When medical science was still in its infancy and there was no proven cure for most infectious scourges, the best advice physicians could offer was the Latin maxim Cito, longe, tarde – “Leave quickly, go far away, and return slowly.” This ancient counsel captures the desperate reality of the top 10 historic measures people resorted to when faced with a raging epidemic.
Top 10 Historic Ways Explained
From stinky concoctions to elaborate border controls, our ancestors tried everything they could imagine to keep the dreaded pestilence at bay. Below we rank the most out‑of‑the‑ordinary strategies, preserving the quirky details and vivid anecdotes that made each method memorable.
10 Smells
Miasma theory, the belief that foul air and offensive odors caused disease, put a huge amount of faith in the power of scent to ward off illness. Authorities even fined Londoners in 1357 if they left any rank animal products or dung in the streets, hoping that cleaner air would stop the spread.
For those unable to keep their surroundings odor‑free, the alternative was to mask the smell with perfume and sweet fragrances. Yet the most infamous aromatic remedy came from a group of four thieves who concocted a potent vinegar mixture of herbs, spices, and garlic. They called it Four Thieves Vinegar, believing its strong smell would protect them while they looted plague‑stricken homes. When caught, the thieves surrendered the recipe to avoid hanging.
9 Masks
Some plague‑fighters turned to olfactory defenses for more noble reasons. Medieval physicians who tended the sick often wore distinctive beaked masks, which to modern eyes look like bizarre bird‑hats. In reality, these were the Hazmat suits of the Middle Ages.
The doctors also donned waxed aprons to keep blood and other fluids from soaking through their garments, and leather gloves to avoid direct contact with patients. Crystal lenses in the masks allowed clear vision while shielding the eyes from droplets. Most importantly, the beak was packed with pungent herbs and spices, under the belief that the terrible smells of the infected caused the disease. Some physicians even chewed garlic while examining victims, hoping its odor would purify the air they inhaled.
8 Fires
When personal protection proved insufficient, city officials tried to cleanse entire urban atmospheres by lighting massive bonfires. The heat and smoke were thought to purify the air and drive disease‑causing miasmas away.
During the Great Plague of 1665, London’s Lord Mayor ordered every resident to amass enough combustible material to keep a fire burning nonstop for three full days and nights. Citizens obeyed, and the streets were left empty save for those tending the flames and ensuring sparks didn’t ignite nearby homes. The diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the city awash in firelight, yet the effort failed to stop thousands from dying.
Oddly, smoking was once considered beneficial to health, as the tiny “bonfire” of tobacco in a pipe was thought to cleanse the lungs.
7 Kill Cats
Amid the Great Plague, London’s authorities also decreed a culling of cats and dogs, mistakenly believing that eliminating these animals would curb the disease. In reality, the plague was spread by rats and their fleas, so removing feline predators may have unintentionally prolonged the outbreak by allowing rat numbers to swell.
Cats have historically suffered during crises. In 18th‑century France, crowds would capture cats in nets or cages and hoist them over fires, believing their ashes offered protection against witchcraft and brought good luck.
Nonetheless, cats could indeed carry fleas that harboured the plague bacterium, so the extermination effort had a grain of logic, albeit a misguided one.
6 Bloodletting
Bleeding patients was a favorite pastime of physicians for centuries. The ancient doctor Galen championed bloodletting so fiercely that his colleagues mocked him, recalling a tale where he tried to bleed a fever out of a patient and the floor was awash with blood, prompting the quip, “You really slaughtered that fever.”
Later physicians refined the practice by attaching leeches to the body, allowing the sanguine parasites to draw blood in a relatively painless manner. Women known as leech finders would wade into shallow waters, letting the creatures latch onto their bare legs, then selling the engorged leeches at a premium.
Modern medicine now advises against bloodletting for most ailments, though leeches have made a scientific comeback in microsurgery to improve circulation in reattached limbs.
5 Quarantine
Ships were notorious breeding grounds for disease in the Middle Ages, with cramped decks fostering rapid transmission. Recognizing this, the Republic of Venice instituted a groundbreaking protocol in 1448: any vessel arriving in port had to remain anchored for forty days before its crew and cargo could disembark.
This forty‑day waiting period gave rise to the term “quarantine.” The number itself resonated with the biblical motif of a 40‑day period of purification, such as Jesus’ fast in the desert. Modern epidemiology notes that the average interval from bubonic plague infection to death is about 37 days, making Venice’s precaution remarkably prescient.
4 Cordon Sanitaire
Sometimes entire empires erected barriers to keep the pestilence out. In 1770, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria established a cordon sanitaire along her frontier with the Ottoman Empire, a defensive line that remained intact for 101 years without a single plague outbreak in Austrian lands.
The 1,600‑kilometre (1,000‑mile) border was manned by soldiers stationed within musket range of one another. Travelers and goods could only cross at designated checkpoints, where they were held for health inspections. In peaceful times, individuals were monitored for 21 days; during active Ottoman outbreaks, the observation period extended to 48 days.
To ensure fabrics and wool weren’t contaminated, authorities placed them in warehouses where peasants were paid to sleep atop the bundles. If the sleepers emerged unharmed, the goods were deemed safe.
3 Whipping Yourself
In antiquity, plagues were sometimes blamed on Apollo’s invisible arrows. By the Middle Ages, however, many Christians believed the disease was divine punishment for sin. This conviction gave rise to the flagellant movement, where groups of believers publicly scourged themselves to atone for collective guilt.
In 1349, flagellants marched into London, naked and bleeding, each carrying a three‑tailed scourge with knots and occasionally sharp nails. They beat their own flesh in a theatrical display of penance, hoping the self‑inflicted pain would appease an angry God.
The same year, Pope Clement VI issued a papal bull condemning the flagellants, arguing that only the Church held the authority to forgive sins. Moreover, the large gatherings of bloodied bodies only served to accelerate disease transmission.
2 Mercury, Unicorns, And Goat Stones
The placebo effect is a potent force: when patients believe a remedy works, they often feel better, even if the treatment contains no active ingredient. In the past, physicians capitalized on this by prescribing exotic, costly substances that dazzled the wealthy.
Mercury, the only liquid metal at room temperature, fascinated doctors for its quicksilver properties. Some apothecaries also sold “unicorn horn” powder—likely the long, spiral tusk of the narwhal—promising miraculous cures.
Yet one particularly pragmatic doctor dismissed these extravagant cures in favor of a humble bezoar, a stone formed in the stomachs of goats and other ruminants. He proclaimed that this modest object could counteract the plague, offering a far more affordable alternative.
1 Live Chickens
In the 17th century, alongside snake‑based lozenges, some physicians turned to live poultry as a bizarre cure. The Black Death produced painful, swollen lymph nodes called buboes, and an Austrian doctor in 1494 suggested an unorthodox remedy involving roosters.
He instructed practitioners to pluck the feathers surrounding a rooster’s rear, then press the bird’s rump directly onto a bubo until the rooster died. If the first bird perished, another would be tried until one survived the ordeal.
The exact method of restraining the rooster remains unclear, but the practice persisted for centuries, likely evolving from an older Arabic technique where a chicken’s heart‑adjacent wound was placed over a venomous bite to draw out poison.