Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2016 12:46:12 GMT
CHAP. LXXXIII.
Of Practical Physick.
THe whole Operative art of Healing is built upon no other Foundation than fallacious Experiments, and the slender Credulity of the diseased, doing more harm than good; there being generally more danger in the Physician and Physick, than in the disease: which the chief Doctors of this Art ingenuously con∣fess, that is to say, Hippocrates himself, who does not
Page 286
deny this Art to be both difficult and fallacious; toge∣ther with Avicen, who saith, that the Patients confidence in the Physician oft-times prevaileth more than the Phy∣si•k it self. Galen also affirms, that it is very difficult to finde a Medicament that does very much good, but easie to finde many that do no good at all. There is another who tells us that the knowledge of Medicines is delightful, as of all other things that consist of Rule and Art; but that the effects of Medicinal operation are meerly for∣tuitous. Let the fortunate diseased therefore go and put their trust in dangerous Experiments, and habnab-Remedies. But so general is the sweetness of hoping well for a mans self, as Pliny saith, that he believes eve∣ry Physician that offers himself, though there be no de∣lusion more dangerous. Hence it is that generally men seek for help from Death; he being the best Physician e∣steemed, whom the Apothecary, that shares with him, recommonds, or deceives the person; whose servants are at the Physicians devotion, who like Pandars for reward commend him with praises to the sick. He is also accounted a most excellent Physician, whom a Velvet Coat, or two or three good Rings upon his fin∣gers shall make to be admir'd; or else his being a For∣raigner, or a great Traveller; or else his being of such or such a Religion. Of no less efficacie to give um credit, fame and authority, is a solid Confidence, and a constant bragging of his Receipts: adde to these a spirit of Contradiction, many Greek and Latine sen∣tences, and the names of Authors, which make him seem learned. Thus arm'd with a Leaden Gravity, but a Military confidence, he undertakes the Trade of a Physician: and first, he visits the sick, looks upon his Urine, feels his Pulse, considers his Tongue, feels his Sides, examines the Excrement, enquires into his cu∣stomary Diet; and if there be any thing more privately kept, he desires to finde it out, as if he would weigh the
Page 287
Humours of the Patient in a pair of Scales. Then with great boasting he prescribes Medicaments: R℞ Cata∣p•tia, let bloud, give Clysters, use Pessaries, Oynments, Plaisters, Lozenges, Masticatories, Gargarisms, Fumes, Quilts; use Preserves, Waters, Treacles. If the dis∣ease be light, and the Patient dainty, then will the Phy∣sician invent fine pleasing Gugaws, fit for women and effeminate persons. Provoking Sleep sometimes with hanging beds; sometimes extenuating the disease with Baths, Frictions, Cupping-glasses; sometimes re•resh∣ing the sick with delicate diet, and change of air. And to obtain greater fame and authority, observing times and seasons, and seldome administring Physick but ac∣cording to the directions of some Mechanical Ephe∣meris. He also claims a great authority over the A∣pothecary, many times ordering him to make his Me∣dicines before him; pretending himself to be at the choice of the best ingredients, when for the most part he knows• not good from bad, nay hardly knows the things themselves when he sees them. But if the Pa∣tient be rich, and a great person besides, then for his greater fame and profit he prolongs the distemper as much as may be, although perhaps he might have cur'd it with one single Medicine: sometimes exasperating the disease, he brings the Patient to deaths door before he will cure it, that he may be said to have deliver'd the Patient from a most dangerous fit of sickness. If he meet with a Patient whose distemper is dangerous, and that he findes the effect of the Cure to be doubt∣ful, then he uses these Stratagems: severely he pre∣scribes Rules of Diet; he commands unusual things, prohibits things common: he extols with great argu∣ments what he offers himself; what others bring he ut∣terly condemns; on the one side threatning ruine, on the other hand promising life. If he doubt of the event, he perswades the Patient to call a Council of Doctors,
Page 288
〈1 page duplicate〉
Page 289
〈1 page duplicate〉
Page 288
desires an assistant, to proceed more warily in the Cure, for fear lest any one coming alone, should perform a Cure, and take from him the glory of the business. If any thing fall out amiss with the Patient, or that he has kill'd him by his most signal want of skill; then he excuses himself, by pretending some sudden deflux of Rheum, or some other chance, neither to be helped nor avoided; or else he accuses the Patient for not ob∣serving his directions, or else blaming those that ten∣ded for want of care; or else he blames his associates; or else throws all the blame upon the Apothecary: thereby endeavouring to prove that no diseased person ever died but through his own fault, nor that ever any was cur'd but by the help and art of the Physitian. But that Physicians are Knaves for the most part, we shall prove by Witnesses. For their own Reconciler, Peter Apponius, writes, That the Art of Physick is ascrib'd to Mars, which is the most odious of all the Planets, as being the author of Ingratitude, Quarrelling, and all wic∣kedness. Therefore are Physicians the cause of many mischiefs, both by reason of the influence of Mars and Scorpio, as also because they had their original from a lowe and barren beginning; growing proud and haughty, as they grow rich. This perhaps he learnt from the example of Aesculapius, whom Antiquity fa∣bles to have been the Inventor of Physick, the son of Jupiter, and sent to the Earth through the way of the Sun. Celsus confesses him to be a man, but received into the number of the Gods. Others assert that he was the Incestuous off-spring of Coronidis, a handsom Harlot, with whom the Priests of Apollo lay in the Temple, who therefore gave out that he was the son of the God. But all agree in this, that this God was so wic∣ked, that Jove was forc'd to curb and chastise him with his Thunder. Concerning which, Lactantius thus writes to Constantine the Emperour: Aesculapius the son of A∣pollo,
