MEDICINE IN THE LITERATURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
All savants who have studied the literary and historical part of medicine fully recognize the powerful interest it offers, especially that medicine portrayed in the works of poets and dramatic authors of the Middle Ages. It is in the works of these writers, in fact, that we find the most exact appreciation of medical ideas of the epoch, because we can judge their morals, criticise their faults, account for their tendencies—all without bringing in medical science at any given moment, with its teachings, errors, and prejudices.
In all that concerns the Middle Ages, we shall find this first in the writings of philosophers, in certain dramatic works, known under the name of Moralities, because their purport was to demonstrate, under the form of an allegory, a precept of morality. The personages of such dramatic scenes always represent ideas, often abstract and usually fantastic,—The World, Justice, Good Company, Gourmands, Dinner, Banquet, Experience, Gout, Jaundice, Dropsy, and Apoplexy. A second class, errors and prejudices, are seldom wanting in some poetical works, in comedies and farces, satirical and indecent poems, that recall some of the early productions of the Latin Theatre. Eventually impressed with the Gallic spirit of levity, these short pieces, enjoyed by clerks and small tradesmen, contain cutting criticisms on the weaknesses of mankind, doctors in particular. These plays are considered the embryo of the French stage, which, later, has been immortalized by the most illustrious of our writers of comedy.
An unaffected gayety often breaks out in brilliant, sparkling dialogues in these frivolous farces, and assures the instant success of the play. The public laughed in high glee, without prudery, at the broad I insinuations and comical acts in such representations. So the writers of that period went into raptures when they chanced to make a hit with their satirical tirades, that amused the passing age. Sometimes the clergy were satirized as well as the doctor; even the Pope himself received the attention of the comedians, as witness the carnival of 1511. Even the avarice of Louis XII. was ridiculed. Comedy’s procession represented Justice by its attorneys, shysters and police; but, above all, comedy delighted to burlesque the doctor, Facultas saluberrema medicinæ parisiensis, ridiculing them like the rest of the world, without the least respect for their robe or bonnet.
Pray, what do these jolly, railing spirits of the Middle Ages say of our medical ancestors of the good old times? Master Jehan Bouchet, for example, with his piece, Traverseur des voyes perilleuses, and Pierre Gringore under the pseudonym of Mere Sotte, and Nicholas Rousset and Coustellier, and Jacques Grevin and Pierre Blanchet, and all other members of that joyous group without care, without pretension, but not without talent. If professional honor was never really put on trial by these wits, the pedantic gravity of our medical forefathers, their formidable doctoral accoutrement, their consultations, sentences formulated in horrible and barbarous Latin, were all the objects of raillery and piquant epigrams. We shall find also, in other works we propose to analyze, the same false ideas of the public regarding the healing art as exists to-day; the same tendency to always lead one into error, and unjustly accuse the medical profession of all the accidents that happen to a patient—this, too, notwithstanding all ancient codes of hygiene and all the ages of experience.
When a physician prescribed, for example, in the case of one attacked by fever, the daily libations were stopped, and we always find the neighbors and boon companions of the sufferer enter the sick room for the purpose of criticizing the doctor’s prescriptions and orders, and such persons excited the patient by their remarks on medical despotism. This has always been the case since doctors and patients were created, not only in the Middle Ages, but at all epochs. Olivier Basselin bears testimony to this fact in one of his charming Vaux de Vire[95] poetical compositions, roundelays and Bacchic songs, dating back to the sixteenth century; this sonnet is not long;[96] it relates to a drunkard to whom only barley water is given, and who recovers his health, according to the veracious poet, through a charitable friend, who breaks the doctor’s orders and fills the patient up with wine. We have often read this poem with pleasure, and give a condensed extract:
One of my neighbors sick was lying,
Gasping with weak and feverish breath:
“Alas! they’ll kill me,” said he, sighing,
“Forbidding wine; and barley water’s death.
“Alas! my thirst is great, annoying;
I’d like one drink before I die;
Neighbor, with you one glass enjoying;
Pray quickly to the vintner’s hie.
“Dear friend, my wish don’t be denying,
Always to me you’ve been a brother;
Now, for the wine in haste go flying,
We’ll take one parting glass together.
“Since doctors made me quit a-drinking,
My flask I’ve left yon in my will.
These doctors, I can’t help a-thinking,
Don’t cure as often as they kill.”
Thus spoke my neighbor, sick and weary.
Of wine he drank full bottles five;
The fever left him blithe and cheery;
He’s still a-drinking, and alive.
The Bibliotheque of the French Theatre contains a great number of other dramatic compositions, as well as comedies and farces, in which doctors carry principal roles, it is true, but more often are introduced for the mere purpose of giving the author a chance for pleasantry at the expense of medicine; and these characters sometimes exceed the limit of license. Some of these works are gems of literary art. We may cite, for instance, the “Farce of the Doctor who Cures all Diseases,” by Nicholas Rousset; the “Discours Facetieux” of Coustellier; “The true Physician, who Cures all Known Diseases;” and several besides, “La Medecine de Maistre Grimache,” “Le Triomphe de treshaulte et tres puissante Dame Verolle,” of Francois Juste; “Mary and the Doctor,” “The Sweetheart of the Family Physician,” as well as some farces by Tabarin—works dating back to the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
But we shall only take up the study of a few works that have a veritable literary medical interest, and shall confine ourselves to the study of the “Farces de Maitre Pathelin, du Munyer et de la Folie du Monde;” to the moralities of “A’aveugle et du Boiteux, de Folie et d’Amour;” to the comedies of “La Tresoriere et de Lucelle;” to the tragedy “De la Goutte,” and to the book of “Gargantua et de Pantagruel.” This will suffice to give an idea of medicine as portrayed in the literature of the Middle Ages.