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Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare

Chapter 8: PART VII. PHARMACY.
By Benjamin Rush Field
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About This Book

The author surveys Shakespeare's medical references and portrayals, compiling numerous quotations to illustrate how ailments, treatments, practitioners, and anatomy appear across the plays. Organized into chapters on the physician, practice of medicine, surgery, obstetrics, physiology, anatomy, and pharmacy, the volume pairs textual examples with explanatory commentary and occasional supplementary medical observations from other writers. It examines representations of mental disturbance, fever, wounds, contagion, and therapeutics, and considers how dramatic characterization reflects contemporary medical beliefs and practice. The work highlights both the playwright's command of medical terminology and the use of medical detail to develop plot and character.

PART VII.
PHARMACY.

Pharmacy was not overlooked.

I do remember an apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples: meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff’d, and other skins Of ill-shap’d fishes; and, about his shelves, A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter’d to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said— An if a man need poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
What, ho! apothecary! Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I.
O, true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.
He did buy a poison of a poor apothecary, And there withal came to this vault to die. Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.
Bid the apothecary Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. III.
Your master will be dead ere you return; There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature. That can recover him. Give this to the ’pothecary, And tell me how it works. Pericles, Act III., Sc. II.
Great griefs, I see, medicine the less. Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II.
That drug-damn’d Italy hath out-craftied him. Cymbeline, Act III., Sc. IV.
One, whose subdu’d eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their med’cinable gum. Othello, Act V., Sc. II.
Set ratsbane by his porridge. King Lear, Act III., Sc. IV.
I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. Henry IV—2d, Act I., Sc. II.
I would the milk Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck’dst her breast, Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake! Henry VI., Act V., Sc. IV.
If you have poison for me I will drink it. King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VII.
I have bought the oil, the balsamum and aquavitæ. Comedy of Errors, Act IV., Sc. I.
Give me some aquavitæ. Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Sc. II.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transcriber’s Note:

Uncertain or antiquated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.

Typographical errors have been silently corrected.

The book cover image was created by the transcriber and is in the public domain.