At this instant he is sick, my lord, Of a strange fever. Measure for Measure, Act V., Sc. I.
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse. Troilus and Cressida, Act III., Sc. II.
Sickness is catching. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I., Sc. I.
Thus saith the preacher: “Nought beneath the sun, Is new,” yet still from change to change we run: What varied wonders tempt us as they pass! The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas, In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare, Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air! Byron—Eng. Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Vaccination certainly has been A kind antithesis to Congreve’s rockets, With which the Doctor paid off an old pox, By borrowing a new one from an ox. Byron—Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXIX.
I don’t know how it was, but he grew sick; The empress was alarm’d, and her physician (The same who physick’d Peter), found the tick Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition Which augur’d of the dead, however quick Itself, and show’d a feverish disposition; At which the whole court was extremely troubled, The sovereign shock’d, and all his medicines doubled. Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours: Some said he had been poison’d by Potemkin; Others talked learnedly of certain tumours, Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin; Some said ’twas a concoction of the humours, With which the blood too readily will claim kin; Others again were ready to maintain, “’Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.” But here is one prescription out of many: “Sodæ-sulphat. 3. VI. 3. S. mannæ optim. Aq. fervent. F. 3. iss. 3. ij tinct, sennæ Haustus,” (and here the surgeon came and cupp’d him), R. Pulv. com. gr iii. Ipecacuanhæ, (With more besides, if Juan had not stopp’d ’em). “Bolus potassæ sulphuret, sumendus, Et haustus ter in die capiendus.” This is the way physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem. * * * * * Byron—Don Juan, Canto X., Verse XXXIX.
Rheumatic diseases do abound: And through this distemperature, we see The seasons alter. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II., Sc. I.
This raw rheumatic day. Merry Wives, Act III., Sc. I.
Is Brutus sick,—and is it physical To walk unbraced, and suck up humours Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, To dare the vile contagion of the night, And tempt the rheuma and unpurged air To add unto his sickness? Julius Cæsar, Act II., Sc. I.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Romeo and Juliet, Act II., Sc. V.