The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 78

Welcome, my books, my golden store!

Your leaves my eyes, my hands explore; With you my sweetest hours have flown-- My best of life with you alone.

When none in the wide world could cheer, Your wisdom dried the bitter tear; When summer skies were fresh and blue, None could rejoice with me like you.

What living voice may speak among Your silent and time-hallowed throng?

For you, the best of every age, I quit the world's degenerate stage.

_Translation from Ranzan._

------ {496}

From The Month.

THE ANCIENT FACULTY OF PARIS.

At the corner of the Rue de la Bucherie and the old Rue des Rats, now known by the more dignified appellation of the Rue de l'Hotel Colbert, may still be seen, unless the unsparing hand of "modern improvement"

has very recently swept it away along with so many other memorials of the past, a dirty, dilapidated building topped by a round tower, which you might take for some old pigeon-house. The half-obliterated inscription upon an escutcheon on one of the facades of the edifice indicates, however, some heretofore high and venerable destination--_Urbi et orbi salus_. If curiosity lead you to penetrate into the interior of this dismal edifice, you find yourself, after mounting a damp staircase, in a great circular hall, divided into four irregular compartments. Above some empty niches hollowed in the thickness of the wall runs a wide cornice, the now-defaced sculptures of which represent alternately the c.o.c.k--Esculapius's bird and emblem of vigilance--and the pelican nourishing its young, the type of self-sacrifice--watchfulness and unselfish charity, the two great duties inc.u.mbent on the professor of the healing art. You stand, in fact, in the midst of the ancient amphitheatre of the Faculty of Medicine. There studied, and there, in their turn, taught, the great anatomists of the seventeenth century, Bartholin, Riolan, Pecquet, Littre, Winslow. This building was an old adjunct to a large and handsome hotel belonging to the medical body, containing their chapel, library, laboratory, a vast hall for solemn disputations, with minor saloons for the daily lectures, etc., with the addition of a large court and botanical garden. It was abandoned long before the Revolution, and not a trace of all this corporate glory of the medical faculty now remains. The quarter of Paris in which it stood, known formerly as the Latin quarter, long preserved a peculiar stamp and physiognomy. Here were the colleges of St. Michel, of Normandy and Picardy, of Laon, Presles, Beauvais, Cornouailles, and that long succession of churches, convents, colleges, and high toppling houses, filled with a studious youth, which formerly crowded the Rue St.

Jacques and the Rue de la Harpe. All these and many other sanctuaries of religion and of science, so intimately connected in the middle ages, cl.u.s.tered around the faculty. Here, in fact, was the centre of the university of Paris, whose origin is lost in the obscurity investing the early mediaeval period. The methodical cla.s.sification under the head of faculties of the different studies pursued at that celebrated inst.i.tution dates, however, from the close of the twelfth century. These faculties formed independent companies, attached to their common mother, the university, like branches to the parent stem.

Disregarding all apocryphal pretensions to antiquity, we cannot a.s.sign an earlier date for the formation of the medical body into an independent corporation than the year 1267. About that time we find the faculty in possession of its statutes, keeping registers and affixing to doc.u.ments its ma.s.sive silver seal. The term Faculty of _Medicine_, it must be observed, is modern. The t.i.tle _Physicorum Facultas_, or _Facultas in Physica_, was long preserved. Whatever we may think of the empirical practice and dogmatic character of the medical art in those times, we cannot but see in this an {497} indication that natural science was even then the recognized basis of medicine. We have here, if not a principle clearly understood and habitually followed, at least an intuition and a kind of programme of the future. A memorial of the old designation survives in our own country in the t.i.tle of physician, while in the land where it originated it has been discontinued.

Born in the cloister, medicine long retained an ecclesiastical character. Most of the doctors in early times were canons; and those who were neither priests nor even clerks were still bound to celibacy; a regulation which remained in force long after councils had decreed the incompatibility of the exercise of the medical profession with the ecclesiastical state.

The general a.s.semblies of the faculty were held sometimes round the font of Notre Dame, sometimes at St. Genevieve des Ardents, sometimes at the Priory of St. Eloi; while, for the ordinary purposes of instruction, it shared fraternally with the faculty of theology the alternate use of some common room with a shake-down of straw in the Quartier St. Jacques. But by-and-bye riches began to pour in, chiefly through the means of the legacies of members of the medical corps or other well-wishers; and, thanks to the liberality of Jacques Desparts, physician to Charles VIl., the corporation of doctors was finally installed in the abode we have just described. To the general worth and respectability of the body in the fifteenth century we have the testimony of Cardinal d'Estoutteville, who, in 1452, was deputed by the Pope to reorganize the university of Paris, and who found less to reform in the faculty of medicine than in any other department.

