Orphic Mysteries

In her Editor’s choice, Fiona Godlee reports receiving an e-mail from her distinguished predecessor Stephen Lock, asking for readers to come up with medical excuses to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the first performance of Monteverdi’s Orfeo on 23^rd February 2007. No problem there, surely. Orpheus, son of Apollo, was related to Asclepius and his songs were known for their healing properties. And Jeff Aronson informs me that Monteverdi’s father Baldassare was a noted medical man in Cremona. Let’s all dress up as Cremonese or Mantuan physicians of the early seventeenth century: I shall start looking for a fetching ermine hat and some silk robes right away…