Here I protested and told the pastor that this was too much praise, and would he please strike that. But he answered that my opinion was one thing, the opinion of my patients and his parish as well as the city of Leipzig and the electoral and ducal courts where I had served, another. If I refused this praise, it would be a reproach to the princes and lords whom I had served, suggesting an inability to have found a good physician. So we left the text as it was. I must say that it was not difficult to persuade me. Who is free from vanity and does not set a high value on the memory of posterity?
Pastor Weinrich then went on to talk about the difference between the spiritual and the fleshly heart, and here he spoke what I as a doctor would not have said otherwise:
Fleshly hearts search for the greatest good in bonis corporis, which means the good of the body, so that there might be strength, beauty, fresh and healthy limbs, and whatever else might grace and adorn the human form. But all this is of short and uncertain duration. As Bernhardus says: “How soon a little fever comes or another seemingly small illness, and gone are strength and beauty, and some are so wretchedly mauled that they are frightened by their own shadow. Beauty and strength of the body are void and fleeting, and the older a man gets, the more he is reduced in beauty and bodily strength.”
In all my professional life, I say here in all modesty, I have always sought both health and strength of body and soul because I found that both are connected, and the doctor’s mindful encouragement and his bedside manner are at least as important as his medicine.
There followed in this sermon many Christian admonitions and hints, and in the end the pastor came back to my Christian upbringing, my clinging to my father’s doctrines, as well as my resistance to many mobs and sects and particularly the Calvinists and Papists.
I was careful not to tell Pastor Weinrich about my doubts and uncertainties with regard to my father’s life and teachings. These revelations could not come too early but had to appear only after the publication of these memoirs. Therefore, I left everything as written down by Weinrich, also that in my last avowal before my death, I remain unwaveringly committed to my father’s doctrine, that I was felix in praxi (which I can affirm), and that I served several princes and dukes, as the reader will learn from my report.
Pastor Weinrich at the end of his sermon tells about my ailment with the following words:
After he had been ailing for twenty weeks and became more and more decrepit [this is the word the pastor used], he reflected on how he had in all things led a Christian life and how he wanted to conclude it blessedly.
And bade me and the mourners farewell with the following words:
May he rest in blessed peace, and may we all in our hour of death have a peaceful departure and on Judgment Day a joyful resurrection to eternal life. For this we beg the help of the Holy Trinity God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, highly praised forever and ever. Amen.
Verily, there is nothing that I wish more from deep in my heart than a peaceful departure, because there is nothing that I am more afraid of than a protracted and agonizing death, as I often had to witness in my medical work.
Despite all hope of eternal blessedness, I fear the cold death and the uncertainty of the endless time far from all my loved ones and from God. I believe in resurrection, but my rational mind also lets me often enough fall in doubt. What if we simply become earth again, from which we were taken, and remain earth? If all the heavenly promises are nothing but beautiful images?
After the Reverend Pastor Weinrich had left me, not without telling me as a consolation that I would be a worthy corpse and that everything would be done in an orderly fashion and according to my will, I sank back on my pillows, exhausted, and for a while fell into a restless slumber.
My dear son Johann Ernst, since 1587 by the grace of our elector canonicus in Zeitz, had been with me since I had become bedridden. He awoke me gently, wiped my feverish forehead with a wet cloth, and gave me warm broth for a drink. After he had left me, I thought about the different nature of my children and how our first child, Paul, was born and how he spent his short life. And what God wanted to tell us when He caused us the deep sorrow and let him die so early.
We lived in the Black Monastery when Anna in 1553 entered my study somewhat self-consciously and said that she had not menstruated for two months. Her joy about a possible pregnancy was not too great because, though we had sufficient means to found a family, I at the moment was just a simple studiosus medicinae.
But I got up from my books, embraced and kissed her, and thanked God that He had let us take part in his creative process. And I remembered that this taking part must have happened at the beginning of May, often called the month of delight, because in the time after that I had been indisposed for quite a while.
I at once fetched a booklet from my small medical library that I had taken care to buy some time earlier titled The Rosegarden of the Pregnant Women and Midwives. It had been written and published by the town physician of Worms, Dr. Eucharius Rößlin. This book seemed to me to be reliable because it had already been translated into English, French, Dutch, and Spanish. Additionally, it was dedicated to the Duchess of Brunswick and Lüneburg, at whose court Dr. Rößlin had stayed, as he wrote in the foreword, in the year 1508. Also, he had received a privilege from Emperor Maximilian that stated that nobody else, of whatever stand or station, was allowed for six years to reprint, offer, or sell the book in the whole empire.
This term of protection is long over, so the book might be of help to many midwives, expectant mothers, and interested fathers.
Anna took the book and leafed through it. She had a closer look at chapter 2, which was about signs of the approaching birth, though there was still time.
I asked her to take her time reading the book and also to offer it to the midwife, Frau Elisabeth Bauchspieß, who had already stood by my mother, and to talk to her about everything connected with the coming child. It is, regrettably, not to be denied that the business of birthgiving is almost exclusively in the hands of uneducated, although mostly experienced, women, who feel and probe but know nothing about anatomy.
