Ring around the rosies,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!
We all fall down
The origin of this rose-colored ditty is something far
more sinister - the Great Plague that swept through
Europe in the 1600s. A rosy rash is the first symptom of
the plague. The posies are herbs and spices carried to
sweeten the air. The "a-tishoo" sneezing is another
fatal symptom. (Later versions replace the sneezing with
"ashes" from the cleansing bonfires.) When children fall
down on the last line of this rhyme, they are
unknowingly acting out their ancestors' disease.
Now COJO, the doctors of the time had no knowledge of
airborne diseases spread by bacteria or viruses. The
reason they used these masks (filled with herbs and
flowers pedals etc.) was that the doctors diagnosed the
plague to be spreading through the foul odor surrounding
the dead and dying. The mask idea was to prevent
breathing these bad odors and instead to refresh the air
and thus make it sterile, free of the plague. As we now
know smells rarely, infect people.
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