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The Surgeon. Lucas van Leyden, Laid, 1524. Subject: Surgeons & Surgery, Rural Medicine.
The Charlatan (The Dentist). Lucas van Leyden, Laid, 1523. Subject: Tooth Extraction, Charlatan, Thievery.
The Healing Arts: The Surgeon and The Charlatan (Dentist).
Great art; but -- medicine. (shiver)
Well, keep in mind, these are from the 14th century -- things have improved a bit since then.
Funny that bwe both made independently a post about surgery and dentistry on one day.
Modern dentistry is probably the most important advance over medieval times. I think everything else shrinks in comparison and to a person with aching tooth would feel completely inconsequential.
Dentristry is important. It is scary how many peoply died of infections to their teeth. Getting my wisdom teeth removed was a small operation but the scariest of them all!
About the pictures: he poor lald is getting pickpocketed at the same time D: Talk about a shitty day! (also, whats up with that codpiece?)
@avalus: humanity nearly lost Isaac Newton to a toothache, and plague.
Charly:
I was quite amused when I realized that, after the post was up. Serendipity.
Avalus:
Dunno, but that thing is a bit scary. Leaves little to the imagination. As for having a shitty day, yes. Poor fellow has one shoe falling apart too, so he obviously didn’t have much money, because that would be a priority replacement or repair.
Also note that very nice utility knife the poor sod on the second picture has on his belt. It is so called “Bauernwehr” (peasant’s weapon) -- a big knife whose guard has a perpendicular piece “Nagel” (nail) and in the scabbard he has smaller secondary knife or possibly another tool/utensil.
Charly, I notice that! I’ve never seen a scabbard for two knives like that, very cool. Except for the big hole in the bottom. I had no idea of what kind of knife it is, so thank you for that. Did a search, and that’s a pretty impressive knife.
So is that his wife getting the money out in the background, or someone picking his wallet?
People letting other people with long sharp knives near their heads, necks and other tender places… *shudder*