Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 2).djvu/84

 XVIII

SHAKESPEARE'S PHARMACY.

But law and the gospel in Shakespeare we find, And he gives the best physic for body and mind.


 * Shakespeare's Mulberry Tree.

The two most familiar pharmaceutical allusions in Shakespeare's writings are the apothecary and his shop in "Romeo and Juliet" (Act V., Sc. 1), and the juice of cursed hebenon which Hamlet's uncle poured into the ear of his father ("Hamlet," Act I., Sc. 5). Some remarks on both these noted allusions are given separately. The medical knowledge of Shakespeare has been discussed by several eminent doctors, notably by Dr. J. C. Bucknill, of Exeter, who published a very interesting work under that title in 1860, in which the writer almost went so far as to hint at the possibility that the great dramatist must have had some training in the medical science of the day before he took to the theatre business. A similar suggestion was made by Lord Campbell in regard to the poet's legal knowledge.

Great interest in drugs and poisons was taken by the people generally in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and the medical controversies of the period filled a good many books. It is certain that Shakespeare at least skimmed a good many of these. "Galen and Paracelsus" are