The Sun King’s Physicians
When people think of physicians, they think of people who save lives every day. Well, during the Enlightenment this was not true. During the Enlightenment, physicians existed to help the rich people with their physical problems, for example to ease their headaches. Only the very rich could afford a physician, though at this time you may have been healthier without a physician “helping you”.
Louie XIV’s (also known as the Sun King) physicians probably did a lot more harm than they helped. Getting bled with leeches was a common treatment to, well, pretty much anything during that time. Though since you need the antibodies in the white blood cells to fight disease, draining the body of blood doesn’t really make sense to me. They didn’t have this knowledge in the Sun King’s time, and it must somehow have made a lot of sense then.
The Sun King’s physicians helped, or tried to help, even the smallest of the King’s discomforts, such as a minor headache or acid mouth. However, I suspect that a lot of the King’s discomforts were in fact caused by his physicians’ strange treatments.
The most radical thing done to the Sun King by his physicians was the removing of his teeth. His physician at the time had recently learned that the teeth were the largest risk of getting an infection in the body. Therefore, he figured that he’d remove the Sun King’s teeth while they were still strong and healthy. Makes sense, right?
Unfortunately his physician accidentally cracked his lower jaw and removed a bit of his palate. This led to the king only being able to eat fluids, and the food often got stuck in the mouth where the piece of the palate was missing, which led to the King getting acid mouth and a horribly bad breath since the food could stay there for weeks. But since he was the king of France, he did the fashionable thing in France at the time and drowned himself in perfume; creating an awful odour (actually washing yourself in water was only for the poor who couldn’t afford perfume).
Having a physician for yourself is not something I’d say no to. Imagine having a doctor around 24/7, attending your slightest discomforts at all times. Doesn’t that seem wonderful? Then imagine having a doctor around 24/7 who would remove your teeth, crack your lower jaw and drain you of blood as often as he could. Doesn’t seem as appealing anymore, does it?
Most people are deathly afraid to go the dentist’s today, imagine how scary it would be if they would remove all of your teeth while you were still “young and healthy”. I, for one, would never dare go to the dentist if this was the case, especially not if they were as clumsy and obviously untrained as the Sun King’s physician.
Getting bled with leeches would not be something I’d look forward to when going to the doctor. I’ve got this crazy idea that my blood is to more use to me in my veins than in some leeches. If anyone disagrees, please give me a reason to change my mind about this.
However appealing it does sound to have a physician of your own, I do prefer the life-saving kind of physicians instead of the headache/acid mouth-curing physicians.
Louie XIV did in some miraculous way manage to become 77 years old, despite his physicians’ unintended attempts to kill him by their “treatments”. Or maybe because of these treatments, though that doesn’t seem likely to me. But who knows, maybe we should all get rid of our teeth while we still can and get leeches in some safe place at home so we can drain ourselves of blood whenever we get sick?
For more information on the medical care of Louie XIV (1638-1715), please go to:
Good work Lia, I really enjoyed reading this article just as the other ones on the blog.
I have nothing more to say than that I totally agree with you that I prefer the life-saving kind of physicians instead of the headache/acid mouth-curing physicians. I am also glad that I didn't heard this story when I was younger because then I would never dare to go to the dentist, who still is a part of my nightmare together with some doctors.
However, wasn't this the story Ylva told us about on any lesson? When I hear it I think it's so scary that "doctors" actually did those things to people and I associate this a little bit about the circumcision that still is taking part in some places, where the mother or grandmother does the circumcision on their own childrens or grandchildren. I think it is very frustrating to hear about those things because it makes me very sad and angry that girls have to go through things like that, I can't even imagine how much it pain they have to feel.
Good work Lia, I really enjoyed reading this article just as the other ones on the blog.
I have nothing more to say than that I totally agree with you that I prefer the life-saving kind of physicians instead of the headache/acid mouth-curing physicians. I am also glad that I didn't heard this story when I was younger because then I would never dare to go to the dentist, who still is a part of my nightmare together with some doctors.
However, wasn't this the story Ylva told us about on any lesson? When I hear it I think it's so scary that "doctors" actually did those things to people and I associate this a little bit about the circumcision that still is taking part in some places, where the mother or grandmother does the circumcision on their own childrens or grandchildren. I think it is very frustrating to hear about those things because it makes me very sad and angry that girls have to go through things like that, I can't even imagine how much it pain they have to feel.
Leeches are still used today, you know? If you get your finger cut off doctors will use leeches, becasue when they feed, the blood in the finger starts flowing again and the doctors get's an easier time re-attaching your newly severed finger:)
Nice written article (again) Lia!
