A good doctor was like a real treasure to the king. He took care of the well-being in everyday court life, healed a disease that prevented him from performing royal duties, he treated wounds during a war expedition, and at the same time he listened and advised on political matters, and brought his status to the pride of the kingdom. The prestige was not just any, because the court medics of the rulers were real people of the Renaissance. Their knowledge, intuition, experience and wealth of interests intimidated the powerful and aroused true pride of the crowned heads. Who were the doctors of the kings of Poland?
- Polish kings chose doctors with thorough education (mostly foreign) and versatile interests
- Among the court medics of Polish rulers, you can find botanists and natural scientists, as well as a geographer, chemist and musicologist.
- It was not uncommon for kings to bring in doctors from abroad; Italians, Spaniards and Swedes were very popular
- Some royal medics aroused a lot of controversy with their activities. There was a loud dispute between two medics of King Stefan Batory, who accused each other of killing the ruler
- More current information can be found on the Onet homepage
Music, nature and the royal court
When we follow the fate of the doctors of the Polish rulers, we will quickly find out that acquiring thorough knowledge in the field of medical sciences was not their only idea for a professional life. There is hardly a single one of them who rested on their laurels while receiving a medical diploma. Many have sincerely been interested in other fields of science, often very remote from medicine.
A good example of such a Renaissance man was Wawrzyniec Krzysztof Mitzler de Kolof, or rather Lorenz Christoph Mizler. Born in 1711 in German Heidenheim, the personal physician of King Augustus III of Saxony went down in history primarily as… musicologist. He was educated in this direction in Leipzig under the supervision of Johann Sebastian Bach himself, but the author Passion according to St. Matthew he was not the only great composer with whom the future royal medic was in regular contact. He founded a correspondence music society, including Georg Friedrich Händel, Georg Philipp Telemann and Leopold Mozart, father of Wolfgang Amadeus.
In addition to music theory, Mitzler also studied theology, philosophy, law and medicine. Although it was this last field of science that brought him to the royal court, in his professional activity he combined all the sciences acquired during his studies, devoting a lot of time to editorial work – first in Germany, where he published a music magazine, then in Poland, editing scientific and popular science magazines. and historical. He even established his own printing house and font foundry.
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Other royal medics also had editorial aspirations. The writings they left behind, often the result of many years of work, were often a turning point in the development of a given field and for years served scientists as the basis for further observations.
Such a work of life was, for example, the “Antidotarium” published in 1472 Jana Stanko. An outstanding natural scientist published a dictionary combining natural and medical issues, in which, along with Latin names, their Polish equivalents appeared for the first time. Stanko thus gained the name of the precursor of Polish natural terminology. The personal physician of Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk was also distinguished by an exceptional medical intuition. Apparently, it is to him that Jan Długosz, privately his dear friend, owes the cure of his eye disease and kidney stones. The high position of the medic is also evidenced by the fact that the king made him the protector of his sons.
Another doctor – Jan Jaśkiewicz – serving King Stanisław August Poniatowski, he is the author of scientific vocabulary used in mineralogy, and a work related to the subject of “Antidotarium” was published by Nicholas Oelhaf, medic of Władysław IV Vasa. A German botanist has published a book containing descriptions of 348 medicinal plants growing in and around Gdańsk.
Even greater momentum accompanied the publication of the “Treaty on two Sarmatians, Asian and European, and what is in them” and “Polish Chronicle” Maciej Miechowita, lecturer and professor of the Krakow Academy, its eight-time rector, the court physician of Zygmunt I Stary. The first position covered the geography and ethnography of the eastern part of Europe, the second – the geography of the Polish lands. Both were groundbreaking works on a regional (treaty) and local (chronicle) scale.
Against this background, the personal doctor of Jan III Sobieski, who was a Karaim poet and mystic, also looks interesting. Abraham ben Joziaszo is the author of liturgical poetry and many treatises in Hebrew. Among them are treatises not only religious, but also scientific and medical.
Despite the extensive scientific interests of court doctors, many of them have devoted their lives to research in the field of their chosen profession. And yes Ernest Jeremiasz Nejfeld, a physician of two Polish kings (August III of the Sas and Stanisław August Poniatowski), known as the precursor of electrotherapy, published the first medical journal in Poland, and also printed information on the healing properties of Silesian waters.
He also spread his knowledge of balneology Wojciech Oczko – court medic of Zygmunt August, Stefan Batory and Zygmunt III Waza. Another doctor of the latter – Bartłomiej Dylągowski – wrote the first Polish publication on the history of medicine, including biographies of outstanding doctors (“Chronologia medica”).
In turn, Józef Struś, treating Zygmunt I Stary and Zygmunt August, published a work entitled “Sphygmicae artis iam mille ducentos annos perditae et desideratae libri V.”, in which he distinguished the types of heartbeat, described how temperature and nervous state affect them, and what it means in diagnostics.
Similar medical treaties were created by another medic of these rulers – Jan Benedykt Solfa. His writings on the treatment of various diseases and medical ethics, as well as poems and historical, philosophical and theological works, were very popular both in Krakow and Mainz, where they were published. In fact, Solfa was extremely open to scientific cooperation – he maintained regular contact with, among others, Nicolaus Copernicus, Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Italian humanist Celio Calcagnini.
