Fagon, the last doctor of Louis XIV who would have inspired Molière

2023-06-11 21:23:23

Guy-Crescent Fagon, the last chief physician to Louis XIV, had a pronounced taste for purges and bloodletting. Bridgeman Images

MEDICINE STORIES – The playwright’s comedic satire seems a bit harsh on the one who cared for the aging king with devotion.

Legend has it that the vain and very incompetent Purgon, one of the doctors of the Imaginary illness, by Molière, an allusion to Guy-Crescent Fagon, the last chief physician to Louis XIV, and his pronounced taste for purges and bloodletting.

If the dates make the hypothesis plausible – the first performance of the play dates back to 1673, and Fagon began to serve the monarch in 1672 – the comic satire of the playwright seems a little harsh on the one who nursed the aging king with devotion, although only within the (not insignificant) limits of 17th century medicine. In his Memoirsthe Duke of Saint-Simon, famous chronicler of the court of Louis XIV, known for his outspokenness, portrays the D^r. fagon like “one of the beautiful and good minds of Europe, curious about everything that had to do with his profession, a great botanist, a good chemist, a skilled connoisseur in surgery, an excellent doctor and a great practitioner”.

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