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Shakspere and the Practice of Medicine

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Shakspere and the Practice of Medicine SHAKSPERE AND THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE By LEMUEL MATTHEWS GRIFFITHS, M.D., M.R.C.S.† BRISTOL, ENGLAND T has been claimed for Shakspere that connected with them in Shakspere’s day, in some branches of medical science he there is the gatherer of simples. showed a knowledge far in advance of Dr. Bucknill, a learned medical Shaks- members of the profession. On the perian scholar “arrived at the fullest con­ other hand, it has been asserted that heviction that the great dramatist had, at Iknew no more than any old woman of the least, been a diligent student of all medical period could have told him. It was my pur­ knowledge existing in his time.”3 And pose to collect the passages referring, directly referring to “Much Ado about Nothing” or indirectly, to medical science or practice, (iv, i, 254),4 he says concerning the Friar’s and thus try to find where the truth lies observation to Leonato about the appro­ between these conflicting statements; for a priateness of using extreme methods for third hypothesis—that he may, for the medi­ extreme diseases, “the passage is evidently cal allusions, have consulted some practi­ copied from the Sixth Aphorism of Hippo­ tioner of the healing art—can be dismissed crates,” and he thinks Shakspere “derived at once, as the references are too numerous it from some work on the original.5 and too incidental for such a theory to be It is of interest therefore to see how taken into consideration.1 Shakspere refers to the names of those But when I had partly put this intention connected by fame with the healing art. into practice, I found that I had marked2 Taking them in chronological order, we so many passages for comment, that, first find two of the most commonplace if I had carried out my original plan this allusions to that very mythical personage, article would have been far too long. It the God of Medicine. Cerimon, the physi­ seemed undesirable to make selections, cian in “Pericles,” when he hopes by his skill and so I determined to limit my subject to prevent Thaisa having a relapse, says, as to Shakspere’s references to the practi­ in duty bound— tioner. And ?EscuIapius guide us; in, ii, 111. Shakspere brings before us six classes of And the doctor in “The Merry Wives of persons engaged in what we now recognize Windsor” is saluted by the host in mock as branches of medical practice. These heroics— are—the physician, the surgeon, the apothe­ What says My Aisculapius? 11, iii, 29. cary, the tooth-drawer, the midwife, the nurse. In addition to these, and closely To Hippocrates, Shakspere has only one allusion by name, and that in a per­ †President of Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Society verted form, by Sir Hugh Evans, who 1887-8. 11 believe that such a practice was adopted by the 3 The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare, late Hugh Conway in his widely-read “Called Back,” London, i860, 290. This is a book which every and that he obtained the information required from doctor, and every Shakspere student ought to have. a member of our Society. I have been greatly indebted to it. With the excep­ 2 It is almost needless to say that I could not have tion of Pare’s book, it has been my only source for done this without the help of Mrs. Cowden-Clarke’s allusions in Shakspere’s medical contemporaries. “Concordance” and Schmidt’s “Lexicon,” two indis­ 4 All the line references are to “Globe ” edition. pensable works. 6 Op. cit., 116.. depreciates the worth of the “renowned Master Doctor Caius showed such lament­ French physician,” whom he describes able ignorance. In “All’s Well that Ends as ill-read in the works of the Father of Well” (11, iii, 12), there is an allusion to Medicine. All laymen have a desire to his leadership of a school of medicine, know something of medical matters; and it where the wonder is expressed that the is more than likely that in Shakspere this King could have been cured after being desire was so intensified that he would “relinquished by the artists” who prac­ avail himself of all opportunities of looking tised after the manner of Galen. He was into medical writings for a wider range of also the authority whence Sir John Fal- view, with the inevitable result of making a staff had derived his muddled knowledge of jumble in his own mind. How far his apoplexy (2, “Henry iv,” 1, ii, 133). In “Corio­ medical and surgical allusions are imbued lanus,” Shakspere uses the name of Galen with the spirit of Hippocrates, I must leave as an opportunity for a scoff at medical to the opinion of my readers; but it may be practice, in which he was fond of indulging, not too much to say, that if Hippocrates as the opinion that he always paid respect had been an Elizabethan dramatist, the to the profession is not borne out by his style of his writing would have been Shaks- references. Menenius, whose spirits are perian; and had Shakspere been a raised by the news that Coriolanus is Greek physician, his characteristics would coming home after his victory at Corioli, have been those of Hippocrates, as a close drags in, without the least appropriateness, observer and recorder of signs and a frugal this sneer at the profession: prescriber of drugs. A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven From him Shakspere might have learned years’ health; in which time I will make a lip much, for medical art in the sixteenth at the physician: the most sovereign prescrip­ century had deteriorated sadly from its tion in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this high position as expounded by Hippocrates. preservative, of no better report than a horse­ Nearly six hundred years after Hippo­ drench. 11, i, 127—130. crates came Galenus, whose influence was strong in Shakspere’s day. In 1559—five Dr. Bucknill’s comment on this passage years before Shakspere was born—Dr. is typical of the mode of thought which John Geynes, the year before his admission sees an appreciative testimony in every as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physi­ allusion that Shakspere makes to doctors. cians of London, “was cited before the He says: “Menenius describes the health College for impugning the infallibility of preserving effect of the pleasure it affords Galen.” On his acknowledgment of error, him, in terms which convey the poet’s and humble recantation signed with his high appreciation of Galen, the great medi­ own hand he was received into the College.6 cal authority of his own day.”7 The fact So of course Shakspere has something to that Coriolanus, if he ever lived at all, had say about Galen. He is mentioned twice in been dead nearly six hundred years when “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (11, iii, 29 Galen was born did not trouble Shakspere. and iii, i, 67); once as a companion to Galen with no more than the knowledge yEscuIapius in the host’s appeal to the of his own time would at the present day doctor already mentioned, and the other have made an excellent family doctor, a time associated with Hippocrates as an capacity in which his shyness of surgical author in whom, according to Evans, interference would have been little draw­ back. He had a high opinion of Hippocrates, 6 The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 1878. Ed. 2, i, 62. 7 Op. cit., 207. whose surgical prowess he does not emulate, of Physicians in the University of Paris, although he was much given to surgery being lawfully congregated,” not only judged which did not involve operations. Turquet de Mayern unworthy to practise Paracelsus, who is coupled with Galen because he had publicly identified himself as one whose followers were not equal to with the tenets of the chemical school of curing the fistula of the king in “All’s Well Paracelsus, but forbade all who were of that Ends Well,” must be looked upon their “Society” to hold consultation with as a bit of a quack, although by his knowl­ him. edge of chemistry he added considerably The mention of this Frenchman brings to the resources of pharmacy. It was one conveniently to Dr. Caius of “The through him that calomel and opium were Merry Wives of Windsor,” because it has generally used internally; but although been sought to show that this “renowned he had a nostrum which would secure French physician,” as Master Page in the him from the fate of death, it did not play calls him, was intended by Shakspere keep him alive more than eight-and-forty to represent Turquet de Mayern, who was years. Shakspere most appropriately names known to English people as Sir Theodore Paracelsus as the representative of a school de Mayerne. But Mayern did not settle opposed to that of Galen, whose works in England till 1610, although he was there Paracelsus had publicly burned. But it in 1606. He was appointed first physician was not only those specifically named as to James 1, and took a high place in profes­ of the schools of Galen and Paracelsus who sional life. He was a man of moderate had given up the king’s case, but he had views, and was able to see good both in also been “relinquished of all the learned the views of the old-fashioned practitioners and authentic fellows that gave him out and the chemical reformers.
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