Indeed, no change of much importance was introduced, with the exception of the revocation of the law of celibacy, which the cardinal p.r.o.nounced to be both "impious and unreasonable."

Independence of spirit and great reverence for its own traditions were characteristic of the medical body from its earliest beginnings. It loved to describe itself as _veteris disciplinae retentissima._ In those days men gloried in their respect for antiquity. In common with all the different bodies which composed the university of Paris, the medical corporation possessed great privileges--exemption from all taxation, direct or indirect, from all public burdens, from all onerous services or obligations. When we sum up all the advantages enjoyed by this and other favored bodies and cla.s.ses in the middle ages, the reflection naturally suggests itself--what must have been the condition of the poor, who possessed no privileges and bore all the financial burdens? In the days, however, when standing armies in the pay of government had no existence, when the king himself was a rich proprietor with large personal domains, when national debt and its interest were things unheard of, the ordinary imposts, as distinguished from all arbitrary and accidental exactions, were, of course, very much lighter than those of modern times. Liberty in those days a.s.sumed the form of privilege; and its spirit was nursed and kept alive within the bosom of these self-ruling corporations, and in none more remarkably than in that of medicine. The _esprit de corps_ naturally existed with peculiar strength in a body not merely organized for purposes of instruction, but exercising a liberal profession, of which it had the monopoly. [Footnote 69] Hence a minute internal legislation imposed upon all its members, and willingly accepted in view of the interests of the body. Its _alumni_ were aspirants to a life-long membership; whereas with us the medical man's dependence upon the faculty virtually ceases the day he takes his doctor's degree. He has nothing more to ask or to receive from it; his affair is now with the public; {498} and the sense of brotherhood with his colleagues in the profession is lost, it is to be feared, not unfrequently in a feeling of rivalry. But it was otherwise in the olden time. The day which now sends forth the full-fledged doctor to his independent career drew the tie closer which bound him to his order, in which then only he began to take his solemn place. The honor and the interest of each member thus became common property, and unworthy conduct was punished by summary exclusion from the body.

[Footnote 69: It is probably this peculiarity which caused the medical to be considered as pre-eminently _the_ faculty. Its practice brought it into intimate contact with the world at large; and this has also doubtless led to the exclusive retention, in this instance, of a designation common in its origin to other departments of learning.]

Unfortunately this _esprit de corps_ had its bad as well as its good results. It produced a certain narrowness of mind, a love of routine, and no slight attachment to professional jargon. It is not that the faculty was actually the enemy of all progress, but progress must come from itself. As no a.s.sociation of men, however, can enjoy a monopoly of genius, useful and brilliant discoveries emanating from other quarters had to encounter the hostility of the chartered body. This spirit was exemplified in its animosity toward surgery, long a separate profession, in its prejudice against the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, because an English discovery; against antimony, because it originated with the rival Montpelier school; against quinine, because it came from America. To these subjects we may hereafter recur; in the meantime we note them as instances of medical bigotry, which exposed the profession to just ridicule, but which has drawn down upon it censure and disesteem of perhaps a somewhat too sweeping character. It would be unfair to judge the ancient faculty solely from its exhibitions of foolish pedantry and blind prejudice; and it is our object on the present occasion to give a slight sketch of its const.i.tution and internal government, such as may enable the reader to form a juster and more impartial view both of its faults and of its substantial merits. Indeed, without some solid t.i.tles to general esteem, it would seem improbable that the faculty should have attained to the high position which we find it occupying in the seventeenth century.

One accidental cause, no doubt, of the importance of the doctors during the whole period which we are considering was their small relative number. From a computation made by a modern member of the medical profession in France, [Footnote 70] to whom we are indebted for our facts, the average number of doctors in the capital from the year 1640 to the year 1670 did not exceed 110. Compared with the population of Paris, which is reckoned at 540,000 souls, this gives one doctor for every 4,900 of the inhabitants. The medical corps is now 1,830 strong, while the population has risen only to 1,740,000.

