Doctor Sassafras
Doctor Sassafras or Doctor, Death and the Devil is a comedy in three acts written by Franz Graf von Pocci from 1860. The main character is the doctor of the same name, who believes that medicine is able to conquer death. As a counterpart to this claim, the phrase “Contra en mortis non herbula crescit en hortis” runs through the piece (“There is no herb against death.”).
action
- 1st act
The well-known Doctor Sassafras is a gifted doctor to whom many people flock. Without his knowledge, his assistant Casperl pretends to be a doctor in the absence of his superior and carries out sometimes nonsensical examinations on the patient. So he cuts the stomach of a farmer who has a stomachache from eating dumplings so that the dumplings fall out.
Sassafras' most difficult patient is Herr von Steinreich, an imaginary patient. He forbids his secretary Schreiber to have contact with his ward Marie, and cold-heartedly refuses petitions from poor people. That his guilty conscience is the real cause of his frequent heart ailments becomes clear above all from the fact that Steinreich's heart pounding always occurs when he speaks of himself as a gracious and good person, while at the same time his actions prove the exact opposite. He claims, for example, that people should only limit themselves to the bare essentials, and the next moment he asks for a foie gras pate. Sassafras knows the disease is not real. Although he does not know the exact cause of Steinreich's heartache, he takes advantage of the situation to enrich himself with numerous prescriptions.
The death fallen Sassafras' success did not, and he makes him an offer: The physician should heal one half of his patients, the other should take the death into the afterlife. Sassafras asked for time to consider.
- 2nd act
Despite the warnings of the godly gravedigger, Sassafras makes a pact with the devil . In exchange for his soul, the devil sells him a magical chair that holds everyone who sits on him. When death in human form as “Dr. Kniemayr ”appears, the doctor arrests him in this way. While death rages, Sassafras triumphs at finally conquering death. Sassafras is becoming more and more successful, not least because of the capture of death, who sits motionless in his room and scares Casperl with his appearance. The doctor can now cure even those who are terminally ill. His patient Steinreich has now read the Bible and seen how cold-hearted he has been so far. He promises Marie to marry her off to Schreiber, but Schreiber has disappeared. Steinreich lets him look.
- 3rd act
In the cemetery, the gravedigger ponders what his purpose is now, when no one dies anymore. He notices Schreiber who wants to shoot himself and is able to dissuade him. Meanwhile, the devil rages that the contract was a mistake, because without death he can no longer have souls at all. He then frees Death, who immediately confronts the doctor. Sassafras accepts that medicine cannot ultimately defeat death and goes with it willingly.
In the last scene Steinreich, Marie and Schreiber are happy about their future wedding. When Steinreich wants to send a servant to Dr. Inviting Sassafras, he learns that he has died. The piece ends with the servant's statement: “No herb has grown against death”.
The characters' views on the subject of death
Since the main motif of the piece is death, there are numerous characters who have different views on the subject.
- Dr. Sassafras believes in the advancement of medicine and its ability to conquer even death. For him, to have shackled death is the greatest triumph of medicine. In the end, however, with the words "Without death, there is no life" he accepts that death is an integral part of life.
- The grave digger sees death as the end of things through his work and therefore has a slightly nihilistic view of worldly goods (“What do I care about the whole world, I give people honor and money. It's all vain Seems, everyone has to go into the grave. ") Or the status of people (" Old or young, poor or rich - here they are the same. Whether king or beggar - nobody can stay in life. "). Nevertheless he is a person who does not see life as completely meaningless, so he saves the secretary Schreiber from suicide and gives him new hope.
- The secretary Schreiber , plagued by Steinreich's decision that he must not marry his niece, sees death as the only way out of his suffering and wants to shoot himself. However, through the gravedigger, he regains confidence and abandons his plan.
- Death itself sees itself as the inevitable end (“Everything has to be in my throat”) and an indomitable force of nature that you cannot conquer and from which you cannot escape. Sassafras' successes are a humiliation for him, which is why he offers Sassafras to share the patients with him. When he is arrested, he becomes furious and threatens Sassafras that he cannot be held captive forever. In his later conversation with Sassafras, he describes himself as the transition from earthly life into eternity. Sassafras now accepts the inevitability of death as a fact and goes with it.