What can protect us from the plague? People are dying in the thousands. Some say this mask helps. We plague doctors wear it. In the beak lies a cloth soaked with vinegar as protection against poisonous air. But I rather fled from Berlin. My name is Leonhart Thurneisser, personal physician to the sovereign, expert in medicine, pharmacy, chemistry, metallurgy, botany, mathematics and astronomy. The Sovereign and his court have also left the city. But what would you do? I wrote a plague pamphlet that might be one of the first prints from Berlin. It suggested people should improve their hygiene. But that was easier said than done in a confined space with lots of rats. My critics say I made money from the suffering. Yes, my medication and prints made me rich. But for some, the plague was God's punishment. At least I tried to discover what caused the infection. Today studies suggest that the plague masks and suits probably kept fleas away, which were carriers of the plague. In Leonhard Thurneisser’s time there was no known cause or cure. After a comfortable life Thurneisser left Berlin in 1584. He died impoverished in a monastery in Cologne