There was a time, when we beheld the Quack,
On public stage, the licensed trade attack;
He made his laboured speech with poor parade,
And then a laughing zany lent him aid: 
Smiling we pass’d him, but we felt the while
Pity so much, that soon we ceased to smile;
Assured that fluent speech and flow’ry vest
Disguised the troubles of a man distress’d; —
   But now our Quacks are gamesters, and they play
With craft and skill to ruin and betray;
With monstrous promise they delude the mind,
And thrive on all that tortures human-kind. 
   Void of all honour, avaricious, rash,
The daring tribe compound their boasted trash —
Tincture of syrup, lotion, drop, or pill;
All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill;
And twenty names of cobblers turn’d to squires,
Aid the bold language of these blushless liars. 
There are among them those who cannot read,
And yet they’ll buy a patent, and succeed;
Will dare to promise dying sufferers aid,
For who, when dead, can threaten or upbraid? 
With cruel avarice still they recommend
More draughts, more syrup, to the journey’s end: 
“I feel it not;”—­“Then take it every hour:” 
“It makes me worse;”—­“Why then it shows its power;”
“I fear to die;”—­“Let not your spirits sink,
You’re always safe, while you believe and drink.” 
   How strange to add, in this nefarious trade,
That men of parts are dupes by dunces made: 
That creatures, nature meant should clean our streets,
Have purchased lands and mansions, parks and seats: 
Wretches with conscience so obtuse, they leave
Their untaught sons their parents to deceive;
And when they’re laid upon their dying bed,
No thought of murder comes into their head,
Nor one revengeful ghost to them appears,
To fill the soul with penitential fears. 
   Yet not the whole of this imposing train
Their gardens, seats, and carriages obtain: 
Chiefly, indeed, they to the robbers fall,
Who are most fitted to disgrace them all;
But there is hazard—­patents must be bought,
Venders and puffers for the poison sought;
And then in many a paper through the year,
Must cures and cases, oaths and proofs appear;
Men snatch’d from graves, as they were dropping in,
Their lungs cough’d up, their bones pierced through their skin
Their liver all one schirrus, and the frame
Poison’d with evils which they dare not name;
Men who spent all upon physicians’ fees,
Who never slept, nor had a moment’s ease,
Are now as roaches sound, and all as brisk as bees,
   If the sick gudgeons to the bait attend,
And come in shoals, the angler gains his end: 
But should the advertising cash be spent,
Ere yet the town has due attention lent,
Then bursts the bubble, and the hungry cheat
Pines for the bread he ill deserves to eat;
It is a lottery, and he shares perhaps
The rich man’s feast, or begs the pauper’s