Great as is this increase of population, greater, we see, proportionally has been that of the medical pract.i.tioners, who are at present as 1 to 940. If sickness was as prevalent in the seventeenth century as it is now, and recourse to physic and physicking as frequent, we can imagine that the faculty must have necessarily occupied a distinguished position. Many offices now undertaken by public inst.i.tutions or by government devolved, also, at that time on the faculty, which to the best of its ability supplied the want of sanitary regulations, and exercised a kind of medical police, including the supervision of articles of diet. All this must have helped to swell their importance. A large proportion of the doctors received during this selected period of thirty years were Parisians; and nothing is more common than the perpetuity of the profession in certain families. This circ.u.mstance must have combined with the corporate reverence for their traditions to intensify their attachment to a received system, and to strengthen that spirit of union which is a source of power. The respect which the lower bench paid to the upper, and the young to the ancient {499}--and by "young" we mean young in their degree, not in years--must have contributed toward the same result. It required ten years of doctorate to qualify a man to take his place amongst this venerable cla.s.s; and the statutes are prolix on the subject of the respect due to the ancients from their juniors on the bench; a respect which was to be marked by every external act of deference.

[Footnote 70: Maurice Raynaud, Docteur en Medecine, Docteur es Lettres. _Les Medecins au temps de Moliere.--Moeurs, Inst.i.tutions, Doctrines_. Paris, 1862. Didler.]

But the first and great tie which bound all the members together was religion. To profess the Catholic faith was long an essential condition of admission to the examinations. The faculty gave an energetic proof in 1637 of the importance it attached to this fundamental rule, when it withstood the pressing solicitations of the king's brother, the Duke of Orleans; in favor of a certain Brunier, the son of his own physician and a Protestant, although the prince condescended to address a flattering letter to the dean of the faculty, signing himself "Votre bon ami, Gaston," and although his request was backed by a royal injunction. The sovereign must needs bow to the authority of the statutes, respectfully but firmly urged in contravention of his regal pleasure. Yet this would seem to have been a closing effort, for in 1648 we find four Protestant doctors on the lists. Every year there was a solemn ma.s.s on St. Luke's day, at which all the members were bound to be present, and which even at the commencement of the seventeenth century was still sung by the doctors of the faculty. After ma.s.s the statutes were publicly read. There was a like obligation, with a penalty for its neglect, to attend an annual ma.s.s for deceased doctors, and another for benefactors, as also to accompany the bodies of their brethren to the grave.

The head of the corporation was the dean. His powers were extensive, and the honor paid to him unbounded. He was the "guardian of the discipline and statutes" of the faculty, _vindex disciplinae et custos legum_; he was at once its foremost champion and its highest dignitary. He was also its historian, entering in its great registers all facts interesting to the corporation which occurred during the course of his administration. The account of each diaconate is headed thus:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Latin Cross]

"_In Nomine Omnipotentis Dei, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Incipit commentarius rerum in decanatu ... gestarum._"

Amongst other topics judged worthy of registration is a necrologic notice of members deceased during the period. Take as a specimen, which marks at the same time the high estimation in which the diaconate was held, the account given of Merlet's death in 1663. He was the "ancient of the company," and had been remarkable for the zeal he exercised in its behalf. The then dean, the ill.u.s.trious Antoine Morand, pays the venerable doctor a visit just before he expires; and the dying man breaks out in a kind of _Nunc dimittis_--"Now I can die contented, since it has been given me to behold once more the dean of the faculty." Valot, the king's physician, who had come to see the patient, expresses in language of much reverence his hope that Merlet may still live to ill.u.s.trate the supreme dignity in which he stands amongst them. The "patriarch" with his last breath energetically refuses such excessive honors. He confesses that he holds a high rank as ancient of the school, but not the highest. "To the dean alone," he says, "belongs supreme honor." "Sublime words," observes Morand in his funeral notice: "veritable song of the dying swan, proceeding from a man truly wise and endowed with all perfection! May he rest in the peace of the Lord." Of course, it is a dean who is speaking. The charge was indeed a weighty one, both externally and internally; for in spite of general respect, the medical corporation, like most privileged bodies, had active enemies. Every two years a fresh election took place on the first Sat.u.r.day after All Saints'. The dean deposed the insignia of his dignity and gave a report of the state of affairs to {500} the a.s.sembled doctors, who, as usual on all solemn occasions, had previously attended ma.s.s. All their names were then placed in two urns; one containing those of the ancients, the other those of the juniors. The dean shook the urns, and drawing three names from the first and two from the second, proclaimed them aloud. The five doctors thus chosen by lot as electors, and, as such, themselves ineligible, swore to nominate the worthiest, and retired to the chapel to implore the divine aid. They then elected by a majority of their number three doctors, two ancients and one junior. Amidst solemn silence, the dean once more drew the lot, and the name which came forth was proclaimed dean for the next two years. The professors, who for long years were but two in number, were also chosen biennially, and by a similar combination of lot and election. Some good must have arisen from the liability under which every pract.i.tioner of the medical art lay of being called on to teach it. Another not unwise regulation was that which, reversing the order observed in the case of the dean, placed in the professional urn two junior names against one ancient. Long practice of teaching is apt to wear out the powers of the most able. Considering the times, the elements of instruction were abundantly supplied. The bachelors were not permitted to do more than comment upon and expound the ancients, and their programme was furnished to them. The professors took the higher and more original branches; they alone could dogmatize from the great pulpit of the amphitheatre (_ex superiore cathedra_). The teaching embraced, according to the quaint phraseology of the day: 1. natural things, viz., anatomy and physiology; 2. non-natural things--hygiene and dietetics; 3. things contrary to nature--pathology and therapeutics.

