Medicina Flagellata; Or, The Doctor Scarify'dAnonymous
Science
Medicina Flagellata; Or, The Doctor Scarify'd
Anonymous
Hygiene; Medicine -- Practice -- Early works to 1800; Plague -- Early works to 1800; Quacks and quackery
The young Physician, tho' he has learn'd the Abuse, yet he has that Regard
to himself, to make use of that old Maxim, _Of the two Evils, to choose
the least_; and finding it best suiting his Interest, which otherwise
might be endanger'd by the clandestine and underhand Dealings of the
other, and now finds it necessary to close in with him, and such a one as
will join in a mutual Application and Advancement of each other: Now are
their Engines set at work, and the Doctor not to be behind-hand, gives a
new Form to his Bills, which he prescribes in Terms so obscure, that he
forces all chance Patients to repair to his own Apothecary, pretending a
particular Secret, which only they have a Key to unlock; whereas in effect
it is no other than the commonest of Medicines disguised under an unusual
Name, on design to direct you to that Apothecary, between whom and the
Physician there is a private Compact of going Snips out of the most
unreasonable Rates of the said Medicines; wherein if you seek a Redress,
by shewing the Bill to the Doctor, he shall most religiously aver it to be
the cheapest he ever read. The Consequence whereof, as to your Particular,
is a double Fraud; and as the Apothecaries in general, their Numbers
bearing the Proportion at least ten to one of noted Physicians; to whom
allowing his Covenant Apothecary, who constituting one Part of the ten,
the remaining nine Parts are compell'd either to sit still, or to quack
for a Livelihood, or at least eight of them, for we'll suppose one Part of
the nine a Possibility of acquiring competent Estates, in a Way more
honest than that of the Covenanters, by their wholsome Trade of fitting
out Chirurgeons Chests for Sea, and supplying Country Apothecaries with
Compositions: Lastly, all accomplish'd Physicians are likewise expos'd to
manifest Injuries from the Covenant Apothecaries, who being sent for by
Patients, after a short Essay of a Cordial, will overpower them by
Perswasions to call in a Doctor, who shall be no other than his Covenant
Physician; by which Means the former Physician, who by his extraordinary
Care and Skill had oblig'd the Family before, shall be passed by, and lose
the Practice of that Patient: And should it happen, the Sense of Gratitude
of the forementioned Patient, should engage him to continue the Use of his
former Physician, yet this Covenant Apothecary shall privately cavil at
every Bill, and impute the Appearance of every small Pain, or Symptom
(which necessarily in the Course of a Disease will happen) to his ill
Address in the Art of Physick, and shall not give over before he has
introduc'd his Covenanter, whose Authority in the Fraud of Physick he
supposes to be most necessary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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