Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

fessed knowledge of anatomy, boastful claims to artistic eyes, and manual dexterity, the doctor in art, as in medi- cine, lias utterly failed to treat the form divine skillfully with paint and marble—those two great agents that have so largely tended to the happiness of mankind. Yet most modern physicians are savage art critics, and I have heard them claim that Turner had astygmatism ; that Canovas Venus had a dislocated femur; that Powers' Greek Slave had a deformed pelvis, etc." " What has the doctor done for music ? What famous composers do you number in your ranks ? What ?" "Hold!" exclaimed Paulus Androcydes, "your ques- tions vex me ; you are unreasonable." Athothis laughed merrily, and said: " Strangest thing of all, you have forgotten to mention the most glorious and immortal of medical literary men." " Who can he be ?" queried Paulus Androcydes, eagerly. " Rabelais!" answered Athothis. " He is the very prince of later writers, for he combines wit with knowl- edge, and to quote his words in the present instance, I may say, ' I will not launch my little skiff any further into the ocean of this wide dispute ;' for when you first commenced to discourse so learnedly on the achievements of moderns, to use a Pantagruelism, ' my right entrail seemed to be widened and enlarged, which was but just now hard bound, contracted, and costive.' I met Rabe- lais once during my transmigrations. He was inhabiting the body of a dove, and was listening to Semiramis, who was inhabiting a goose at Strasbourg. The Queen was endeavoring to convince Rabelais that Herodotus and Strabo had defamed her character, and even while in the midst of her argument was seized by the poultry dealer