In the year 1634 a course of lectures on surgery, delivered in Latin, and exclusively for the medical students, was added--a practical course of surgery in French already existed for the barber apprentices; and the faculty began to perceive that if they would keep their supremacy over the barber-surgeons, it would be as well to know as much as their disciples.

The oath taken by the professors is remarkable, especially the exordium: "We swear and solemnly promise to give our lessons in long gowns with wide sleeves, having the square cap on our heads, and the scarlet scarf on our shoulders." This we see was their first duty.

Their second engagement was to give their lessons uninterruptedly, and never by deputy, save in case of urgent necessity; each lecture to last an hour at least, and to be delivered daily, except in vacation time, which extended from the vigil of St. Peter and St. Paul, the 28th of June, to that of the exaltation of the cross, the 13th of September, and on festival days, which were pretty numerous, including also certain other solemnities, as well as the vigils of the greater feasts, when the schools were closed, _causa confessionis_, as the statutes have it.

Practical instruction was much more meagre than the oral, but this is hardly to be imputed as a fault. Anatomy cannot be learned except by dissection, and no bodies but those of criminals were procurable. The faculty had to look to crime to help on its progress in this study.

When an execution took place, the dean received formal notice, and convoked the doctors and students on the occasion "to make an anatomy," as it was called. When the faculty was at peace with the surgeons, the latter were favored with an invitation. By a strange prejudice, theory and practice, as we have noticed, were kept distinct. The learned professor would have demeaned himself by becoming an operator, while the acting surgeon was condemned to be a mere intelligent machine, and was formally interdicted from being initiated in the higher mysteries of the profession. It was a barber who generally filled this inferior office, and he not unfrequently would display more knowledge than his masters; for which {501} offense he was sure to be severely reprimanded. "_Doctor non sinat dissectorem divagari, sed contineat in officio dissecandi_"--"Let not the doctor suffer the dissector to stray beyond his province, but keep him to his duty of dissecting." This is one of the rules laid down in the statutes. He was to work on and hold his tongue. But not only was the barber condemned to silence--a hard sentence, some will say, on one of his loquacious profession--but he was to receive no pay. For remuneration he was to look to his brethren of the razor. There were more facilities for the study of botany than for any other practical branch of the medical science. Beside the garden in the Rue de la Bucherie, the doctors had afterward the use of the Jardin Royal founded by Richelieu; and these advantages do not seem to have been by any means neglected. Clinical instruction was peculiarly defective.

Absorbed by erudition, philosophy, and the interminable disquisitions of the schools, our medical forefathers seem to have forgotten that experimental knowledge can be obtained only by the bedside of the sick. Most of the students had never seen a single patient before they reached the honors of the baccalaureate. After this they attached themselves to some doctor, whom they followed on his rounds, in order to learn the application of what they had theoretically mastered, and were by him introduced to his clients, much as was the practice in the days of ancient Rome. The poor sufferer's room was thus not unfrequently turned into a pedantic lecture-hall. We instinctively recall to mind Moliere's two Diafoiruses, father and son, stationing themselves each on one side of the unhappy patient, and discoursing in pompous medical phraseology of the character of his pulse and of the humors of his body. [Footnote 71] The practical and, as such, the most important department of medical science received, it must be confessed, the least attention. All the prizes, whether of honor or emolument, which the future held out, tended to concentrate zeal and emulation on dialectics. It seemed as if the medical art were designed for the benefit of the doctors rather than the doctored, and that it was of more importance to be able to descant learnedly upon a malady than to cure it. To figure advantageously at one of those solemn public sittings of the medical body, which were often graced with the presence of members of the high aristocracy and of the magisterial body; to be able to deliver a brilliant harangue, and confound an opponent by a well-timed and well-chosen quotation--such was the highest ambition of the student. To preside with distinction over the discussion of a thesis--such was the battle-field on which the doctor hoped to win his laurels. If he acquitted himself with applause, he had gained a victory which raised him higher in his own esteem, and in that of the world at large, than the most successful practice of his profession could possibly do. The first two articles of the statutes contain this spirit in a condensed form, and may be regarded as the abridged decalogue of the faculty, summing up their duty toward G.o.d and toward man: 1. the divine offices shall be celebrated with the customary forms, and in the usual places, at the same hours and on the same days as heretofore; 2. the medical students shall frequently attend public disputations and dissertations.

