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Physic

noun
1.
A purging medicine; stimulates evacuation of the bowels.  Synonyms: aperient, cathartic, purgative.



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"Physic" Quotes from Famous Books



... "They'll come the thicker when they do come. Good-morning, Dr. Quackenboss!—I hope you're a going to give us something else besides a bow? and I won't take none of your physic, neither." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... himself")—the summoner with his fiery face—the pardoner with his wallet "bretfull of pardons, come from Rome all hot"—the lively prioress with her courtly French lisp, her soft little red mouth, and "Amor vincit omnia" graven on her brooch. Learning is there in the portly person of the doctor of physic, rich with the profits of the pestilence—the busy serjeant-of-law, "that ever seemed busier than he was"—the hollow-cheeked clerk of Oxford with his love of books and short sharp sentences that disguise a latent tenderness which breaks out at last in the story of ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... said the fellow, looking down, "that you have power on earth, however you came by it; you can do what nae other man can do, baith by physic and foresight; and the gold is shelled down when ye command, as fast as I have seen the ash-keys fall in a frosty morning in October. I will not ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... wretched restless nights; and asked if I might take some of the composing medicine which he had given to my father. He forbade me to touch a drop of it. "What is physic for your father, you foolish child, is not physic for a young creature like you," he said. "Count a thousand, if you can't sleep to-night, or turn your pillow. I wish you pleasant dreams." He went away, amused at ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... indigestion and constipation. Had to be constantly taking physic, and finally was compelled to resort to hot water injections regularly to move my bowels. This got to be a great drudge to me. I took treatment from the leading physicians of this part of the country for my stomach and bowel troubles, and spent over one hundred dollars in this way, but they ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... course they go to the Duchess, be hanged to her! Of course it's our luck, nothing ever was like our luck. I'm blowed if I don't put a pistol to my 'ead, and end it, Mrs. G. There they go in—three, four, six, seven on 'em, and the man. That's the precious child's physic I suppose he's a-carryin' in the basket. Just look at the luggage. I say! There's a bloody hand on the first carriage. It's a baronet, is it? I 'ope your ladyship's very well; and I 'ope Sir John will soon be down yere to join his family." Mr. Gawler makes sarcastic bows over the card ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fathers knew but how to leave Their children wit as they do wealth, And could constrain them to receive That physic which brings perfect health, The world would not admiring stand A woman's ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... Montaigne. These great men build up an egoism of grave subjectivity out of their suspicion of other people's cults. They laugh at humanity but they do not laugh at themselves. With the help of meta-physic they destroy metaphysic; only to substitute for the gravity of ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... will take no more physic, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... deserts? Yours? You have a gold ring on your finger, and soft raiment about your body; and is not the woman up yonder sleeping after all she has done, in peace and quietness, on a soft bed, in a closed room, with light, fire, physic, tendance; and I have seen the true men of Christ lying famine-dead by scores, and under no ceiling but the cloud that wept ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... sermon before a large congregation, the malady became much worse, and a week followed of violent pain, during which his body swelled, he was constantly sick, and his weakness generally increased. Several doctors, including one called in from Erfurt, did their utmost to relieve him. 'They gave me physic,' he said afterwards, 'as if I were a great ox.' Mechanical contrivances were employed, but without effect.' I was obliged,' he said, 'to obey them, that it might not look as ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... yet this is precisely what intelligent persons do when they habitually use liver and peristaltic persuaders. The primary disease in the lower bowels and the consequent symptoms are gradually aggravated as the "physic" ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... several good notions about medicine; according to him, 'the eye cannot be cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the mind' (Charm.). No man of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic; and we heartily sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that 'the limbs of the rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor.' But we ...
