Mirror, Mirror . . .

MIRROR, MIRROR ERWIN DI CYAN* Mirror, mirror on the wall Who's thefairest of them all? Among the outstanding satirists is Moliere—his animadversion to physicians was particularly vigorous. The mechanism of his satirical plays is simple enough: (1) he views the then present state and chooses a specially vulnerable aspect; (2) he exaggerates it beyond any reasonable fluctuation; (3) he puts his medical characters into situations in which physicians would normally find themselves—among sick people; (4) then, the coup de grâce is automatically administered. For example, in The Mock Doctor there is a savage and degrading picture of a physician—done apparently with some malice—which stretches the reader's imagination into incredibility. Here is no mere exaggeration—it is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively incredible . In the play, Sganarel, a woodcutter, is forced into declaring himself a doctor to avoid being beaten further by two servants, thus becoming in his own words "a doctor by violence." He is taken to treat a girl who has lost her speech and makes the astute diagnosis from taking her pulse that she is mute. When asked why she is mute, he says that it is because of an impediment in the use of her tongue. On being pressed further, he merely mumbles, "Aristotle." Upon hearing the magic name of Aristotle, although not even being told what Aristotle had to say on the subject, the patient's father accepts it as the supreme answer, for, with the name of Aristotle, all is well with him. Elsewhere in the play Sganarel, wearing a cap and gown that has been forced on him, spouts gibberish Latin and is admired for the fine figure of a physician he represents. The intention of this satire is to deprecate the role of physician by showing (1) that a woodcutter can easily act the physician; (2) that, apparently , no knowledge is required of physicians; (3) that the senseless babble of the woodcutter in the cloak of a doctor is accepted as the normal behavior of a physician at that time; (4) that any outrageous»Address: 12 East 41st Street, New York, New York 10017.© 1979 by The University of Chicago. 0031-5982/79/2204-0096$01.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Summer 1979 \ 597 explanation is accepted humbly by the patient; and (5) that the meretricious behavior of the woodcutter does not hugely differ from the behavior of a physician at that time. Virtually the same pattern with a somewhat different situation occurs in The Hypochondriac, in which Moliere further derides physicians. "Men die of physic not ofdiseases," says one character. Moliere puts words into the mouth of another character, who says that he is not against physicians but against the ridiculousness of physic. Nonetheless, Molière uses the physician as his target even though his goal may be medicine. A striking example is in the conversation in which a physician declares that he does not want to treat the court or other noble people as patients, for they expect the physician to heal them. A doctor, he continues, is obliged only to treat people according to form and to take his fee. Argan, the hypochondriac, appears to be in a continuous state of purgation or receiving a clyster or apprehensive about the state of his guts and its contents. Another of Molière's characters suggests to Argan that he too (Argan) may become a physician. Argan, mildly protesting that it requires study which he cannot undertake due to his ill health, is reassured that it takes only nonsense and a cap and gown, for when nonsense is spoken in cap and gown it becomes sense, and that having a beard makes half a doctor already. A pleased Argan agrees, and is quickly invested, becoming a doctor of physic in a keenly theatrical academic procession in which clyster pipes (for organ pipes) are prominent , accompanied by a resounding chorus of ridiculous pig Latin. Argan accepts his investiture with a grandly absurd speech to his "Grandes doctores doctrinae / Of rhei and of sennae ..." I believe that this continues as one of the most amusing scenes in the world of modern theater. A similar pattern...