"Quack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pond where a duck was swimming. "Quack, quack," said the duck; which meant, "What a nice red apple! I ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... feathers and doesn't say quack," replied Mally from below. "No, darling, you're not a goose; you're Mally's good boy. Now, run back ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... disinherited classes. The party of extreme measures is always chiefly constituted from the proletariat because it is the very poor who most pressingly feel the need for change and because they have not usually the education to judge the feasibility of the plans, many of them quack nostrums, presented as panaceas for all their woes. A complete break with the past and with the existing order has no terrors for them, but ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... are never destined to a long supremacy. They have never come into power but in some perverted state of the public feelings. There must be some terror, or some infatuation, in the public mind, before it calls in the quack; but the moment that sees quiet succeed to disturbance, and the nation has recovered its composure, always sees the Whigs driven out of office. The death of Fox, in 1806, unquestionably deprived the party of a great popular name, but the whole strength of Whiggism ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... taking it must be under the care and observation of a physician from time to time. Only the ignorant undertake to treat themselves for syphilis, though how many of these there are can be inferred from the amount of patent medicine and quack treatment there is in these fields. Properly given, mercury has no harmful effects, and there is no ground whatever for the notion some people have, that mercury will do them more harm than a syphilitic infection. Improperly ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... with a grave face, "you would not compare the spiritual Christian, such as Luther, holding his cardinal doctrine about justification, to any such formal, legal, superstitious devotee as Popery can make, with its carnal rites and quack remedies, which never really cleanse the soul or reconcile ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... were four-and-twenty sailors a-skipping on the deck, And they were little white mice with rings about their neck. The captain was a duck, with a jacket on his back, And when the ship began to sail, the captain cried, "Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!" The captain ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... which was held in a great public square in the midst of the city. The courthouse was on one side, and over the door there was a sign which read "The Hall of Justice." Everybody seemed to be at the fair: peasants, nobles, soldiers, and citizens; rope-dancers, quack doctors, waxworks, showmen of all sorts, and bells rang and flags flew, and altogether it was just the thing for ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... of Buckingham, the king absolutely refused to abandon his favourite, against whom all kinds of rumours were astir. Nothing was too bad to be believed of him, and popular fury spared neither him nor his friends. Dr. Lamb, an astrologer and quack doctor, was set upon in the city as being one of the latter, and was nearly done to death one night whilst returning home from supper. None would receive into his house the almost lifeless body of the necromancer—the duke's devil, as he was called—who supplied him with love ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... of quack 1/2 oz., honey 1/2 oz., camphor water 6 oz., mix and cork. Take two tablespoonsful three or four times a day in chronic rheumatism; rub well the affected part ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... needed, in order to select the kind, which is suitable to the particular disease, or to the particular constitution of the invalid. This shows the folly of using the many kinds of pills, and other quack medicines, where no knowledge can be had of their composition. Pills which are good for one kind of disease, might operate as poison in another state of the system. It is wise to keep always on hand ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... consumption, in mankind, that at length all political phenomena find their solution. As long as we fail to follow their effects to this point, and look only at immediate effects, which act but upon individual men or classes of men as producers, we know nothing more of political economy than the quack does of medicine, when, instead of following the effects of a prescription in its action upon the whole system, he satisfies himself with knowing how it affects the palate ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... functions of human life was the Liver; and it is only with bated breath that any doctor dares question the legitimacy of that monarch's claim. The loyal subjects of King Liver are ever ready to call out "quack," "charlatan," etc., to those who dare repudiate the sovereignty of ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... more abandoned, if possible, than Porter, was in the plot. Goodman had been on the stage, had been kept, like some much greater men, by the Duchess of Cleveland, had been taken into her house, had been loaded by her with gifts, and had requited her by bribing an Italian quack to poison two of her children. As the poison had not been administered, Goodman could be prosecuted only for a misdemeanour. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to a ruinous fine. He had since distinguished himself as one of the first forgers ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and shall not leave us till we die; an ideal self, who is our judgment? and if it be yet answered that this in truth is so, and might be borne but for the errors of the idealizing temperament, shall we not reply that the quack does not discredit the art of medicine, nor the demagogue the art of politics, and no more does the fool in all his motley ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daughter of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Mrs. Carmichael, but whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor called Levet, who bled and dosed coalheavers and hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts of bread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little copper, completed ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, in case he suffered Rawleigh to escape; Rawleigh solemnly assured him that he should be no loser, and that his lady should give him one thousand pounds when they got into France or Holland. About this time the French quack took his leave: the part he had to act was performed: the juggle was complete: and two wretches had triumphed over the sagacity and magnanimity of a sage and a hero, whom misfortune had levelled to folly; and who, in violating the dignity of his own character, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the mind exercises a powerful influence over the body. From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, the interpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the hypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them in their work. They have all recognised the potency and availability of that force. Physicians cure many patients with a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bull to be placed in by a blethering idiot, who can argue with equal volubility on either side, but with more conviction when in the wrong. Bull must have been drunk, and drunk on stupid beer, when he placed his heart strings between the finger and thumb of a quack like that, who, whatever the result, whether we get Home Rule or not, has ruined the country for ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... of Scot without an Antidote, Unless my Head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be Poison too. Were I a drowzy Judge, whose dismal Note Disgorges Halters, as a Juggler's Throat Does Ribbons; could I in Sir Empyrick's Tone Speak Pills in Phrase, and quack Destruction; Or roar like Marshal, that Geneva Bull, Hell and Damnation a Pulpit full: Yet to express a Scot, to play that Prize, Not all those Mouth-Granadoes can suffice. Before a Scot can properly be curst, I must, like Hocus, swallow Daggers first. Scots are like Witches; ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... XV. and Madame de Pompadour treated Saint-Germain as a person of consequence. 'He is a quack, for he says he has an elixir,' said Dr. Quesnay, with medical scepticism. 'Moreover, our master, the King, is obstinate; he sometimes speaks of Saint-Germain as a person ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... I should eat all my enemies, I should suffer from an everlasting indigestion, and, in my despair, I might fly to La Mettrie for help. It is well known that when you suffer from incurable diseases, you seek, at last, counsel of the quack." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... "All the fools be flying the place like so many silly sheep; or, if they come to sit awhile, their talk is all of pills and decoctions, refuses and ointments. Bah! they will buy the drugs of every foolish quack who goes about the streets selling plague cures, and then fly off the next day, thinking that they will be the next victim. Bah! the folly of the men! How glad I am that ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... all this history as the difference between Moses when called upon to take responsibility as a military commander, and Moses when, not to mince matters, he acted as a quack. On the one hand, he was all vacillation, timidity, and irritability. On the other, all ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... It's astonishing how many people are willing to make asses of themselves. There's that Achleitner—look at the condescension with which Hahlstroem treats him and the lofty way Hahlstroem plays the role of benefactor! He used to be a riding-master. Then he got mixed up in some quack cure, a combination of Swedish gymnastics and hydrotherapeutics, and his wife left him, a fine, hard-working woman, now doing splendidly as head of a department ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... curious case, as I have since heard. The man owes his life to the curiosity of a woman of fashion, and then to another feeling. Lady Burghersh and Lady Glengall wanted to hear St. John Long's trial (the quack who had man-slaughtered Miss Cashir), and they went to the Old Bailey for that purpose. Castlereagh and somebody else, who of course were not up in time, were to have attended them. They wanted an escort, and the only man in London sure to be out of bed so ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... refrain from cautioning possessors of good instruments against entrusting them into the barbaric hands of pretended repairers, who endeavour to persuade them into the belief that it is necessary to do this, that, and the other for their benefit. The quack doctors of the Violin are legion—they are found in every town and city, ready to prey upon the credulity of the lovers of Fiddles, and the injury they inflict on their helpless patients is frequently irreparable. Unfortunately, amateurs are often prone to be continually ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... duke, angrily, glowering upon the impassive and woebegone countenance of the medical attendant. "As if he had not bled enough from his hurts! Quack of an imposter! You have ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... posterity behind them; or has the presumption of General von Mack imposed upon the judgment of the Counsellors of his Prince? This latter must have been the case; how otherwise could the welfare of their Sovereign have been entrusted to a military quack, whose want of energy and bad disposition had, in 1799, delivered up the capital of another Sovereign to his enemies. How many reputations are gained by an impudent assurance, and lost when the man of talents is called upon to act and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... false—idea of how men think, and act, and suffer, in this same Border State. Your impression may be that a lethargy prevails, where, in reality, dangerous fever is the disease—a fever that must one day break out violently, in spite of the quack medicines administered by an incapable Government—in spite of the restrictions unsparingly employed, by that grim ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... live in the country! And I love for to live on the farm! I love for to wander in the grass-green fields— Oh, a country life has the charm! I love for to wander in the garden— Down by the old haystack; Where the pretty little chickens go 'Kick-Kack-Kackle!' And the little docks go 'Quack! Quack!'" ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... gull, moving toward us. We were running before the wind and soon were near enough to get a good view. It was a bird of some kind. We were in no doubt about the kind when it raised itself upon the water, flapped its wings and uttered a loud "Quack! qu-a-a-a-ck!" ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... policy to take root now, and blossom in another half-century: one of those blessed parliamentary enactments which men who dealt in heroic remedies like himself regarded as the chronic placebo of the political quack. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... those doctors (probably a large majority) who are not interested in it, and practise only to earn their bread. Doctoring is not even the art of keeping people in health (no doctor seems able to advise you what to eat any better than his grandmother or the nearest quack): it is the art of curing illnesses. It does happen exceptionally that a practising doctor makes a contribution to science (my play describes a very notable one); but it happens much oftener that he draws disastrous ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... may occur ([Greek: b]) from neglect, not of the material instances wholly, but of some material facts in them, e.g. in cases of cures by quack remedies (such as Kenelm Digby's 'sympathetic powder'), of some attendant fact (as exclusion of air from a wound, rest, regimen, and the like) which really worked the cure. Sometimes the neglected fact is one ascertainable, not by the senses, but by reasoning, which ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... is written on the pages of the records of man's progress. Likewise must the quack doctor and ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... the Privy Council ordered Stukely, 'all delays set apart,' to bring the body of Sir Walter Raleigh speedily to London. Two days later, Stukely and his prisoner started from Plymouth. A French quack, called Mannourie, in whose chemical pretensions Raleigh had shown some interest, was encouraged by Stukely to attend him, and to worm himself into his confidence. As Walter and Elizabeth Raleigh passed the beautiful Sherborne which had once been theirs, the former ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... treatment. He sighs as you bid him farewell to return to advice which is so likely to prove fatal. The London physician, it is true, hints that though the oracle of the winter resort is a clever man he is also a quack. But a quack soars into a greatness beyond criticism when he creates cities and rules hundreds ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... and glows like liquid flame; Say, what quack nostrum is this thou'st brewed? Speak out; I am ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... there were no stacks of corn standing in the fields; neither was this conclusion in any way shaken when it was explained to him that the Egyptians were not in the habit of erecting corn stacks after the English model. All these classes readily lend an ear to quack, though often very well-intentioned politicians, who go about the world preaching that countries can be regenerated by shibboleths, and that the characters of nations can be changed by Acts of Parliament. This frame of mind appeals with irresistible force to the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... historical Faustus, the esteemed scholar, the skilful physician, gradually merged in the juggler, the quack, the adventurer, and the impostor. The popular legend follows him to foreign countries. His magic mantle carries him, in eight days, over the whole world, and even into the Infernal regions. He is honorably ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... pressing against his mouth; by him lay a new jews-harp, a new top, a solid india-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of "store" candy, and a well-knawed slab of gingerbread as big and as thick as a volume of sheet music. He had sold the skeleton to a travelling quack for three dollars ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... soon to become law).—The sale of any unregistered proprietary medicine purporting to cure certain diseases or produce abortion is made an offence. A register of proprietary medicines, etc., is established. The object is to protect the public against quack remedies. ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... boy, he played upon the Nottingham quack, Lavander, were but the first of a long series, with which, through life, he amused himself, at the expense of all the numerous quacks whom his celebrity ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the animal's condition. The owner of the animal, not being able to see the condition of the animal's teeth for himself, is persuaded into having the animal's teeth worked on regardless of whether it is needed or not. The quack or transient Veterinarian will pull and crack healthy, sound teeth, and also lacerate the poor animal's mouth. Be sure the Veterinarian employed for this purpose ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... universal belief in the possibility of seeing into futurity, nor a cloud of witnesses from our modern philosophers, attesting the truth of the phenomena of somnambulism, but only observe that this very Academy of Paris, which in 1784 anathematised Mesmer as a quack, a cheat, and a charlatan or fool, and which in conjunction with all the academies of Europe (that of Berlin alone excepted) reviled his doctrines and insulted all who upheld them, as witches had been reviled in preceding centuries, and compelled Mesmer himself to fly for ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Surgeons' Hall, because they live upon the dead carcasses of their fellow-creatures; while, strange to say, it takes but little account of the hordes of wretches who openly, and in the face of day, hunt down living men in their nefarious dealings as porter brewers, quack doctors, informers, attorneys, manufacturers of bean flour, alum, and Portland stone; and torture their subjects like so many barbacued pigs, in the complicated processes of their cookery.—New ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... stood between the decks, Were four-and-twenty white mice With rings about their necks. The captain was a duck, a duck, With a jacket on his back, And when this fairy ship set sail, The captain he said, "Quack!" ...
— The Baby's Bouquet - A Fresh Bunch of Rhymes and Tunes • Walter Crane
... Hudibras' followers who was known as the medicine-man to the royal household, but his services were not often in request, because people were seldom ill, save when they were going to die, and when that time came it was generally thought best to let them die in peace. This medicine-man, though a quack in regard to physic, was, however, a true man, as far as his knowledge went in surgery—that is to say, he was expert at the setting of broken bones, when the fractures were not too compound; he could bandage ordinary wounds; he had even ventured ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... and physically weakening, but they relieved the psychic symptoms, though they occasioned mental distress, since F.C. is scrupulous in a religious sense, and also apprehensive of bad constitutional effects, the result of reading alarmist quack pamphlets. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... approached the river mouth, they saw extending from the bank a salmon trap, and even to-day, the Indians will show at Lup-se-kup-se some old rotten sticks, which they affirm formed part of that same trap. The land was green, the wild duck's quack was heard among the reeds which edged the river bank, while flocks of geese were feeding on the grass which grows thickly upon the tidal flats, the flats the Indians ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... with a stout rattan, and to have laid it over their shoulders, to give them something else to think about for a few hours. It is downright pitiful to see such cowards. At the corner of one street there was a quack, vending pills and perfumes that he warranted to keep away the Plague, and the people ran up and bought his nostrums by the score; I hear there are a dozen such in the City, making a fortune out of the people's fears. I went into the tavern I always use, and had a glass of ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... one of the game wardens, or constables appointed by the government to see the game laws enforced. Joe had not felt entirely at his ease about the duck he was surreptitiously taking to town, and when, by its "quack, quack," it called upon La Chance for protection, he responded at once. Joe was obliged to liberate it then and there, and to hear the law read and expounded, and be threatened till he turned pale beside. It was evident that they follow the home ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the owl and make a fair "hoot," otherwise keeping still, he may attract many birds that will feel bound to settle the question of his identity. A young friend of mine, by a good imitation of a blue jay's quack, finds many little woods' folks peering at him from the trees which he might not otherwise see. The "smack" which is produced by violently kissing the back of the closed fingers will call many birds from their hiding places, especially during the nesting season. The sound is similar ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... in a parlous predicament. Harder than ever had it been to secure odd jobs, and he had reached the end of his savings. Earlier in the evening he had had a telephone conference with the Ancient Mariner, who had reported only progress with an exceptionally strong nibble that very day from a retired quack doctor. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... market-town. But in Wensdale itself there was only a handful of thatched cottages scattered about here and there round the vicarage. Life was so regular and quiet there that you might almost tell the time without looking at the clock. When you heard cling, clang, from the blacksmith's forge, and quack, quack, from the army of ducks waddling down to the river, it was five o'clock. Ding, dong from the church-tower, and the tall figure of Mr Vallance climbing the hill to read prayers—eight o'clock. So on throughout the day until evening came, and you knew that soon after the cows ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... of voice in families is still more marked. We need only recall the harsh and noisy parrots, so similar in their peculiar utterance. Or, take as an example the web-footed family: Do not all the geese and the innumerable host of ducks quack? Does not every member of the crow family caw, whether it be the jackdaw, the jay, or the magpie, the rook in some green rookery of the Old World, or the crow of our woods, with its long, melancholy caw that seems to make the silence and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... has layer upon layer of seeds in the soil for this purpose, and the wonder is that each kind lies dormant until it is wanted. If I uncover the earth in any of my fields, ragweed and pigweed spring up; if these are destroyed, harvest grass, or quack grass, or purslane appears. The spade or plow that turns these under is sure to turn up some other variety, as chickweed, sheep-sorrel, or goose-foot. The soil ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... story of a quack who treated her with amulets, whose parallel may be found in the action of such persons in common society. It is an expression of the power that a vulgar and self-willed nature will attain over one delicate, poetical, but not yet clear within ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... Sowerby congratulated him, and the bishop joked with him and said that he knew that he would not give up good company so soon; and Miss Dunstable said she would make him her chaplain as soon as Parliament would allow quack doctors to have such articles—an allusion which Mark did not understand, till he learned that Miss Dunstable was herself the proprietress of the celebrated Oil of Lebanon, invented by her late respected father, and patented by him ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... manner to strengthen the reason, to subdue the senses, or in what way to deal with all the varied diseases of that soul of man which we were to set ourselves to save. All its failings, infinitely more complicated than those of the body, were grouped as "sin," and for these there was one quack remedy. If the patient did not like the remedy, or got no good from ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... a start, hobbling along, switch in hand, behind the ducks. They too, poor little things, have sensitive soles to their feet; they limp, they quack with fatigue. They would refuse to go any farther if I did not, from time to time, call a halt under the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... sort, and she has layer upon layer of seeds in the soil for this purpose, and the wonder is that each kind lies dormant until it is wanted. If I uncover the earth in any of my fields, ragweed and pigweed spring up; if these are destroyed, harvest grass, or quack grass, or purslane, appears. The spade or the plow that turns these under is sure to turn up some other variety, as chickweed, sheep-sorrel, or goose-foot. The soil is a ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... three or four when it rains later. But we wait till the world has got dirty, and the air full of the smoke of thousands of breakfasts, and clouds are beginning to gather, and then we say England has a horrible climate. I do not believe in many quack medical prescriptions, but I have the firmest faith in May dew as a wash for the complexion. Any morning dew is nearly as efficacious if it is gathered