Quackery

From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains,
Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains;
These read more

From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains,
Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains;
These first induce him the vile trash to try,
Then lend his name, that other men may buy.

Void of all honor, avaricious, rash,
The daring tribe compound their boasted trash--
Tincture of syrup, lotion, read more

Void of all honor, 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.

Out, you impostors!
Quack salving, cheating mountebanks! your skill
Is to make sound men sick, and sick read more

Out, you impostors!
Quack salving, cheating mountebanks! your skill
Is to make sound men sick, and sick men kill.

I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where read more

I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood so cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.