Füssen, The physician

The physician

Death to the physician
[der todt.] Herr Doctor bschaut mein zarten leib, Ob doch derselb recht gmachet seÿ. Ihr habt offt manchen hin gericht Der aller gstalt ietz mir gleichsieht.(1)	Death. Mr. Physician, inspect my tender body whether it's made right. You have often executed many, who all now look like I.
The physician
der Docter. Ich hab mit meinem wasser bschauen, Geholffen baiden man vnd frauen. Wer bschaut mier nur daß wasser mein Mich treibt der todt in rayen nein.	the Physician. I have with my urine-inspecting(2) helped both men and women. Who inspects my water for me now? Death drives me into the dance.

Basel: Physician.

The pope and physician are painted on the same plate.

In the correct order (see the start of this section) the doctor is the 11th scene. He is painted below the Pope and thus starts the bottom row.

Death addresses him »Herr Doctor«, but we are on the bottom shelf and the doctor is the last to be addressed with Mr. or Mrs. He is also the last one for whom Death uses the polite plural (»Ihr habt« instead of "Du hast").

The doctor is standing in front of a coffin and is evidently already in the cemetery. The picture is unusual in that it takes no less than three Deaths to dispatch him. Apparently the physician is Death's strongest enemy.

The text is the same as for the doctor in Basel.

A physician inspects a urine sample

Holbein: Physician.

The physician in the dances of death is usually portrayed with a urine flask in his hand, which is used for diagnosticing his patients (picture to the left).

Death hands this doctor a flask of urine as a sort of challenge. Here you could argue that the artist was inspired by Holbein's great dance of death (pictured on the right) and his initial letter M, but on the other hand, this is precisely the scene that the text from Basel suggests.

Footnotes: (1) (2)

gleichsieht . . .: You would expect the word to be spelled »gleichsicht« in order to rhyme with »gericht«, but sieht is also spelled with an "e" in the peasant's speech.

Physician with urine glass from the dance of death in Lübeck.

urine-inspecting. . .: the examination of the urine was an indispensable part of the medical art in the Middle Ages. See the picture to the right.