— The Republic • Plato

... appeared in the foremost classes of life, not only for heroic valour, but likewise for several branches of learning, wisdom, and policy—such as Joan of Naples, the Maid of Orleans, Catherine de Medicis, Margaret of Mountfort, Madame Dacier, Mrs Behn, Mrs Manly, Mrs Stephens, Doctor of Physic, Mrs Mapp, Surgeon, the valiant Mrs Ross, Dragoon, and the learned Mrs Osborne, Politician. I had almost forgot the present Queen of Spain, who hath not only an absolute ascendant over the counsels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... contains an account of the circumstances connected with the trial of one Barnard, son of a surveyor in Abingdon Buildings, Westminster, on a charge of sending letters to the Duke of Marlborough, threatening his life by means "too fatal to be eluded by the power of physic," unless his grace "procured him a genteel support for his life." The incidents are truly remarkable, pointing most suspiciously toward Barnard; but he escaped. Can any of your readers refer me to where I can find any further account ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various

... broken down by want, having begun to practise physic in a strange place, and selling his antidote[15] under a feigned name, gained some reputation for himself by his ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... not in the least afraid of your doing anything rash. You'll be cautious enough I know when you come to be cool; especially if you take a little physic. What I want to say is this—Clem's money is safe enough. I tell you these bridge shares will go on rising till the beginning of next session. Instead of selling, what we should do is to buy up six or ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... here we need—boneset and sassafras and Injun physic and bark for the fever. There ain't nothing you can name we ain't got right here, or on the Sangamon, yet you talk of taking care of our children. Huh! We've moved five times since we was married. Now just as we got into a good country, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... love, nor honour, wealth, nor power, Can give the heart a cheerful hour, When health is lost. Be timely wise: With health all taste of pleasure flies.' Thus said, the phantom disappears. The wary counsel waked his fears: He now from all excess abstains, With physic purifies his veins; 20 And, to procure a sober life, Resolves to venture on a wife. But now again the sprite ascends, Where'er he walks his ear attends; Insinuates that beauty's frail, That perseverance must prevail; With jealousies his brain inflames, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... cane-work, measuring three feet square. Each had a short wooden trestle placed outside during the day and serving by night as a perch. They were fed and watered at 2 P.M. The fattening maize was first given, and then wheat, with an occasional cram of bread-crumb and water by way of physic. The masala and multifarious spices of the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... with tearful entreaty." Now by descending into hell Christ took away both sorrows, yet in different ways: for He did away with the sorrows of pains by preserving souls from them, just as a physician is said to free a man from sickness by warding it off by means of physic. Likewise He removed the sorrows caused by ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... religious distinctions are scarcely known—where characters and talents are all sufficient to attain advancement—where the Jews form a respectable part of the community— where, in most instances, they are liberally educated, many following the honourable professions of law and physic with credit and ability, and associating with the best society that country affords. Living in a retired village, her father's the only family of Israelites who resided in or near it, all her juvenile friendships ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... to say, folly. Divines are half starved, naturalists out of heart, astrologers laughed at, and logicians slighted; only the physician is worth all the rest. And among them too, the more unlearned, impudent, or unadvised he is, the more he is esteemed, even among princes. For physic, especially as it is now professed by most men, is nothing but a branch of flattery, no less than rhetoric. Next them, the second place is given to our law-drivers, if not the first, whose profession, though I say it myself, most men laugh at as the ass ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... besides which their chief article of food is a sweet root, which they name capar. The voyagers report that these savages were very jealous of their women; yet do not mention having seen any. Their practice of physic consists in bleeding and vomiting: The former being performed by giving a good chop with some edge tool to the part affected; and the latter is excited by thrusting an arrow half a yard down the throat of the patient. These people, to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... no persuasion give your horse physic, or bleed him, or blister him, or fire him, or let the blacksmith have anything to do with any part of him which is more sensible than the ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood

