Page:The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Volume 1 - Smollett (1772).djvu/48

 without hesitation the water that comes out of your abdomen." The ladies made wry faces at this declaration, and my uncle, changing colour, told him he did not desire any such proof of his philosophy: "But I should be glad to know (said he) what makes you think I am of a dropsical habit?" "Sir, I beg pardon (replied the Doctor) I perceive your ancles are swelled, and you seem to have the facies leucophlegmatica. Perhaps, indeed, your disorder may be oedematous, or gouty, or it may be the lues venerea: If you have any reason to flatter yourself it is this last, sir, I will undertake to cure you with three small pills, even if the disease should have attained its utmost inveteracy. Sir, it is an arcanum which I have discovered, and prepared with infinite labour.—Sir, I have lately cured a woman in Bristol—a common prostitute, sir, who had got all the worst symptoms of the disorder; such as nodi, tophi, and gummata, verrucæ, cristæ Galii, and a serpiginous eruption, or rather a pocky itch all over her body.—By that time he had taken the second pill, sir, by Heaven! she was as smooth as my hand, and the third