Pray, what do these jolly, railing spirits of the Middle Ages say of our medical ancestors of the good old times? Master Jehan Bouchet, for example, with his piece, _Traverseur des voyes perilleuses_, and Pierre Gringore under the pseudonym of _Mere Sotte_, and Nicholas Rousset and Coustellier, and Jacques Grevin and Pierre Blanchet, and all other members of that joyous group without care, without pretension, but not without talent. If professional honor was never really put on trial by these wits, the pedantic gravity of our medical forefathers, their formidable doctoral accoutrement, their consultations, sentences formulated in horrible and barbarous Latin, were all the objects of raillery and piquant epigrams. We shall find also, in other works we propose to analyze, the same false ideas of the public regarding the healing art as exists to-day; the same tendency to always lead one into error, and unjustly accuse the medical profession of all the accidents that happen to a patient—this, too, notwithstanding all ancient codes of hygiene and all the ages of experience. When a physician prescribed, for example, in the case of one attacked by fever, the daily libations were stopped, and we always find the neighbors and boon companions of the sufferer enter the sick room for the purpose of criticizing the doctor’s prescriptions and orders, and such persons excited the patient by their remarks on medical despotism. This has always been the case since doctors and patients were created, not only in the Middle Ages, but at all epochs. Olivier Basselin bears testimony to this fact in one of his charming _Vaux de Vire_[95] poetical compositions, roundelays and Bacchic songs, dating back to the sixteenth century; this sonnet is not long;[96] it relates to a drunkard to whom only barley water is given, and who recovers his health, according to the veracious poet, through a charitable friend, who breaks the doctor’s orders and fills the patient up with wine. We have often read this poem with pleasure, and give a condensed extract: One of my neighbors sick was lying, Gasping with weak and feverish breath: “Alas! they’ll kill me,” said he, sighing, “Forbidding wine; and barley water’s death. “Alas! my thirst is great, annoying; I’d like one drink before I die; Neighbor, with you one glass enjoying; Pray quickly to the vintner’s hie. “Dear friend, my wish don’t be denying, Always to me you’ve been a brother; Now, for the wine in haste go flying, We’ll take one parting glass together. “Since doctors made me quit a-drinking, My flask I’ve left yon in my will. These doctors, I can’t help a-thinking, Don’t cure as often as they kill.” Thus spoke my neighbor, sick and weary. Of wine he drank full bottles five; The fever left him blithe and cheery; He’s still a-drinking, and _alive_.