... and thirty years; and he was neither blind nor bed-rid, till some months before his death. They have sometimes pleurisies and fevers, but no chronical distempers. They know of several herbs that have great virtues in physic, particularly for the cure of ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... expect that the positive result of this struggle will be in the nature of a physic—a dissolving away of delusions, and simultaneously a bringing into relief of some essential facts. This clearing of the ground will not wait until the war is over; it has already begun, though men are yet but half-conscious of it, and then only in the guise of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... first of the professions, because it is necessary for all at all times; law and physic are only necessary for some at some times. I speak of them, of course, not in their abstract existence, but in their ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... Friend (Hist. Medicin. in Opp. p. 416—420, Lond. 1733) is satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic, from his knowledge and use of the technical words. Yet many words that are now scientific were common and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... had just completed his eighteenth year, "when," to use his own words, "the winter came on and thrust me again into the chimney, whence the heat and the dryness of the preceding summer had happily once before withdrawn me. But, it not being a fit season for physic, it was thought fit to let me alone this winter, and try the skill of another physician ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... supposed. There is scarce a trade or department of manual labour that does not induce its own set of peculiarities—peculiarities which, though less within the range of the observation of men in the habit of recording what they remark, are not less real than those of the man of physic or of law. The barber is as unlike the weaver, and the tailor as unlike both, as the farmer is unlike the soldier, or as either farmer or soldier is unlike the merchant, lawyer, or minister. And it is only ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... he cried. "A duel? or young Denis defending his Majesty from an attempted assassination on the part of Master Leoni with a sword instead of physic?" ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... don't care what they call me, so long as they don't call me too late for dinner. Father and mother, whoever they were, when they ran away from me, didn't run away with my appetite. I wonder how long master means to play with his knife and fork. As for Mr Brookes, what he eats wouldn't physic a snipe. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... the Roman Church, before it was so grossly abused, like all other remnants of the system of the dark ages, has been of use in its day. The priesthood combined with their religious duties those faculties now known as Law, Physic, and Literature, and also supplied the place of all charitable and scholastic institutions. The Church was the nursery of Christendom, and it is only since the world has progressed in education, and arrived at manhood, that it has renounced the leading-strings of ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... bell! There never was A better girl!—I have made myself a fool. I am undone, if goes the news abroad. My wedding dress I donned for no effect Except to put it off! I must be married. I'm a lost woman, if another day I go without a husband!—What a sight He looks by Master Waller!—Yet he is physic I die without, so needs must gulp it down. I'll swallow him with what good grace I can, Sir ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... Still I will not forbear. But this I know, Piso, that when a disaffection has broken out in a legion, and I have caused the half thereof, or its tenth, to be drawn forth and cut to pieces by the other part, the danger has disappeared. The physic has been bitter, but it has cured the patient! I am a good surgeon; and well used to letting blood. I know the wonders it works and shall try it now, not doubting to see some good effects. When poison is ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... be grammatically applied to a determinate total, whether it be the river Yssell or MR. HICKSON'S dose of physic. Shakespeare seems to have been well acquainted with, and to have observed, the grammatical rule which MR. SINGER professes not to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various

... Madam, replied he; which, I am sure, the doctor will approve of, and will make physic unnecessary in your case. And that is, 'go to rest at ten at night. Rise not till seven in the morning. Let your breakfast be watergruel, or milk-pottage, or weak broths: your dinner any thing you like, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... Bonaparte when war broke out. That monster cannot live without fighting. The young Englishman, by way of amusing himself, took to studying his own complaint, which was believed to be incurable. By degrees he acquired a liking for anatomy and physic, and took quite a craze for that kind of thing, a most extraordinary taste in a man of quality, though the Regent certainly amused himself with chemistry! In short, Monsieur Arthur made astonishing progress in his studies; his health did the same under the faculty of Montpellier; he consoled ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... will be sufficient. If it result from overloading the stomach, a dose of