His physician hath ordered him to eat a basilisk, stewed in rose water; and as it is a very rare animal, and can only be taken by women, the lord Ogul hath promised to choose for his well-beloved wife the woman that shall bring him a basilisk; let me go on in my search; for thou seest what I shall lose if I am prevented by my companions.

"Dr. Schwartz said that his post-mortem examination had convinced him beyond doubt that the dead physician-dentist had killed himself after he had tried to take the life of the young woman with whom he had lived and of the youth who was his successful rival.

For love, as Theophrastus defines it, is otiosi animi affectus, an affection of an idle mind, or as Seneca describes it, Juventa gignitur, juxu nutritur, feriis alitur, otioque inter laeta fortunae bonae; youth begets it, riot maintains it, idleness nourisheth it, &c. which makes Gordonius the physician cap.

Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic.

Who knows when a physician cures or kills?

On a sick bed I lay, through the flesh my bones started, My grief-wasted frame to a skeleton fell; My physicians foreboding took leave and departed, And they wish'd me dead now, who wished me well.

The pike, fell tyrant of the liquid plain, With ravenous waste devours his fellow train; Yet howsoe'er with raging famine pined, The tench he spares, a medicinal kind; For when by wounds distress'd, or sore disease, He courts the salutary fish for ease; Close to his scales the kind physician glides, And sweats a healing balsam from his sides.

It makes princes to exact upon their subjects, great men tyrannise, landlords oppress, justice mercenary, lawyers vultures, physicians harpies, friends importunate, tradesmen liars, honest men thieves, devout assassins, great men to prostitute their wives, daughters, and themselves, middle sort to repine, commons to mutiny, all to grudge, murmur, and complain.

"If so, call my physician hither; I, his patient, have surely a right to his prompt services.

In the arcana of temples or in the chambers of court physicians knowledge may still be sought; but it will be hidden as a secret thing, or if it dares come out to elevate common thought or brighten common life, it will be trodden down as a dangerous innovator.

One eminent physician told me that he had known more calomel given, both at a pinch and for a continuance, by mothers, governesses, and nurses, to children than he had ever heard of a physician prescribing in all his experience.

A French physician styles spinach, le balai de l'estomac (broom of the stomach).

While I indulged in these sad meditations, and felt for my host while I felt no less for myself, I saw the physician approach who had been sent for.

Two thirds of them were attacked by putrid fevers, the rapid progress of which hardly allowed the physicians time, to administer that precious remedy, the produce of Peru, of which, by some mismanagement, the hospitals were nearly destitute.[A12]

Sancho bore it for some time, but at length, starting up, he bade the physician avaunt, saying, "By the sun's light, I'll get me a good cudgel, and beginning with your carcase, will so belabour all the physic-mongers in the island, that I will not leave one of the tribe.