Page 289
a vicious person, what other thing did he do worthy divine honours, saving that he cur'd Hippolytus? His death was more remarkable, in that he merited to be struck with thunder. To say the truth, Physicians are the most wicked, quarrelsome, envious, lying persons in the world: for so they quarrel one among another, that there is not a Physician to be found, who shall ap∣prove one Remedy prescrib'd by another, without ex∣ception, addition, or alteration: whence it is become a Proverb, The envie and discord of Physicians. For what one approves, the other laughs at. There is nothing certain among them, but all their promises are meer trifles, and airy lyes. Hence the common people, when they would set out a noted lyer, they cry, Thou ly'st like a Physician. For it is their chief study, to follow their own new inventions, and neglect the wholesome pre∣cepts of Antiquity: and those few things which they do know, they conceal, as if it did not consist with the Authority of their Art to divulge their knowledge; and out of envie to others, deprive our lives of the Re∣medies which other mens Labours have found out. They are moreover superstitious, arrogant, unconsci∣onable, proud, covetous; having this Sentence always in their mouthes: While there is pain, take. And if the pain cease in one part, they take care that it increase in another, for fear the Cure should be too soon perfected. As we read of Peter Apponi•s, who professing Physick in Bolonia, was so covetous and arrogant, that being sent for one time to a Patient out of town, he would not attend under less than fifty Crowns a day: and being sent for by Honorius the Pope, he covenanted for Four hundred Crowns a day. Besides, we finde it re∣lated by Pindarus, that Aesculapius the parent of Phy∣sick was struck by Jupiter with Thunder for his Cove∣tousness, for that he had practised Physick with Extor∣sion, and to the hurt of the Commonwealth. But if
Page 290
a sick man happen to recover out of their hands, there is such an Applause, that the tongue of man can scarce suffice to express the wonder of the miracle, as if La∣zarus had been rais'd out of the grave; claiming the life of the Patient to be their gift, and that they have brought him back: ascribing to themselves what be∣longs to God, and believe that no reward can suffice to recompence their desert. Some of um are so swell'd up with pride, that they suffer themselves to be wor∣shipt as Gods, and be called Joves and Jupiters; such as Menecrates the Physician of Syracuse, who is said to have written in these words to Agesilous King of Spar∣ta: Jupiter Menecrates, to Agesilous, greeting. But Agesilaus lauging at his folly, thus answer'd him: A∣gesilaus to Menecrates, health. But if any one unfortu∣nately happen to die in their hands, then they blame weakness of Nature, the strength and fury of his dis∣ease, the unruliness of the Patient: that they are Phy∣sicians, not Gods: that they can cure those that are to be cur'd: that it is not their business to raise the dead: that they have nothing to serve the diseased with, in discharge of their duty, but their Experience: and with such vanities as these they maintain their pride. Others that die they accuse of intemperance: and when they have kill'd a man, yet they demand sa∣tisfaction for their Bills, from those, that might have been alive without um; depriving their Patients both of money and life at once; and yet preserving a safe Conscience to themselves, knowing their faults (as So∣crates says) to be covered in the earth; as also for that there is no returning from hell or the grave, to accuse them of their unskilfulness, exaction, and homicides. There are some nasty stinking Physicians bedaub'd with cast Urine and Ordure, more sordid than Midwives, using themselves to behold obscene and beastly sights, with their noses and ears to hear and smell the Belches,
Page 291
Farts, Stinking breaths, Steams and Stenches of the sick, with their lips and tongues to taste the black and loathsome Potions, with their fingers to search the Dung and Excrements. Lastly, all their studies and dis∣course is onely about the most sad, horrid, and ghastly spectacles of Death and Diseases. Exquisite Judges of the Ordure of men, which Hippocrates is reported u∣sually to have tasted, that he might thereby the better judge of the Disease: which Aesculapius also is said to have done, who is therefore by Aristophanes call'd Sca∣tophagus, or Excrement-eater, a Name generally given to Physicians. Hence Scatomancy, Ouromancy, and Dry∣niomancy, are said to be the Divinations or Prognosti∣cations of Physicians taken from Ordure and Urine. Wherefore, among many Nations, those Mechanick Doctors were formerly had in contempt, so that, as Sene∣ca witnesses, it was accounted a great piece of Infamy to exercise the Calling of a Physician: and at this day, there are several people that forbid Physicians, Midwives and Executioners from coming to their Tables; or else cause um to eat and drink in Dishes and Cups by them∣selves: much more abhorring that detestable custom of many Princes, who admit those Pestilential persons to their Chambers in a morning, and admit them infected with the Visits and Vapours of Pestilential people to their Meals, and at meat suffer their impertinent talk of Ordure, Urine, Sweat, Vomits, and Menstruous Courses, Leprosies, Ulcers, Scabs, and Plagues; and to be spew a noble Feast, furnished with choice dishes, with their impure and obscene discourse. Than to admit a Physician to civil Consultations, there is nothing more idle, or fuller of folly, seeing that the Art of Physick neither treats of Vertue or Good-manners; and for that a Physician naturally a good man, ought to b• a person of ill Customs. And we know that in many Cities by publike Decrees Physicians are neither admit∣ted
Page 292
to their Counsels, nor suffered to bear any Office of Magistracie: perhaps not so much that they are foolish, vain, or ill tutor'd, as for their Sordidness, and their spreading Contagion, with the continual Visits of all sorts of Diseases; not onely infecting Men, but the very Seats and Stones, as Lucillus has very well said of a certain Physician, in a Greek Epigram.