the Pleasant Pellets will answer the purpose. If the pain in the abdomen is severe, apply hot fomentations. Assist the action of physic, by giving an injection of senna and catnip tea, or if the stomach is very sour, take internally some mild alkali, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill. 70 Most of those evils we poor mortals know, From doctors and imagination flow. Hence to old women with your boasted rules, Stale traps, and only sacred now to fools; As well may sons of physic hope to find One medicine, as one hour, for all mankind! If Rupert after ten is out of bed, The fool next morning can't hold up his head; What reason this which me to bed must call, Whose head, thank Heaven, never aches at all? 80 In different courses different ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... our wrongs, John, You didn't stop for fuss,— Britanny's trident prongs, John, Was good 'nough law for us. 40 Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, Though physic's good,' sez he, 'It doesn't foller thet he can swaller Prescriptions signed "J.B.," Put up by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... he, sniffing vigorously, "I smell something good—something I am ready for. There is no physic like sleep," and with that he stretched out his arms with a great yawn, then rose very agilely, kicking the clothes and mattress on one side and bringing a bench close to the furnace. ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... them at once; and continued his visits if the sickness lasted. But now, Madame had been laid up for six weeks with a tertian fever, for which she would do nothing, because she treated herself in her German fashion, and despised physic and doctors. The King, who, besides the affair of M. le Duc de Chartres, was secretly angered with her, as will presently be seen, had not been to see her, although Monsieur had urged him to do so during those flying visits ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... who were well instructed in all the scriptures, and others who had studied in one particular school of philosophy, and were acquainted only with the works on divine wisdom, or with those on justice, civil and criminal, on the arts, mineralogy or the practice of physic; also persons cunning in all kinds of customs; riding-masters, dancing- masters, teachers of good behaviour, examiners, tasters, mimics, mountebanks, and others, who all attended the court and awaited the king's commands. He here pronounced ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... now and then. It's a mental and moral advance, her new love of music. I notice that she talks much less about science, much more about the things one really likes—I speak for myself. Well, it's just possible I have had a little influence there. I confess my inability to chat about either physic or physics. It's weak, of course, but I have no place in ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... vanity and presumption, which, not contented with displaying his importance in the world of taste and polite literature, manifested itself in arrogating certain material discoveries in the province of physic, which could not fail to advance him to the highest pinnacle of that profession, considering the recommendation of his other talents, together with a liberal fortune which he inherited ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... of spiritual physic," replied the spectre, "is obsolete, and the holy-water cure, in particular, has almost ceased to number any advocates, except the Rev. Dr F. G. Lee, whose books," said this candid apparition, "appear to me to indicate superstitious credulity. No, I don't know that any new discoveries have ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... handkerchief is the disguise under which the Elixir Vitae masquerades among us; certain it is that beneath its benign influence the sachem of the Pokanokets revived so rapidly that when, twenty-four hours from his departure, the runner arrived with the chickens and the physic, his master frankly threw the physic to the dogs, and handed over the fowls to Pibayo, bidding her guard them carefully, feed them well, and order them to lay eggs and provide chickens for ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... is the dead cart of which we have need tonight," answered Janet. "We sent the watchman for physic, but it is needed no longer. The little ones are dead already—three of them, and ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... learning, physic, must/ All follow this, and come to dust] The poet's sentiment seems to have been this. All human excellence is equally the subject to the stroke of death: neither the power of kings, nor the science of scholars, nor the art of those whose immediate ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... and highly respectable sources, chlorine itself has been strongly pressed upon my notice, as a most valuable remedy in the severest forms of scarlet-fever." Watson, Principles and Practice of Physic. ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... formal separation, had been a close friend of her husband and herself, and his brother hastened with assurance of his wish to serve her. He was one of the eminent men of the Island, a planter and a member of Council; also, a "doctor of physic." He carried Rachael safely through her childhood complaints and the darkest of her days; and if his was the hand which opened the gates between herself and history, who shall say in the light of the glorified result that its master should not sleep ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... of October, Mr Melsham being very sick, Zanzibar came to visit him, and urged him to use the physic of the country, bringing with him a bonze, or doctor, to administer the cure. Mr Melsham was very desirous to use it, but wished our surgeon to see it in the first place. So the bonze gave him two pills yesterday, two in the night, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... affliction which He hath been pleased to draw on me, and by which He hath (I hope) drawn me nearer to Himself. You have already tasted of that cup whereof I have liberally drunk; which I look upon as God's physic, having that in healthfulness ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... necessary for preserving them; a ream or two of paper for drying plants, and several other articles, more particularly a medicine-chest well-filled, for Mr Swinton was not unacquainted with surgery and physic. The other lockers were filled with a large quantity of glass beads and cutlery for presents, several hundred pounds of bullets, ready cast, and all the kitchen-ware and crockery. It had the same covering as the first, and Mr Swinton's mattress was at night spread ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... enterprising but unfortunate experiment of making pig-iron with pit-coal," no remains had been found. It was the same with the like operations of Cromwell, Major Wildman, Captain Birch, and other of his officers, doctors of physic and merchants, by whom works and furnaces had been set up in the Forest ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls

... systematic, logical gardener put his meddlesome hand, and straightway all ran to seed; to genus and species and differentia, into formal classes, under general notions, and with—yes! with written labels fluttering on the stalks, instead of blossoms—a botanic or "physic" garden, as they used to say, instead of our flower-garden and orchard. And yet (it must be confessed on the other hand) what we actually see, see and hear, is more interesting than ever; the nineteenth century ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... acknowledge their obligations to the bears for what little advancement they have hitherto made either in the sciences or polite arts. They confess that they owe to them all their skill both to physic and surgery; that, by remarking with what herbs these animals rub the wounds they have received, and what they have recourse to when sick and languid, they have become acquainted with most of the simples in use among them, either in the way of internal medicine, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... sketches of a Knight, a Squire (his son), and their Yeoman; of a Prioress, Monk, Friar, Oxford Clerk, and Parson, with two disreputable hangers-on of the church, a Summoner and Pardoner; of a Serjeant-at-Law and a Doctor of Physic, and of a Franklin, or country gentleman, Merchant, Shipman, Miller, Cook, Manciple, Reeve, Ploughman (the Parson's brother) and the ever-famous Wife of Bath. Five London burgesses are described in a group, and a Nun and Priest[3] are mentioned as in attendance on the Prioress. Each ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... treatment. They cut his hair, his beautiful flow of dark hair; rub his scalp with chloroform; keep the hot bottles around his feet, the ice bag on his head; and give him a spoon of physic every hour. "Make no noise around the room, and admit no light into it," further advises the doctor. Thus for two weeks the child languishes in his mother's arms; and resting from the convulsions and the coma, he would fix on Khalid the hollow, icy glance of death. No; ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... will study how to heat hot irons!" said Darya Khan, with grim conviction. "It is likely that, having worked for a blacksmith once, I may learn quickly! Phaughghgh! I have tasted physic! I have ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... wife soon found out what I was, found out that I was an Automaton, and she pulled the wires and put me in motion, in any way she wished. I opened an office, put out a sign, and for a time practised law and physic, and when the minister was sick took his place and preached. I preached just what they wanted me to. I felt more like an Automaton than ever, stuck up in a high box, talking just what had been talked a thousand ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... find it so when the wrong one was left to lift him, and just ran his great stupid arm into the tenderest place in his side, and always stepped on all the boards that creak, and upset the table of physic bottles, and then said it was Harold's way of propping them up! And that's the creature they expect me ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a grateful look. But the physic only seemed to increase the pain. He lay there panting and motionless, until, trying to find a new ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... principle that "a living dog is better than a dead lion.") "And the candlemaker's daughter begins her reign, for that poor lad will never marry. Upon my word, I believe I'm a better man than Master Horace now. And I'm not likely to play the fool with