in warm clothes, thick boots, and at a ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Paul, taking the glass as they came nigher. "Sure enough, it's an old lady—an old quack-doctress, seems to me, in a black gown, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... gazed at him in mute surprise; then hurried, with every variety of squeak, and quack, and fluttering wing, ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... patronage of King George III., and was personally an acknowledged favourite at court: a thoroughly successful man indeed. Then we come down to the year 1789, and find the artist of the Eidophusikon assuming a new character. He has become a physician—a seer—a fanatic—and, it must be said, a quack; a disciple of Mesmer, a friend of Cagliostro; practising animal magnetism, professing to cure all diseases, and indulging ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... companies formed for if not to make profits?" retorted Sir Tiglath. "Every one is a company nowadays. Don't you know that? Murchison, the famous writer of novels, is a company. Jeremy, the actor-manager, is a company. So is Bynion the quack doctor, and the Rev. Mr. Kinnimer who supplies tracts to the upper classes, and Upton the artist, whose pictures make tours like Sarah Bernhardt, and Watkins, whose philosophy sells more than Tupper's, and Caroline Jingo, who writes war poems and patriotic odes. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... Browndown at a moment's notice. To being the last person informed (instead of the first) of Mr. Nugent Dubourg's exaggerated and absurd view of the case of his afflicted child. To the German surgeon, as being certainly a foreigner and a stranger, and possibly a quack. To the slur implied on British Surgery by bringing the foreigner to Dimchurch. To the expense involved in the same proceeding. Finally to the whole scope and object of Mr. Nugent Dubourg's proposal, which had for its origin rebellion against the decrees of an all-wise Providence, and for its ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... engaged, the next procedure was to appoint the assessor judges, of whom the consular instructions insisted on there being four. This weighty matter seemed to require the cooperation of the vice consul, Mr. Beaver, a highly respected quack doctor, whose principal nostrum was faith cure plus hot water. After arguing away your existence, which he always could do with extraordinary fluency, he would plunge you into a boiling bath till your imaginary skin turned a deep imaginary scarlet, and then send you home with some microscopic ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... was that of Van Butchell, the quack doctor, who died at London in 1814, in his 80th year. This singular individual had his first wife's body carefully embalmed and preserved in a glass case in his "study," in order that he might enjoy a handsome annuity to which he was ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Newton, 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' 1871, p. 651.) But the meaning of these differences in the trachea of the two sexes of the Anatidae is not understood; for the male is not always the more vociferous; thus with the common duck, the male hisses, whilst the female utters a loud quack. (47. The spoonbill (Platalea) has its trachea convoluted into a figure of eight, and yet this bird (Jerdon, 'Birds of India,' vol. iii. p. 763) is mute; but Mr. Blyth informs me that the convolutions are not constantly present, so ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... bustle and conceit; With looks unaltered by these scenes of woe, With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go, He bids the gazing throng around him fly, And carries fate and physic in his eye: A potent quack, long versed in human ills, Who first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murderous hand a drowsy Bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect. Paid by the parish for attendance here, He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer; In haste ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... a millionaire pill-maker like the late Professor Holloway, we have not often been without a local well-to-do "quack." A medical man, named Richard Aston, about 1815-25, was universally called so, and if the making of money is proof of quackery, he deserved the title, as he left a fortune of L60,000. He also left an only daughter, but she and her husband were left to die in the Workhouse, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... slattern place, Is glory in your slack disgrace? Plump quack doctors sell their pills, Gentle grafters sell brass watches, Silly anarchists yell their ills. Shall we be as weird as these? In the breezes nod ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... the sun went pale to bed, The moon in halos hid her head: The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, For, see! a rainbow spans the sky: The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel; Hark! how the chairs and tables crack; Old Betty's joints are on the rack; Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, The distant hills are seeming nigh. How restless are the snorting swine,— The busy flies disturb the kine. Low o'er the grass the swallow wings; The cricket, too, how loud it sings: ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... an alley To a castle in a valley, They completely lost their way, And wandered all the day, Till, to see them safely back, They paid a Ducky-Quack, And a Beetle and a Mouse, Who took them ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... visited several patients on the list, and treated their several complaints in one invariable routine. Hitherto things had gone well, and no one, thank Heaven, had risen up in rebellion against my prescriptions. But let a physician's cures be as extraordinary as they will, some quack or other is always ready to ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Though he bore a name already distinguished in the annals of the English landed gentry, he had to make his own fortune under conditions of some difficulty. He was born in North America, and began life, it is said, as a quack doctor. There is also a legend of his having made a first marriage with a person of obscure birth in America. Yet such was the charm of his address, the beauty of his person, the dignity of his bearing, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... covert attack on Christianity, instead of a defence of it." I have here no concern with Warburton's character as a polemical theologist; this has been the business of that polished and elegant scholar, Bishop