Alcon but toucht Joves Statue, straight the stone,
Though Marble, feels the hot Contagion:
Whence from his ancient Temple they remove
The Marble-god, so much their healths they love.
Now when they meet together in Consultation, then there is a strict examination what the Patient cack'd and piss'd that night; and going about like the Ephori of the Lacedemonians, to pronounce sentence of Life and Death, 'tis a strange, but sad thing to hear, with what Heats and Altercations, not one agreeing in one thing, they brangle about the sick-mans bed; as if they were hired not to Cure, but to Dispute; with no small trouble to the distempered person, according to the Verse of Menander:
A Prating Doctor is a new Disease
Vnto the sick—
At length producing some Aphorisms, to shew their Scholastick Learning, which they have always ready fo• use, and invoking Hippocrates, Galen, Avicen, Ras• Averroes, Apponius their Conciliator, and the rest o• their Deities, whose Names onely give them the credit of their Learning; when they have sufficiently conten•ded and disputed about the Causes, Signes, Affection• and Critical days, at length they come to the applica•tion of some Remedy, which ought to have been th•
Page 293
head and tail of the whole business; but that they pass over with some impertinent Order: for out of Envie to one another, they will not communicate their Se∣crets one to another; as if that would be lost to them, which they discover to others: and therefore they have recourse to the Common Method, which if it fail um, then they flee to the Empirical part, as to a sacred An∣chor, by Rashness to help what Reason resists; affir∣ming it to better to try a Doubtful Remedy, than none. Or else they leave the Patient, if their courtesie be less toward him, to future Prognosticks, saying for excuse, that Hippocrates forbids Remedies to be given to those who are in a desperate condition. Or else if they be any thing Religious, they cast the fault of the Disease upon some of the Saints; or else prescribe this their last Antidote: ℞ one Proctor, Witnesses in num∣ber seven, one Priest with Holy-water and Oyl, and dispose of thy estate, for thou art a dead man. Hence Rasis, conscious to himself of the great stupidity of sick people, as also of the contentious stolidity of the Physicians, giving advice both to the Patient and to the Physician, perswades in his Aphorisms to take one∣ly one Physician: for the Errour of one, brings great shame; and the advantageous Success of one, is equal∣ly prais'd: but he that makes use of more than one Physician, commits the greatest errour. Thus Rasis. This is confirm'd by that ancient Inscription in the Monument, A Tro•p of Physicians was his bane; and by the Greek Proverb, The admittance of many Physicians lost the Patient: as also by that saying of dying Adrian; Multitude of Physicians has kill'd a Prince. Therefore there cannot be more profitable or more wholesom, Counsel given for the preservation of Health, than to abstain from Physicians: for we owe our Health to God, not to the Physicians. Therefore was Asa King of Ju•ah reprehended by the Propher, because he
Page 294
sought not the Lord in his sickness, but trusted to the skill of the Physician; to whose directions they who give themselves over, can never be well. For there is no life so comfortless, as that which is governed by, and leans upon the confidence of their Art. Were it true that Physicians knew, and I would they did know, of the vertues and efficacies of the Elements, Herbs, Roots, Flowers, Fruits, Animals, Minerals, and of all things which Parent Nature produces; yet would they be so far from making a man immortal, that they would not be always able to cure a slight disease. How often has the Remedy fail'd, that ought to have cur'd! that which the Remedy ought to have thrown off, it hath not; and at last, after great pains and cost, the Patient dies, even in the presence of the Physicians. What hope then can we repose in the Physicians, whose experi∣ence, as their own Hippocrates confesses, is erroneous? What certainty can the Physicians promise us, if it be true that Pliny writes, That there is no Art more in∣constant than Physick, nor more subject to change? Many Nations there were of old, and now to this day living without Physicians, strong and lusty beyond the age of Decrepitness, exceeding an hundred years? Contrarily, those more soft and delicate people who make use of Physicians, for the most part grow old are they have liv'd half their years. And the Physici∣ans themselves we finde more crazie and short-liv'd than other people. Hence one answer'd Lacon, say∣ing to him, Thou hast no distemper. Because (said the o∣ther) I am not a Physicians wife. Another saying to him, You are a true old man. Because (said he) I never us'd Physicians advice. Shewing, that there is no way more certain to Health and Old-age, than to want a Physician. If any one shall say, that many have reco∣vered by the help of the Physicians; we answer, that many more have di'd, toward whose relief the Physi∣cians
Page 295
skill has nothing at all avail'd. And let um re∣member this Verse in Ausonius:
—They scap'd from ill
By help of Fate, not of the Doctors skill.