[Footnote 71: "_Duriuscule repoussant, et meme un peu capricant."

"L'intemperie de son parenchyme splenique et l'etat de ses meats cholidoques_."]

The process through which the student had to pa.s.s in order to make his way to his degree of licentiate was a trying ordeal. The examination for the bachelor's degree, after a few previous solemnities, including the usual attention first to religion, next to dress and formal state, lasted a week, during which the candidate might be questioned not only by the regular examiners on the usual round of the natural, the non-natural, and the unnatural, but by any doctor present, each having the right to propose a certain number of questions. In conclusion, the aspirant {502} had to comment on some aphorism of Hippocrates. When the examiners gave in their report, votes were taken, and a favorable majority, secured to the aspirant his degree. The new bachelors swore to keep the honorable secrets, and observe all the practices, customs, and statutes of the faculty; to pay homage to the dean and to all the masters; to aid the faculty against all opponents and all illicit pract.i.tioners, and to submit to the punishments which it might inflict; to a.s.sist in gown at all the ma.s.ses ordered by the faculty, coming in at least before the epistle, and remaining till the end; and, finally, to a.s.sist at all the academic exercises and disputations of the schools during two years, where they were to maintain some theses on medicine or hygiene, observing good order and decorum in conducting their argument.

Their great ordeal was now to come. One is amazed to read of the succession of tilts they had to run in the intellectual tourney of these two probationary years; how from St. Martin to the Carnival they had to maintain, always in full dress and before a large a.s.sembly, their _quodlibetary_ [Footnote 72] theses of physiology or medicine; how from Ash-Wednesday to vacation time it was the turn of the Cardinal theses, so called from their inst.i.tution by Cardinal d'Estoutteville. These chiefly related to hygienic questions. It is from among these latter that most of those puerile and absurd queries have been extracted which have drawn down so much ridicule on the faculty. It is scarcely possible to imagine that such questions as the following can have been intended for serious discussion: Are heroes the children of heroes? Are they bilious? Is it good to get drunk once a month? Is woman an imperfect work of nature? Is sneezing a natural act? It is only fair, however, to remember that by far the greater number of the subjects proposed were of a very different character, and such as might profitably be considered at the present day. But if the frequent occurrence of these intellectual jousts was trying to the combatant, their interminable length was perfectly appalling. From six o'clock to eight he had to stand a preliminary skirmish with the bachelors. For the next three hours he had to encounter nine doctors, who successively entered the lists, each bringing his fresh vigor to bear on the exhausted candidate. The sitting ended with a general a.s.sault, in which all present had liberty to take a share and overwhelm the poor bachelor with a very hail-storm of interrogatories, to which he had to reply single-handed. During the Cardinal theses the debate was still hotter and more prolonged. From five in the morning till midday, the candidate was plied with questions by the bachelors, all ready to pounce upon him at the slightest flaw in his argument or the merest slip of his tongue. As a climax of cruelty, during the _quodlibetary_ examinations he was bound to furnish his persecutors with refreshment in an adjoining apartment, of which he alone was forbidden to partake. The sound of the great clock striking twelve must have been a joyful reprieve to the athlete in the ring; the wonder is that any const.i.tution could stand the probationary two years during which this process was energetically kept up.

[Footnote 72: So called because selected at pleasure.]

At the close of this period the candidates were subjected to private examination before the doctors, in order to ascertain their practical capacity and personal qualifications for exercising the medical art.

