“Oh, a consumption is worse than a Capius ad Ligatum: to nothing can I compare it better than to a reprieve after a man is condemned, or to a boy with his hose about his heels ready to be whipped, to whom his master stands preaching a long time all law and no gospel ere he proceed to execution. Or rather it is a man should be roasted to death and melt away little by little, while physicians like cooks stand stuffing him with herbs and basting him with this oil and that syrup.
I am of the opinion that to be famished to death is far better, for his pain in seven or eight days is at an end whereas he that is in consumption continues languishing many years ere death have mercy on him.”
Thomas Nasche (1567-1601), “Terrors of the Night”
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