or crocus-metallorum, croakus, subs. (common).—A doctor; specifically, a quack. [Conjecturally, a derivative of CROAK = to die. Cf., quot. 1781, under CROCUSSING RIG.]

1

  ENGLISH SYNONYMS.  Pill; squirt; butcher; croaker; corpse-provider; bolus; clyster; gallipot. [Several of these terms also = an apothecary.]

2

  FRENCH SYNONYMS.  Un dragueur (popular: literally a dredging machine); un cliabeau (a doctor at St. Lazare); un bénévole (popular: a young doctor, especially one walking the hospitals); un marchand de morts subites (common: literally ‘a dealer in sudden death.’ Cf., CORPSE PROVIDER).

3

  GERMAN SYNONYM.  Rofe or Raufe (from the Hebrew).

4

  ITALIAN SYNONYMS.  Maggio (signifying God, king, lord, and pope); posteggiatore (literally ‘he that places’; used of any charlatan, but particularly of a quack doctor); dragon di farda.

5

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. CROCUS, or CROCUS METALLORUM, a nick name for the surgeons of the army and navy.

6

  1851–61.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. I., p. 231 (quoted in list of patterer’s words).

7

  1857.  SNOWDEN, Magistrates Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444, s.v.

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