A cosplayer wearing the long, black nose of a plague doctor poses with a woman in a face mask for a photo at the Middle East Film & Comic Con in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, March 5, 2020.

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 ...

Plague Doctors, with infamous beak masks, are a commonly associated with the Black Death. However, these costumes were far less common and emerged much later, in the 17th century.

What kind of face mask have you been using? Join the conversation below. The crow-like plague-doctor mask of 17th- and 18th-century Europe is one of the earliest and creepiest protective coverings.

The plague doctor’s face gear marks an important moment in the history of the medical mask. The beak, developed by the French medical doctor Charles de Lorme, was among the first face coverings ...