Chaucer's Doctour Of Physik Summary

So proceeds the famous medical oath, attributed to Hippocrates, the Greek philosopher-physician of the 5th century B.C. Though the identity of the actual author of this oath is much-debated2, it is still held as the manifesto of the ideal conduct of a physician. Hippocrates was celebrated as a natural philosopher of medicine, who brought the art of healing away from the ancient corpus of magical and religious orientations. Even so, the oath reflects the deep-rooted customary belief in the invocation of the Greek deities associated with health and hygiene, claiming their ‘witness’ as a moral and spiritual authority behind the sacred duty of doctoring. The Hippocratic image of a doctor thus appears to be a bridge between the ancient of supernatural

In medieval England, saints and hermits were often associated with healing. However, a binary was usually maintained, between the ‘divine’ or moral power of cure and medical practice as a ‘profession’. Since Chaucer’s portrayal of the “Doctour of Physik”, the professional doctor in the Western-English literary tradition has acquired associations with maladies – both physical and mental; with delirium, deformity and derangement. Sometimes he is a passive observer of the incurable troubles of existence/being, like the doctor in Macbeth. In the Victorian age, the doctor’s role within the narrative becomes more complex with the ‘improvement’ in the medical sciences and a growing interest in ‘case narratives’. The doctor-character, sometimes represented as a ‘good’ man, stands at odds with the social disease – trying to do his best but unable to transcend the squalor (Bleak House). Dr. Jekyll becomes the victim of his own experiment and cannot sustain his integrity. Wilkie Collins’ doctors often function as agents of dark psychiatry. In Marie Corelli, doctors are often occult philosophers, or ‘tragic’ figures of failure, unable to assume the role of a ‘divine healer’. In Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma, the Victorian doctor-figure becomes both pathetic and ironic, himself being poor,

Another term ‘Niramaya’ (close to ‘cure’) have philosophical and spiritual connotations7, yet they had hardly been at odds with the material and pathological aspect of medical practice since the time of Charaka and Susruta. The ‘Vaidya’ is a curer of bodily diseases; and this concept is inseparable from the spiritual notion of ‘healing’ the mortal of the ‘disease of the world’ (Bhavaroga) as preached by Indian mystics and gurus. In literature, the spiritual tradition is effectively mingled with social reality, psychological insights, material and topical concerns. In Tagore’s Dakghar, the practical concern for physical cure and the transcendental concept of cure in the sense of ‘freedom’ of the soul find allegorical expression through the discourse of two doctors or ‘Kavirajas’. In Arogyaniketan, the doctor of the old school is challenged by the man of modern medical science, but his dedication to the transcendental philosophy of his noble profession ultimately leads him to find the Truth behind the mysteries of life and death and gain the new generation’s respect as well. Banaphul’s doctor-protagonist, Agniswar, has been shown as an incarnation of the curing force of purgation, symbolised as ‘fire’. Manik