THE SCHOLAR.
But your example only serves to show
What dire results from ignorance may flow.
He had no skill for equine malady—
No special training.
THE SALT.
Just what Hennessey,
His father, thought. So the old man, grown wise,
Gave him another year to specialize—
This time in spavins.
THE SCHOLAR.
How does this impugn
The Science by which man is made immune
From all those fearsome, devastating ills,
From cholera morbus to domestic measles,
That swept the cosmos? Tell me, has not man
Added by this to his allotted span
Two decades?
THE SALT.
I don't see it with my eyes.
This generation's dyin' off like flies;
And why? Each mother son of them and daughter
Are bred on arrowroot, with milk and water.
They're all a scraggy lot; too much spoon-fed;
Wants water bottles when they go to bed;
Smokes cigarettes and drinks vile, home-made wine.
Rhubarb will corn 'em; so will dandyline.
'Tis not the same as what it was. I know,
Away back in the sixties, when our crew
Was home from swilin' and a regular streak
Of thirst had struck us, how, one night a week,
And after lodge was out, each man would take a
Good, long and steady swig of old Jamaica,
And never feel the worse on it. 'Twould blow
A colony like you to Jericho.
As tough as staragons, they had no call
For other medicine. A swig was all
They asked for, and a swig was all they got.
It cooled them off when they were dry, and shot
Them up, when they were cold. And, say, what can,
Within a lifetime, come to any man,
Except a burnin' fever or a freezin'?
THE SCHOLAR.
Your argument is void of rhyme or reason;
Your observations on disease, mere chatter.