Ovos mendici medici. Criticism of medical doctors by Johannes Gregor Macer Szepsius (ca.1530-after 1579)

Abstract

A relationship between literature and medicine has existed since antiquity. A physician often appears in the literary genre of satire as the representative of medicine and is the object of the satire. The barely known humanistic author Johannes Gregor Macer Szepsius (ca.1530-nach 1579) was a humanist who sharply criticized the work and behavior of physicians. We have read, translated and analyzed the satirical verses from his comprehensive poetical work De vera gloria, On the true glory, with respect to content, structure and sources. According to this, physicians are characterized by conceit, ignorance and laziness and therapeutic ineptitude. The comparison with other satirical works shows that much of that which he accuses physicians of is repeated in the history of medicine. Some places are similar to the proverbs from Walter's collection of proverbs from the Middle Ages and others are similar to the invectives of Petrarch. Macer also levels criticism against physicians in his poem about the family tree of his friend Anton Schneeberger that appears in Schneeberger's work De bona valetudine militum conservanda liber.