You praise others
Anyway, foreign names were a temptation in themselves. For many Polish rulers, the presence of a Western medic in the royal entourage was a source of pride and a way to raise the rank of the court. The aforementioned Oelhaf and Mizler came to Poland from its close vicinity, but the crowned heads of doctors were often brought to their court from the north or west of Europe.
He went down in history with exceptional merits Aloysius Anzelieri, whom Jan III Sobieski appointed not only a court doctor, but also a secret royal secretary. The doctor of philosophy and medicine from the Venetian Republic came from a noble family. The Count initially came to Poland as a scientist – he was to lecture (physics) at the Zamość Academy.
This adventure ended quickly due to the financial problems of the university, but Anzelieri managed to make friends. First, he worked as a doctor and advisor to Hetman Dymitr Wiśniowiecki himself, later he was a medic of Stanisław Myszkowski, voivode of Bełz. Four years after his arrival in Poland, he became the king’s secretary and doctor, with whom he accompanied, among others, in the Vienna campaign. For his services to the country, he received an indigenate and the title of count.
Another court physician of Sobieski – Bernard O’Connor – came from Ireland and was a naturalist. He studied medicine in France and defended his doctoral dissertation there, in which he described – as the first in Europe – ankylosing spondylitis. He won a place at the king’s side through protection (probably the Venetian envoy Hieronim Alberto de Conti), but he quickly strengthened it by an accurate diagnosis of liver disease in the ruler’s sister, who had previously been unsuccessfully treated for fever.
The doctor’s stay in Poland did not last long. At the royal court, among other things, thanks to his good relations with the king, he had many enemies. He knew that after the king’s death he could not count on keeping the position, so after a year he took the opportunity to leave the capital with Teresa Kunegunda’s retinue as her adjutant physician. He eventually settled in London, where he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and practiced medicine. However, he still felt such a strong connection with Poland that he wrote and published the first English-language publication devoted to Polish history, geography, law and politics.
Stanisław August Poniatowski also sought medical support abroad. The king established “cooperation” with, among others, an Italian Dominikiem Gherrimas well as a doctor of Swedish origin – Karol Fryderyk Hasselquist. On the other hand, an outstanding Krakow surgeon came from Spain Solomon Calahorra – court physician of two Polish rulers: Zygmunt August and Stefan Batory. Apparently, he was brought to the court of the first king by order of Jan Kochanowski himself, whom he had known from his studies. The poet was the royal secretary at that time.
(Un) medical scandals
Calahorra was one of the many foreigners among Stefan Batory’s court doctors. The king also had two Italians by his side, although their fate on Polish soil is associated with numerous controversies. First of them – Simon Simon – he was at risk in his own homeland. He was banished from his hometown for sympathizing with the supporters of the Reformation. He had conflicts in almost every place he stayed – in Geneva, where he argued with Italian Protestants, and in Heidelberg, where he argued with Lutherans. Simoni looked for his own place for a long time – he lived in Leipzig and Prague, among others.
In the end he renounced heresy and came to Poland as a Catholic. After Stefan Batory’s death, however, he fell into another dispute, this time with another court physician – Niccolò Buccellawho, according to him, was supposed to lead to the death of the king with his therapies.
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Bucella also became involved with the Reformation movement, but unlike Simoni, he consistently persevered in the new faith. As an Anabaptist, he was even tried by the Venetian Inquisition, but managed to avoid punishment. He met Stefan Batory during his stay in Transylvania and together with him he went to Krakow, where he settled, opened an apprenticeship and developed other activities (trade and real estate trade).
He was friends with local dissenters and quite actively spread his views, which was why Polish clergymen considered him a dangerous heretic. However, this did not bother either Batory or his successor – Sigismund III Vasa, who not only left Bucella as a court physician, but also kept his current salary.
Italian doctors were not the only royal doctors who aroused conflicting emotions with their activities. A few decades earlier, he had made himself at the royal court Adam from Bochnia – a doctor, philosopher, professor and rector of the Krakow Academy, who put forward bold theses at the time about the dangerous domination of the clergy over the secular state. However, the brave views of the medic did not deter the crowned heads – the humanist was appointed to the court physician by as many as three kings: Jan I Olbracht, Aleksander Jagiellończyk and Sigismund I the Old.
Almost 200 years later, the doctor of Augustus II the Strong experienced a different type of problem – Jan Jerzy Kulmus. The Gdańsk medic, who contributed to the fight against the plague epidemic in the city (1709), entered into a dispute with the councilors. Officials accused him of acting to the detriment of the city (the doctor published illegally, together with another doctor, information about the effects of the prevailing plague), and as if that were not enough, local pharmacists also added their own, who had a grudge against Kulmus for using drugs according to his own recipe.
The medic did not escape punishment, he had to pay a fine and work for a long time to rebuild his tarnished image. Perhaps it was a teaching that the doctor should do what he was called to do, and while working at the royal court, he should pay special attention to what would raise the rank of his superior: good name.
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