King Louis XIV (1638 –1715) was at the height of his reign when, in 1685, his butt started to hurt. A lot. His royal physicians tried all kinds of treatments, endeavoring to shrink the swelling, but finally, after months of suffering on everyone’s part, they called for a surgeon. This was a big deal.
Surgeons at the time were not considered respectable. They were many notches below physicians, on the level of barbers (in fact, most were barbers). The Church forbade doctors to cut into a living body. But the king and his physicians were desperate.
(On a side note—1685 was the year that Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, resulting in the killing or defection of hundreds of thousands of Huguenots. One wonders if the king’s lack of tolerance may have been caused in part by the fact that he couldn’t sit down comfortably.)
His butt problem was diagnosed as an anal fistula. I’m not going to explain what an anal fistula is. Admittedly, it takes a lot to gross me out, but even I have my limits. Let your imagination run wild. The real thing is probably worse than what you’re imagining. (Or you can read about the condition here. Fair warning. This site comes with pictures.) I’m also not going to conjecture about how the king developed said fistula. Suffice to say, his hygiene was not good. He often ordered windows to be opened when he entered a room, so that his courtiers would not be overcome by his smell.
The surgeon, Charles Francois Félix de Tassy, requested to wait six months before operating. The guy was flipping out. He practiced on a bunch of peasants, none of whom actually had anal fistulae, and some of whom died, before he felt he was ready to operate on the king.
The king’s fistula operation was performed on November 18th 1686. Sources reported that the king was calm. The surgeon was not. Félix had designed a “royally curved” scalpel especially for that purpose, inserting it into the fistula with the help of a retractor. To see these scary instruments, click on this site.
The operation was a success. The king was sitting up in bed within a month. It became fashionable for courtiers to admit they had a fistula, too, in hopes of being able to walk around Versailles with their butts swaddled like the king’s.
Why is this story important? By operating successfully on the king, Félix raised the profession of surgery to a more prestigious level. Félix was knighted and given money and land. But he was said to be so traumatized that he never again touched a scalpel.
Here’s le roi, back in the saddle: