2nd Phy. Heaven forbid, Sir, that it should enter my thoughts to add anything to what you have just been saying! You have discoursed too well on all the signs, symptoms, and causes of this gentleman's disease. The arguments you have used are so learned and so delicate that it is impossible for him not to be mad and hypochondriacally melancholic; or, were he not, that he ought to become so, because of the beauty of the things you have spoken, and of the justness of your reasoning. Yes, Sir, you have graphically depicted, graphice depinxisti, everything that appertains to this disease. Nothing can be more learnedly, judiciously, and ingeniously conceived, thought, imagined, than what you have delivered on the subject of this disease, either as regards the diagnostic, the prognostic, or the therapeutic; and nothing remains for me to do but to congratulate this gentleman upon falling into your hands, and to tell him that he is but too fortunate to be mad, in order to experience the gentle efficacy of the remedies you have so judiciously proposed. I approve them in toto, manibus et pedibus descendo in tuam sententiam. All I should like to add is to let all his bleedings and purgings be of an odd number, numero deus impare gaudet, to take the whey before the bath, and to make him a forehead plaster, in the composition of which there should be salt—salt is a symbol of wisdom; to whitewash the walls of his room, to dissipate the gloominess of his mind; album est disgregativum visas; and to give him a little injection immediately, to serve as a prelude and introduction to those judicious remedies, from which, if he is curable, he must receive relief. Heaven grant that these remedies, which are yours, Sir, may succeed with the patient according to our wish!
Mr. Pour. Gentlemen, I have been listening to you for the last hour. Are we acting a comedy here?
1st Phy. No, Sir; we are not acting a comedy.
Mr. Pour. What does it all mean? What are you about with this gibberish and nonsense of yours?
1st Phy. Ah! Insulting language! A diagnostic which was wanting for the confirmation of his disease. This may turn to mania.
Mr. Pour. (aside). With what kind of people have they left me here. (He spits two or three times.)
1st Phy. Another diagnostic: frequent expectoration.
Mr. Pour. Let us cease all this, and go away.
1st Phy. Another: anxiety to move about.
Mr. Pour. What is the meaning of all this business? What do you want with me?