“There was also a Doctour of Phisik,
In al this world ne was ther non him lyk
To speke of Phisic and of Surgerye.”
It may be that the poet means to convey the idea that doctors of the fourteenth century, like some of those of the nineteenth, were prone to talk “shop.”
“For he was grounded in astronomye.”
Astrology at this time was an essential part of medicine, and the simplest remedies were not applied without consulting the stars, so that to be “grounded in astronomye” was most essential.
“He kept his pacient wondurly wel
In houres by his magik naturel.
Wel cowde he fortune the ascendent
Of his ymages for his pacient.”
Here we have reference to mystical modes of treatment which were then much in vogue. Amulets and charms were constantly prescribed; the doctrine of signatures—i.e., the giving of those plants having some slight resemblance to parts of the human body or to some prominent symptom of disease, for the relief of the organs or diseases which they resembled—was in every-day use; and the treating of images in order to affect the original of the image was a constant practice among witches, and was probably used by the profession.
“He knew the cause of every maladye
Were it of cold or hete or moyst or drye,
And where thei engendrid, and of what humour.”
Here we have allusion to the Hippocratic humoral pathology as developed by Galen.
“He was a verrey parfight practisour,
The cause i-knowe, and of his harm the roote
Anon he yaf the syke man his boote” (remedy).
Quick diagnosis and prompt treatment.