Genre:

Novel, Serial

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Quackery, Physiognomy, Descent

    Guiding Tito Melema through the busy streets of fifteenth-century Florence, Nello the barber reflects on a 'druggist's shop [...] that pretends to rival mine', commenting, 'what sort of inspiration, I beseech you, can be got from the scent of nauseous vegetable decoctions?—to say nothing of the fact that you no sooner pass the threshold than you see a doctor of physic, like a gigantic spider, disguised in fur and scarlet, waiting for his prey; or even see him blocking up the doorway seated on a bony hack, inspecting saliva [...]. Besides, your druggist, who herborises and decocts, is a man of prejudices: he has poisoned people according to a system, and is obliged to stand up for his system to justify the consequences'. In the skilful hands of a barber, however, 'by diligent shaving, the nether region of your face may preserve its human outline, instead of presenting no distinction from the physiognomy of a bearded owl or a barbary ape'. (27)

Reprinted:

Eliot 1863