IJE Advance Access originally published online on April 22, 2004
International Journal of Epidemiology 2004 33(5):947; doi:10.1093/ije/dyh137
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IJE vol.33 no.5 © International Epidemiological Association 2004; all rights reserved.
Diversion |
A Ballad for Apothecaries
In sixteen-hundred-and-sixteen(The year Will Shakespeare died),
Earth made a pact with a curious star,
And a newborn baby cried.
Queen Bess's bright spring was over,James Stuart frowned from the throne;
A more turbulent, seditious people
England had never known.
Now, Nick was a winsome baby,And Nick was a lively lad,
So they gowned him and sent him to Cambridge
Where he went, said the priests, to the bad.
For though he excelled in LatinAnd could rattle the Gospels in Greek,
He thought to himself, there's more to be said
Than the ancients knew how to speak.
He was led to alchemical studiesThrough a deep Paracelsian text.
He took up the art of astrology first,
And the science of botany next.
To the theories of Galen he listened,And to those of Hippocrates, too,
But he said to himself, there's more to be done
Than the ancients knew how to do.
For though Dr Tradition's a rich man,He charges a rich man's fee.
Dr Reason and Dr Experience
Are my guides in philosophy.
The College of Learned PhysiciansPrescribes for the ruling class:
Physick for the ills of the great, they sneer,
Won't do for the vulgar mass.
But I say the heart of a beggarIs as true as the heart of a king,
And the English blood in our English veins
Is if equal valuing.
Poor Nick fell in love with an heiress,But en route to their desperate tryst,
The lady was struck down by lightning
Before they'd embrased or kissed.
So our hero consulted the HeavensWhere he saw he was fated to be
A friend to the sick and the humble
But the Great World's enemy.
Nick packed up his books in CambridgeAnd came down without a degree
To inspirit Red Lion Street, Spitalfields,
With his fiery humanity.
As a reckless, unlicensed physician,He was moved to disseminate
Cures for the ills of the body
With cures for the ills of the state.
Who knows what horrors would have happenedTo Nicholas Culpeper, Gent.,
If the king hadn't driven his kingdom
Into war with Parliament.
In the ranks of the New Model ArmyNick fought with the medical men,
Till a Royalist bullet at Newbury
Shot him back to his thundering pen.
‘Scholars are the people's jailors,And Latin's their jail,’ he roared,
‘Our fates are in thrall to knowledge;
Vile men would have knowledge obscured!’
When they toppled King Charles's head offNick Culpeper cried, ‘Amen!’
It's well that he died before the day
They stuck it on again.
Still, English tongues won their freedomIn those turbulent years set apart;
And the wise, they cherish Nick's courage
While they cheer his compassionate heart.
So whenever you stop in a chemist'sFor an aspirin or salve for a sore,
Give a thought to Nicholas Culpeper
Who dispensed to the London poor.
For cures for the ills of the bodyAre cures for the ills of the mind:
And a welfare state is a sick state
When the dumb are led by the blind.
From Anne Stevenson, ‘Granny Scarecrow’ (Bloodaxe Books, 2000) reprinted with permission.
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