Chapter VII: Part 7

“During the time that this phenomena lasted we all saw Mr. Home’s hands on the table, where they rested motionless, and they were at least eighteen inches from where the plant stalk disappeared.

“It was a dining-room table that opened in folds, it did not lengthen,” etc.

As a contribution to the facts mentioned in this class, I may report the famous experiments with the bracelet made by Dr. Puel—experiments that I have witnessed a dozen times at least—as well as numerous other persons. A bracelet made of brass, without opening or solder, cut by a machine out of a solid piece of metal, was placed on the forearm of Madame L. B. The lady’s hands rested flat on the table, or were held in the hands of those experimenting. At a given moment, often in the middle of a conversation, Madame L. B. uttered a piercing cry and at the same instant the bracelet would fall on the floor, or on some piece of furniture, with great force. Several times, under the same circumstances,—that is to say, when the lady’s hands were firmly pressed down on the table by those experimenting,—I have seen the bracelet _pass from one arm to the other_.

So, in opposition to all laws of physics, it appears that matter can pass through matter; I affirm the reality of this, and others, who are no more victims to hallucination than I, can also testify to the truth of this statement. And no matter what may be the consequences to my professional reputation, and utterly without regard for anything that may be said by critics, I boldly maintain, as if under oath, that my senses lead me to this imposed conviction. Besides, I am far from being alone in believing what I have seen, whether or no it be “_in harmony with our acquired knowledge_;” to the names of French, English and German _savants_ I have cited, there are experimenters in all countries who have the courage to believe the evidence offered by their own senses, as witness that celebrated English geologist, who, after ten years of investigation with the phenomena under control, _declared spiritualism to be true_, drawing from his experiments the following conclusions: “_Who shall determine the limits of the possible, limits that science and observation accumulate each day? Let us examine, let us doubt, but not be so daring as to deny the possibility of such occurrences_” (Barkas).

If now we have established the balance-sheet of facts attributed to the Demonomania of the Middle Ages, and compared them to the experiences of experimental psychology, we are not only led to recognize a striking analogy between them, but also to interpret them by the hypothesis of an intelligent force of an intensity proportionate to certain nervous pathological conditions. It is necessary to remember, in fact, that, according to the Ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, the phenomena necessary to recognize _possession_ among Demonomaniacs were:

1. The faculty of knowing thoughts, even though they are not expressed.

2. Intelligence in unknown languages.

3. The faculty of speaking foreign tongues which are unknown to the party speaking them.

4. A knowledge of future events.

5. A knowledge of what is transpiring in far-off places.

6. Development of superior psychal force.

7. Suspension of persons or bodies in the air for a considerable space of time.

No less interesting is it than to compare these phenomena to those observed by the thirty-three members of the commission appointed by the “Dialectic Society of London.” The following was this committee’s report, after eighteen months’ investigation:

1. Noises of varied nature, apparently arising from the furniture, floor or walls of the room, accompanied by vibrations which are often perceptible to the touch, are present without being produced by muscular action or any mechanical means whatever.

2. Movements of heavy bodies occur without the aid of mechanical apparatus of any sort, and without equivalent development of muscular force on the part of persons present, and even frequently without contact or connection with any one.

3. These noises and movements are produced often at the moment wished for and in the manner demanded by persons present, and, by means of a simple code of sounds, respond to questions and write coherent communications.

4. The response and communications obtained are, for the most part, hackneyed and commonplace, but sometimes they give facts and information only known to one person in the room.

5. The circumstances under which the phenomena are present vary, the most striking feature being that the presence of certain persons seems necessary to their production, and that the presence of some people serves as a check; but this difference does not seem to depend on the belief or the unbelief of those present as to the nature of the phenomena.

The testimony, oral and written, received by the commission affirmed the reality of phenomena much more extraordinary still, such as heavy bodies rising in the air (men in certain cases floated through the atmosphere) and remaining in suspension without tangible support; apparitions of hands and forms belonging to no human beings, but seemingly alive, judging by their aspect and motions.

This report was signed by _savants_ of the first order, as sceptical before commencing their investigations as the most positive Materialists of our academies of science. Let us cite, among the celebrated names of men known throughout the world for their learning and scientific veracity, those of the great naturalist and _collaborateur_ of Darwin, Russell Wallace, Professor A. Morgan, President of the Mathematical Society of London and Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society; F. Varley, Chief Engineer of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Company and member of the Royal Society of London.

Mr. Morgan does not fear to add to the report the following lines: “I am perfectly convinced, from what I have seen and heard, in a manner that renders doubt impossible, that _Spiritualists_, without doubt, are upon a track that will lead to the advancement of the psychal sciences; their opponents are those who seek to trammel all progress.”

Mr. Varley writes to the celebrated Professor Tyndall: “I am obliged to investigate the nature of the force that produces these phenomena, but, up to the present time, I have been unable to discover anything save the source from which this _psychic force_ emanates, _i.e._, from the vital systems of the mediums. I am only studying, however, a thing that has been the object of investigation for two thousand years; brave men, whose minds are elevated above the narrow prejudices of our century, seem to have sounded the depths of the subject in question,” etc.