The Arcadians, as Pliny relates, used no other Medi∣caments than Milk in the Spring, because then the Herbs were most full of juyce: and they chose above the rest Cows milk, as feeding most upon Herbs. The Laconians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Lusitanians, as Stra∣bo and Herodotus affirm, rejected all Physicians: but they brought forth their sick into the streets and Mar∣ket-places, that they who had scap'd the same disease, might advise them to the Remedies they had try'd be∣fore; believing, as Celsus delivereth, that nothing did more conduce to recovery than Experience, wherein we finde the most learned Doctors often overcome, by silly Country old women, one of which has done more good with one single Herb or Plant, than the most famous Doctors, with all their most elaborate Receipts: for they endeavouring the cure of diseases by a compounded mixture of several Drugs, go more by Conjecture, than by any true knowledge of the cause or reason of the distemper; rendring the whole Art of Physick meerly a thing of Chance and Guess: whilst the poor woman, knowing the vertue and effect of her simple Remedy, more easily by a natural force of a try'd Receipt shall overcome and cure a distem∣per. On the other side, the Physicians, by the help of Drugs and pretious Gums brought from India at great charge and expences, promise great Cure; the poor Woman, by cheap and easie Remedies that grow in her own garden, doth not onely promise, but restore Health. Nay, the Physicians themselves confess that they have several of them learnt more excellent Receipts from
Page 296
Women, worthy to be recorded in their Works, and be made publike to posterity; such as is the Receipt a∣gainst the pain in the Head, which Avicen so much ex∣tols. Now if Physick, which ought to restore the temperament of Health, consist in proportion and tem∣perament of things both between themselves, and also with the bodies to which they are attributed; and that it was the most diligent care of the Physician to pro∣portion and temper Medicaments, and to leave um so temper'd by just and harmonical weight and propor∣tion to the bodies and tempers of the sick: what a strange arrogance and impudence is it for others, not onely to change, but to adde, sometimes to neglect, sometimes to know nothing thereof! Whence it fol∣lows, that as the agreeing temperament of a Medica∣ment brings Health; so the disproportionate mixture causes Pain, increases the disease, and brings death. And therefore a Country-woman shall cure more safely with a Garden-receipt, than a proud Physician with all his prodigious costly and conjectural Medicaments. Many most excellent Physicians were of opinion, that the best way of Curing was by simple Medicaments. To which purpose having searcht into the qualities of Simples, and found them out, they have left us famous Volumes upon those Subjects, as Chrysippus of the Cole∣wort, Pythagoras of the Onyon, Marchion of the Rad∣dish, Diocles of the Turnep, Phanias of the Nettle, A∣puleius of Betony; and many others, of other Herbs and Roots. But your Shop-physicians so little regard these things, that they contemn um, call them Simple∣tons, that take notice of Simples. But those Physicians that make use of Simple Medicaments, I aver, are the persons to be both followed and consulted: But for your Shop Doctors, I wish all people to avoid um, as meer Hocus-pocus's and Witches, living upon our deaths, by means of their prodigious Compositions,
Page 297
and meerly making a Lottery of our lives. For seeing that compounded Medicaments must of necessity con∣sist of such things whose qualities are altogether dis∣agreeing and repugnant; it is very difficult, if not al∣together impossible, to promise any thing of Certainty, but onely by Thought, Conjecture, and Opinion; and when there are innumerable things which singly might be advantageous, the Physician onely jumbles those to∣gether which Chance and Fortune offer to his memory. Whence it happens, that that compounded Medica∣ment receives its efficacie not from the qualities of the Simple Ingredients, but from the Fancie and Unluckie choice of the Physician, while he by some secret and hidden motive, whether Natural, Celestial, Demonia∣cal, or Fortuitous, is prompted to chuse this or that thing before another. And indeed, this is the vulgar Saying, and which they themselves confess, that one Physician is more fortunate than another, and that ma∣ny times the Ignorant proves more successful than the Learned. I my self have known and seen a most Learned Physician, under whose Cure very few have escaped: I have known another half-witted fellow, that has happily cur'd not onely his own Patient, but those who have been left in a desperate condition by others. And I remember I have read of a Physician that cur'd all Noble-men and rich men that fell into his cure; but all his Patients that were of a mean condi∣tion, either dy'd, or run very great hazards. Hence we may easily see, that this Shop-physick, where the good Fortune rather than Learning of the Physician prevails, is to be lookt upon onely as a piece of Fortune-telling, and to be exploded and condemned onely as an art of Murther and Witchcraft. Which made the Romans when Cato was C•nsor to expel all Physicians, not one∣ly cut of Rome, but out of all Italy, as abominating their Cruelty and Lying, for that they kill'd more than
Page 298
they heal'd; and for that being very dextrous at poy∣soning, by Hatred, Ambition, or Gain, they were easily hir'd to administer Poyson with their Physick, and for Reward to entrap the lives of men. Thus the Physi∣cian of Pyrrhus, whether Timocharis, according to Gel∣lius, or Nacias, as others report, who promis'd Fabri∣cius to poyson his Lord and King: but Fabricius dete∣sting the fact, admonisht Pyrrhus in a Letter to have a care of his Physician: of which Clandian thus writes.
The Romans for their vertue ever fam'd,
The traytor and his treason still condemn'd.
