Punch (99.1890)

iv

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 27, 1890.

Hygeia. All civilised mankind are now worshippers at my modernised shrine ; but, unhappily, like the devotees of
other altars, they are sometimes a little too corybantic in their cultus.
Mr. Punch. Most true, Hygeia !—

To dedicate to thee, benignant Nymph,

Our Teuton's magic febrifaoient lymph,

Unheralded by blatant, nousless noise,

"Were first of duties, genuinest of joys.

But, iEseoxAPius mine, I greatly fear

The modern advertising Chanticleer,—

A strutting fowl, cacophonous, absurd,—

Is not the clarion-voiced dawn-hailing bird

Sacred to thee, which Socbates the wise

Chose as his mortuary sacrifice.

Nay, rather 'tis that gallinaceous pest,

Whose noise deprives a weary world of rest.

Heavens! how the wise abhor the blatant crew,

Whose life is one long Cook-a-doodle-do!

But here, iEscuLAPius, we are far from the shindy of Sensationalism; here, Hygeia, the dawn creeps upon us over yon
shadowy hills without the devil's tattoo of puffing quackdom; here, Dr. Koch, all is as calm and thought-aiding as those
lonely Klausthal Mountains where you first meditated war upon the Bacillus.

JEsculapius. Here is wine of a vintage that Clubdom could not match, and that Sir Wilfrid the Water-worshipper
could hardly demur to. Let us drink the health and the ultimate triumph of the illustrious Bacillicide !

Mr. Punch. With all my heart—though 'tis early for so potent a potation.

In spite of the quackish and quizzical,
May Keen's magic lymph anti-phthisical

Effect a safe cure,

As lasting as sure,

O'er the saddest of maladies physical! {.They drink.

JEsculapius. Hark! my bird in jubilant strains greets the dawn. May it mean the dawn of Health to the
disease-harassed world of men whom I loved, and suffered from angry Jove for aiding. Your devoted dog barketh briskly,
Mr. Punoh.

Mr. Punch. As though ho beheld the angry spectres or spooks of the malignant Microbes driven forth with the
vanishing darkness. Toby's Master is also, in his way, a slayer of Microbes, the parasitic mental pests, the soul-corrupting
Bacilli of palsying Humbug, and feverish Folly, and cancerous Cant. Foes, Doctor, as multitudinous as ubiquitous, and as
difficult of extirpation as any of the physical disease-germs that we are all hoping your long-sought lymph will finally defeat.
| As you labour in your Hygienic Museum in Kloster Strasse, so do I in my Sanctum in Fleet Street, in the interests of
■ disordered Mankind. Would you study my doctrine, and learn my infallible specifics ? Then read this 1

And Mr, Pusch politely presented to iEscuLAPius his

piteig-ll'kllj frfmne 1