This opinion of the learned English physicist proves, once more, that we are right in connecting Demonomania to the magic of antiquity and to modern spiritualism. One must be perfectly blind or of poor judgment not to see the connecting links that unite these various phenomena. And if our men of science dare no longer say that these facts are worthy of credit, although refusing to investigate the same, it is because they lack courage, it is because they dare not brave the criticism of pretended strong-minded men and the jests of the ignorant. If the _vulgum pecus_, the amorphous matter that stuffs the superior element of society, contest the value of the works of Crookes, Wallace, Morgan, Varley, Gibier, Zoellner, Mapes, Hare, Oxon, Sexton, and others, they can only be included in the same class of people who ridiculed Galileo, Harvey, Jenner, Franklin, Young, Davy, Jussieu, Papin, Stephenson, and Galvani, with all the authors of great discoveries and scientific truths, who have invariably been combatted by the pseudo-scientific and half-fledged goslings whose names adorn our so-called colleges and other mutual admiration societies.[93]

Why, then, longer refuse to study _a force_ recognized by some of the most eminent men among modern civilized nations and by the modest pioneers who first studied these phenomena in France? If the number of experimenters named be not sufficient to convince sceptics, let them enter into a full study of present-day psychology, and find a host of the greatest modern neurologists.

Nine years of study has led Mr. Oxon, Professor at the University of Oxford, to formulate the following propositions on _Psychic Force_, which corroborate the results obtained by his colleagues in England, Germany, and America, and which still constitute another proof of the identity of the phenomena:

“1. A force exists which acts by means of a special type of human organization, a force that we call _psychic force_.

“2. It is demonstrated that this force is, in certain cases, governed by an intelligence.

“3. It is proved that this intelligence is often other than that of the person or persons through whose influence it acts.

“4. This Force, thus governed by an exterior intelligence, at times manifests its action, independent of other methods, by writing coherent phrases, without the intervention of any known mode of writing.

“5. The evidence of the existence of this force governed by an intelligence rests on

“(_a_) The evidence observed through the senses.

“(_b_) The fact that _the force_ often uses a language unknown to the medium.

“(_c_) The fact that the subject matter treated is very frequently superior to the medium’s knowledge or education.

“(_d_) The fact that it has been found impossible to produce the same results by fraud under the conditions in which these phenomena are obtained.

“(_e_) The fact that these special phenomena are not only produced in public and by paid mediums, but likewise in a family circle where no strangers are admitted.”

Without writing to prejudice the question, I believe, in my turn, that I can solemnly affirm that this force has intimate connection with the soul, the mind or the ministerial part of our being, as it is called; that it acts on our ideas as well as on our physiological functions, and it is to my mind the destiny of humanity to investigate its essence and study its phenomena, its manifestations and all its sensible effects by all our senses and means of investigation.

It is high time that secular boasting of the materialistic scientists be checked, and that they should recognize the fact that force does not arise from matter alone but exists independent of it and primarily submits to its laws.

Starting, then, with the proposition that an unknown force exists, to whose influence we unconsciously submit, science should investigate this force, isolate, and control it, if it be in our power so to do.

Instead of opposing an ignorant skepticism to modern discoveries in _psychic force_, our learned Academicians should investigate the acquired facts for inspiration in future work, remembering that good thought of Laplace: “We are so far from knowing all the agents of Nature and their different modes of action, that it is not philosophical to deny the existence of phenomena simply because they cannot be explained in the actual condition of our present knowledge.”[94]

Such are the conclusions I believe I have a right to draw from my historical studies on the Demonomania of the Middle Ages. Let me briefly recapitulate my personal views on the subject:

1. There exists a psychic force, intelligent, inherent to humanity, manifesting itself, under determined conditions, by various phenomena, with an intensity more or less great.

2. Certain human beings, known as mediums, who are very sensitive to the action of magnetism, facilitate the production of these phenomena, considered as supernatural in the actual state of our present scientific knowledge, and in apparent contradiction with all known physical and physiological laws.

3. In certain nervous conditions, natural or provoked, this Force can possess the human organism and bring about, temporarily, either a change in one’s personality or an alteration in one’s sensations and in the intellectual and moral faculties.

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.

THE FARCE OF MASTER PATHELIN.

The farce of Master Pathelin, whose author was Pierre Blanchet, is certainly the richest jewel in the crown of the old French Theatre; it was what inspired Moliere in several of his works. Represented for the first time in 1480, this celebrated farce is one of the most precious literary monuments for the study of Middle Age morality. It is a _chef d’œuvre_ of spirit, malice, comedy, and _naivete_, in which medicine is found in every scene, either in the simulation of disease, with consultations, with drugs, and, most amusing of all, the eternal ingratitude of the sick.

