Doctor and Patient

Among the plays by Hans Sachs, the one that stood out to me the most was The Pregnant Farmer. Today, when a health care professional does not properly explain every element of their patient’s disease and treatment options, the results can include the continued suffering or death of the patient and a lawsuit. It is also wrong of a health care professional to talk to their patients and their relatives like they are stupid, to get upset with the patient when they cannot grasp a concept, and to take advantage of patients. Sachs, however, was able to create a character with these negative traits we see in our physicians today, and probably seen in the 15^th century physicians as well, and use them to entertain an audience.

In the play, Isaac says, “he [Kunz] must take the strongest purge possible. He has to drive that filly right out of there.” This is to the extent to which Isaac explains the prescription Isaac is telling Heinz to give to Kunz and how Kunz’s condition of being “pregnant with a filly” will be resolved. Since Kunz is scared for his life and both he and Heinz have no knowledge of medicine, they believe whatever their doctor tells them as most patients do today. Isaac also gets angry with Heinz for not answering his questions the way he wishes him to. For example, when Isaac asks if Heinz’s master had “the urge for a stool”, Heinz misunderstands and believes he said something about school. Isaac gets upset at this and says, “My God! Can’t you understand a word?” These exchanges are what I believe makes the situation funny because the audience is distracted from the trick being played by the Jew on Heinz. Instead of feeling sorry for Heinz, the audience is focused on how Heinz is unintentionally making this doctor and con-man look foolish.

Perhaps, Sachs decided to create this scene because doctors were as ill mannered to their patients as they are today. If this was the case, the audience would have loved seeing a doctor, con-man, or anyone else who thought that they were smarter or better than the common people being made a fool of and teased by a simple-minded farmer.

Carnival Plays: Perception or Reality?

            In The Farmer with the Blur, the farmer’s perception was manipulated so heavily. He was so sure he saw something that was real but someone came along and told him otherwise. He experienced what is called a psychological manipulation. It is a social influence where someone or something tries to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive tactics. 

            We all get caught up in our stories. Most of us think we are our stories. It is when those stories take on a life of their own, and that life is not the one we want, and things start to suck.

If there is no link between perception and reality, you could think that there is no reality at all, that there are infinite realities, or that there are just images that we mistake for the real thing.

            Most of us are naïve realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our internal view of it. But really there is no such thing as a reality. There’s only “your” version of it, which is essentially just your perception. Remember that what you believe to be true is only as true as your worldly experience and it does not go any further than that. It is important to note that how you choose to perceive things is how they come across to you. I believe that your power to choose how to perceive things makes them appear that way to you. Your reality is much more different than my reality.

So was it really just his reality, or was it just his perception? Knowing what he saw was so real, will you let someone come in and tell you otherwise? So many people will go a long way to make others believe something. What do we call those people? Liars? Deceitful? Conniving? Or just plain evil?