Humor and healing of Francois Rabelais

 Francois Rabelais (  1494-1553   ) was a French writer, physician, humorist and clergyman.. Rabelais became a famous physician using humor in treating his patients. He wrote prodigiously, and was known for such ribald tales.  as Gargantua and Pantagrus. 

His bawdy jokes and songs would label him today as “sexist,” but humor helped heal his patients. Rabelais studied Greek, translated Hippocrates and Galen. He studied at Montpellier and taught at Lyons. Francois helped bring both the Renascence and the spread of Greco- Roman medicine up the Rhone River, into central France, driven by his scholarly interpretations of the times. Rabelais used humor and humanity to write satire depicting the excesses of the aristocracy and the religious abuses of the dark ages. Historians credit Rabelais as one of the most important writers of the Renascence and one of history’s greatest physicians.

US medicine could use a large dose of Rabelais, his humor and his treasured Hippocrates.