Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a doctor who obliges patients, often showbusiness or entertainment celebrities, with amphetamines or narcotics, which, although the user has no real medical need for them, guarantee ‘good feelings’.

[1962		‘Piano Red’ [song title] Dr Feelgood and the Interns].
1971		Cong. Record 2 Mar. 4732/2: Regardless of which Dr. Feelgood has the most prominence at the moment—fashions change—each patient, aglow with the incredible zap of his latest shot, is sure his doctor alone is the real Dr. Feelgood.
1978		Maclean’s (Toronto) 21 Aug. 22: Was there a ‘Dr Feelgood’ in the White House, dispensing chemical happiness to his co-workers?
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 133: I [...] adjourned to the bathroom to fetch a couple of Dr Feelgood’s gaily coloured pills.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 49: His name was Dr Jahil, the ‘Doctor Feel Good’ of the Cross [...] before I knew it there’s a syringe in my arm. Dr Feel Good had shot me full of morphine.
1999		J. Ellroy ‘My Life as a Creep’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 116: He found some Dr Feelgoods and copped amphetamine scripts.
1999		S. Sloan ‘Dr. Feelgood Has His Day in Court’ 🌐 Dr. Laurence E. Badgley, who was a star in the 1970’s porn movie ‘Cocksucker Blues’, first became famous as the original ‘Dr. Feelgood’, the notorious doctor for the Rolling Stones.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 550: Hoover’s a hophead [...] That Dr. Feelgood guy flies down from New York every day, on the Bureau’s time-card. He gives Hoover a pop of liquid methamphetamine mixed with B-complex vitamins and male hormones.
2010		K. Richards Life 232: Into the welcoming arms of one of medicine’s great Dr. Feelgoods, Dr Bensoussan.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 201: Dr. Feelgood [...] geezed the gang up with joy juice.

2. heroin.

2001		ONDCP Street Terms 8: Dr. Feelgood — Heroin.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 62/1: Dr Feelgood n. heroin.

3. a drug dealer.

2011

E. Beetner ‘Zed’s Dead, Baby’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] If anyone has seen him in the last week, it’s the one guy he can’t live without. His Dr Feelgood .