Genre:

Rejoinder, Drollery

Subjects:

Quackery, Medical Treatment, Periodicals

    A discussion of the response of the Hygeist (an organ of James Morison) to Punch's attack on an advertisement identifying William Shakespeare's anticipation of Morison's 'Vegetable Pills' (see PU1/42/17/8). Punch retorts that it is not for it to deny that the pill 'assimulates with' (from the Hygeist's adaptation of a passage in Shakespeare's Hamlet) or 'counterfeits, something or other in connection with the blood of man'. Agreeing that there may be a correspondence between Shakespeare's words and the description of the pills quotes the playwright's warning that 'the devil can quote Scripture for his purpose', which corresponds to the quack borrowing from Shakespeare.