PROVERBS ABOUT PHYSICIANS A broken apothecary, a new doctor. (English). A half doctor near is better than a whole doctor afar. (German). A lucky physician is better than a learned one. (German). Better wait on the cook than the doctor. (English). It may have been that the word "Christmas" at Honor a physician before thou hast need of him. (English). If doctors fail what shall avail. (English). No good doctor ever takes physics. (Italian). No man is a good physician who has never been sick. (Arabian). That city is in a bad case whose physician has the gout. (Hebrew). The barber must be young and the physician old. (Ger man). The best surgeon is he who has been hacked himself. (English). The disobedience of the patient make the physician seem cruel. (English). The doctor seldom takes physic. (English, Italian). The physician can cure the sick but he cannot cure the dead. (Chinese). The physician cannot drink medicine for the patient. (German). You need not doubt, you are a doctor. (English). PROVERBS THAT DISPARAGE PHYSICIANS A new doctor, a new grave digger. (German). An ignorant doctor is no better than a murderer. (Chinese). A loquacious doctor is successful. (Tamil). A physician is an angel when employed, but a devil when one must pay him. (German). A young physician should have three graveyards. (German). Do not dwell in a city whose Governor is a physician. (Hebrew). Fond of lawyer, little wealth; fond of doctor, little health. (Spanish). God healeth and the physician has the thanks. (English). God keep me from judge and doctor. (Turkish). God is the restorer of health and the physician puts the fee in his pocket. (Italian). He who kills a thousand people is half a doctor. (Tamil). Hussars pray for war and the doctor for fever. (German). If the doctor cures the sun sees it; if he kills the earth hides it. (Scotch). If you have a friend who is a doctor take off your hat to him, and send him to your enemy. (Spanish). If you have a friend who is a physician send him to the house of your enemy. (Portuguese). It is God that cures and the doctor gets the money. (Spanish). Leaches kill with license. (English). No physician is better than three. (German). One doctor makes work for another. (English). Physicians' faults are covered with earth and rich men's with money. (English). Physicians are costly visitors. (English). The blunders of physicians are covered by the earth. (English, Portuguese). The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease. (French). The doctor says that there is no hope and, as he does the killing, he ought to know. (Spanish). The doctor's child dies not from disease but from medicine. (Tamil). The earth covers the mistakes of physicians. (Italian, Spanish). The earth hides as it takes the mistakes of physicians. (Spanish). The patient is not likely to recover who makes the doctor his heir. (English). The physician owes all to the disease and the disease nothing to the physician. (English). The physician owes all to the patient and the patient owes nothing to him but a little money. (English). The physician takes the fee but God sends the cure. (German, Spanish). Time cures more than the doctor. (English). 'Tis not the doctor who should drink physic. (Italian). When the physician can advise the best patient is dead. (German). When you call a physician call the judge to make your will. (German). While the doctors consult the patient dies. (English). With respect to gout the physician is but a lout. (English). Who has a physician has an executioner. (German). 241 SET A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK AND HE WILL GALLOP Exalt a boor and he will become proud and arrogant. A man who acquires wealth suddenly is apt to spend his money freely and indulge in wild extravagances. While the origin of this proverb is not positively known it probably came from the pretensions of liberated slaves. In olden times the slave class was made up of war captives, victims of seizure, some who chose slavery for support and those who were forced into servitude through debt or crime. Many captives of war, particularly those who were taken by the Romans, were educated in the schools and skilled in the arts but the great mass of bondmen were ignorant and coarse in their feelings, mere "Hewers of wood and drawers of water." No more vivid picture of pride without cause could have presented itself to the ancients than the assumption of a liberated slave who sought to impress others with his importance by assuming the ways of the free born. Claudius declared that "nothing is more obnoxious than a low person raised to a high position" and Publius Syrus said that “Fortune by being too lavish of her favors on a man only makes a fool of him." It is a common saying among the negroes of Ashanti, Africa, that "When a slave is freed he will call himself a Sonneni," that is, of exalted rank-the Sonna being the highest class. A curious prayer proverb comes from the district of Bannu in the Punjab, India, where the Almighty is addressed as follows: "Mayest thou not give a poor wretch a goat to catch hold of by the legs." As the legs of a goat are held when it is milked it is thought that a poor wretch would abuse the animal should he own one, as the degraded everywhere abuse authority when they have it in possession. BIBLE REFERENCES: Deut. 31: 20; 32: 15; Neh. 9:25, 26; Prov. 26: 1, 8. "Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult? That beggars mounted run their horse to death." SHAKESPEARE, A.D. 1564-1616, King Henry VI. "A proud beggar when he is once mounted so high, as to keep his coach-which was only invented for cripples-to carry him in triumph above the earth, thinks it below him to look down upon his inferiors, and inconsistent with his grandeur, to take notice of little people that |