All the educated world knows the subject of Master Pathelin: A lawyer without a case or client; a man living on his wits and expedients, making dupes and yet retaining a certain degree of professional correctness in his language and his artifices. Guillemette, his wife, is his worthy accomplice. It is she who reproaches him with not having more clients and his reputation of earlier days; of starving her to death by famine. It is she who excites him by ironically saying:

“Maintenant chascun vous appelle
Partout; avocat dessoubz l’orme,
Nos robes sont plus qu’estamine
Reses.”

And Pathelin responds that he cannot get their clothing out of pawn without redeeming or stealing it—both things out of the question, as he has no money and will not commit a crime. It is then that the worthy couple hit on the credit system to renew their wardrobe. It is for this purpose he goes to a draper’s to purchase cloth to make new clothes. On entering the shop he uses the salutation of the period, “God be with you,” and politely inquires after the shopkeeper’s health, which to him is very dear. Then he asks after his father’s health, telling him he resembles his sire like an old picture. Finally, he takes sixteen yards of fine cloth, and, telling the draper to call at his house in the evening for his money and to eat, as Master Pathelin expresses it, “a Rouen goose roasted,” having invited the astonished tradesman to dine with him, the lawyer walks out with the cloth without paying. Arriving home he relates his adventure to the delighted Guillemette, who is overpowered with bewilderment, however, when she learns that the draper is invited to a roast goose supper. At first it is suggested that they borrow a tailor’s goose, but fear that the draper will not appreciate the joke and demand his money legally induces the worthy couple to adopt a strategem. It is very simple: Master Pathelin is to feign insanity, or rather that maniacal form of excitation so frequently employed even at the present day by those who seek to avoid the consequences of crimes—an excitation principally characterized by uncontrollable loquacity, mobility of ideas, incoherence, and pretended illusions.

These scenes of simulation are extremely curious and interesting. As soon as the draper enters the wife warns him not to make a noise in the house:

“He’s lying in bed. Don’t speak!
Poor martyr! he’s been sick a week.

But the draper refuses to accept the explanation. It cannot be a week, he says, for

“’Tis only this afternoon, you see,

Your husband bought cloth from me.”

Then the voice of the attorney is heard in the next room shouting to his wife:

“Guillemette? Un peu d’eue rose!
Haussez moy, serrez-moy derriere!
Trut! a qui parlay. Je? L’esguiere?
A boire? Frottez moy la plante.”

Rose water in that century was employed to reanimate the strength of sick people. Among apothecaries it was called _aqua cordialis temperata_. Rose water was prescribed in the following cases: “_In mortis subitis et malignis, ubicunque magnus est virium lapsus præscribitur; quemadmodum etiam prodest a morbo convalescentibus, ad vires instaurandas._”

Pathelin simulates hallucinations of sight, and uses all manner of words employed by magicians in their conjurations; he asks the draper and Guillemette to put a charm around his neck such as are used to frighten away demons. He then, in his ravings, abuses the doctors for their malpractice and not understanding the quality of his urine.([97]) Notwithstanding all this the draper is not convinced and demands his money. We all know what importance was attributed to the examination of the urine in olden times, long before any search was made for albumen, sugar, or other morbid principles that it might contain. Charlatans especially exploited in this field of medicine, practicing it illegally in the country under the name of _water jugglers_ or _water judges_. Such men still practice in Normandy and certain northern provinces of France.

The intestinal functions had also more or less importance in the eyes of the public, and the physician was not always consulted as when to give physic. People sent to an apothecary and ordered a clyster with cassia and other ingredients, according to the following formula of the pharmacopœia: “_Cassia Pro Clysteribus. Est eadem pulpa cassiæ cum decocto herbarum aperitirarum extracta et saccharo Thomæo condita. Oportet autem illas herbas adhibere recentes, parumque decoquere, alias viribus aperitivis omnio privantur; siccæ autem per se carent virtute illa aperitiva._”

In the “Revue Historique” of Angers we find a document bearing on the private life of Cardinal Richelieu; it has for its title: “Things furnished for the person of His Most Eminent Highness, the Cardinal Duke Richelieu during the year 1635, by Perdreau, apothecary to his Excellency.” During the one year the Cardinal had used seventy-five clysters and twenty-seven cassia boluses, without counting other laxative medicines and bottles of tisane, his purgative bill amounting to 1401 livres and 14 sous. It is evident that Richelieu was a badly constipated Cardinal.

It was a fine period for apothecaries, and we might add that Moliere did them considerable harm.

Let us return to Master Pathelin. He was allowed a short breathing spell for Guillemette, fought off the obdurate creditor by making him leave the room a few moments while her husband used the bedpan.

But this respite is of short duration; the draper soon returns to demand his cloth back or his money, although the wife declares her husband “is dying in frenzy.” Then commences another scene of maniacal simulation in this wonderful psychological play. In his pretended delirium, Pathelin indulges in Limousin _patois_, Flemish, Lower Breton; his words grow unintelligible and incoherent in order to convince the draper of his insanity.

