The representations of Saints Cosmas and Damian, brothers of Arab origin who practiced medicine free of charge to convert their patients, provide us with some notes on the image and clothing of doctors and the practice of their official document at different times since the leave Age average. Canvases, reliefs, paintings and some engravings give a good account of their protection over the doctors and their activity, which gradually passed from the hands of the friars to those of lay professionals. In Navarra, the confraternities of San Cosme and San Damián of Pamplona and Tudela, founded in 1496 and 1537 respectively, and, in general, the study of access to the profession of medicine have been studied by professors Paniagua and Gil-Sotres.

Once again, the iconography of the two saints leads us, in many cases, to recreate the image and attire of those professionals in past centuries, since in many cases they do not dress timelessly, but as the doctors of the times in which they were represented. In general, they appear with majestic attire, sometimes with togas and garnachas, and they examine the urine contained in a basin, something indispensable in those times for the diagnosis of any disease. The mortar that quotation San Isidoro, as necessary for "preparing herbal teas and crushing pigments", also appears. Regarding their clothing, it should be remembered that since ancient times they had their own clothing by which they were easily identified, although in times of plague they protected themselves with long tunics, hats and masks. Physicians' clothing was an outward manifestation of their status and "standardized" the profession.

Early examples: between the Gothic and Renaissance periods

Unfortunately we do not know the Gothic paintings of the dance of death in the convent of La Merced in Pamplona, which disappeared in 1521 and were painted in the late Gothic period, in the second half of the 15th century. However, in the description of the murals of the cloister, we know that the characters were organized by estates, starting with the pope and ending with the peasants, merchants and other professions, such as doctors, apothecaries and surgeons.

In 1495 J. Ketham's book graduate Fasciculusmedicinae was published at Spanish in the Pamplona establishment of Arnao Guillén de Brocar, illustrated with a woodcut of two seated doctors discussing the diagnosis of urine contained in a glass tube. Both are surrounded by books, in a humanist atmosphere typical of the profession at that time, medicinal plants and different albarelos to contain various specifics. Roberto San Martín studied the fortune of that composition in different editions of medical books from the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the following century, making some sharp disquisitions on the xylographic tacos.

In Sangüesa, the side panels of the altarpiece of San Sebastián, in the church of El Salvador, a late 15th century work from the orbit of Miguel Jiménez, we find the medical saints. Both appear standing, wearing a doctor's cap and with the instruments of their profession: a urine flask, a box of ointments, a lancet and a spatula to spread the ointments. It is certainly the first representation of medical saints in Navarrese art.

From the last years of the 15th century are the sculptures of the medical saints of San Miguel de Estella made with late Gothic aesthetics. Possibly they come from the main altarpiece of the mentioned temple of which the titular one, work of Maese Terin, was saved when it was replaced by a new baroque machine in the XVIII century. The images are of slender canon, they are dressed in wide cloaks, one of them with narrow buttoned cuffs and the other with high boots. They both look up, one at the container with urine, while the other holds a case with ointments and a spatula-scalpel, which are visible in old photos and no longer visible after the restoration.

In the century of Humanism

Coinciding with the sixteenth century and the development of humanism, everything related to the human body, "envelope or voice of the soul", meant a development of medicine and its professionals. In general, they will begin to dress in long robes lined and trimmed with fur, while covering their heads with hoods of different invoice. Their attributes, as in the late Gothic period, are the transparent glass vessel for the analysis of the color and sediments of the patient, a kind of case or medicine chest with Departments to store drugs or medicines and a spatula to mix and apply the medicines. Sometimes, they are also accompanied by a mortar, lancets and bone punches for bloodletting.

The sculptures of Cordovilla, richly attired and with large velvet caps, one with an enormous bedpan and the other with a compartmentalized case for medicines, belong to the First Renaissance and the Emperor's era. A little later, from the reign of Philip II, are the incumbents of the parish of Iciz, a work attributed to Pedro de Almándoz. In this last case they wear doublet, stockings and wide cloak with wide sleeves of the subject of those of notable citizens.

In the altarpiece of the Assumption of the monastery of Fitero, from the end of the 16th century, we find a small panel representing a doctor and perhaps one of the two saints can be identified. He wears a black cloak and mantle and a hood of the same color, without the showy colors of the following century still being noticeable, and he is about to perform an uroscopy, since his right hand holds a globular vitreous flask with a wide neck containing urine, which he looks at carefully to check its sedimentation according to the Galenic theory of the elements.

The panel of the Museum of Navarre with the miracle

In the Museum of Navarre you can contemplate a table of the miracle of the transplant of the leg to the sacristan, a work attributed to Correa de Vivar in the mid-sixteenth century. The inspiring text of the topic represented was undoubtedly the Golden Legend of Santiago de la Vorágine. According to this literary source , a sacristan of the temple of San Felix, where relics of the medical saints were kept, suffered a tumor that caused a complete necrosis of one of his legs. In one night he contemplated Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian accompanied by medicines and liturgical utensils to operate him, while one asked the other: Where could we find leg flesh to place it in the place that will be left empty by removing the rotten one that surrounds the bones of this man, to which the other answered remembering the death and burial in the cemetery of Saint Peter ad vincula and the possibility of amputating a leg to the deceased Ethiopian. The doctors amputated the diseased leg of the sacristan and proceeded to replace it with the dead man's leg by means of an ointment. The miracle after this first transplant in the legendary story made the sexton jump for joy and tell the miracle to all who approached him. The topic was treated by different authors like Isidro Villoldo in 1547 in a relief of the National Museum of Sculpture of Valladolid and the master of the Balbases in a table of the end of the XV century in the church of San Cosme and San Damián of Burgos.

