The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.Crabtre, Addison Darre
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The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.
Crabtre, Addison Darre
Medicine -- Anecdotes; Quacks and quackery
The doctor's acetous temper towards the fair sex was not lessened by this
mishap, nor were the ladies backward in giving him an occasional reminder
of the fact. Nevertheless, unlike the burnt child, that avoided the fire,
Radcliffe, sixteen years afterwards, made a second conspicuous throw of
the dice. He was then about sixty. He came out with a new and elegant
equipage, employed the most fashionable tailors, hatters, and wig-makers,
"who arrayed him in the newest modes of foppery, which threw all London
into fits of laughter, while he paid his addresses, with the greatest
possible publicity, to a lady who possessed every requisite charm,--youth,
beauty, and wealth,--except a tenderness for her aged suitor.
"Behold, love has taken the place of avarice [the affair was thus aired in
a public print]; "or, rather, is become avarice of another kind, which
still urges him to pursue what he does not want. But behold the
metamorphosis! The anxious, mean cares of a usurer are turned into the
languishments and complaints of a lover. 'Behold,' says the aged
Æsculapian, 'I submit; I own, great Love, thy empire. Pity, Hebe, the fop
you have made. What have I to do with gilding but on pills? Yet, O Fate,
for thee I sit amidst a crowd of painted deities on my chariot, buttoned
in gold, clasped in gold, without having any value for that beloved
metal, but as it adorns the hat, person, and laces of the dying lover. I
ask not to live, O Hebe! Give me gentle death. Euthanasia, Euthanasia!
That is all I implore.'
"O Wealth, how impotent art thou, and how little dost thou supply us with
real happiness, when the usurer himself cannot forget thee for the love of
what is foreign to his felicity, as thou art!"
Although Radcliffe denied his own sisters during his life, "lest they
should show their affection for him by dipping their hands in his
pockets," some stories of his benevolence are told, one of which is, that
finding one Dr. James Drake, when "each had done the utmost to injure the
other," broken down and in distressed circumstances, he sent by a lady
fifty guineas to his unfortunate enemy, saying,--
"Let him by no means learn who sent it. He is a gentleman who has often
done his best to hurt me, and would by no means accept a benefit from one
whom he had striven to make an enemy."
A STABLE-BOY, POET, AND DOCTOR.
Poor George Crabbe, the poet-doctor-apothecary, had a very hard time in
this cold, unappreciative world, until Love smiled upon his unhappy lot.
He was born in the old sea-side town of Aldoborough, where his father was
salt inspector,--not an over-lucrative office in those days. George was
the eldest of a numerous family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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