“Mere de Diou, la coronade,
Par fie, y m’en voul anar,
Or renague biou, outre mar,
Ventre de Diou, zen diet gigone,
Castuy carrible, et res ne donne.”

Let us pass from a wild Flemish harangue, that possesses but little interest even to those understanding the dialects.

The psychic symptoms, which dominate in the simulated delirium of Master Pathelin, are especially incoherent in language with mobility of ideas. The author of this fine comedy had evidently observed the progressive instability of thought among certain maniacs, the impossibility of fixing their attention, the too rapid succession of ideas without order; in fact, that absolute incoördination, a kind of cerebral automatism, which is the announcement of the breaking-down of intellectual faculties and the prelude of absolute dementia. In his ravings, Pathelin descants on the _Mal de Saint Garbot_, or, more properly speaking, Garbold; this was dysentery, although such a scholar as Genin translates it as meaning hemorrhoids. Saint Garbold who was Bishop of Bayeux in the seventh century, was driven out from his episcopal chair by his diocesans, and, in order to be avenged, sent them dysentery.

We may remark, in this connection, that during the Middle Ages many maladies were called after the Saints, whose aid they invoked in given diseases; _Saint Ladre_ or _Lazare_, for leprosy; _Saint Roch_, for the plague; _Saint Quentin_, for dropsy; _Saint Leu_, _Saint Loupt_, _Saint Mathelin_, _Saint Jehan_, _Saint Nazaire_, _Saint Victor_, for epilepsy, fever, deafness, madness, etc.

The _mal Saint Andreux_, _mal Saint Antoine_, _mal Saint Firmin_, _mal Saint Genevieve_, _mal Saint Germain_, _mal Saint Messaut_, _mal Saint Verain_, designated erysipelas, scurvy, etc. Drunkenness was called the _mal Saint Martin_.

Syphilis naturally had its patron Saint; in fact, it was known as _mal Saint homme Job_, _Saint Merais_, _Saint Laurant_, _mal Saint Eupheme_, etc. In fact, all diseases had as an attachment the name of one or more Saints, at whose shrine the afflicted might implore aid.

But to return to Master Pathelin: After numerous tirades he finishes by acknowledging his deceit to the draper. This is an epitome of the farce of Master Pierre Pathelin, a medical study that had an immense run in the fifteenth century and remains a valuable document regarding French morality in the Middle Ages, as interesting to the student of psychology as to the Theatre. Some years after this (1490) the sequel to Master Pathelin appeared, called the “Last Will of Pathelin,” which is also full of strange medical conceits appertaining to the age in which it was written. In this piece, Pathelin, after years of fraud and deceit, really becomes ill and sends for the lawyer and priest, abandoning the doctor to a certain extent. In his will he leaves all his ailments to different religious orders and charitable institutions, as, for instance, one _item_ of his will reads as follows:

“Au quatre convens aussi,
Cordeliers, Carmes, Augustins,
Jacobins, soient ors, on Soient ens,
Je leur laisse tous bons lopins,
A tous chopineurs et y vrongnes,
Notre vueil que je leur laisse
Toutes goutes, crampes et rongnes,
Au poing, au coste, a la fesse,” etc.

But enough of Master Pathelin. Let us now turn to the consideration of another curious farce.

LA FARCE DE MUNYER.

This farce, whose author was Andre de la Vigne, dates back, like preceding one, to the fourteenth century. The miller of the Middle Ages, the ancestor of our present Jack-pudding (French slang for miller), was in antique times the most rascally and cheating type of trader, from whence the old Gascon proverb, “One always finds a thief in a miller’s skin.”

In this farce we see the miller “lying in bed as though sick,” uttering long groans and sighing over the pains he professes to endure—groans, however, to which his wife appears insensible. He commences thus:

“Now am I in sore distress,
My sickness hard to cure,
My sore discomfort is not less.
Heart-ache I can’t endure.”

To this his wife responds indifferently, although the miller persists in asking for a bottle of good wine, saying that his “reins and belly need the supreme consolation of the bottle.” The wife obstinately refuses her husband the wine, remarking that he cannot “repair his stomach by filling the belly;” but, instead, she sends for the priest, who is, moreover, her lover, and carries on a flirtation with the holy man in the presence of her husband, for the purpose of making the invalid rise from his sick-bed; but, thinking his end near, the miller demands that he shall be permitted to die in the faith, or “_mourir catholiquement_.” He confesses to the priest, avowing all his thefts, his frauds, his falsification and _amours_, and is prepared to render his soul.

But the miller has absorbed some of the popular ideas of his day, professed by certain philosophers of the time; he believes that, at the moment of death, the soul of man escapes by his anus, and warns the priest to absolve him from his sins, saying:

“Mon ventre trop se determine.
Helas! Je ne scay que je face;
Ostez vous!”

The priest answers:

“Ha! sauf vostre grace!”

Then the miller remarks:

“Ostez vous, car je me conchye.”

The wife and the priest pull the sick man to the edge of the bed and place him in such a position that, if the doctrine of soul departure by the anus be true, they may witness the miller’s final performance. The phenomenon of rectal flatulence is now observed, when suddenly to the consternation of the wife and priest, a demon appears, and placing a sack over the dying miller’s anus catches the rectal gas and flies off in sulphurous vapor. In the next act we see the Devil appear before his patron Lucifer bearing the sack supposed to contain the damned soul of the miller received in the aforesaid sack at the moment it escaped from the anus. The devil is commanded by Lucifer to empty the sack at the feet of Proserpine who is busily engaged in cooking in Hell’s kitchen, but in place of the miller’s soul they only find _spoiled bran_; the rascal has cheated even in death.

It seems strange that earlier comedy writers all showed a tendency to make their principle scenes pathological burlesques. Thus in many plays the heroes and heroines were attacked by colic in order to excite the laughter of the audience, when the buffoon would imitate by signs the act of defecation. This peculiar French gayety and lack of prudery is fully evidenced in the comic effects of Pourceaugnac with the detersive, insinuative and carminative clysters of Moliere.

This farce, had in former days, an immense success, and is still occasionally played, being considered a _chef d’œuvre_ of malice and humor by our best critics and most distinguished authors. In France the audience always laugh when a thief while plundering is suddenly taken with pains in his bowels and diarrhœa, while a rectal syringe flourished aloft as a weapon of defense will bring down the gallery in a storm of applause.

L’AVEUGLE ET LE BOITEUX

Is another play in which medicine acts a part, by the same author of the preceding farce; the plot is as follows: A blind man and a lame man implore public charity on a deserted road; the blind man deplores his fate as never having seen the light, and the lame man bitterly bemoans not being able to walk but a few steps at one time, on account of the gout which has rendered him paraplegic. These two make a mutual avowal of their infirmities and agree to form a copartnership for mutual assistance; the lame man climbs on the blind man’s shoulders and they start out the road in search of charitable persons who may aid them with alms. On going some little distance the beggars hear a noise; this is made by a procession of monks going on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Martin. “What do they say?” asks the blind man; to which the lame man responds:

They tell of things curious and quaint,
Of miracles, wonderous, if true,
Performed by a newly made saint,
For whose aid each monk goes to sue;
This Saint cures all ills he can find,
Even fits, ulcers, fevers and gout;
He _healeth the halt_ and the blind
In a manner that’s past finding out.

We all know the eternal popular faith and belief in the ability of the Saints to cure every malady that flesh is heir to. However, in the present instance, it seems that one of the requirements necessary to be healed was a perfect spirit of resignation to all ills on the part of the sufferer—_now this is the case of our two mendicants_, who now become alarmed at the idea that they may be cured and thus deprived of a method of earning their daily bread, _i.e._, by beggary, so they undertake a number of subterfuges to escape the pious pilgrimage, which gives rise to many amusing adventures and situations, which might be well utilized by some modern playwriter. In the end the two mendicants escape from going with the pilgrim monks to visit the Saint’s shrine, as the blind man detests the light and the lame man is too lazy to walk, in fact both are admirably suited with their afflictions. It is during one of these scenes that the lame man relates to the blind man the best methods for deceiving the public by simulating maladies, and making a regular profession of begging. He discloses all the secrets of those who in the Middle Ages sought public commiseration to earn alms; he remarks:

“Puisque de tout je suis reffait,
Maulgre mes deus et mon visage,
Tant feray, que seray deffaict,
Encore ung coup de mon corsaige,
Car je vous dis bien que encor scay—je”

“La grant pratique et aussi l’art,
Par onguement et par herbaige,
Combien que soye miste et gaillart,
Que huy on dira que ma jambe art
Du cruel mal de Sainct Anthoyne,” etc.

In this lengthy poem, too long to transcribe from the French, the lame mendicant gives a list of herbs, through means of which various diseases may be simulated, especially those maladies of the skin that are repulsive to the majority of mankind; thus he describes the itch produced by certain varieties of the _clematis_ and the appearance of leprosy induced by the use of an ointment of which _veronica_ formed the basis. He also describes how to produce the disease of _Saint Fiacre_, an affection characterized by warts and ulcers around the anus. It is useless to add there is nothing new under the sun. Let us now turn our attention to another play, _i.e._;

LUNACY AND LOVE.

This is a play with six characters, written in 1556, by Louise Labe, sometimes called the _Belle Cordiere_.

Love, at all periods of time, has served as an inexhaustible subject of analysis and observation, not only to poets and novelists, but also to moralists, and especially physicians. Psychologists have always considered love, when excessive, as an evidence of insanity. Esquirol says that “love has lost its empire in France, indifference having captivated the hearts of our people, who, given over to amorous passions, having neither purity nor exhaltation, engender attacks of erotic lunacy.” This learned alienist has also discovered that out of 323 cases of insanity among the poor, love figured as a cause in forty-six cases; and out of 167 cases among the rich, twenty-five persons went insane on account of love. These close relations between “Lunacy and Love,” admitted since mankind _entered into society_, have served as a text for the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the title of the play we have mentioned; a work the more curious, for reason of its _finesse_, notwithstanding the jests employed by its author as the following analysis will witness.

