In Italy and France during the 17th century, the plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of the bubonic plague. He would dawn a plague mask which usually resembled the face of a white bird ...

Plague doctors, or at least images of plague doctors, are having a bit of a cultural moment again, roughly 300 years after their actual heyday. They’ve become popular motifs for stickers, pins, masks, ...

While it may seem silly today, when Hippocrates defined the four humors—blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm—the Greek physician of the fourth century B.C. built on the best science (or natural ...