The pharmacist

Continuing our clystère theme, a few verses from Le Monde comique (Paris, 1869).

In a provincial town
I am an established pharmacist.
I drink, I eat, and, like a prince,
I have fun doing nothing.
It’s my boy who manipulates [the clystère],
And my students are charged
With getting the pill swallowed
In customers who are upset.

Alas! my little selfishness
For others dreams of typhus,
Coryza, fever, rheumatism,
Measles and cholera morbus.
I am not afraid of the epidemic,
Because, if I carry on without remorse,
I know the pharmacy too well
To make one [an epidemic?] of my body.