Great strictness prevailed on all points which nearly concerned the honor and interests of the faculty; and if the candidate had ever practiced any manual art, including surgery, he was bound on oath to renounce it for the future. Then followed a separate private examination by each individual doctor as to a thousand personal details affecting the competence of the applicant. A secret scrutiny then decided on the admissibility, not as yet the admission, of {503} the candidates to the honors and privileges of actual members of the faculty. The spirit of the old days was preserved even in the seventeenth century, and the licentiates had to receive ecclesiastical sanction and a quasi-ordination. They proceeded accordingly in procession to the house of the chancellor of the academy, to whom they were presented by the dean, who, on their request, fixed a day for their reception. This form was one of the most cherished traditions of the university. Gallican as was the spirit of that body, it gloried in tracing its privileges and const.i.tution to the Holy See; a cheap homage, which entailed no inconvenience, and of which at times it knew how to avail itself in its contests with the king and the parliament.

The chancellor, who was a canon of the metropolitan see of Paris, had long enjoyed sovereign jurisdiction over the schools; and although in the seventeenth century his power was purely nominal, no one disputed his right upon this occasion to represent the sovereign Pontiff, the supreme teacher of the Catholic world. Other curious ceremonies attended the solemn admittal to the licentiate. All the high functionaries of state, and other important personages, were invited to attend the schools on an appointed day, in order to learn from the paranymph the names and t.i.tles of the medical pract.i.tioners whom the faculty were about to present to the city--nay, to the whole world: "_Quos, quales, et quot medicos urbi, alque adeo universo orbi, medicorum collegium is...o...b..ennio sit suppeditaturum._" The paranymph, as is well known, was, among the Greeks, the friend of the bridegroom, who accompanied him in his chariot when he went to fetch home the bride. Now it was held that the new licentiate was about to espouse the faculty, much as the Doge of Venice married the sea. The friend of the spouse, the paranymph, was in fact the dean, who presented the young spouses to the chancellor with a complimentary address. That dignitary invited the a.s.sembly to repair on a fixed day to the great archiepiscopal hall, which upon this occasion was thrown open to all the notabilities of the capital, who attended to add honor to the solemnity. Then the list of the candidates was read out in their order of merit, as previously decided after a strict inquiry by the doctors.

They immediately fell on their knees, bareheaded, in an att.i.tude of deep recollection, to receive the apostolic benediction given by the chancellor in these terms: "_Auctoritate Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae, qua fungor in hoc parte, do tibi licentium legendi, interpretandi, et faciendi medicinam hic et ubique terrarum, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti_." A question was then proposed by this dignitary to the licentiate first in the order of merit, who was bound to give proof of his competency by solving it on the spot. As the chancellor was not a doctor, and as the a.s.sembly was miscellaneous, this query was usually religious or literary, and, to judge from the recorded questions, rather curious and subtle than profitable. The whole a.s.sembly forthwith repaired in a body to the cathedral to thank our Blessed Lady for the happy conclusion of a work begun under her auspices. With his hand stretched over the altar of the martyrs, the chancellor murmured a short prayer, the purport of which was calculated to remind the newly-elected that, belonging henceforth as they did specially to the Church, they ought to be prepared to sacrifice themselves in all things, even to their very life: _usque ad effusionem sanguinis_. It depended entirely upon the licentiates themselves whether or no they were ultimately decorated with the doctor's cap, which conferred the full privileges at once of the medical corporation and of the university to which it belonged; and although a few, from modesty or other causes, declined to aim at this honor, with by far the greater number it was the consequence and complement of the licentiate. The degree of licentiate introduced the recipient to the public; {504} that of doctor admitted him into the very sanctuary of the faculty. Accordingly it was conferred, not less ceremoniously, but more privately. It was, so to say, a family affair.

Although, as we have said, there was no further examination respecting medical competency, another minute inquiry was made into the life and morals of the applicant, which was followed, if the scrutiny proved satisfactory, by a preparatory act called the Vesperie, because it took place in the afternoon. At this sitting, the president addressed the candidate in a solemn discourse, intended to impress him with a high sense of the dignity of the healing art, and of the maxims of honor and probity which ought to guide its professors. The ordeal of questions was not altogether closed; for we find the president proposing a query, and entering into a discussion with the candidate, who had thus still something to undergo before he pa.s.sed on from the cla.s.s of the questioned to the more enviable rank of the questioners.

