Classical Rhetoric in Medicine: Assonance and Alliteration

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

-William Blake (1757-1827), The Tyger

Assonance: identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sound.

Blake's famous poem is an excellent example of the power of alliteration and assonance to jolt the reader awake, if not draw attention to the underlying meaning of the words on the page. These classical devices are a writer's best friend. By linking words together the writer lights an emotional fire under the reader which illuminates the message the writer wishes to convey.

Hey, let's all have a crack at writing a sentence seething with the power of assonance and alliteration! Here is my entry. Naturally, it has to do with medical oncology:

Unlike the sophomoric drama of a nauseated sot awakening with a monstrous hangover that evaporates by cocktail hour, cancer coils an implacable cruelty around the patient, a ruthless spasm of sickness and pain like a python throttling its prey, until cold, soothing death silently caresses all suffering away.

See how much fun it is to make stuff up? That's why writing is the greatest pastime of all - no matter what my half-witted, three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce Editor says. Hasta la Vista, Baby!

[Editor's note: Now that was uncalled for, although a nice example of bdelygmia.]