MEDICINE IN THE LITERATURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. All _savants_ who have studied the literary and historical part of medicine fully recognize the powerful interest it offers, especially that medicine portrayed in the works of poets and dramatic authors of the Middle Ages. It is in the works of these writers, in fact, that we find the most exact appreciation of medical ideas of the epoch, because we can judge their morals, criticise their faults, account for their tendencies—all without bringing in medical science at any given moment, with its teachings, errors, and prejudices. In all that concerns the Middle Ages, we shall find this first in the writings of philosophers, in certain dramatic works, known under the name of _Moralities_, because their purport was to demonstrate, under the form of an allegory, a precept of morality. The personages of such dramatic scenes always represent ideas, often abstract and usually fantastic,—The World, Justice, Good Company, Gourmands, Dinner, Banquet, Experience, Gout, Jaundice, Dropsy, and Apoplexy. A second class, errors and prejudices, are seldom wanting in some poetical works, in _comedies and farces_, _satirical_ and _indecent_ poems, that recall some of the early productions of the Latin Theatre. Eventually impressed with the Gallic spirit of levity, these short pieces, enjoyed by clerks and small tradesmen, contain cutting criticisms on the weaknesses of mankind, doctors in particular. These plays are considered the embryo of the French stage, which, later, has been immortalized by the most illustrious of our writers of comedy. An unaffected gayety often breaks out in brilliant, sparkling dialogues in these frivolous farces, and assures the instant success of the play. The public laughed in high glee, without prudery, at the broad I insinuations and comical acts in such representations. So the writers of that period went into raptures when they chanced to make a hit with their satirical tirades, that amused the passing age. Sometimes the clergy were satirized as well as the doctor; even the Pope himself received the attention of the comedians, as witness the carnival of 1511. Even the avarice of Louis XII. was ridiculed. Comedy’s procession represented Justice by its attorneys, shysters and police; but, above all, comedy delighted to burlesque the doctor, _Facultas saluberrema medicinæ parisiensis_, ridiculing them like the rest of the world, without the least respect for their robe or bonnet.