Chapter 3 - Medicine

Summary

Providing an overview of health, medicine and medical practitioners in France at the time of Molière, this chapter shows that, unsurprisingly, medical treatment and access to trained practitioners depended on social status and geographical location, although life expectancy for adults was not as uneven as we might expect. While humoral medicine continued to dominate, key advances were accepted over time, and the publication of medical works in the vernacular disseminated knowledge among literate lay persons. The challenge is to recognise what Molière’s audiences would have found credible or risible. His depiction of illness and medicine belongs to the traditions of farce, comedy-ballet and extravagant entertainments, and should not be read as a reflection on his own health or treatment by doctors. Two farces (Le Médecin volant, Le Médecin malgré lui) and a farcical scene in Dom Juan derive broad humour from a character grotesquely impersonating a physician. In contrast, three comedy-ballets (L’Amour médecin, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Le Malade imaginaire) feature genuine physicians treating patients whom they seek to exploit for financial gain if they are delusional and gullible. Yet music, dance and entertainment are also artfully contrived to restore health, at least in the world of the theatre.