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You tell your doctor, that y' are ill
And what does he, but write a bill,
Of which you need not read one letter,
The worse the scrawl, the dose the better.
For if you knew but what you take,
Though you recover, he must break.

— Matthew Prior

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Medicine

More quotes by Matthew Prior

From ignorance our comfort flows.
The only wretched are the wise.

To the Honorable Charles Montague (1692)

For hope is but the dream of those that wake.

They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.

Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

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Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.

John Dryden Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton (1700)

A physician is nothing but a consoler of the mind.

Petronius

Pharmacy is but a small part of physic; medical cannot be separated from moral science without reciprocal and essential mutilation.

John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan

A pill that the present moment is daily bread to thousands.

Douglas William Jerrold

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Matthew Prior (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.