Sganarelle:
“No, I tell you; they made a doctor of me in spite of myself. I had never
dreamt of being so learned as that, and all my studies came to an end in the
lowest form. I can't imagine what put that whim into their heads; but when I
saw that they were resolved to force me to be a doctor, I made up my mind to be
one at the expense of those I might have to do with. Yet you would hardly
believe how the error has spread abroad, and how everyone is obstinately
determined to see a great doctor in me. They come to fetch me from right and
left; and if things go on in that fashion, I think I had better stick to physic
all my life. I find it the best of trades; for, whether we are right or wrong,
we are paid equally well. We are never responsible for the bad work, and we cut
away as we please in the stuff we work on. A shoe maker in making shoes can't
spoil a scrap of leather without having to pay for it, but we can spoil a man
without paying one farthing for the damage done. The blunders are not ours, and
the fault is always that of the dead man. In short, the best part of this profession
is, that there exists among the dead an honesty, a discretion that nothing can
surpass; and never as yet has one been known to complain of the doctor who had
killed him.”—Moliere, The Doctor in Spite
of Himself (1666), in The Complete
Works of Moliere, Vol. II, edited by Charles Heron Wall (1898)
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