Dr. Beak From Rome and the Black Plague, or why having a surgical mask might be handy

This 1656 woodcut (see photo) depicts the plague doctor “Dr. Beak from Rome” (“Doktor Schnabel von Rom”). His bird mask was stuffed with straw, which served as a crude air filter. Medieval artists alternated lampooned him (as here) and later celebrated him as scientific and practical methods of plague control slowly proved themselves over the more superstitious practices of that era.

When we got into this we were thinking about how smart homes (and smarter air purification) could reduce dust buildup in our more dusty urban areas (like urban California, Europe, and Asia). While it was obvious there was a lot of dust buildup on furniture, we didn’t realize just how badly air quality fluctuated from day-to-day here.

Bird Flu or just poor air quality

Earlier this week one of our staff members saw someone walking the streets of Los Angeles with a surgical mask on. He appeared to be from a part of Asia that had experience with bird flu, and wearing surgical masks on the street is more culturally accept there than here.

Initially, he thought the person might be a flu patient, and might just be wearing the surgical mask to prevent infecting other people (as is the polite custom in some Asian countries). But that was one of the bad air days in Los Angeles, and he later realized it is also the custom in those countries to check the air quality report and wear a mask if necessary!

An alternative to an air filter?

A N95 sanding mask such as the 3M Particulate Sanding N95 Respirator is designed to filter out 95% of dust particles in non-oily industrial environments. (It is not the “Breaking Bad” type of mask, because we’re only concerned about dust here, not oily particles, fumes, or dangerous gases. Note the mask does not protect against Ozone, another cause of bad air days in urban environements, only PM 2.5 and PM10.0 dust pollution.)

If you check the readout from our app you’d find that you’d need to be in the “Very Unhealthy” or “Hazardous” conditions before reducing your PM2.5 or PM10 concentration down to 5% of the original level would not put you below 10 micrograms per cubic meter, which is within the EPA green zone for PM2.5 dust. As far as we know, we’ve never seen “very unhealthy” or “hazardous conditions” out here in California, except in the immediate outskirts of a forest fire or in an industrial setting, although such conditions were infamously reported recently in some urban areas in China as a result of pollution.

One of our staff members lived in San Diego at the time of a forest fire there, and, come to think of it, have an N95 respirator mask around can come in handy. (The authorities will tell you to either use of one of those, or a wet cloth. The respirator mask is definitely better, and designed for longer-term wear.)

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