Die Karikatur und Satire in der Medizin: The Doctor's Cane and the Plague Doctor

I found this cool little book on archive.org. The book is called Die Karikatur und Satire in der Medizin. Even if your German is as poor as mine, you should understand this book is about caricature and satire in medicine.

There are many great pictures in the book. There is a picture in the gynecology section that shows bunnies all over the floor and toward the end of the book are a couple funny caricatures of Anton Mesmer, but that's not the topic of this post...

There are some pictures of doctors with canes to their noses. 

Imagine that the moment your doctor enters your home, he strikes his cane upon the floor and then holds the golden tip to his nose. The doctor keeps the cane to his nose, whenever possible, for the entire visit.

What's that about?

When he entered your home he struck his cane to disrupt the herbs and powders in the cane's tip. The effect of the herbs was twofold. First, the herbs probably smelled better than the patients. And second, the herbs were probably meant to keep the doctor from airborne infection.

The doctor's cane was probably an evolved form of the medicated rings of the ancient world.

The most extreme adaptation of this type of device was the mask worn by Plague Doctors. The plague doctors had a mask with a massive beak stuffed with herbs. I tell you what, if this was the only doctor that would come see me, I'd probably fling myself from a window.

But doctors were not the only people to get a cool cane. Whatever the patient had that killed them, it didn't get any better (or smell any better) once they were dead. Here is a picture called "The Company of Undertakers"

The Ring of Eucrates

Earlier today I read Plutus by Aristophanes. A short while ago I found myself reading The Liar by Lucian.

Although I was amused by what appears to be the origin of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, that is not my main interest in this story.

The character Eucrates owns a very special ring:

'Do you suppose,' asked Eucrates, 'that he is the only man who has seen such things? Plenty of people besides Ion have met with spirits, by night and by day. As for me, if I have seen one apparition, I have seen a thousand. I used not to like them at first, but I am accustomed to them now, and think nothing of it; especially since the Arab gave me my ring of gallows-iron, and taught me the incantation with all those names in it.

These rings made of gallows-iron (nails or iron from a cross!), coffin nails, and other iron associated with the dead and graveyards gave the possessor the ability to command and dismiss spirits.

A little further in the story, Eucrates tells of a time he was confronted by a frightening entity (who he calls Hecate) three hundred feet high with the lower body of a dragon and the upper part and head of a Medusa! But, never fear! He's got a ring...

At the sight of her, I stood stock still, and turned the seal of my Arab's ring inwards; whereupon Hecate smote upon the ground with her dragon's foot, and caused a vast chasm to open, wide as the mouth of Hell. Into this she presently leaped, and was lost to sight.

The Ring of Eucrates, gotten from an Arab, was mighty enough to send Hecate straight to Hell!

Of course I know this is old Greek fiction, but the tall tales and ghost stories in The Liar were based on real stories and beliefs.

The Arab's ring was probably based on a ring or rings Lucian saw. The ring was made of gallows-iron, had a seal and was potent enough to send just about any kind of spirit down to Hades.

Later Arab stories attribute such a ring to King Solomon, but state that Solomon's ring was half brass and half iron with a seal on either side. You can see Lucian was aware of the power these metals have in the following quote:

apparitions, you tell me, take flight at the clash of brass or iron

King Solomon would never make his own ring of gallows-iron, but it is very likely he would have made it of iron. In an old book on rings (which I cannot find right now), I read about many such rings which were not just iron, but magnetized iron.

The Rings of Eudemus

INFORMER

You are laughing at me. Well, then I denounce you as their accomplice. Where did you steal that new cloak from? Yesterday I saw you with one utterly worn out.


JUST MAN

I fear you not, thanks to this ring, for which I paid Eudemus a drachma.


CARIO

Ah! there's no ring to preserve you from the informer's bite.

A short comedic intermission is inserted in today's quest for the Ring of Solomon. The quote above is from Plutus by Aristophanes. Eudemus was a physician who sold medicated rings to treat or prevent snake bites and other ailments.