In the table, the description of the event and its details is striking, as well as some details of the clothing of the doctors, as they wear a kind of cap and a skullcap that their colleagues in Italy wore from the average Age, both pieces may be reminiscent of the kind of cap worn by medical professionals until the fifteenth century.

In the arts of the 17th century: paintings

The canvases of Saints Cosme and Damian of Cascante, Corella, Tudela and Sangüesa belong to the 17th century. The first two have some similarities, especially in the attire of the saints, and seem to be inspired by some bookish print. In both cases the long thalar garments with fur and ermine linings are striking, pieces that differentiated them, as well as the scholars, from artisans and peasants who wore shorter clothing. In the case of Cascante, the rings that both wear and that were usual in the doctors, as well as the glove that San Cosme wears, stand out. Regarding the gloves, it should be remembered that in many Schools they were required and were given in acts of promotion, being of great importance for the doctors. In other Navarrese examples, as in the Oronz altarpiece, the mitten also appears.

The one of Tudela presents the two saints with a nexus of union in the figure of an angel. Both wear tunics and rich cloaks and carry books from their specialization program and albarelos for the medicine mixtures. The angel is supported by a pedestal with a registration in capital letters, very difficult to read due to the accumulated dirt and varnish oxides. The canon of the figures is elongated and the color of the angel's robe is iridescent and pinkish, with Mannerist touches. All of these lead us to a painting from the third decade of the 17th century, possibly by Pedro de Fuentes, son-in-law of Juan de Lumbier or Silvestre Carcavilla, who worked for the Tudela City Hall in the second quarter of that century. The altarpiece to which the canvas belonged was in the disappeared convent of La Merced and was later preserved in the Hospital of Tudela and the documentation provides some data that can be related to the work. Thus, we know that in 1624 the constitutions or regulations of the confraternity of doctors from Tudela were written and approved.

Another painting of the saints is conserved in the parish of Santiago de Sangüesa, also belonging to the XVII century and unlike the previous ones, they dress closer to the fashion of the Spain of the Quarter of the Felipes, at least they show the golilla, according to the pragmatic on dresses of 1623, that imposed that piece to replace the lechuguilla, consisting of a support of starched cardboard, like a saucer what made seem decapitated to those who carried them. From 1624 its use became generalized and it was obligatory to present oneself before the king.

From the beginning of the 17th century are the sculptures of the parish of Astrain and Oronz and from the second half of the century those of Galdeano and Azagra. The baroque sculptures of the Poor Clares of Olite, ostentatiously show the university clothing with long tunics and doctoral caps.

Portrait of a physician in an eighteenth-century votive offering: Arróniz

The sanctuary of the Virgin of Mendía of Arróniz preserves an ex-voto that curiously represents the doctor of the locality cured by intercession of the holder of the mentioned Marian temple. A long text gives an account of the miracle as follows: "D. Agustin de Zeao / rrote, Medico de Arroniz / moribundo y desauciadº / d Volvulo, o, miserere / con repetidos Vomitos d / excrementos Fecales, / Imploro el auxilio d / la Madre d Dios de / Mendia, y estando / celebrandose en su / basílica misas por su salud se hallo sano y / bueno, sucedió en / seis de Dicieme / de 1749". In this case the dress is in accordance with eighteenth-century fashions with a long coat, neckerchief and tricorn of the time with a white tassel in the center. No attributes typical of the practice of medicine are painted on the canvas, which is otherwise very retouched.

A picture of St. Francis Xavier as a thaumaturge, with the doctors in amazement

The hagiography of St. Francis Xavier and the bull of his canonization in 1622 place us before a thaumaturge without comparison, capable of performing miracles both at the individual level and staff, as well as socially, in prodigies that affect an entire community. For this reason, it will not be rare to find him in some prints surrounded by the tools of a doctor, or with patients surrounded by canes, crutches and other utensils to save their handicaps. An engraving by the Klauber brothers, active in plenary session of the Executive Council 18th century in Ausburg, presents him as the great healer, together with the tools of doctors and pharmacists (scissors, scalpels, knobs, scales, prescription books, mixers ...etc.) while in the lower part the miraculous healing of Maria Zambrano in the Eternal City in 1677 is narrated. In the lower left zone, two doctors leave with their medicines, just as death flees from the opposite side of the sick woman's room.

Some portraits of Ciga

Doctors in the 19th century would no longer be distinguished in the street from the inhabitants of the cities' upper class and would end up dressing like the latter. Numerous portraits attest to this. The four elements that have come to identify the physician have been: the white coat, the phonendoscope, the head mirror and the black briefcase.

The white coat, generalized a little more than a century ago, and the most scientific instruments, such as the microscope, will be present in the portraits of the doctors Balda and Gortari by Javier Ciga, works painted in 1914 and 1926, respectively. The setting in the enquiry or the laboratory of these portraits will also be something very generalized in the portraits of the doctors of those times.