Plague water was a name given to a variety of medicinal waters that supposedly would protect the drinker against the plague. It was a distillation of various herbs and roots steeped in white wine and brandy and then distilled. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary on July 20th 1665, being given a bottle of plague water during the outbreak of the Great Plague of London. The last outbreak of Yersinia Pestis in England.

Further a level of lingering sympathetic magic applied to pharmacology still existed from the 16th to the 18th centuries, the belief that nature had hidden clues to medically effective drugs in their resemblances to the human body and its parts. An example of this can be seen in the design of the plague doctor’s mask. A common belief during outbreaks in the 14th century was that the infection was carried by birds, henceforth the sympathetically magical design of a Plague Doctor’s mask resembling a bird’s beak would protect the wearer as the birds would carry the disease but not get sick from it. In the same vein plague water would protect the drinker.

The title Dr. Beak comes from a parody of the shape of the Plague doctor’s mask from ‘Doktor Schnabel von Rom’ (Doctor Beak of Rome) an Engraving by Paul Fürst, 1656.

Bottle is handcast and handbuilt. For display purposes only, and not designed to hold liquids.