Lowth, who has shown what it is to be in Hebrew literature "a Quack in Commentatorship, and a Mountebank in Criticism." He has fully entered into all the absurdity of Warburton's "ill-starred Dissertation on Job." It is curious to observe that Warburton in the wild chase of originality, often too boldly took ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around a carriage of eccentric shape, upon the top of which stood a man dressed in red, who was holding forth. He was a quack dentist on his rounds, who was offering to the public full sets of teeth, opiates, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the Quack comes to visit the Patient, he examines him very carefully; If the Evil Spirit be here, says he, we shall quickly dislodge him. This said, he withdraws by himself to a little Tent made on purpose, where he ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Boys with bladders whack each other on the back, and jump upon each other's shoulders. Harlequins and clowns—shabby, spiritless, and unmasked—grin inanely in your face, and seem to be hunting after a joke they can never find. A quack doctor, or a man in crinoline, followed by a nigger holding an umbrella over his head, or a swell with pasteboard collars, and a chimney-pot on his head, pass from time to time and shout to the bystanders, but receive no answer. Give them a wide berth, for they are spies, and bad company. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... since those days," Rochester declared. "You have acquired the knack of glib speech. You have become a past master in the arts which go to the ensnaring of over-imaginative women. You have mixed with quack spiritualists and self-styled professors of what they term occultism. Go and practise your arts where you will, but remember what I have told you. Remember the person's name which I have mentioned. Remember it, obey what ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ready courtier at once replied, "How can I be executed, since I have drunk the draught of immortality?" To so convincing an argument no reply was possible, and Vouti lived to a considerable age without the aid of magicians or quack medicines. Of him also it may be said that he added to the stability of the Han dynasty, and he left the throne to Chaoti, the youngest of his sons, a child of eight, for whom he appointed his two most experienced ministers to act as governors. As these ministers were true ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... directors could not classify convicts according to their real merits, any more than a quack doctor could classify patients suffering from disease; but although they cannot have the knowledge necessary to do it properly, they might do a little in the right direction. The quack, even, would know cholic from consumption, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... But what value have these rudimentary, vague experiences, compared to the united experience of all the men of science there have been in the world? It is as if you told me that the stock of knowledge of a quack was greater and better than that ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... no. You recollect the Italian quack of whom I bought the drug you gave to the count, and which put an end to his days—he wanted more money. Well, as I had no more to spare, I could spare no more to him, and he turned vicious, and threatened. I threatened, too, and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... government. A candidate for Parliament is not, in their eyes, a servant whom they may appoint to give voice to their own wishes; he is a "gentleman" who, probably from motives of self-interest, comes to them as a sort of quack doctor, with occult remedies, which they may have if they will vote for him, and which might possibly do them good. Hence they hardly look upon the Government as an instrument at all under the control of people like themselves; they view it, rather, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... going to sell without ever skimming it through holds what means nothing more or less than a thumping great fortune for each of us. You've heard of Raymond Lully? No? Well, he was an old swell who flourished in the twelve hundreds, and who was by trade rake, philosopher, quack, fanatic, organizer, and martyr. He hailed from Mallorca—or Majorca, as you English persist in calling it—and he wrote books on Apologetic Theology, Dogmatic Divinity, and Practical Alchemy. Also he penned this diary, which has evidently been kept pretty snug so far, and ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Quack Matrick, a negro, fought through the Revolutionary war, as a soldier, for which he was pensioned. Also Jonathan Overtin, who was at the battle of Yorktown. The grandfather of the historian Wm. Wells Brown, Simon Lee, was also a soldier ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the town wrought up against Doctor West. Moreover, Katherine despised Bruce as a powerful, ruthless, demagogic hypocrite. And to her hostility against him in her father's behalf and to her contempt for his quack radicalism, was added the bitter implacability of the woman who feels herself scorned. The town's attitude toward her she resented. But Bruce she hated, and him she prayed with all her soul ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... quack who wearies With tales of countless cures, His teeth, I've enacted, Shall all be extracted By terrified amateurs: The music-hall singer attends a series Of masses and fugues and "ops" By Bach, interwoven With Spohr and Beethoven, At classical Monday Pops: The billiard sharp ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... glassy, meaningless eyes, and an endless greasy simper—he fawns on everybody he meets, and shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to this here Elixir of Long Life, I might embellish it with a great many high-sounding epithets; but I disdain to follow the example of every illiterate vagabond, that, from idleness, turns quack, and advertises his nostrum in the public papers. I am neither a felonious drysalter returned from exile, an hospital stump-turner, a decayed staymaker, a bankrupt printer, or insolvent debtor, released by act of parliament. I do not pretend to administer medicines without the least tincture ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... The quack doctor deserves to be kicked; found bottle of medicine on table somewhere; pure water; five shillings. He is coining money and fleecing people most scandalously; child now luckily in hospital; spoke strongly ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... in his left hand a canvas banner, upon which were painted six