Upon the great day, the doctor in _posse_, preceded by the mace-bearers and bachelors, with the president on his left, and followed by the doctors _in esse_ selected to argue with him, proceeded to the hall of the great school. The grand apparitor then addressed him thus: "Sir candidate for the doctorate, before you are initiated, you have to take three oaths,"--"_Domine doctorande, antequam incipias, habes tria juramenta_." The three oaths were: 1. to observe the rights, statutes, laws, and venerable customs of the faculty; 2. to a.s.sist the day following the feast of St. Luke at the ma.s.s for deceased doctors; 3. to combat with all his strength against the illicit pract.i.tioners of medicine, whatever might be their rank or their condition in life. "Will you swear to observe these things?"--"_Vis ista jurare?_"--asked the grand apparitor; and the candidate replied with that memorable _Juro_ ("I swear") which was Moliere's last word. [Footnote 73] The president, after a brief address, turned toward him with the doctorial square cap in his hand, and making with it the sign of the cross in the air, placed it on the head of the candidate, to which he then administered a slight blow with two of his fingers, and forthwith bestowed upon him the _accolade_. The recipient was now duly dubbed doctor. He made immediate use of his new powers by asking a question of one of the doctors present. The president had then a tilt with the doctor who had presided at the Vesperie, and the sitting was closed by the new doctor's delivering a discourse of thanksgiving to G.o.d, to the faculty, and to his friends and relations present. The statutes enjoin that this speech should be _elegant_. We may conceive that the notion of elegance entertained by the faculty differed considerably from that which the word suggests to our minds. On the St. Martin's Day following the recently-chosen doctor did the honors of his new grade by presiding over a _quodlibetary_ thesis. This was a sort of bye-day, being out of course. It was called the "_acte pastillaire_," in allusion probably to the sugary wafers presented to the dean stamped with his likeness, or to the _bonbons_, of which there was a general distribution on the occasion. The next day the new doctor was entered on the registers, and took his place on the junior bench for ten years.

[Footnote 73: The great comic dramatist played the part of Argan on the first representation of his play of the _Malade Imaginaire_, now always performed on the anniversary of his death. He had probably long had within him the seeds of a mortal complaint; and after p.r.o.nouncing the word _Juro_ in his character of Bachelor of Medicine taking his degree, which is the object of the famous ceremonial ballet succeeding the comedy, he was seized with a suffocating attack, and left the playhouse only to expire shortly afterward.]

Every one must be struck with the close resemblance which the famous ceremony in Moliere's _Malade Imaginaire_ bears to those scholastic solemnities. Who, indeed, would now remember these antiquated customs of an age from which we are drifting more rapidly in habits of thought and {505} in manners than even the stream of time is carrying us, if the comic dramatist had not conferred upon them the immortality of ridicule? Yet it may well be questioned if it were not for Moliere's ludicrous picture, from which we have formed our notions and judgment of the old faculty, whether, did we now for the first time discover in some old forgotten doc.u.ment the record of these proceedings, our impression might not be widely different; whether we might not see as much in them to command our respect as to provoke us to laughter.

Old-fashioned ways--that is, ways which no longer reflect the ideas and feelings of the day--always lend themselves specially to ridicule.

In Moliere's time society was beginning to divest itself of its mediaeval garb, and men's minds were being formed, not always to their advantage, on a new type. The old type, however, was so strongly impressed on the medical corporation--in which the traditionary spirit was peculiarly powerful--that the garb, which, as we know, follows rather than precedes a change, still sat naturally on the venerable body of doctors. So entirely was this the case, that where, as individuals, they were more or less under the influence of the Spirit of the day, in their professional capacity they had as it were a second self, clinging tenaciously in all that concerned the faculty to ancient ideas and forms. Of this combination the well-known Guy Patin, to whom we may hereafter have occasion to allude, was a curious example. It is difficult to look upon men performing acts, to them most serious, however absurd in our eyes, as purely ridiculous.

a.s.suredly they have their respectable side. Neither is it easy to believe that all these good doctors, indefatigable as we have seen them, and enthusiastically devoted as they were to their calling, were all such pedantic idiots as Moliere has painted them. It is a well-known fact that the inimitable piece of buffoonery to which we have alluded was concocted in the salon of Madame de la Sabliere, a noted rendezvous of the "_beaux esprits_" of the day. Moliere furnished the canvas and laid-in the colors of the first painting; but his witty friends had each some lively touch to contribute. It is probable that two or three of the medical profession--men who were more or less sceptical as to the perfection of every saying and doing of the faculty, and with whom Moliere is known to have lived in habits of intimacy--were present at these meetings, and supplied many of the technical expressions. It does not follow that these physicians were actuated by any spite against their order, any more than Cervantes hated chivalry, to which, while quizzing its eccentricities and exaggerations, he unwittingly gave a fatal blow.

