Sganarelle (suddenly rising). You do not understand Latin?

Géronte. No.

Sganarelle (assuming various comic attitudes). Cabricias arci thuram, catalamus, singulariter, nominativo, hœc musa, the muse, bonus, bona, bonum. Deus sanctus, estne oratio latinas? Etiam, Yes. Quare? Why. Quia substantivo et adjectivum, concordat in generi, numerum, et casus.

Géronte. Ah! Why did I not study?

Jacqueline. What a clever man!

Lucas. Yes, it is so beautiful that I do not understand a word of it.

Sganarelle. Thus these vapours which I speak of, passing from the left side, where the liver is, to the right side, where we find the heart, it so happens that the lungs, which in Latin we call armyan, having communication with the brain, which in Greek we style nasmus, by means of the vena cava, which in Hebrew, is termed cubile, meet in their course the said vapours, which fill the ventricles of the omoplata; and because the said vapours … now understand well this argument, pray … and because these said vapours are endowed with a certain malignity … listen well to this, I beseech you.

Géronte. Yes.

Sganarelle. Are endowed with a certain malignity which is caused … pay attention here, if you please.

Géronte. I do.

Sganarelle. Which is caused by the acridity of these humours engendered in the concavity of the diaphragm, it happens that these vapours.… Ossabandus, nequeis, nequer, potarinum, puipsa milus. That is exactly the reason that your daughter is dumb.

Jacqueline. Ah! How well this gentleman explains all this.

Lucas. Why does not my tongue wag as well as his?

Géronte. It is undoubtedly impossible to argue better. There is but one thing that I cannot exactly make out: that is the whereabouts of the liver and the heart. It appears to me that you place them differently from what they are; that the heart is on the left side, and the liver on the right.

Sganarelle. Yes; this was so formerly; but we have changed all that, and we now-a-days practise the medical art on an entirely new system.

Géronte. I did not know that, and I pray you pardon my ignorance.

Sganarelle. There is no harm done; and you are not obliged to be so clever as we are.

Géronte. Certainly not. But what think you, Sir, ought to be done for this complaint?

Sganarelle. What do I think ought to be done?

Géronte. Yes.

Sganarelle. My advice is to put her to bed again, and make her, as a remedy, take plenty of bread soaked in wine.

Géronte. Why so, sir?