 Fielding 's sixteenth play , The Mock Doctor : or The Dumb Lady Cur 'd , replaced The Covent Garden Tragedy as the companion play to The Old Debauchees . The play is an Anglicised adaptation of Molière 's Le Medecin malgre Lui . It first ran on 23 June 1732 and was later revised in 1732 ; both versions were very successful . The plot deals with a young girl pretending to be mute to avoid having to marry a man she does not like while her doctor is really a man pretending to be a doctor to con the other characters . 