physic-bottles, either: I know a little better than that." No, Aunt Harriet would not have liked Garnett's train of thought as he folded and addressed the letter which pleased her. And yet the old fellow meant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... them. For the great majority there was little opportunity in these early years to practice a trade or a profession. Except for the clergy, who could preach in America with greater freedom than in England, and for the occasional practitioner in physic or the law who as time went on found occasion to apply his knowledge in the household and the courts, there was little else for any one to do than engage in farming, fishing, and trading with the ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... "They'll come the thicker when they do come. Good morning, Dr. Quackenboss! I hope you're a-going to give us something else besides a bow? and I wont take none of your physic neither." ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... rarer sorts are wanted yet, The lead and buoy are needful to the net; The caput mortuum of gross desires Makes a material for mere knights and squires; The martial phosphorus is taught to flow, She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough, Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs, Law, physic, politics, and deep divines: Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles, The flashing elements ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... twitter yet when I think of it. Grandfather went to Liverpool one Whitsun-week to go strolling about the docks and pick up what he could from the sailors, who often bring some queer thing or another from the hot countries they go to; and so he sees a chap with a bottle in his hand, like a druggist's physic-bottle; and says grandfather, 'What have ye gotten there?' So the sailor holds it up, and grandfather knew it was a rare kind o' scorpion, not common even in the East Indies where the man came from; and says he, 'How did you catch this fine fellow, for he wouldn't be taken for nothing, I'm thinking?' ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... wind, and weather, in sufficiently warm clothes, and with sufficient exercise, plenty of amusements and play; more liberty, and less schooling, and cramming, and training; more attention to food and less to physic." ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... this adventure, I received a note informing me that a person, practising physic, but also a collector and seller of old books, would be glad to see me in an adjoining street. He had, in particular, some "RARE OLD BIBLES." Another equally stimulant provocative! I went, saw, and... returned—with scarcely a ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... months to receive some money. One day entering the passage of his little counting-house, as she was going out, I heard her say, 'The child is very weak; she cannot live long, she will soon die out of your way, so you need not grudge her a little physic.' ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... tottering bedsteads, a three-legged stool, and an old oak chest; the window broken in many places, and mended with patches of paper. A little shelf against the wall, over the bedstead where Jane lay, served for her physic, ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... sylvan beverage. His eloquence failed in gaining a single convert; we could not believe it was only second to young hyson. To his assurance that to its other good qualities it united medicinal virtues, we replied that, like all other physic, it ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... day," rejoined lady Feng, "not long ago, when we concocted some medicine for our dowager lady, you told us, madame, to keep the pieces that were whole, to present to the spouse of General Yang to make physic with, and as it happens it was only yesterday that I sent ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... with his garment: so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.' Here was a disease that set all human skill at defiance, but the great, the Almighty Physician, cured it with strange physic. Had any professor reproved him, it might have been passed by as a matter of course; but it was so ordered that a woman who was notoriously 'a very loose and ungodly wretch,' protested that she trembled to hear him swear ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... printed in England since the Dreadful Fire, 1666, to the End of Trinity Term, 1676.' This catalogue was continued every term till 1700, and includes an abstract of the bills of mortality. The books are classified under their respective headings of divinity, history, physic and surgery, miscellanies, chemistry, etc., the publisher's name in each case being given. Dunton describes Clavell as 'an eminent bookseller' and 'a great dealer,' whilst Dr. Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, distinguished him ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... idiots, I don't desire you should be my customers. Take notice, I don't address you in the style of a mountebank, or a High German doctor; and yet the kingdom is full of mountebanks, empirics, and quacks. We have quacks in religion, quacks in physic, quacks in law, quacks in politics, quacks in patriotism, quacks in government—High German quacks, that have blistered, sweated, bled, and purged the nation into an atrophy. But this is not all; they have not only evacuated her into a consumption, but they have ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... prepare the animal by the administration of a dose of physic; but others proceed at once to the operation when it best suits their convenience, or that of the farmer. Care, however, should be taken that the young animal is in perfect health. The mode formerly practised was simple enough:—a ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... Mr Ray says he would not have inserted it in his collection, but that he met with it in a little book, intitled, the Quakers' Spiritual Court Proclaimed; written by Nathaniel Smith, Student in Physic; wherein the author mentions it as counsel given him by Hilkiah Bedford, an eminent Quaker in London, who would have had him to have married a rich widow, in whose house he lodged. In case he could get her, this Nathaniel Smith ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... never bullied you anyway. But I'm on the war-path now, and you've got to take your physic whether you like it or not. Say, Bunny, how much money did you drop at the ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions; that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion; for so in physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours," adding "the homoeopathic comparison shows how near he was to the correct notion." Bernays concludes ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... dear Mole," said the worthy Isaac to himself, "philosophy is your physic; think of Socrates and be at ease—ugh! It's precious damp—too much water. I must have an extra drop ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... things in their way; but so it is that these watches never tell the time so well as those in which that is the exclusive object of the maker. Every additional movement is an obstacle to the original design. We do not deny that we have learned much physic, and much law, from Patronage, particularly the latter, for Miss Edgeworth's law is of a very original kind; but it was not to learn law and physic that we took up the book, and we suspect we should have been more pleased if we had been less taught. With regard to the influence of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... was permitted to appear at court, or live in London, or within ten miles of it, or remove, on any occasion, more than five miles from his home, without especial license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to practise surgery, physic, or law; to act as judge, clerk, or officer of any court or corporation; or perform the office of administrator, executor, or guardian. Every Catholic who refused to have his child baptized by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... publications, some of which may be perused with advantage even at the present hour, he delivered at one time or other during his professional career, courses of lectures on chemistry, pharmacy, surgery, military surgery, diseases of the eye, practice of physic, and general pathology. Besides professional friends in nearly all quarters of the world, he could number among his intimate associates Brougham, Horner, Jeffrey, Pillans, Thomas Thomson, and John Allen, afterwards private ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... frequents it"—Gillenia trifoliata—Indian Physic. Two doctors state that it is good as a tea for bowel complaints, with fever and yellow vomit; but another says that it is poisonous and that no decoction is ever drunk, but that the beaten root is a good poultice for swellings. Dispensatory: "Gillenia is a mild and efficient emetic, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... treatises; the Greek for book, or treatise, being a neuter substantive, [Greek: biblion] (biblion). Let the substantive meaning treatise be, in the course of language, omitted, so that whilst the science of physics is called [Greek: phusike] (fysikae), physic, from [Greek: he phusike techne], a series of treatises (or even chapters) upon the science shall be called [Greek: phusika] (fysika) or physics. Now all this was what happened in Greece. The science was denoted by a feminine adjective singular, as ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... a dangerous resolution, anywhere in the world; it was fatal, in New England. There is a grossness in the conceptions of my countrymen; they will not be convinced that any good thing may consist with what they call idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil of a young man who neither studies physic, law, nor gospel, nor opens a store, nor takes to farming, but manifests an incomprehensible disposition to be satisfied with what his father left him. The principle is excellent, in its general influence, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... must have ingenuity and patience enough to learn how editors are pleased; but he will be startled, I think, if he studies their needs, to see how eager they are to meet him half way. This necessary docility is in the long run, a wholesome physic, because, if our apprentice has any gallantry of spirit, it will arouse in him an exhilarating irritation, that indignation which is said to be the forerunner of creation. It will mean, probably, a period—perhaps short, perhaps long, perhaps permanent—of rather meagre and stinted ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... dissatisfaction