From The Times Dispatch, March 24, 1914. By Thomas Lomax Hunter.
Old Doctor Dopem is a quack
Who publishes an almanac,
And manufactures Dopem’s Pills
(Sure cure for fifty-seven ills!)
Now I, by some unlucky chance
Through Dopem’s Almanac did glance—
Until that hour my health was sound
As any man’s for miles around.
Before I’d read the booklet through
My wonder and my terror grew,
Till all I hoped was to be spared
A few more days to be prepared.
I read the symptoms of disease
And cried, “Why, I have all of these!”
It said, “If you feel tired at night,
And sleepy, with no appetite
When you’ve consumed a hearty meal,
And sorter sluggish—if you feel
When you are cold, a strong desire
To get up closer to the fire,
You’ve got it brother!—but there’s hope!
Take Dopem’s Sanitary Dope!
(See what Miss Mugg, of Saginaw,
Says D. S. D. did for her paw.)”
It said, “If with a pain you moan
When stricken on your crazy bone;
If you get peeved and speak with scorn
When someone camps upon your corn,
Your nerves are in a fearful state!
Take D. S. D., ’tis death to wait.”
As of each new disease I read,
I felt myself grow cold with dread,
Till I thought Dopem, at the end,
My only hope, my only friend.
Then I reflected that I took
All my diseases from his book,
And thought I’d rather have the bliss
Of my old ignorance than this,
For one who needs a book to tell
He’s sick is just as good as well.
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