I wished there were a prince or ruler who would order the foundation of a school for midwives, which would certainly help to reduce the frequent deaths of mothers and children during or shortly after birth.
In the following months, I watched anxiously and carefully how the little one grew in the womb of the mother and began to show some movement. At the beginning Anna was often sick, but according to Dr. Rößlin this was quite natural, and so we felt consoled. I had some doubts about the advice to let the pregnant mother drink much wine in order to keep the baby small so that it could more easily pass through the maternal orifice. Fortunately, my wife shared my doubts and drank no wine.
Came autumn and winter, and I was starting to think that Anna would present me with a little Christ Child. But Christmas passed, and finally, at the beginning of January of 1554, it started. I had already gotten the birthing chair, as depicted by Dr. Rößlin, and readied pans and pots so that hot water could be had. Also oil and lard were there to facilitate a smooth passage of the child.
But then I left the chamber and went to the kitchen, because Anna, when her waters broke and the midwife told me that she could already feel the child’s head under the birthing gown, which according to the Rößlin booklet indicated an orderly birth, shrieked loud and waved me away, future doctor or not. It seemed to me she did not want me to witness her weakness and pains.
When I was allowed back, the baby was bathed and swaddled and slept in the cradle beside his mother’s bed. Anna smiled at me, tired but content, and said that everything went well, including the afterbirth, which had already been taken away.
Everything began well with Paul. I had engaged a clean wet nurse, and he quickly added weight. His mother and our maid watched over him because I did not have much time due to my studies. Our daughter Margarethe was born in the following year.
Seen from today, it
looked as if God with our help had provided consolation because in 1558, He took our little Paul to Him. I was already a doctor of medicine, as you could read above, and quite familiar with sicknesses and their treatment. But our child I could not help. He had not been ill when the maid found him dead in his bed one morning. He lay on his belly and had turned his head aside.
Long I was puzzled and thought about his death. Could this position in his sleep have led to his end? I had in my medical practice three cases of unexpected child death, in which the children lay on their bellies with their head turned aside, like our Paul. But I could not find out how this could lead to death. I decided to collect similar cases of sicknesses with their symptoms and note them down in my medical diary so that I could via their similarity conclude what caused the sickness and how to remedy it.
Paul’s burial took place in February 1558 in Wittenberg with much participation by the university people, and Magister Melanchthon succeeded in comforting us somewhat by saying that Paul had now joined his grandparents in heaven and had probably become a little angel.
Chapter 15
. . . tells of how I came to Jena and what happened there.
When in 1558 I received the offer of a professorship in Jena, I had mixed feelings, which I did not exactly know how to explain to my wife or myself. We were still in mourning for our son. At the same time, the preparatory work distracted me so that I had it better than my wife because I began immediately to prepare my inaugural lecture, which on the 8th of December of the same year I announced on the faculty noticeboard. It proposed to deal with the medical doctrine of Galen, and it presented my fundamental attitude toward the healing art: “Galeni de constitutione artis medicae ad Patrophilum liber,” which I, following the interpretation rules of my father’s, would translate as follows: “Galen’s Conception of the Medical Arts, Written for Patrophilus.”
Naturally, I was not a little proud, being twenty-five years old and elevated to doctor of medicine through the already-mentioned thesis, “Lecture About the Lungs and the Distance Between the Trachea and the Esophagus.” Therefore I felt myself well qualified to be considered worthy of the title Professor, Teacher of Medicine, at a university.
I said my feelings were conflicted, so after a long conversation with Anna I decided to accept the offer. At first I would go alone, leaving my family in Wittenberg in order to see how affairs developed. How well I did, the reader will soon find out.
“Ecco la mia bella Firenze,” our emperor is said to have exclaimed admiringly, as in 1547, after winning the battle at Mühlberg with his Spanish soldiers, he came to Jena with our captured sovereign, the former elector John Frederick I in tow.
As I, in a shaky wagon over bad roads, reached Jena, having come from Weimar, where my older brother, Johannes, the head of the family at the time, since 1554 chancery-councillor at the court of our duke and former elector (presently simply duke of Saxony, who would die later that same year), I was unable to share the emperor’s feelings. I came on a dreary autumn day, and the weather in June when the emperor arrived must have presented a more favorable impression. In any case, he had certainly exaggerated.
I have never in my life been to Florence in Italy, though Father traveled there on his trip to Rome in AD 1511 and told us a little of the magnificent city. It was not much, because he was ill at the time. He complained about the dangerous Italian air and the unhealthy water, from which he and his companions were rescued only by the enjoyment of pomegranates. He had to go into the hospital so was unable to explore the city extensively. But I recall from the experiences of which he spoke that a comparison with Jena was unreasonable. Perhaps the landscape on the Saale River was similar to the valley of the Arno, but as far as the small, completely unknown-to-the-world country town was concerned, there could be no question of a Florence-like appearance.
