Trivia: Doctors in Historical Drama

We've previously had items about doctors in the movies and doctors in fiction, and a miscellanea about doctors on the small and large screens. Now here are a few examples of doctors from historical drama. In most cases, the doctors were figures of comedy, but one type had some miraculous abilities!

The Brothers Menaechmus

This play by the Roman comic playwright Plautus (c. 254–184 BCE) is about mistaken identity involving a set of identical twins who had been separated as children. The play includes a comic doctor "Medicus." Due to the mistaken identity, the father-in-law of one brother thinks his son-in-law is crazy, and wants the doctor to diagnose and treat him.

Medicus: What disease hath he, said you? Is it a lethargy or a lunacy, or melancholy, or dropsy?

Old Man: [Why], I pray, do I bring you, but that you should tell me what it is and cure him of it?

The doctor tries to question the twin to make a diagnosis, but makes little headway, and after a few queries decides that the young man is insane, and tells the old man to have the young man carried to his house for treatment. When the old man asks how many servants he'll need to transport him safely, the doctor replies, "Being no madder than he is now; four will serve."

Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" was based on this play. In Shakespeare's version, the doctor (Doctor Pinch) is described as a "schoolmaster and exorcist," so a doctor of a different sort.

The Croxton Play of the Sacrament

This English religious play is believed to date to the mid-1400s, and has several European sources. It includes a comic scene, unrelated to the main action, between a "Magister phisicus" (master doctor or physician) and his comic servant. Before the doctor arrives, the servant describes him to the audience as one who wears ripped clothing, and is deep in debt at the taverns he frequents. The servant clearly finds the doctor's skills questionable:

Servant: But master, I pray you, how is your patient

That you have under your care?

Doctor: I assure you she feels no discomfort.

Servant: Why, is she in her grave?

The doctor orders the servant to advertise his medical skills and services to the audience, but of course, the advertisement is questionable. For example the servant announces:

Whatever disease or sickness that you have

He will never leave you 'til you're in your grave.

English Mummers' Plays

These short folk plays, which are also known by other names, are typically performed around Christmas. While the term "mummer" dates back to the early 1400s, it is unclear exactly what the plays involved at that time. The earliest detailed records about them date to the 1700s. By this time, the action typically involves a battle between a good and an evil character, in which the good character is killed, but saved by a doctor's magic potion or (as one theater history book of mine stated) "some grotesque device." Strangely, the doctor is commonly called a "quack doctor," but since he's able to bring someone killed in combat back to life, he couldn't be that big of a quack!

Commedia dell'Arte

The "comedy of professional players" was a very popular form of improvisational theater that started in Italy in the 16th century. The plays were based on a short scenario and involved stock characters, set gags, and a few set speeches. One of the stock characters was "Il Dottore" – the doctor – who was one of the comic old men. He was usually a doctor of medicine or a doctor of laws, and he loved to impress people with Latin words and phrases and his supposed learning, but he could be easily tricked. When performed in Italy, the doctor spoke with a Bolognese dialect. The University of Bologna, founded in 1088, was an important center of European intellectual life during the Middle Ages, but the doctor's foolishness made it unclear if he had actually attended the school or not, and if he did, how much he had actually learned, or whether he was simply past it.

For more doctor trivia items, see: • Trivia: Dissing Doctors • Trivia: MD Training/Licensing in 19th-century USA • Trivia: Chaucer's "Doctour of Phisik"

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