In 1413, as the bubonic plague decimated France, four thieves were charged with robbing dead and dying plague victims – a crime punishable by burning alive. The judge offered the thieves leniency if they would share the secret that enabled them to be exposed to the plague without contracting it.

The accused explained they were spice merchants and perfume makers, unemployed as a result of the closure of France’s seaports. They devised a potent herbal infusion – professing this had protected them from infection. As promised, the judge did not burn the men alive, leniently; he hanged them. Soon after, plague doctors took to wearing masks stuffed the thieves’ blend. For hundreds of years and countless plagues since its formulation, the thieves’ blend has been present as the first line of defense for Undertakers, Plague Doctors, and Grave Robbers alike.