at our enjoyment, as a hard taskmaster might, who in the glee of his slaves could see only a hindrance to their profitable working. And with reference to our individual cultivation, we may remember that we are not here to promote incalculable quantities of law, physic, or manufactured goods, but to become men—not narrow pedants, but wide-seeing, mind- travelled men. Who are the men of history to be admired most? Those whom most things became—who could be weighty in debate, of much device ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... medicine were for ages well kept under by the theological spirit. As far back as the sixth century so great a man as Pope Gregory I showed himself hostile to the development of this science. In the beginning of the twelfth century the Council of Rheims interdicted the study of law and physic to monks, and a multitude of other councils enforced this decree. About the middle of the same century St. Bernard still complained that monks had too much to do with medicine; and a few years later ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... Give a physic of glauber and epsom salts mixed 4 ounces of each to the heifer and double the dose to the cow. Apply externally, once daily, after washing, the following prescription: Zinc ointment, 4 ounces; iodoform, ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... "the locust frequents it"— Gillenia trifoliata— Indian Physic. Two doctors state that it is good as a tea for bowel complaints, with fever and yellow vomit; but another says that it is poisonous and that no decoction is ever drunk, but that the beaten root is a good poultice for swellings. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... former;" or that the more general use of them has led to greater success in the practice of the healing art. It is however evident, that we have much to regret the almost total neglect of the study of medical botany by the younger branches of the professors of physic, when we are credibly informed that Cow-parsley has been administered for Hemlock, and Foxglove has been substituted for Coltsfoot [Footnote: See the account of a dreadful accident of this nature, in Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1815.], from which circumstance, ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... gentleman, should earn his income as a clergyman, or as a barrister, or as a soldier, or as a sailor. Those were the professions intended for gentlemen. She would not absolutely say that a physician was not a gentleman, or even a surgeon; but she would never allow to physic the same absolute privileges which, in her eyes, belonged to law and the church. There might also possibly be a doubt about the Civil Service and Civil Engineering; but she had no doubt whatever that when ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... be, I do hope that her worst day will be upon the morrow, in which case she could not accompany Lady Madge and me. I shall nurse my good aunt carefully this day, and shall importune her to take plentifully of physic that she may quickly recover her health—after to-morrow. Should a gentleman ask of Will Dawson, who will be in the tap-room of the Royal Arms at eleven o'clock of the morning, Dawson will be glad to ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... the lane behind the church, I see'd these same two chaps, and on coming nearer, (they not seeing me for the hedge,) Lord bless me! would you believe it?—if they wasn't a-teasing my daughter Jenny, that were coming along wi' some physic from the doctor for my old woman! One of 'em seemed a-going to put his arm round her neck and t' other came close to her on t' other side, a-talking to her and pushing her about." Here a young farmer, who had but seldom spoken, took his pipe out of his mouth, and exclaiming, "Lord bless ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... ministry at Scituate, was appointed, in 1654, president of Harvard College. In this office he remained till his death, in 1671, performing all its duties with industrious fidelity. He was eminent as a physician, and was of opinion that there ought to be no distinction between physic and divinity. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... since we left Barbary, and not understanding his present complaint, pulled a very long face, and, declaring his case was very critical, bled him copiously, forbade him to leave his bed for another fortnight, and sent him in half a dozen bottles of physic. About midday he returns, and, finding his patient no better, administers a bolus; and while we are all standing about the bed, and Dawson the colour of death, and groaning, betwixt the nausea of the drug he had swallowed and the ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... herbs found in Loudoun are the rattlesnake root, Seneca snakeroot (also called Virginia snakeroot), many varieties of mint, liverwort, red-root, May apple, butterfly-weed, milk weed, thorough-stem, trumpet-weed, Indian-physic, lobelia inflata, and lobelia cardinalis, golden-rod, skunk-cabbage, frost-weed, ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head



Words linked to "Physic" :   medication, Rochelle powder, bitter aloes, medicine, Seidlitz powders, laxative, castor oil, aloes, milk of magnesia, Epsom salts, medicament, medicinal drug, Seidlitz powder



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