Chaucer found room for the ‘Doctor of Physick’ in his wonderful gallery of mediæval portraits, and a very vivid picture he gives of the studies and practice of this worthy. It is drawn with the poet’s tolerant humour, but he ends by saying that the doctor loved his gold, and all accounts appear to corroborate this opinion.
‘With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik,
In all this world ne was ther noon hym lik,
To speke of phisik and surgerye;
For he was grounded in astronomye.
He kepte his pacient a ful greet deel
In hourés, by his magyk natureel.
Wel koude he fortunen the ascendent
Of his ymáges for his pacient.
He knew the cause of everich maladye,
Were it of hoot or cold, or moyste or drye,
And where they engendred and of what humour;
He was a verray parfit practisour.
The cause y-knowe and of his harm the roote,
Anon he yaf the siké man his boote [remedy].
Ful redy hadde he his apothecaries
To sende him droggés and his letuaries,
For ech of hem made oother for to wynne.
Hir frendshipe was nat newè to begynne.
Wel knew he the oldé Esculapius
And Deyscorides and eek Rufus,
Olde Ypocras, Haly and Galyen,
Serapion, Razis and Avycen,
Averrois, Damascien and Constantyn,
Bernard and Gatésden and Gilbertyn.{167}
Of his dieté mesurable was he,
For it was of no superfluitee,
But of greet norissyng and digestible.
His studie was but litel on the Bible.
In sangwyn and in pers he clad was al,
Lynéd with taffata and with sendal.
And yet he was but esy of dispence,
He kepté that he wan in pestilence.
For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therefore he lovéde gold in special.’
Chaucer here shows great learning and knowledge of the history of medicine. He gives a full list of the Greek and Arab authorities, and also of the men living nearer to his own day. Bernard was Bernardus, Gordonius the professor of medicine at Montpellier in Chaucer’s time, Gilbertyn was Gilbertus Anglicus and Gatesden was John of Gaddesden.[132]
Gilbertus Anglicus, author of a Compendium Medicinæ (about 1290), is said to have been the first English practical writer on medicine, but as Gilbert quotes a Master Richard, there may have been a still earlier English writer on the subject. The book contains the first description of leprosy written by a European. Little is known of the particulars of his life, but he is said to have been Chancellor at Montpellier. He travelled in the East at the time of the Crusades, probably during the Third Crusade in which Richard I. took part.
John of Gaddesden (1280-1361) was a Doctor of Physick of Oxford, graduating from Merton College, Oxford, who subsequently obtained a large practice in London. He was in priest’s orders and held a stall in St. Paul’s Cathedral. His famous medical treatise, entitled Rosa Anglica, was written about the year 1305. It treats of fevers and injuries of all parts of the body, and soon became a medical text-book throughout Europe. In this book there is an account of his special treatment of smallpox. He wrote: ‘Let scarlet red be taken, and let him who is suffering smallpox be entirely wrapped in it or in some other red cloth; I did thus when the son of the illustrious King of England suffered from smallpox, I took care that everything about his couch should be red, and his cure was perfectly effected, for he was restored to health without a trace of the disease.’[133] Gaddesden was court physician to Edward II. and Edward III., and seems to have taken advantage of his position to exact high fees. He recommended his contemporaries to make arrangements about payment before undertaking a case.
The clergy were forbidden by Pope Innocent III. (1215) to undertake any operation involving the shedding of blood, and subsequently they were forbidden to practise surgery in any form. From this cause the practice of surgery largely came into the hands of the barbers.
We shall see later how the profession was divided between the military surgeon and the barber surgeon, but here we have only to deal with the physician.
We learn from Riley’s Memorials (p. 464) that Roger Clerk, of Wandsworth, was placed in the pillory in May 1382 for pretending to be a physician. He was brought before the Mayor and aldermen, and charged with deceit and falsehood by Roger atte Hacche: ‘Whereas no physician or surgeon should intermeddle with any medicines or cures within the liberty of the city aforesaid, but those who are experienced in the said arts, and approved therein, the said Roger Clerk knew nothing of either of the arts aforesaid, being neither experienced nor approved therein, nor understood anything of letters.’
He pretended to heal Roger atte Hacche’s wife Johanna of her bodily infirmities by making her wear an old parchment leaf of a book rolled up in a piece of cloth of gold. This being of no avail, Clerk was adjudged to be led ‘through the middle of the city with trumpets and pipes, he riding on a horse without a saddle, the said parchment and a whetstone, for his lies, being hung about his neck.’
This man evidently was an impostor, and was properly punished for obtaining money under false pretences, but many of the recipes adopted by the recognised physicians would probably be as ineffectual as the charm of Roger Clerk. John de Gaddesden made a disgusting plaster of dung, headless crickets and beetles, which was rubbed over the sick parts to cure the stone, and we are told in the Rosa Anglica that ‘in three days the pain had disappeared.’