Love and Lunacy arrive at the same moment at a festival to which Jupiter has convened all the Gods. Lunacy, full of arrogance, wishes to enter the banquet-hall before Love, and in order to do so turns everything topsy-turvy to secure his end. The vindictive Love, in order to be avenged, discharges a flight of arrows from the historical quiver; but Lunacy avoids these by becoming invisible, and in his wrath pulls out Love’s eyes, but afterwards skilfully puts them back in place with a bandage.

Love, in despair at being blinded, goes to implore the help of his mother. The latter desires the boy to remove the bandages from his eyes, but his efforts are useless; they are full of knots. Venus calls on Jupiter for justice for the injury done her boy. The Father of Gods accepts the position of arbitrator and cites the offender to appear before his tribunal. Mercury acts as attorney for Lunacy and Apollo does the special pleading for Love. In the cross-examination, Love tries to inform Jupiter of the fashions of loving, and tells him if he desires true affection and happiness to descend to earth, drop all appearances of greatness, and, under the guise of a simple mortal, seek to captivate some earthly beauty. Apollo, speaking for his client, young Cupid, is so eloquent that all the assemblage of Gods is seduced by his oratory, and condemns Lunacy without even giving him a hearing. But Jupiter is impartial in his tribunal, and allows Mercury to argue for the defense. The latter pleads, in turn, with such eloquence that one-half the jury is ready to say that Lunacy is not guilty—at least among Olympian jurors. Jupiter is undecided; he is very wise, however, and makes the following decision. “Owing to the differences of witnesses and the importance of the case, we have set the case for a re-hearing in three times seven times nine centuries—18,900 years—until which time Folly, or Lunacy, shall lead the Blind (Cupid) anywhere she chooses to go; and, at the end of the time named, should Cupid’s eyes be restored, the Fates may decree otherwise.”

Lunacy and Love are thus rendered inseparable and eternal on earth; they are connected together for the happiness of humanity and the delight of psychologists, philosophers and moralists, who will always find in these subjects something new for meditation and study. Need we add, also, that the alienists will secure any number of clients owing to Jupiter’s decision?

Let us now turn to a brief mention of

THE TREASURER’S WIFE.

This comedy, by Jacques Grevin, a medical poet, born at Clermont, was written in the sixteenth century. This physician, from his earliest youth, was enamored with the daughter of one of his confreres, Charles Etienne; she was a noted beauty, but preferred another doctor, Jean Liebaut, the author of “La Maison Rustique,” to our poet. In order to console himself for the loss of his sweetheart, Grevin commenced to write rhymes, and even surpassed Jodelle, the author of “Cleopatra and Dido,” by his fecundity. He followed Marguerite de France, wife of the Duke of Savoy, to whom he was family physician, to Turin, and died there in 1570.

He left several plays in verse, the principal one of which was “La Tresoriere,” an adulterous comedy relating to the intrigue of a financier’s wife. It is only of medical interest inasmuch as it alludes to syphilis, which at the time this play was written prevailed in Europe almost as an epidemic, and as a study of the morals of the epoch is not without interest to the syphilographer. The author, probably owing to his early disappointment in love, had but a poor opinion of the virtue of the women in his century, and makes many odd comparisons, as, for instance:

“Woman, ’tis often been said,
Resembles a church lamp bright,
That hangs on the altar overhead,
And outshines the candles at night;
She sheds an equal light on all,
But without her light, no shadows fall.”

He was no believer in the morality of the aristocratic classes, and alludes to the laxity of social rules and the spread of syphilis in the following lines:

“Aussi la femme a beau changer
Un familier a l’etranger,
L’etranger au premier venu,
Toujours son cas est maintenu
En son entier, si d’aventure
Elle n’y mele quelqu’ ordure.”

The reference to the syphilis is here found in the two last lines; if she has a love affair, there is ordure in the result. The allusion in other passages is much more apparent, but too impolite for an English rendering.

Let us now turn to another curious old French play,

LUCILLE AND INNOCENCE UNCOVERED.

Pharmacists, even at the present day, notwithstanding the rigid laws to the contrary, often sell narcotics without a prescription. That the modern druggist only follows the custom of his ancestor is evidenced by this comedy of the sixteenth century, by Louis Le Jars, _i.e._, “Lucille.”

The plot is as follows: At the moment a rich banker gives the hand of his daughter Lucille to the Baron Saint Amour, he learns that the former has been already secretly married to one of his clerks, a young man named Ascagne. In his wrath the banker places a pistol at Ascagne’s head, offering him at the same moment a goblet of poison, giving him his choice as to the manner of death. Ascagne chooses poison, and bravely drinks half the goblet and falls down, apparently inanimate. The father then has the body of Ascagne carried into his daughter’s presence, and also the remaining half-goblet of poison; the young woman does not hesitate to drain the other half of the poison to the dregs, and drops to the floor, like Ascagne, without consciousness.

