neck trapped airborne microorganisms at the bottom of the curve, preventing them from traveling into the broth.\* So basically, just accelerate the timeline that led to germ theory (a microscope would be helpful, but not required, IMO). Prove it to the powers that be, then open a savings account before coming back to the present. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/34 "2012-10-13T11:58:38Z")
> [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](#): > > I think the future doctor could avoid the risks of pretending to be some kind of wizard and instead build off Miasma theory by a few simple experiments to prove to the powers that be that germs/viruses were responsible, leading to proper prevention methods. Maybe after 1500 or so this would work but by the OP we’re talking about 1349. I’d instead try taking a long approach. Accept you can’t do anything immediately, join a monastic order, spend 5-10 years establishing your bonafides as a genuine monk. Start to fake seizures and visions, then come out and spell out that god or the Virgin Mary has sent you a vision on how to help prevent the plague, conveniently enough the details you got in the vision just happen to resemble modern germ theory. If your superiors in the order were convinced you really were divinely inspired you’d get considerable freedom to experiment and resources. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/35 "2012-10-13T12:24:45Z")
All these discussions ignore the economics of energy. Until the steam engine and railroads, coal was expensive and rare; wood would be the major source of power for forging, for making metal, for boiling materials. Second would be human labour, which of course was used to chop the wood, and ox power to haul that wood to where it needs to be - then you need a stove and containers made out of expensive metal to boil your industrial quantities of whatever. Any alchemist activities he wants to indulge in will come at a high price. It was not for fun but for survival that the average peasant worked sun-up to sundown. So your time traveller really needs to go back with a huge supply of gold (swallow it?) to pay for all this expensive material, another way to guarantee that he’ll be arrested by the local lord on suspicion of theft, thus allowing the confiscation of the gold stash. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/36 "2012-10-13T12:37:49Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Never said they were idiots, just unable to read and thus wouldn’t even have the base of knowledge to understand germs and how sanitation prevents disease. Just have to disagree here Runner Pat in that even if they could read I doubt there were texts available about diseases and sanitation (or affordable). I would imagine it wasn’t the literacy that was the problem (though it could eventually be) but that the cause wasn’t realised. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/37 "2012-10-13T12:42:27Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > The guy is going to find himself on some local wise-guy’s larder scale to see if he weighs the same as a duck in no time at all. So maybe he could introduce them to soul music? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/38 "2012-10-13T14:42:42Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > Just have to disagree here Runner Pat in that even if they could read I doubt there were texts available about diseases and sanitation (or affordable). I would imagine it wasn’t the literacy that was the problem (though it could eventually be) but that the cause wasn’t realised. I recall a quote from some treatise about the Romans, back in the 1500’s or so - that the Romans were obsessed with baths and sewers and put them in all their cities because they thought this prevented disease, “but nowadays we know better”. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/39 "2012-10-14T15:38:45Z")
Bocaccio’s “Decameron” deals with a group of people who have moved to w remote village, to isolate themselves from the plague. They survived, so getting away from the filthy, rat-infested cities worked. Is there any evidence that the Black Death came to Greenland? I read once that it did get to Iceland (and wiped out a lot of people). ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520/40 "2012-10-15T14:45:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I don’t think so. While poltices containing mold have been used since ancient times, actually extracting the right species of mold, let alone mass producing the stuff, isn’t going to be easy for your funny-talking time traveler in the 14th century, even if s/he’s got access to a helpful noble or high churchman. > > It was considered a “daunting” task using 1940s tech, with access to full laboratories of the time and with wartime needs spurring on teams of nobel prize-winning scientists with presumably enormous resources. > > [Penicillin - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production) > > Your hypothetical general practitioner would have to largely re-create that work. I seriously doubt it is realistically possible. What made that initial production of penicillin so “daunting” was the need to go through formal clinical trials, and then figure out how to produce pharmaceutical-grade drugs by the metric ton. All in just a few years’ time. I absolutely do not claim that it’s possible for the time-traveler to do anything similar – nobody is going to treat all of Europe without the full support of an industrial superpower in war-production mode. But, at the same time, I’m sure that I could use modern microbiology techniques to improve the mold poultices that have been used historically. There’s not much high-tech equipment needed for basic microbiology, though I’d have to make due without an autoclave or incubators. But I could get things nearly sterile with thorough boiling (using lots of fuel!), and “incubators” could just be simple cabinets at varying distance from the fire. All the growing media used in a modern lab is basically simple broth: carbohydrates plus salt plus protein, in varying ratios. To make solid media, we currently use agar as a gelling agent, but ordinary gelatin could be used as a substitute. Glassware and metal cookware was precious at the time, but not out of reach of lords and kings. My WAG is that a large castle kitchen would have most everything I need. With \*\*unlimited \*\*medieval resources, I could accomplish a lot. But admittedly that success would be limited, and it would take years or decades. In my imagination, I think I could figure out how to grow up a kettle of antibiotic-producing mold or bacteria, and then figure out some sort of crude extraction method that produces a handful of antibiotic doses. As MD2000 points out, my shopping list is far from trivial. In the OP’s specific scenario of 1349 England, the list of patrons with enough resources to support me would be pretty short – I’d probably need support form a duke, archbishop, or the king himself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-doctor-vs-the-black-death/637520.md?page=3)