When I read your article I didn't really know to cry or to laugh! I feel so bad for Louie XIV, poor guy! Even though he reached the miraculous age of 77 I think I would have preferd to die a bit earlier to escape that pain he had to suffer.
Even if I could get a Doctor with a little bit more knowledege than Louie XIV's doctors recieved I don't thonk i would want one anyway. Imagine someone cheeking you health 31(24/7). I actually would prefer getting a bit ill than having a doctor hanging around all the time. Don't you think it would be a bit irritating?
Alexandra: I'm not sure about which story you're mean, Ylva has told us many great stories during lessons :) However, we did some work on this during swedish a while ago so you may recognise some from there.
This can certainly be compared to circumcision (unsure about spelling), however the main difference is that Louie XIV agreed to everything his doctors did, or he at least had the power to fire them if he didn't like this. Girls who are circumcised usually never have a choice, and I have trouble imagining someone wanting to be circumcised. Therefore I think that circumsicion, which is still going on today, are much worse than what was done to rich people by their uncompetent physiciants during the Enlightenment. Seems like we have taken a step backwards in progress when it comes to this, doesn't it?
Gabriel: I did not know this, do you know in which parts of the world this is done? I've got trouble imagining swedish doctors using this method...
Also, one problem with using leeches are that since the blood starts flowing so much, doctors sometimes have a problem with stopping the flow of the blood :)
Nora: I think that it would be a bit irritating, especially if the doctor would be around you when you're sleeping! However, having a doctor who you could call on whenever you wanted doesn't sound too bad to me. At least if the doctor was properly trained and nothing like Louie XIV's doctor :)
And maybe Louie XIV would have got even older if he had better trained phycisiants? At least, I think so :)
you have to understand that the blood does not start spurting out like a firehose. If you want an easy explanation to what the leeches actually do i would recommend this page http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3858087.stm
The leeches sort of "reboots" the circulationsystem in the severed limb.
I enjoyed reading you'r blogg, and I agree.
It was very interesting and I learned something new about physicians back in the day. Even though most of their treatments weren't correct I think they had good intentions. But I'm happy that we've gained more knowledge so when we visit the physicians we don't have to get all of our teeth pulled out because we're at risk of getting an infection.
Yes, Swedish lesson it was. I agree that there is a small difference between them about if you want it or not want it, but I think that in some places the girls will be bad treated if they haven't been circumcised so therefor I think that even if they don't really want to be it, they feel that if they want to "fit in" they have to do it and will feel better in that way.
Agree with you, it would be awesome with a personal doctor to call anytime but still a bit un necessary if someone else needed the doctor more than i did.
It would be interseting too see how old Louie would have been if he hadn't had his (to me) terrible doctors. Or if he might have died earlier? :)
Seems like leeches can be useful after all! I simply read that the Sun King's physicians sometimes had trouble controlling the blood flow, but I guess our doctor's today are better skilled now than they were during the Enlightenment :)
Ronja:
I certainly think that the physicians didn't mean to cause more harm during the Enlightenment, though sometimes they did. However, they may simply have been after the money, since only rich people could afford physicians I guess they earned a lot of money from being physiciants.
Alexandra:
Yes, you are completely right! In many places where circumsicion is common, girls who don't go through that painful process are usually shunned and are sometimes not allowed to marry. However, in many cases when girls refuse to be circumcised, they are held by force by for example relatives, while someone performes the circumcision on the poor girl.
Nora:
Well, we could always take two identical twins and perform what Louie XIV's physiciants did on one of them and leave the other one without any medical care and see who would be better off. Though that's an awful thing to do, which I don't really mean that anyone should try...
Yeah that would be awesome, don't really think we have legally right to do that, but why not try? ;)
Nora, we could have it as a CAS project ;) if it was legal, which it hardly is...
Did you know that king Louie XIV bathed THREE TIMES IN HIS LIFE???
Can you imagine taking a shower just three times in your entire life??
...
Referring to the 'doctors', I guess we should just appreciate the times we live in and be thankful that we weren't born back in the days... :)
Kamila: i have heard that the common folk bathed two times in thier entire life, when you were born and when you died (so the corpse wouldn't smell like...well, death) so that third time Louie bathed must have been a royal bonus :D
Haha I've heard similar things to that- which is why the French court used so much perfume. Only poor people who couldn't afford perfume actually washed to get rid of the smell, rich people could simply drown themself in an odour of perfume instead :)
Sounds lovely, right? I've heard that the reason that the English court travelled around so much to different nobles, especially in the summer, was because they created such a horrible smell so they couldn't stand staying in one place for so long, since the smell became unbearable over time.
