Roman philosopher, Pliny the Elder, suggested workers should cover their mouths with skins of animal bladders to keep from breathing in dust while mining cinnabar, which was highly sought after for it’s use as red pigment. This was good advice since cinnabar is a form of mercury. Unfortunately, his animal piss mask didn’t do him any good when Mount Vesuvius erupted. After watching the eruption from a perfectly safe distance, Pliny’s dumb ass road out on a boat to get a better look at the ash cloud around Pompeii and died of volcano inhalation.
Doctors were having a hard time figuring out how to stay alive during the Bubonic Plague. One of the reasons being, they had no idea how it spread, or what it even was. The scientific consensus was that the plague was caused by miasma, which basically meant “Dirty air” caused by stuff rotting. French physician Charles de Lorme came up with the plague mask. It was a wacky looking helmet with a long ass beak filled with roses and camphor and shit to filter out the bad smells that caused the black death. It didn’t really work, but hey, he gets a gold star for trying.
In 1700 Bernadino Ramazzini published De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (Disease of workers), describing dozens of occupations, dangers associated with them, and possible solutions. The book describes how people who work all day hunched over a desk wind up with bad backs and tension headaches. Sadly, the lumbar support pillow would not be invented for another 200 years. Among other occupational hazards, he compiled a long list of jobs he felt should require breathing protection. Ramazzini would go down in history as the father of occupational medicine, which has to be one of the most boring honors ever...He also said nuns were at a higher risk for breast cancer because they didn’t get enough sex.
Medical Personal Protective Equipment really started to get off the ground in 1897 when Carl Flugge came up with the concept of droplet transmission as a way of people spreading stuff like tuberculosis. Johann Freiherr von Mikulicz-Radecki piggy-backed on Flugge’s work and came up with the first cloth surgical mask to stop doctors from sneezing into patient’s wounds. Of course, many doctors thought that was stupid because masks are mildly inconvenient, and if 2020 has taught us anything it is that when it comes down to a choice between life or death vs mildly inconvenient, a depressingly large portion of the population will choose death.
President of the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors of Great Britain, Benjamin Ward Richardson, took a tour of flax mills in Ireland to see how masks were helping keep workers safe from… whatever gets kicked up in the air when you make yarn. He wasn’t impressed. “I never once saw the mask in use...Science in these instances is conquered by free will... She will have to wait until, by enlightenment of the masses, her true intention is detected, and her usefulness recognized.”
In 1910 Northeast Asia had an outbreak of the plague from people eating raw tarbagan marmots (and in 2019). The Manchurian Plague had a nearly 100% fatality rate and was getting out of control because everyone was travelling for the Chinese New Year. Doctor Wu Lien-teh was sent to the front lines to fight the outbreak. He instigated quarantines and ordered everyone to wear face masks. He is also credited for basically inventing the hazmat suit. French doctor Gerald Mesny thought the whole idea was dumb as shit. “What can we expect from a China man” he said, right before taking his mask-less shift at the plague hospital. He died two days later.
In 1918 San Francisco was coming out of the first wave of the Spanish Flu reasonably intact thanks to quarantines, social distancing, and mask orders. The United States was fighting World War One and there was a general understanding that it was everyone’s patriotic duty to make sacrifices for the war effort. Measures to fight the pandemic got bundled in with other things like rationing and whatnot. Local pants manufacturer Levi Strauss even got in on the action by making face masks out of pants pockets. After watching infection rates go down when mask orders were put in place, Red Cross Chairman John A. Britton said, “A week ago I laughed at the idea of the mask. I wanted to be independent. I did not realize that the cost of such independence was the lives of others.”
Once cases of Spanish Flu started declining restrictions were lifted, prompting people on the streets to throw their face masks in the air in triumph. Then the war ended and boatloads of soldiers came home…with the flu.
Infections spiked even worse than the first wave. Unfortunately wearing a mask wasn’t part of the war effort anymore. It turns out people might support the troops, but the neighbors can go fuck themselves. Red Cross public service announcements were posted saying, “Doctors wear them. Those who do not wear them get sick. The man woman or child who will not wear a mask now is a dangerous slacker.”
For the most part, San Franciscans did the right thing but E.C. Harrington went and started the Anti-Mask League, with the argument that wearing a mask infringed on her constitutional freedoms. About 4,000 people joined her to petition against mask orders. Mayor James Rolph had this to say, “I shall repeal this ordinance when the doctors, the board of health, and common sense permit.” Then he did a mike drop and sauntered off while Harrington went to the pharmacy to get some cream for that sick burn.
In 1958 Sara Little Turnbull left her cushy job as décor editor at “House Beautiful” magazine and started a consulting company. 3M hired her to come up with ideas for products using new production methods that had been developed. She was very intrigued by an air blasted polymer cloth called shapeen which 3M used to make like ribbons and shit. She came up with a 100 product presentation on new shit they could make out of shapeen. After the presentation, 3M put her in charge of their gift wrap department, where she invented the first pre-made gift wrap bow. You’re welcome world. sincerely, America! In addition to a bunch of other products, Sara patented a new bra using modern technology to replace the drawstring cloth titty bags women wore back then.
During that time Sara had several sick relatives in the hospital she would visit regularly. During these visits she noticed staff having problems with their flimsy cloth masks, with their string head-ties that came loose and fell off. Sara dusted off her bra schematics and created a new revolutionary non-woven titty bag…for your face!
Turns out her mask wasn’t great at stopping pathogens so they branded it as a dust mask. In 1972 technological advancements allowed Sara’s titty mask to be certified for industrial use. Then in 1995, the titty mask evolved into the now infamous N95 titty face mask.