Fabricius nobly to his foe declares
What his own servant 'gainst his life prepares.
He fairly taught to vanquish, that his War
All acts of secret treason did abhor.
Cato in Pliny writes to his son about the Physicians of the Greeks: They have sworn to kill all the Barbarians with their Physick; but this they do for Money, to gain Credit, that they may make the quicker dispatch. And a little after the addes: Whence then proceeded so many cheats in Wills, the same means they have now to hide A∣dulteries; as by the example of Eudemus, in Livia wife of Drusus Caesar. Socates also in Plato advises not to let Physicians multiply in a Citie. It were very con∣venient for the Commonwealth, that there were none, or very few; and that there were a Law to make their Unskilfulness and Negligence capital. For it is a Ca∣pital crime; and it matters not whether a Physician have endangered a mans life by Folly or Negligence, by Ignorance or Malice, unwittingly or designedly: and that there should not be such an Impunity for Physi∣cians to destroy Mankinde, who have onely this com∣mon honour with the Hangman, to be hired to kill men, and onely to be rewarded for Murther, for
Page 299
which all other men are condemn'd without mer∣cy. This is the difference between the one and the other, That the Hangman puts none to death, but what have receiv'd sentence of death by the Judges; the Physician destroys the Innocent, without any sen∣tence past. Therefore the Pontifical Constitutions for∣bid Clergie-men to practise Physick, as if they might be as lawfully Hang-men as Clergie-men. Not im∣prudently also Cato prosecuted them, as being such as strive to increase the Fame of their Art by Novelty; and when they have nothing new, try their Experi∣ments with the hazard of our lives, and learn their Art by prolonging and increasing our distempers, to their own profit and advantage also. Therefore to remedy this mischief, the Aegyptians had a Law, that the first three days the Physician was to cure the sick, with the hazard of the Patients life; after three days, at the peril of his own.
Of Practical Physick.
THe whole Operative art of Healing is built upon no other Foundation than fallacious Experiments, and the slender Credulity of the diseased, doing more harm than good; there being generally more danger in the Physician and Physick, than in the disease: which the chief Doctors of this Art ingenuously con∣fess, that is to say, Hippocrates himself, who does not
Page 286
deny this Art to be both difficult and fallacious; toge∣ther with Avicen, who saith, that the Patients confidence in the Physician oft-times prevaileth more than the Phy∣si•k it self. Galen also affirms, that it is very difficult to finde a Medicament that does very much good, but easie to finde many that do no good at all. There is another who tells us that the knowledge of Medicines is delightful, as of all other things that consist of Rule and Art; but that the effects of Medicinal operation are meerly for∣tuitous. Let the fortunate diseased therefore go and put their trust in dangerous Experiments, and habnab-Remedies. But so general is the sweetness of hoping well for a mans self, as Pliny saith, that he believes eve∣ry Physician that offers himself, though there be no de∣lusion more dangerous. Hence it is that generally men seek for help from Death; he being the best Physician e∣steemed, whom the Apothecary, that shares with him, recommonds, or deceives the person; whose servants are at the Physicians devotion, who like Pandars for reward commend him with praises to the sick. He is also accounted a most excellent Physician, whom a Velvet Coat, or two or three good Rings upon his fin∣gers shall make to be admir'd; or else his being a For∣raigner, or a great Traveller; or else his being of such or such a Religion. Of no less efficacie to give um credit, fame and authority, is a solid Confidence, and a constant bragging of his Receipts: adde to these a spirit of Contradiction, many Greek and Latine sen∣tences, and the names of Authors, which make him seem learned. Thus arm'd with a Leaden Gravity, but a Military confidence, he undertakes the Trade of a Physician: and first, he visits the sick, looks upon his Urine, feels his Pulse, considers his Tongue, feels his Sides, examines the Excrement, enquires into his cu∣stomary Diet; and if there be any thing more privately kept, he desires to finde it out, as if he would weigh the
Page 287
Humours of the Patient in a pair of Scales. Then with great boasting he prescribes Medicaments: R℞ Cata∣p•tia, let bloud, give Clysters, use Pessaries, Oynments, Plaisters, Lozenges, Masticatories, Gargarisms, Fumes, Quilts; use Preserves, Waters, Treacles. If the dis∣ease be light, and the Patient dainty, then will the Phy∣sician invent fine pleasing Gugaws, fit for women and effeminate persons. Provoking Sleep sometimes with hanging beds; sometimes extenuating the disease with Baths, Frictions, Cupping-glasses; sometimes re•resh∣ing the sick with delicate diet, and change of air. And to obtain greater fame and authority, observing times and seasons, and seldome administring Physick but ac∣cording to the directions of some Mechanical Ephe∣meris. He also claims a great authority over the A∣pothecary, many times ordering him to make his Me∣dicines before him; pretending himself to be at the choice of the best ingredients, when for the most part he knows• not good from bad, nay hardly knows the things themselves when he sees them. But if the Pa∣tient be rich, and a great person besides, then for his greater fame and profit he prolongs the distemper as much as may be, although perhaps he might have cur'd it with one single Medicine: sometimes exasperating the disease, he brings the Patient to deaths door before he will cure it, that he may be said to have deliver'd the Patient from a most dangerous fit of sickness. If he meet with a Patient whose distemper is dangerous, and that he findes the effect of the Cure to be doubt∣ful, then he uses these Stratagems: severely he pre∣scribes Rules of Diet; he commands unusual things, prohibits things common: he extols with great argu∣ments what he offers himself; what others bring he ut∣terly condemns; on the one side threatning ruine, on the other hand promising life. If he doubt of the event, he perswades the Patient to call a Council of Doctors,