One remark forcibly suggests itself, when we consider the hyperbolical praise which the medical body so liberally administered to itself, and with which Moliere has made us familiar in pa.s.sages of his comedies which can scarcely be considered as caricatures. We are apt severely to censure as grossly servile and almost idolatrous the flattery with which the men of letters and courtiers of Louis XIV.'s reign dosed the monarch. But some abatement must be made of this harsh judgment when we find the reception of an obscure bachelor to his degree made the occasion of a prodigal expenditure of the most exaggerated metaphors.

He is a new star, a pharos destined to shed its light on the latest posterity; he is the compendium of all virtue, talent, and glory; he equals, if he does not surpa.s.s, all the heroes of antiquity. And if such were the eulogies bestowed on a successful candidate for the honors of the faculty, what was the laudation reserved for the faculty itself, the source of all this splendor? Hyperbole went mad. We find, for instance, an orator taking as his text, "The physician is like to G.o.d." He sets forth this resemblance in the attributes of power, beneficence, mercy: physicians are {506} the ministers and the "colleagues" of G.o.d. But this is not enough. The orator kindles as he proceeds: all comes from G.o.d; _ergo_, evil as well as good. "But from you, medical gentlemen," he exclaims, "comes nothing but good.

Doubtless G.o.d is just in afflicting us, and has his reasons. But still evil is evil, and medicine is always salutary." (Rather a bold a.s.sertion!) The conclusion is, that we should owe more to the physician than to G.o.d, seeing that, while the Lord wounds, the physician heals, did we not after all owe to him the physician himself.

One lost trait to complete this sketch of the old customs of the faculty. Moliere has hinted at it in the closing line of the exordium of his comic president:

"Salus, honos, et argentum, _Atque bonum appet.i.tum_."

The culinary and gastronomic side of the medical physiognomy is not the least curious. Brillat-Savarin, who has made a cla.s.sified catalogue of gourmands, places physicians under the head of gourmands by virtue of their profession. It is, he says, in the nature of things. Everything contributes to make them gluttons. The hopes and the grat.i.tude of patients combine to pamper them. They are crammed like pigeons, and at the end of six months have become irretrievable gourmands. There seem to be reasonable grounds for this accusation. In what may be called the heroic age of the faculty--the palmy days of medical ceremonial, which had already begun to decline in Moliere's time, although the ancient forms were in the main preserved--corporation repasts were frequent. After every examination the doctors dined; after every thesis they dined--on this latter occasion at the expense of the successful candidate. On St. Luke's Day they dined; and again when the accounts were given in, and when a dean was elected. When a chair of botany was erected; a "botanic banquet"

ensued as a matter of course. But it would be too tedious to enumerate all these feastings, since almost everything furnished the pretext for an entertainment. At one time, the faculty even officially appointed two of their number to taste the wines before their repasts. Under the pretence of hygienic considerations, questions appertaining to what may be styled transcendental cookery were of frequent occurrence; and it was gravely debated whether salad ought to be eaten at the first course, and potatoes at the second; whether it were good to eat nuts after fish, cheese after meat, etc.

We will conclude with some reflections of a more pleasing character as to the spirit which animated the old faculty. Some of its statutes are memorials of the virtuous principles which, in spite of all absurdities of form, were held in honor by their body. For instance, the doctors were enjoined to cultivate friendship with one another.

They were never to visit a patient without an express invitation. The juniors were always to rise before the ancients, and the ancients were to protect the juniors, and treat them with kindness. The secrets of the sick were sacred; and no one was to reveal what he had seen, heard, or so much as suspected in a patient's house. Gravity, mildness, and decorum were to reign in their a.s.semblies, where each was to speak in his proper order and without interrupting others.

Disorderly behavior, recriminations, and abusive language are to be banished for ever from the faculty. These regulations are admirable; and at any rate bear witness to the sound views of the body of whose collective wisdom they were the expression. Indeed the great strength of the faculty resided in its attachment to its salutary moral laws.

Mere formalism would never have possessed such vitality and endurance.

When we penetrate into the life of this old society, we meet with a tone of genuine uprightness, manliness, and candor quite refreshing to the mind. We may add that {507} most of the great liberal professions--the bar, the magistracy, and the educational bodies of the seventeenth century--make the same favorable impression upon us.

They exhibit the _bourgeoisie_ of the day in a respectable light, as manifesting in no ordinary degree the qualities of probity, disinterestedness, and the family spirit, with all the sober virtues and homely charities which appertain to it.