At least in Jena, as in Florence, extensive vineyards were cultivated, which according to tradition had been learned from the Cistercians. However, there has been much ridicule about the Jena viticulture, about which it is said that the vinegar grows right on the vine and the wine would make sock darning superfluous since the wine drew the holes together. But still, the people of Jena drank it with a sweetly sour countenance, and plentifully, and earned their living from the vineyards that ring the town as well as their own little vineyards.
For regular farming the fields did not seem practical because the Saale often overflowed its banks and inundated the low areas, and the mountains surrounding the city were stony and dry. But there were reputable crafts pursued, among them butchers, shoemakers, coopers—which are needed for the numerous wine barrels required—drapers, rope makers, coach builders, etc.
Because now Wittenberg and the university belonged to the new Albertine electorate, and the land ruled by Duke John Frederick had been reduced to a smaller possession in Thuringia, he decided to establish a college and finally a university for lawyers, theologians, and teachers as well as doctors in Jena. The citizens of Jena were not completely happy with the decision, fearing that with student life came all sorts of mischief, such as drunkenness, whoring, nightly noise and disruption, damage to the vineyards, the deflowering of honorable burghers’ daughters, and fights with the no-less-combative journeymen. Later there were numerous decrees and prohibitions; so, for example, a student could not carry a weapon, but it was of little assistance because the prohibitions were simply not respected. Also, in spite of the prohibitions, students still disrupted weddings by barging in uninvited, bathed naked in an area on the banks of the Saale called characteristically Paradise, and abused farmers at the market through beatings and theft.
While Duke John Frederick I, the Magnanimous, remained in Jena as prisoner of the emperor, he summoned his son John Frederick, my later lord, to come to Jena and spoke to him about his intention to found a university. There came into consideration the towns of Kreuzburg, Eisenach, Gotha, Saalfeld, and Weida, but finally the decision was made for Jena.
Strictly speaking, the conversation took place outside the walls of Jena, because the emperor required that the former elector spend the nights, except in Halle and Bamberg, in the middle of his troops outside the town since he feared his prisoner would flee or would be freed by his supporters.
After much waiting and many petitions to the emperor, first Charles and then Ferdinand, who as Catholic majesties showed no great interest in allowing an additional Protestant academy in Germany, the university was approved in 1557 and opened in a former Dominican cloister, with the four faculties to teach theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy and able to accredit bachelors, magisters, licentiates, and doctors.
Our sovereign was, as usual, the first rector magnificentissimus, while the medicus Johann Schröter was appointed rector. He had been the personal physician to Ferdinand and had, through his influence in the chancellery of the emperor, promoted the university.
And so I arrived in Jena in the dark Thuringian November, wet and cold, and found accommodations in the Helldorf house in the Neugasse.
There I had a room with a good stove and a sleeping chamber. Breakfast was provided by the landlady, who also took care of the heating and the laundry, while I took my main meal in the neighboring inn.
Since everything seemed in order, I could now, I thought, begin an honorable academic life.
My first lecture in what was called “College Building” was well attended. I introduced the students to the lesson plan in the first hour and promised in the following semester to meticulously interpret the philosophy of Galen.
I saw with pleasure how the students eagerly wrote and listened with concentration. They were obviously thankful for the summary introduction; such, in fact, was not usual, and during my time as a student in Wittenberg I had experienced nothing similar. They were also satisfied that I drew attention to the Latin translation of Galen’s writings and other Greek authorities, for which the admirable diligence and philological soundness of the first dean of the medical faculty,
Janus Cornarius, is to be thanked. Unfortunately, he had passed away before my arrival.
I closed my first lecture in German with some personal remarks. I told them of how my mother’s experience in care and healing, as well as my teacher, Magister Melanchthon, had led me to the study of medicine. It was not without purpose. The students would see again that I was the son of the mighty reformer whose teaching the new university in Jena would also follow and for which many students were coming to Jena. Then, for the foreign students, I repeated this little talk in Latin.
I left the lecture hall in a very cheerful mind and ordered a tankard of beer at my local inn, which tasted good to me and had obviously improved since the time Magister Philippus had moved here, along with the University of Wittenberg, in order to avoid the pest. After drinking the Jena beer, he had complained of a violent disposition. That had already happened to him in the winter of 1527–28, when he was in charge of a church inspection. Incidentally, at the time when the University of Wittenberg had been located in the town, the trial of the Anabaptists of Kleineutersdorf near Kahla on the Saale took place, where three people were decapitated on the market square.
It was the only physical encounter Magister Philippus had with the Anabaptists. He personally examined the Baptist leader and miller, Hans Peißker, and advocated for the execution of him and two others. It is still difficult for me to know that there is blood on the hands of my revered teacher.
After another tankard of beer, my above-mentioned conflicted feelings were replaced by a milder mood and a gentle anticipation of the coming period at the Alma Mater Jenensis, and my thoughts were filled with plans for bringing my family to Jena, not divining the painful things the future had in store for me.
In spite of the thoughts of my family, I was open to the promising glance given to me by the barmaid when putting down the beer. She had not particularly struck me upon entering the tavern, but now, after the warming effect of the beer, I found her quite lovely. It is the old saying, which also has a medical nature, that drink can make a woman beautiful.
Shadows of My Father Page 17
