Art and epigram regarding science and medicine in relation to death : being a reprint of a communication from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (Section of the History of Medicine), 1914, Vol. VII, pp. 192-217 : together with an addition on epigram and art in relation to the excessive fear of death / by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Weber, Frederick Parkes, 1863-1962.
Date:
1914
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Art and epigram regarding science and medicine in relation to death : being a reprint of a communication from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (Section of the History of Medicine), 1914, Vol. VII, pp. 192-217 : together with an addition on epigram and art in relation to the excessive fear of death / by F. Parkes Weber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    14/34 (page 12)
    This last one (cf. the similar epigram by Lucilius, “ Anth. Graec.” Tauchnitz edition, xi, 257) is outdone by the Greek lines which have been attributed to Nicarchus (“ Anth. Graec.,” Tauchnitz edition, xi, 118) on a (doubtless imaginary) doctor named Phido (“ drawing-room equivalent ” given in Dodd’s “ Epigrammatists,” 1870, p. 52) — “ Phido nor band nor touch to me applied ; Fever’d, 1 thought but of his name—and died.” Amongst the many epigrams in dispraise of physicians or quacks cited from the “ Greek Anthology ” by Dr. J. D. Polleston’ are several which bear on the present subject. An anonymous epigram (“ Anth. Graec.,” Tauchnitz edition, 1829, xi, 125) describes a compact between a doctor and a gravedigger, whereby the gravedigger supplies the bandages stolen from the corpses, in return for which the doctor sends all his patients to the grave. An epigram of Nicarchus says {ihicl., xi, 115) : “ If you have an enemy, Dionysius, don’t call down on him the wrath of Isis, nor of Harpocrates, nor of any god that makes men blind, but invoke Simon, and you will learn what a god can do and what Simon.” Two epigrams (Rolleston writes) allude to artistic tastes combined with the swift dispatch of patients. One is by Nicarchus {ihicl., xi, 113) ; “The physician Marcus touched the statue of Zeus yesterday, and though it is stone and Zeus, it has gone to-day (like his patients).” The other is by Ammianus [ihicl., xi. 188) : “ Nicetas when he sings is an Apollo of song, and when he practises medicine he is a slayer [there is a pun in regard to the Greek word airoWvwv meaning slaying^ of his patients.” Palladas [ibid., xi, 280) describes the surgeon Gennadius as one who, after exacting his fee, conducts his patients to Hades. Holleston states further that the readiness and impunity with which physicians and surgeons have been said to kill their patients (a favourite theme for the satirist throughout all ages) are exemplified in many of the Greek epigrams. The mere touch (“ Anth. Graec.,” Tauchnitz edition, 1829, xi, 114), sight (ibid., 123), thought [ibid., 118), or dream [ibid., 25T) of the doctor was said, in satirical epigrams, to have proved fatal. Lucilius, for instance [ibid., 257), wrote : “ Diophantus saw the doctor Hermogenes in a dream, and never woke again, although he wore an amulet ” (? an amulet against the “evil eye”). “An anonymous poet stigmatizes Damagoras as outweighing plague in the balance [ibid., 334) ; and Froc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1914, vii (Section of the History of Medicine), pp. 3-13.