or eight pictures, coarsely designed like those found in strolling fairs. In his right he waved a little switch, with which he would every now and then strike his banner, like a quack retailing ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... inch to a foot in diameter. The Bufo gigas is of a dull gray color, and is covered with warts. Tree-frogs (Hyla) are very abundant; they do not occur on the Andes or on the Pacific coast. Their quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo, is one of our pleasant memories of South America. Of snakes there is no lack; and yet they are not so numerous as imagination would make them. There are one hundred and fifty species in South America, or one half as many, on the same area, as ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... pretended way. With these, the taint of the money they hope to receive clouds such mind or intuition as they may possess, and it follows that their judgments and prognostications have precisely the same value as the nostrums of the quack medicine-vendor. They are very different from the Highlander who, coming to the door of his cottage or bothie at dawn, regards steadfastly the signs and omens he notes in the appearance of the sky, the actions of animals, the flight of birds, and so forth, and derives there ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... thought so difficult as to speak of it, not once or twice, but uniformly, as little less than miraculous, as tantamount to a re-creation. This Barrister may be likened to an ignorant but well-meaning Galenist, who writing against some infamous quack, who lived by puffing and vending pills of mercurial sublimate for all cases of a certain description, should have no stronger argument than to extol 'sarsaparilla', and 'lignum vitae', or 'senna' in contempt of all ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... disease—and that my days were numbered. I tried the water cure, homoeopathy, allopathy— everything. Some day, I must recount my consultations, on the same Sunday, with Sir James Clarke, Her Majesty's physician, and Dr. Quin, homoeopathist, jester, and, as some said, quack." ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... suffering more or less from the lassitude produced by excessive heat; the pitch was bubbling up from the seams of the deck; a strong, hot, burning smell pervaded the vessel; the chickens in the hencoops hung their heads and forgot to cackle; the ducks refused to quack, and sat with their bills open, gasping for breath; the pig lay down, as if about to yield up the ghost; and even Ungka, who generally revelled in a fine hot sun, and selected the warmest place on board, now looked out for a shady spot, and sat with his paws over his ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... quacks such as you might see at any fair in Europe—quack dentists, quack medicine-men, men with ointments for healing sores, men with pills, and little bottles of bright liquid, and tricks for ruptures and broken legs and arms. A little way beyond them were the pedlars. Here were the wildest men in the world. Tartars and Letts and Indians, Asiatics ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... entered, was a small, pug-nosed, chubby man, of ostentatious manners, and high pretensions to skill and knowledge in his profession; though, in fact, he was but a quack, and of that most dangerous class, too, who dip into books rather to acquire learned terms than to study principles, and who, consequently, as often as otherwise, are found "doctoring to a name," which chance has suggested, but ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Grimm, and by Pictet of Geneva. Marcellus, the private physician of the Roman Emperor Theodosius, was a Gaul born in Aquitane, and hence, it is believed, was intimately acquainted with the Gaulish or Celtic language of that province. He left a work on quack medicines (De Medicamentis Empiricis), written probably near the end of the fourth century. This work contains, amongst other things, a number of word-charms, or superstitious cure-formulas, that were, till lately, regarded—like Cato's word-cure ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... serjeant or bailiff; a paunbroker; a prison; a tavern; a scold; a bad husband; a town-fop; a bawd; a fair and happy milk-maid; the quack's directory; a ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... persons were disposed to run any risk rather than be subjected to such a grievance, and every artifice was resorted to for concealing a case when it occurred. Hence, it seldom happened, unless by accident, that a discovery was made. Quack doctors were secretly consulted, instead of the regular practitioners; the searchers were bribed to silence; and large fees were given to the undertakers and buriers to lay the deaths to the account of some other disorder. All this, however, did not blind the eyes of the officers ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... puffed himself out as large as he could, and inquired who he was; and the ducks waddled backwards, crying, "Quack, quack." ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... poses. Then had we none but reredosses, and our heads did neuer ake.[83] For as the smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house; so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie from the quack or pose, wherewith as then verie few were oft acquainted." Harrison, i. 212, col. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... People look careworn to me in America; they are spare and pallid. Not many ruddy complexions. Why all these sharp-faced, lantern-jawed, lean, sallow, hard-handed people? Why this depression of spirits? Perhaps they really get a thrill out of religion after all. Why all these advertisements of quack remedies, why all this calling on God? This is a place of bright sunshine and exhilarating air. After all, I do ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... building dedicated to research in agronomy which bore the legend "Johnson Foundation" over the entrance. No one hearing him pronounce "magic formula" putting into the word all the contempt of the scientist for the quack, could ever put credence in the base slander. "What was this 'magic formula' you caused to be put on the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... of the bee-moth, but they are so constructed as positively to aid it in its nefarious designs. The more they are used, the worse the poor bees are off: just as the more a man uses the lying nostrums of the brazen-faced quack, the further he finds himself from ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... way back from the pond of Paddy the Beaver deep in the Green Forest. He had just seen Mr. and Mrs. Quack start toward the Big River for a brief visit before leaving on their long, difficult journey to the far-away Southland. Farewells are always rather sad, and this particular farewell had left Peter with a lump in his throat,—a queer, ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess
... when the rising generation must be thoroughly instructed in this matter. That quack specific "ignorance" has been experimented with quite too long already. The true method of insuring all persons, young or old, against the abuses of any part, organ, function, or faculty of the wondrous ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack, but he certainly effected many wonderful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... feels "pinched." Nervous dyspepsia is present in many cases. The digestion is poor and slow and constipation accompanies it. Sometimes there is neuralgia of the stomach. The sexual organs are seemingly affected, many men are "almost scared to death" and they use all sorts of quack remedies to restore their sexual vigor. Spermatorrhea is their bugbear. They usually get well if they stop worrying. In women there is the tender ovary and the menstruation may be painful or irregular. The condition of the urine in these patients ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... of Virgil and Cicero with him. Of this gentleman he always entertained a kind remembrance. Nor was his regard in this instance peculiar; for it may be said to have been a distinguishing trait in his character, to recollect with affection all who had been about him in his youth. The quack, however, was an exception; whom (from having caused him to suffer much pain, and whose pretensions, even young as he then was, he detected) he delighted to expose. On one occasion, he scribbled down on a sheet of paper, the letters of the alphabet at random, but ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... come the advertisements of the Quack Doctors. Of the account of belles-lettres in 1754, two years after Amelia and in the actual year of Sir Charles Grandison, M. Rouquet's report is not flattering:—"The presses of England, made celebrated by so many masterpieces of wit and science, now scarcely print anything but miserable ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... coop, crowin' foh day; Horses in de stable goin' 'Nay, nay, nay;' Ducks in de yard goin' 'Quack, quack, quack!' Guineas in de ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "Quack, quack!" she said. "I can not let you see the eggs to-day. I you will come to-morrow I will show you what I have ...
— Bunny Rabbit's Diary • Mary Frances Blaisdell
... starving in garrets, Shakespeares in the workhouse, while dull modern productions are applauded on the silly English stage, and poetasters are crowned by the Academies; but believe me that in Archaeology, in the deciphering of manuscripts, the quack is detected immediately. The science has been carried to such a state of perfection that, if our knowledge is still unhappily imperfect, our materials inadequate, the public recognition of our services quite out of proportion to our labours, there is ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... first to perceive his mistress, and, as he approached, received a sharp rebuke from her for allowing the fellow to produce his quack medicines; and, at the same time, she desired him to request Madame Esperance to come to her immediately on business. Eustacie, who always had a certain self-willed sense of opposition when the Duchess showed herself peremptory towards her, at first began to make ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his discovery to princes and men of learning. Purchasers had to agree strictly to maintain the secret. Professor Williams speaks of this conduct as follows: "These were the acts of a charlatan peddling some secret quack nostrum."[93] Mr. Quick says, "He would also found a school in which all arts and sciences should be rapidly learned and advanced; he would introduce, and peacefully maintain throughout the continent, a uniform speech, a uniform government, and, more wonderful still, a uniform ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... Dogge-leaches all! I see I am not mortall, For I with patience have thus long endur'd Beyond the strength of all mortality; But now the thrice heate furnace of my bosome Disdaineth bounds: doe not I scorch you all? Goe, goe, you are all but prating Mountebankes, Quack-salvers and Imposures; get you all ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... hover round and round? Not small your wit, nor rugged and unkempt; 'Twill answer bravely to a bold attempt: Whether you train for pleading, or essay To practise law, or frame some graceful lay, The ivy-wreath awaits you. Could you bear To leave quack nostrums, that but palliate care, Then might you lean on heavenly wisdom's hand And use her guidance to a loftier land. Be this our task, whate'er our station, who To country and to self would ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... partnership, and the business of the office would be carried on as usual under the title Penhallow and Bradshaw, Attorneys at Law. Then came the standing professional card of Dr. Lemuel Hurlbut and Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut, the medical patriarch of the town and his son. Following this, hideous quack advertisements, some of them with the certificates of Honorables, Esquires, and Clergymen.—Then a cow, strayed or stolen from the subscriber.—Then the advertisement referred to in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the progress of time, greatly improve our condition. This it will do; and those who blame it for not doing more blame it for not doing what no Constitution, no code of laws, ever did or ever will do; what no legislator, who was not an ignorant and unprincipled quack, ever ventured ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... figure. Ambrose was reminded of a quack doctor in poor circumstances. He was middle-aged and flabby, and had long, straggling gray hair, bound round with a cotton ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... him on the part of the public arose chiefly from the two causes to which I have referred—from the facts that he is neither a man of wealth nor a quack; but these are insufficient to account for the whole effect. No small portion of it is attributable to the very marked idiosyncrasy of Mr. Hawthorne himself. In one sense, and in great measure, to be peculiar is to be original, and than the true originality there is ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various |