Almost immediately following this double poisoning, a courier arrives and demands Ascagne, who turns out to be the son of the King of Poland. The banker is in despair, and sends post-haste for the apothecary who furnished the poison, and the druggist forthwith declare that the mixture is only a narcotic, the effects of which he can soon neutralize. Scene of overpowering tenderness and joy, and marriage over again to a real Prince.

It sometimes happens that physicians themselves give away opiates without regard for the rights of the _medicamentarius renenum coquens_ of the neighborhood. Jean Auvray, Member of the French Parliament and poet, evidences this fact in a tragio-comedy entitled “Innocence Uncovered.” This little play is only a rural version of Phedra and Hippolyte. Marsilie, in fact, is in love with Fabrice, the son of Phocus, her husband, by a former marriage. Her passion for the young man is so violent that she falls ill, and in a visit made her by Fabrice the latter learns of the love his step-mother bears him, but loyally repulses her advances. Marsilie, reflecting on the infamy of her conduct, wishes to kill herself in a fit of remorse; but to prevent this and calm her, Fabrice promises that if she will not suicide he will visit her when his father is absent from home. Phocus soon starts on a journey. Marsilie recalls to Fabrice the promise he made, but Fabrice answers her offers with contempt and quits her presence overcome with horror. Acting under the advice of her maid servant, through fear that the young man may tell his father of her perfidy, Marsilie consents to poison Fabrice, and sends her _valet_, Thomas, to see a doctor and thus secure poison. The unfortunate _valet_ is very much embarrassed and cannot tell the physician exactly what he desires, and in order to obtain some deadly drug he details the symptoms of an imaginary malady, and descants in the following manner: “Sir, for several days past my master, who exceeds the Persians as a gourmand in the cooking of delicious meats, gave a grand dinner party, equal to that of the Gods at the wedding festival of Thetis. Now, know that I, his principal servant, sat behind him; there by his order I tasted every dish brought in by the butler, when such a terrible fury broke forth in my belly that I was overcome with fright and agony. The rumblings and grumblings in my interior were only comparable to the reverberation of thunder claps among the highest crags of Tartarus. Hell was astonished and our castle walls shook,” etc., etc.

This narration, which is made in French rhyme and is too long for reproduction, naturally leads the doctor to prescribe for the impudent _valet_, who proposes to pay him a hundred crowns for enough poison to kill his master. The physician is angry and revengeful at the same time at the _valet’s_ dreadful proposition, but, restraining himself, he accepts the gold and gives Thomas in place of poison only a soporific liquor; this the valet brings to his mistress, Marsilie. Now, Antoine, the only son of Marsilie by Phocus, returning from the chase, sees the flagon of liquor, and, mistaking it for wine, swallows the contents at one draught. He falls to the floor unconscious and all believe him dead. Marsilie accuses Fabrice of poisoning his stepbrother; the unfortunate young man is taken before the judge, who condemns him to death; he is about to be executed, when the physician enters on the scene, tells all that has passed, and restores to life the supposed dead Antoine.

Marsilie is tried and found guilty and repudiated by her husband and family; and Fabrice becomes dearer than ever to his father. Without making further commentaries on this piece, we see the place occupied on the stage by medicine in the Middle Ages and the social standing of the physician in polite society. We also note the _irregular_ practice of the doctor, as well as the high standard of professional honor he maintained in many instances.

THE GOUT.

This tragedy, in poetic form, was composed towards the close of the sixteenth century by J. D. L. Blambeausaut. It has only three scenes, and depicts the triumph of the gout. The poet describes an old man overcome by the multiple pains of podagra, praying to obtain some slight respite from the atrocious and agonizing pain he endures. The Gout, an ever malevolent deity, rejects the old man’s prayer for help, but carries him into a gathering of doctors who are vaunting, in mutual admiration society fashion, their power in jugulating all forms of disease and exalting their specifics for every known affection. In order to punish these arrogant disciples of Æsculapius for their presumption, the Gout gives them all the disease that bears his name, and afterwards jeers at their impotent efforts to cure themselves of aching joints.

This tragedy, name given by the author of the poem, is a very curious treatise on the gout in rhyme, in which we find all the pathogenetic theories given credence before the time that medical chemistry revealed the action of an excess of uric acid in the organism. The blood, bile, peccant humors settling in the parts affected were, as we all know, causes attributed to diathesis by the majority of medical authors of the Middle Ages. Thus the gout-afflicted man, in his imprecations against what he calls “the torturer of humanity,” comes to say:

“From the top of my head to the end of my toes
I am cruelly tortured by agony’s woes,
Filled up with black blood and billious humor,
My flesh seems to pulsate like a sore tumor.
The eating and gnawing I can’t describe well;
My tendons all ache with the twinges of Hell,
While through my fingers pains cut like a knife
And add to my torment! I’m weary of life.”

