If you want to be a famous doctor

I hadn't read Quevedo, but there is one of his recommendations that I followed. As a junior doctor, I had a beard. (But I was wrong again, it was the opposite he would have suggested nowadays.) "And above all make sure you grow a large beard; there is no use for shaven doctors, you won't make a quarter of what you would if you don't look like a chimney-sweep's brush". Quevedo has more useful tips: "Prescribe syrups and purges, in order that the chemist may sell and the patient may suffer". And never change your mind. "Bleed and apply cupping-- glasses; and after you've done this once, if the disease persists, do so again, until you either finish with the patient or with the disease".