He is the wiser man, master doctor; he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies. Merry Wives, Act II., Sc. III.
A poor physician’s daughter my wife! Disdain Rather corrupt me ever. All’s Well, Act II., Sc. III.
Doctors, less famous for their cures than fees. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XIV., Verse XLVIII.
Like a port sculler, one physician plies And all his art and all his skill he tries; But two physicians, like a pair of oars, Conduct you faster to the Stygian shores.
This is the way physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health—when ill, we call them to attend us Without the least propensity to jeer; While that “hiatus maxime deflendus” To be filled up by spade or mattock, ’s near, Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe, We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy. Byron—Don Juan, Canto X, Verse XLII.
God and the doctor we alike adore, But only when in danger, not before; The danger o’er, both are alike requited, God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted.
The doctor says so * * * * * * * * * * * * * they sometimes Are soothsayers and always cunning men. Which doctor was it? Ben Jonson—Magnetic Lady, Act II., Sc. I.
A side thrust at the experimenters in the profession is found in Cymbeline.
I do know her spirit, And will not trust one of her malice with A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has Will stupify and dull the sense awhile; Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs, Then afterwards up higher. Act I., Sc. V.
I can smile, and murder whiles I smile. Henry VI.—3d, Act III., Sc. II.