Page 288
〈1 page duplicate〉
Page 289
〈1 page duplicate〉
Page 288
desires an assistant, to proceed more warily in the Cure, for fear lest any one coming alone, should perform a Cure, and take from him the glory of the business. If any thing fall out amiss with the Patient, or that he has kill'd him by his most signal want of skill; then he excuses himself, by pretending some sudden deflux of Rheum, or some other chance, neither to be helped nor avoided; or else he accuses the Patient for not ob∣serving his directions, or else blaming those that ten∣ded for want of care; or else he blames his associates; or else throws all the blame upon the Apothecary: thereby endeavouring to prove that no diseased person ever died but through his own fault, nor that ever any was cur'd but by the help and art of the Physitian. But that Physicians are Knaves for the most part, we shall prove by Witnesses. For their own Reconciler, Peter Apponius, writes, That the Art of Physick is ascrib'd to Mars, which is the most odious of all the Planets, as being the author of Ingratitude, Quarrelling, and all wic∣kedness. Therefore are Physicians the cause of many mischiefs, both by reason of the influence of Mars and Scorpio, as also because they had their original from a lowe and barren beginning; growing proud and haughty, as they grow rich. This perhaps he learnt from the example of Aesculapius, whom Antiquity fa∣bles to have been the Inventor of Physick, the son of Jupiter, and sent to the Earth through the way of the Sun. Celsus confesses him to be a man, but received into the number of the Gods. Others assert that he was the Incestuous off-spring of Coronidis, a handsom Harlot, with whom the Priests of Apollo lay in the Temple, who therefore gave out that he was the son of the God. But all agree in this, that this God was so wic∣ked, that Jove was forc'd to curb and chastise him with his Thunder. Concerning which, Lactantius thus writes to Constantine the Emperour: Aesculapius the son of A∣pollo,
Page 289
a vicious person, what other thing did he do worthy divine honours, saving that he cur'd Hippolytus? His death was more remarkable, in that he merited to be struck with thunder. To say the truth, Physicians are the most wicked, quarrelsome, envious, lying persons in the world: for so they quarrel one among another, that there is not a Physician to be found, who shall ap∣prove one Remedy prescrib'd by another, without ex∣ception, addition, or alteration: whence it is become a Proverb, The envie and discord of Physicians. For what one approves, the other laughs at. There is nothing certain among them, but all their promises are meer trifles, and airy lyes. Hence the common people, when they would set out a noted lyer, they cry, Thou ly'st like a Physician. For it is their chief study, to follow their own new inventions, and neglect the wholesome pre∣cepts of Antiquity: and those few things which they do know, they conceal, as if it did not consist with the Authority of their Art to divulge their knowledge; and out of envie to others, deprive our lives of the Re∣medies which other mens Labours have found out. They are moreover superstitious, arrogant, unconsci∣onable, proud, covetous; having this Sentence always in their mouthes: While there is pain, take. And if the pain cease in one part, they take care that it increase in another, for fear the Cure should be too soon perfected. As we read of Peter Apponi•s, who professing Physick in Bolonia, was so covetous and arrogant, that being sent for one time to a Patient out of town, he would not attend under less than fifty Crowns a day: and being sent for by Honorius the Pope, he covenanted for Four hundred Crowns a day. Besides, we finde it re∣lated by Pindarus, that Aesculapius the parent of Phy∣sick was struck by Jupiter with Thunder for his Cove∣tousness, for that he had practised Physick with Extor∣sion, and to the hurt of the Commonwealth. But if
Page 290
a sick man happen to recover out of their hands, there is such an Applause, that the tongue of man can scarce suffice to express the wonder of the miracle, as if La∣zarus had been rais'd out of the grave; claiming the life of the Patient to be their gift, and that they have brought him back: ascribing to themselves what be∣longs to God, and believe that no reward can suffice to recompence their desert. Some of um are so swell'd up with pride, that they suffer themselves to be wor∣shipt as Gods, and be called Joves and Jupiters; such as Menecrates the Physician of Syracuse, who is said to have written in these words to Agesilous King of Spar∣ta: Jupiter Menecrates, to Agesilous, greeting. But Agesilaus lauging at his folly, thus answer'd him: A∣gesilaus to Menecrates, health. But if any one unfortu∣nately happen to die in their hands, then they blame weakness of Nature, the strength and fury of his dis∣ease, the unruliness of the Patient: that they are Phy∣sicians, not Gods: that they can cure those that are to be cur'd: that it is not their business to raise the dead: that they have nothing to serve the diseased with, in discharge of their duty, but their Experience: and with such vanities as these they maintain their pride. Others that die they accuse of intemperance: and when they have kill'd a man, yet they demand sa∣tisfaction for their Bills, from those, that might have been alive without um; depriving their Patients both of money and life at once; and yet preserving a safe Conscience to themselves, knowing their faults (as So∣crates says) to be covered in the earth; as also for that there is no returning from hell or the grave, to accuse them of their unskilfulness, exaction, and homicides. There are some nasty stinking Physicians bedaub'd with cast Urine and Ordure, more sordid than Midwives, using themselves to behold obscene and beastly sights, with their noses and ears to hear and smell the Belches,
