4 minute read
Strange tales from Scotland’s thin places
George Rae, the Edinburgh plague doctor who still seeks recompense
by Thomas MacCalman Morton
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Pandemic. Epidemic. These are words calculated to spread fear and dismay, as well as very real illness and death. And outbreaks of virulent disease are nothing new. Indeed, compared to Pneumonic and Bubonic plague, both of which wreaked havoc across the pre-antibiotic world, more modern illnesses palled. Until Corona came calling.
Deep beneath the streets of Edinburgh
The Real Mary King's Close
We have experienced quarantine, or lockdown, for ourselves, but such extreme measures are not new. In 1645, when plague was laying the packed, overcrowded city of Edinburgh low, killing hundreds upon hundreds of people, desperate measures were taken. And yet they all resonate with today, with procedures introduced across the world to cope with COVID-19. In the 1640s, teams of cleaners of property and of human society were formed in Edinburgh, called clengers, clad in white smocks emblazoned with the saltire. Their job was to remove infected people to a remote part of Leith. There essentially to die. Plague pits were dug and bodies dumped there.
City Chambers, High Street which sits above Mary King's Close
Kim Traynor CC BY-SA 2.0).jpg
Doctors were appointed, their methods crude and terrifying, and very risky. Bubonic plague, with its swellings the size of oranges, could sometimes be tackled by lancing these boils, to horrific effect. Wounds were sealed with a white hot poker, often to no avail. Dr Paulitious, the first city medical officer appointed, died. Unsurprisingly, he died of plague.
No-one realised that the cause of both plagues was essentially Edinburgh’s prosperity. Rats from the hundreds of ships engaged in trade at Leith brought fleas, and it was these fleas which carried both pneumonic and bubonic plague. Not, as was thought at the time, a miasma, a shadow in the bad air.
Plague Doctor
The Real Mary King's Close
However Mary King’s Close, now world famous as it has become a de rigeur visitor experience for the many tourists who come to Scotland’s capital, may have had its share of bad air. It was built near the marsh called the Nor Loch,a place of foul odours from escaping methane gas and consequent hallucinations and illness among residents.
A close, or narrow thoroughfare between soaring tenements, was a kind of street, and Mary King’s Close lay buried for centuries under what is now the City of Edinburgh’s council chambers. It was used as a bomb shelter during the war, and if you visit, you will be told the reason for its survival so long intact: that in 1645, so plague ridden was this small community that the City bricked Mary King’s Close up, sealing forever the 300 residents within. But many were still alive. For a time. At least.
If you take the tour you will doubtless be both fascinated and appalled by the many dolls left to appease the ghost of Annie, the spirit of a dead child who cries, reputedly for her lost toy. You may even meet Annie, or someone who looks very much like her.
But you will also see a replica of another doctor, the inheritor of Dr Paulitious’s role, and he is in many ways the disgruntled hero of the Great Plague of 1645. Amid the talk today of masks and protective clothing, his apparel is significant. George Rae wore, as did many plague doctors of the time, what looked like a great bird’s head, with a curved beak, covering his entire head. And a long leather hooded cloak. This was to protect him against the miasma, the dark bad air, as the beak was filled with spices, rose petals, and perfume. But the truth is, along with a pair of stout boots, it protected him from fleas and rat bites.
All of which meant that as he creaked and wafted his perfumed way across Edinburgh he struck terror into the hearts and minds of all who met him. Every house with plague within had to display a white sheet in the window. And George Rae would arrive with his brazier, his knives and his poker, there to lance boils and sear the resulting wounds. To do his best. Or worst.
The City of Edinburgh had promised George that he would be well paid for his work. Very well paid because no-one expected him to survive. Yet, perhaps because of the cloak and hood, he did. For year after year, he tried to get the money he was owed. It was never paid, and so the story goes that should you be exploring the recesses and alleyways off the Royal Mile of an evening, especially as the brewery-smelling fog ascends from the Forth, you may catch a glimpse of something black and bird like, though man sized, lurking in the shadows, and smelling vaguely of roses. It is George Rae, restlessly wandering the streets of Auld Reekie, still trying to claim the money the city owes him. And will never pay.
