Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

T Hood

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Pharmaceuticals, Charlatanry

    'There once was a Doctor, / (No foe to the proctor,) / A physic-concoctor, / Whose dose was so pat, / However it acted, / One speech it extracted,— / "Yes, yes," said the Doctor, / "I meant it for that!"' (159). The poem gives various droll instances of this, ending with a patient for whom the 'dose was his death' (162). The illustration captioned 'For Better or Worse' (facing 159) depicts a disconsolate man sitting in bed wearing his nightcap, with a bottle in one hand bearing the label 'To be Taken' and a wineglass full of liquid in the other.