Fended off with Humour. Medics and Medical Procedures as Objects of Ancient Jokes

Abstract

Ancient literature, especially funerary epigrams, offers a large number of jokes about bad doctors where they are presented as (often) being dangerous, stupid, incompetent or greedy. In the present study, a basic classification of these jokes, as found for example in Martial or in the Anthologia Graeca, is suggested where the ubiquity of such outpours are recognized as a kind of psychological valve intended to counter the utter powerlessness of a man in the face of an all-powerful profession. On these grounds, the doctor can be attacked as personified evil to an extent that the very name of one spelt death. In addition, medics can be satirized as dangerously ignorant quacks dealing in dubious procedures, and this is applicable to various areas of medicine from ophthalmology to surgery and internal medicine. Finally, the moral misconduct of doctors, their greed, as well as sexual abuse is humorously put in the spotlight. An analysis of a piece by Ausonius is appended to offer a recognized way to tackle inept physicians — to deny them of their status as medics.