Page 291
Farts, Stinking breaths, Steams and Stenches of the sick, with their lips and tongues to taste the black and loathsome Potions, with their fingers to search the Dung and Excrements. Lastly, all their studies and dis∣course is onely about the most sad, horrid, and ghastly spectacles of Death and Diseases. Exquisite Judges of the Ordure of men, which Hippocrates is reported u∣sually to have tasted, that he might thereby the better judge of the Disease: which Aesculapius also is said to have done, who is therefore by Aristophanes call'd Sca∣tophagus, or Excrement-eater, a Name generally given to Physicians. Hence Scatomancy, Ouromancy, and Dry∣niomancy, are said to be the Divinations or Prognosti∣cations of Physicians taken from Ordure and Urine. Wherefore, among many Nations, those Mechanick Doctors were formerly had in contempt, so that, as Sene∣ca witnesses, it was accounted a great piece of Infamy to exercise the Calling of a Physician: and at this day, there are several people that forbid Physicians, Midwives and Executioners from coming to their Tables; or else cause um to eat and drink in Dishes and Cups by them∣selves: much more abhorring that detestable custom of many Princes, who admit those Pestilential persons to their Chambers in a morning, and admit them infected with the Visits and Vapours of Pestilential people to their Meals, and at meat suffer their impertinent talk of Ordure, Urine, Sweat, Vomits, and Menstruous Courses, Leprosies, Ulcers, Scabs, and Plagues; and to be spew a noble Feast, furnished with choice dishes, with their impure and obscene discourse. Than to admit a Physician to civil Consultations, there is nothing more idle, or fuller of folly, seeing that the Art of Physick neither treats of Vertue or Good-manners; and for that a Physician naturally a good man, ought to b• a person of ill Customs. And we know that in many Cities by publike Decrees Physicians are neither admit∣ted
Page 292
to their Counsels, nor suffered to bear any Office of Magistracie: perhaps not so much that they are foolish, vain, or ill tutor'd, as for their Sordidness, and their spreading Contagion, with the continual Visits of all sorts of Diseases; not onely infecting Men, but the very Seats and Stones, as Lucillus has very well said of a certain Physician, in a Greek Epigram.
Alcon but toucht Joves Statue, straight the stone,
Though Marble, feels the hot Contagion:
Whence from his ancient Temple they remove
The Marble-god, so much their healths they love.
Now when they meet together in Consultation, then there is a strict examination what the Patient cack'd and piss'd that night; and going about like the Ephori of the Lacedemonians, to pronounce sentence of Life and Death, 'tis a strange, but sad thing to hear, with what Heats and Altercations, not one agreeing in one thing, they brangle about the sick-mans bed; as if they were hired not to Cure, but to Dispute; with no small trouble to the distempered person, according to the Verse of Menander:
A Prating Doctor is a new Disease
Vnto the sick—
At length producing some Aphorisms, to shew their Scholastick Learning, which they have always ready fo• use, and invoking Hippocrates, Galen, Avicen, Ras• Averroes, Apponius their Conciliator, and the rest o• their Deities, whose Names onely give them the credit of their Learning; when they have sufficiently conten•ded and disputed about the Causes, Signes, Affection• and Critical days, at length they come to the applica•tion of some Remedy, which ought to have been th•
Page 293
head and tail of the whole business; but that they pass over with some impertinent Order: for out of Envie to one another, they will not communicate their Se∣crets one to another; as if that would be lost to them, which they discover to others: and therefore they have recourse to the Common Method, which if it fail um, then they flee to the Empirical part, as to a sacred An∣chor, by Rashness to help what Reason resists; affir∣ming it to better to try a Doubtful Remedy, than none. Or else they leave the Patient, if their courtesie be less toward him, to future Prognosticks, saying for excuse, that Hippocrates forbids Remedies to be given to those who are in a desperate condition. Or else if they be any thing Religious, they cast the fault of the Disease upon some of the Saints; or else prescribe this their last Antidote: ℞ one Proctor, Witnesses in num∣ber seven, one Priest with Holy-water and Oyl, and dispose of thy estate, for thou art a dead man. Hence Rasis, conscious to himself of the great stupidity of sick people, as also of the contentious stolidity of the Physicians, giving advice both to the Patient and to the Physician, perswades in his Aphorisms to take one∣ly one Physician: for the Errour of one, brings great shame; and the advantageous Success of one, is equal∣ly prais'd: but he that makes use of more than one Physician, commits the greatest errour. Thus Rasis. This is confirm'd by that ancient Inscription in the Monument, A Tro•p of Physicians was his bane; and by the Greek Proverb, The admittance of many Physicians lost the Patient: as also by that saying of dying Adrian; Multitude of Physicians has kill'd a Prince. Therefore there cannot be more profitable or more wholesom, Counsel given for the preservation of Health, than to abstain from Physicians: for we owe our Health to God, not to the Physicians. Therefore was Asa King of Ju•ah reprehended by the Propher, because he
Page 294
