CHAPTER I.
CHAUCER.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales present one of the most interesting pictures of life and manners in the fourteenth century we have in English literature. The father of English poetry was born in 1328, and London is generally believed to have been his birthplace. It was his fortune to live under the wing of that chivalrous and high-spirited king, Edward III., a time when gallantry, prowess, and courage were counted in the highest esteem. In his Canterbury Tales he embodies some vivid sketches of the times and characters among which he lived. A physician of course forms one of his motley crew of pilgrims, who beguile the monotony of their ride to Canterbury, to pay homage at the shrine of Thomas à Becket, by the quaint stories related.
The pilgrim doctor is thus described:—
“With us there was a doctor of physic,
In all this world there was none him like
To speak of physic and of surgery,
For he was grounded in astronomy,
He kept his patient in a full great deal,
In houres by his magic natural.
Well could he fortune the ascendant,
Of his images for his patient
He knew the cause of every malady,
Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry,
And where engendered and of what humour,
He was a very perfect practisour.
The cause-y-know and of his harm the root
Anon he gave to the sick man his boot.
Full ready had he his apothecaries,
To send his drugges and his lectuaries
For each of them made other for to win
Their friendship was not newe to begin.
Well knew he the old Æsculapius,
And Dioscorides, and eke Rufus,
Old Hippocras, Hali, and Gallien,
Serapion, Rasis, and Avicen
Averrois, Damascene, and Constantin,
Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertin.
Of his diet measurable was he,
For it was of no superfluity,
But of great nourishing and digestable;
His study was but little on the Bible,
In sanguine and in perse he clad was, all
Lined with taffata and with sendall,
And yet he was but easy of dispence,
He kept that he won in the pestilence.
For gold in physic is a cordial,
Therefore he loved gold in special.”
One can thus picture the ancient physician riding his steady jennet, clad in doublet and hose of red and blue, with cloak of sendall, a fine silk material, all lined with taffata. In telling the stars and casting horoscopes he would be learned, as astrology entered very largely into his practice, and brought many big fees. So learned a leech would doubtless have a large practice, and the apothecaries evidently vied with one another in preparing his prescriptions. The names of ancient philosophers with whom he was familiar is quite formidable, nearly all the old authors being enumerated. It is satisfactory to know he was no glutton, and had an easy conscience. That he was a wise and careful man is evident from the fact that when an epidemic came he lived but moderately, and saved extra money that flowed in during the plague time.
The closing couplet is a pretty bit of wit, and alludes to the frequent use of gold in medicine in ancient times.
Among the pilgrims also was a cook—
“To boil the chickens and the marrow bones,
And powder marchant tart and garlingale”.
The former ingredient, probably a kind of baking powder, is now unknown, and the use of galingal in cookery has been quite forgotten. This aromatic condiment was commonly used as a culinary spice in the middle ages. Reference is made to the drug in the writings of Ibn Khurdadbah, the Arabian geographer, in the year 869. It was used mixed with cloves and cardamoms, and also employed in medical practice as early as the ninth century.