Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Politics, War

    Observes that when 'Doctors of Physic fall out' over the treatment for a 'sick man' and both declare that 't'others treatment' will prove fatal, 'the patient comes round / By the Vis medicatrix Naturae'. Likens this situation to that of John P Hennessy, who blames the 'grim death' gripping Italy on Piedmont, while others think it 'a case of manslaughter / 'Gainst Bomba [King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies] and old Pio Nono [Pope Pius IX]'. As a 'friend of the patient', Mr Punch advises England to 'kick both doctors down-stairs, / And to nature hand o'er the sick man'.