| |
| HERE lies a fool flat on his back, | |
| The victim of a cancer quack; | |
| Who lost his money and his life, | |
| By plaister, caustic, and by knife. | |
| The case was this—a pimple rose, | 5 |
| South-east a little of his nose; | |
| Which daily redden’d and grew bigger, | |
| As too much drinking gave it vigor; | |
| A score of gossips soon ensure | |
| Full threescore different modes of cure; | 10 |
| But yet the full-fed pimple still | |
| Defied all peticoated skill; | |
| When fortune led him to peruse | |
| A hand-bill in the weekly news; | |
| Sign’d by six fools of different sorts, | 15 |
| All cured of cancers made of warts; | |
| Who recommend, with due submission, | |
| This cancer-monger as magician; | |
| Fear wing’d his flight to find the quack, | |
| And prove his cancer-curing knack; | 20 |
| But on his way he found another,— | |
| A second advertising brother: | |
| But as much like him as an owl | |
| Is unlike every handsome fowl; | |
| Whose fame had raised as broad a fog, | 25 |
| And of the two the greater hog: | |
| Who used a still more magic plaister, | |
| That sweat forsooth, and cured the faster. | |
| This doctor view’d, with moony eyes | |
| And scowl’d-up face, the pimple’s size; | 30 |
| Then christen’d it in solemn answer, | |
| And cried, “this pimple’s name is cancer. | |
| But courage, friend, I see your ’re pale, | |
| My sweating plaisters never fail; | |
| I ’ve sweated hundreds out with ease, | 35 |
| With roots as long as maple trees; | |
| And never fail’d in all my trials— | |
| Behold these samples here in vials! | |
| Preserved to show my wondrous merits, | |
| Just as my liver is—in spirits. | 40 |
| For twenty joes the cure is done—” | |
| The bargain struck, the plaister on, | |
| Which gnaw’d the cancer at its leisure, | |
| And pain’d his face above all measure. | |
| But still the pimple spread the faster, | 45 |
| And swell’d, like toad that meets disaster. | |
| Thus foil’d, the doctor gravely swore, | |
| It was a right-rose cancer sore; | |
| Then stuck his probe beneath the beard, | |
| And show’d him where the leaves appear’d; | 50 |
| And raised the patient’s drooping spirits, | |
| By praising up the plaister’s merits.— | |
| Quoth he, “The roots now scarcely stick— | |
| I ’ll fetch her out like crab or tick; | |
| And make it rendezvous, next trial, | 55 |
| With six more plagues, in my old vial.” | |
| Then purged him pale with jalap drastic, | |
| And next applied the infernal caustic. | |
| But yet, this semblance bright of hell | |
| Served but to make the patient yell; | 60 |
| And, gnawing on with fiery pace, | |
| Devour’d one broadside of his face— | |
| “Courage, ’tis done,” the doctor cried, | |
| And quick the incision knife applied: | |
| That with three cuts made such a hole, | 65 |
| Out flew the patient’s tortured soul! | |
| Go, readers, gentle, eke and simple, | |
| If you have wart, or corn, or pimple; | |
| To quack infallible apply; | |
| Here ’s room enough for you to lie. | 70 |
| His skill triumphant still prevails, | |
| For death ’s a cure that never fails. | |
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