Meantime our patient does not appear to have a robust faith in the humoral theories of his physician, for he adds, in accursing the malady that has ruined his health, that it permits him no repose:

“Mal que jamais l’homme n’a pu comprendre
Qui le plus sage induirait a se pendre.”

That is to say, that the doctors do not understand how to manage the disease, a common idea among patients who are not cured of their malady as speedily as they desire.

In one of the scenes the gout addresses a pompous eulogy on its power over humanity, and inveighs against those physicians who discover a new specific against gout every day. This list of remedies for the disease is appalling; we cull but a few to satisfy the reader’s curiosity:

“One advises flea wort and a parsley pill,
One eats fruit at morning, when with gout he’s ill,
One chews leaves of lettuce, one takes wild purslain;
Another smells pond lilies, when he doth complain.
Some remedies most curious are for gout deemed good,
Such are herbs and simples to purify the blood;
Angelica and gentian, the iris and green thyme,
Along with fresh culled myrtle will cure it all the time;
Hyssop and lavender, cherry and water cress,
Basil, hops and anise, all make the pain grow less.
Lentills, sage and savory, when the bowels they unbind,
And the marvelous merchoracan that comes from far off Ind.
There’s the beauteous laurel leaf that crowneth bard and king,
Privet and cardamoms, whose praise we often sing.
And there’s the sleeping poppy, what peace within it resides,
Culled by the Turkish houris in the garden Hesperides;
There’s the soothing comfrey and the glorious hoarhound,
And the magic betal nut, in tropic isles that’s found;
There’s the fragrant _fleur de lis_, when with pain you cry,
There’s the odorous sheep dung, given always on the sly.
Some dote on peach blossoms; some on saffron red,
Some like hyoscyamus mixed with piss-a-bed;
There’s bread crumbs and fennel mixed with young carrots
Pounded in a mortar along with eschalots.
There are some who use an ointment this disease to heal,
Made of rinds of citron and golden orange peel,
With frankencense and veratria root, to ease gouty pain,
Applied to the great toes on the leaves of green plantain.
There’s saltpeter ointment too, when to the foot applied
It makes the patient furious wroth, or else he’s terrified,
Giving the gout new twinges, and the sufferer spasms
Only eased by eggs and flour in a soft cataplasm.
Some patients take a razor and their own flesh deeply cut;
The wound then duly poulticed is with meal and Cyprus nut.
Some take red cabbage when other methods fail
And eat it with vinegar mixed with the slime of snail;
Some use biting dressings made from ugly lizards,
Pounded up with doe’s hoof and weasel gizzards.
Many think a certain and most efficacious cure
Is a little blue stone ointment mixed with man’s ordure,
And a celebrated surgeon, a knight of great renown,
Used virgin urine as a cure for all the men in town.
Some wear charms like foxes’ tails, or a beaver tooth;
Others boil a new born caul and chew it up, forsooth,”
etc., etc., _ad nauseam_.

Such are a few of the drugs employed against the gout, and certainly we cannot enumerate all the remedies spoken of by this malevolent demon. The treatment of Alexander Trallian, for example, is no less odd than many of the recipes given in this poetic formulary; it was composed of myrrh, coral, cloves, rue, peony and birthwort pounded together and mixed in certain proportions, and prescribed as an antidote to the gout for the space of 365 days, in the following manner: To be taken for 100 consecutive days, and then omitted for thirty days; then taken for another 100 days, with fifteen days omission afterwards; finally, every other day for 360 days. Circumcision was also a remedy, only applicable to Christians for obvious reasons.[98]

This treatment is an example of the methodical system, and “rests upon superstitious gifts,” says Sprengel. But there are some merits discoverable even in this apparent superstition, _i.e._, the great truth that the gout is a constitutional disease produced by luxury, and consequently incurable by medicines; a severe regimen being imposed, at the same time foolish prescriptions were given; it was the dieting and not the formula that made Alexander Trallian’s treatment so successful. However, it must not be forgotten that some medicines had a powerful effect in attenuating the violence of the gouty attack; it was for this reason that Cœlius Aurelianus resorted to purgatives and mineral waters; and among the drugs used by chance in the Middle Ages were found the flowers and bulbs of colchicum; the haughty Demon of Gout dared not treat this remedy with disdain.

Meantime the _Gout_ addressed the following lines to the physicians and _mires_ of the age.

“Gardez vous, Siriens;
Menteurs magiciens,
Vendeurs de theriaque,
Qu’elle ne vous attaque.”

To call the doctor of ancient times a “_vender of Theriacum_” was an insult to professional pride. This absurd remedy was invented by one of Nero’s slaves, and held a high place in public estimation. “It was laid down in the pharmacopœias, _ad ostentationem artis_,” says Pliny, “and enjoyed a reputation that was never justified by its thirty-six ingredients and the varied assortment of inert gums entering into its composition.”

In the third scene of the tragedy, the Demon Gout, recalls to the memory of the doctors of the Middle Ages, its illustrious victims of antiquity.