Purging Humor(s): Medical and Scatological Imagery in Tirso de Molina

The figure of the physician as the butt of scathing humor is a long-standing tradition. This study explores the ways in which Tirso de Molina ridicules the members of the healing professions in his comedies. The numerous examples of Tirso's comic depiction of medical quackery almost always issue from the mouth of the gracioso, who is, by convention, an arbiter of truth in the Golden Age comedia. The Aristotelian notion of theater as catharsis is humorously literal in the medical practices of the period. The purification of corrupt humors was achieved through different methods of purging. Scatological medical malpractice is a constant source of humor in Tirso's comedies.