POEMS AGAINST DOCTORS: 3. THEIR IGNORANCE by HUMBERT WOLFE

AND then besides. It makes me boil
the way he snarls "Cod Liver Oil"
in a loud tone, or even louder
"I think we'll try a soothing powder."
Powder be blowed! Do you suppose
that any Doctor really knows
where powders go when they are taken,
why medicine bottles should be shaken --
or what's the matter with your lung
by making faces at your tongue!
Of course he can't. The truth is that
he doesn't know what he is at,
but must say something or another
to satisfy your anxious mother,
who never is content until
his medicines make you really ill.
The thing to do is to be firm,
and tell the creature he's a worm,
and, when he breaks into a stammer,
smash all the bottles with a hammer,
mix pills and powders, and then stir
the mess with the thermometer.
Next leave your bed, and order crates
of almond-paste and chocolates,
plum-cake and various kinds of peels,
eat them before and after meals.
And as for diet, swallow jam on
hot buttered toast with pounds of salmon,
a lemon-squash with straws to suck its
sugar, and water-ice in buckets.
And, last of all, when he is ill,
with thwarted spite send him your bill.

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