Doctors are paid to talk nonsense with the patient until nature heals or the remedies kill.

The wording closest to the user’s quote appears in a 1683 French dialogue on health, presented as a patient’s cynical description of what doctors do: they are compensated to keep a sick person occupied with empty talk while the outcome is decided by either natural recovery or harmful treatments. The work was published anonymously at first but later attributed by scholars to Nicolas Frémont d’Ablancourt.

The line mocks medical practice as more performance than cure, implying that physicians often rely on impressive-sounding language and questionable interventions, while real healing (or death) happens independently of their skill.

These are people who are paid to talk nonsense with the Sick person who calls them, until Nature heals him, or the Remedies kill him.

A doctor is a man who is paid to talk nonsense in a patient’s room, until nature has cured him, or the remedies have killed him.

A Physician ... picks our Pockets by talking unintelligible Stuff in a sick Man’s Chamber, till Nature cures or Medicines kill him.

Physicians sit by your bedside till they kill you, or nature cures you.