sought not the Lord in his sickness, but trusted to the skill of the Physician; to whose directions they who give themselves over, can never be well. For there is no life so comfortless, as that which is governed by, and leans upon the confidence of their Art. Were it true that Physicians knew, and I would they did know, of the vertues and efficacies of the Elements, Herbs, Roots, Flowers, Fruits, Animals, Minerals, and of all things which Parent Nature produces; yet would they be so far from making a man immortal, that they would not be always able to cure a slight disease. How often has the Remedy fail'd, that ought to have cur'd! that which the Remedy ought to have thrown off, it hath not; and at last, after great pains and cost, the Patient dies, even in the presence of the Physicians. What hope then can we repose in the Physicians, whose experi∣ence, as their own Hippocrates confesses, is erroneous? What certainty can the Physicians promise us, if it be true that Pliny writes, That there is no Art more in∣constant than Physick, nor more subject to change? Many Nations there were of old, and now to this day living without Physicians, strong and lusty beyond the age of Decrepitness, exceeding an hundred years? Contrarily, those more soft and delicate people who make use of Physicians, for the most part grow old are they have liv'd half their years. And the Physici∣ans themselves we finde more crazie and short-liv'd than other people. Hence one answer'd Lacon, say∣ing to him, Thou hast no distemper. Because (said the o∣ther) I am not a Physicians wife. Another saying to him, You are a true old man. Because (said he) I never us'd Physicians advice. Shewing, that there is no way more certain to Health and Old-age, than to want a Physician. If any one shall say, that many have reco∣vered by the help of the Physicians; we answer, that many more have di'd, toward whose relief the Physi∣cians
Page 295
skill has nothing at all avail'd. And let um re∣member this Verse in Ausonius:
—They scap'd from ill
By help of Fate, not of the Doctors skill.
The Arcadians, as Pliny relates, used no other Medi∣caments than Milk in the Spring, because then the Herbs were most full of juyce: and they chose above the rest Cows milk, as feeding most upon Herbs. The Laconians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Lusitanians, as Stra∣bo and Herodotus affirm, rejected all Physicians: but they brought forth their sick into the streets and Mar∣ket-places, that they who had scap'd the same disease, might advise them to the Remedies they had try'd be∣fore; believing, as Celsus delivereth, that nothing did more conduce to recovery than Experience, wherein we finde the most learned Doctors often overcome, by silly Country old women, one of which has done more good with one single Herb or Plant, than the most famous Doctors, with all their most elaborate Receipts: for they endeavouring the cure of diseases by a compounded mixture of several Drugs, go more by Conjecture, than by any true knowledge of the cause or reason of the distemper; rendring the whole Art of Physick meerly a thing of Chance and Guess: whilst the poor woman, knowing the vertue and effect of her simple Remedy, more easily by a natural force of a try'd Receipt shall overcome and cure a distem∣per. On the other side, the Physicians, by the help of Drugs and pretious Gums brought from India at great charge and expences, promise great Cure; the poor Woman, by cheap and easie Remedies that grow in her own garden, doth not onely promise, but restore Health. Nay, the Physicians themselves confess that they have several of them learnt more excellent Receipts from
Page 296
Women, worthy to be recorded in their Works, and be made publike to posterity; such as is the Receipt a∣gainst the pain in the Head, which Avicen so much ex∣tols. Now if Physick, which ought to restore the temperament of Health, consist in proportion and tem∣perament of things both between themselves, and also with the bodies to which they are attributed; and that it was the most diligent care of the Physician to pro∣portion and temper Medicaments, and to leave um so temper'd by just and harmonical weight and propor∣tion to the bodies and tempers of the sick: what a strange arrogance and impudence is it for others, not onely to change, but to adde, sometimes to neglect, sometimes to know nothing thereof! Whence it fol∣lows, that as the agreeing temperament of a Medica∣ment brings Health; so the disproportionate mixture causes Pain, increases the disease, and brings death. And therefore a Country-woman shall cure more safely with a Garden-receipt, than a proud Physician with all his prodigious costly and conjectural Medicaments. Many most excellent Physicians were of opinion, that the best way of Curing was by simple Medicaments. To which purpose having searcht into the qualities of Simples, and found them out, they have left us famous Volumes upon those Subjects, as Chrysippus of the Cole∣wort, Pythagoras of the Onyon, Marchion of the Rad∣dish, Diocles of the Turnep, Phanias of the Nettle, A∣puleius of Betony; and many others, of other Herbs and Roots. But your Shop-physicians so little regard these things, that they contemn um, call them Simple∣tons, that take notice of Simples. But those Physicians that make use of Simple Medicaments, I aver, are the persons to be both followed and consulted: But for your Shop Doctors, I wish all people to avoid um, as meer Hocus-pocus's and Witches, living upon our deaths, by means of their prodigious Compositions,
Page 297
and meerly making a Lottery of our lives. For seeing that compounded Medicaments must of necessity con∣sist of such things whose qualities are altogether dis∣agreeing and repugnant; it is very difficult, if not al∣together impossible, to promise any thing of Certainty, but onely by Thought, Conjecture, and Opinion; and when there are innumerable things which singly might be advantageous, the Physician onely jumbles those to∣gether which Chance and Fortune offer to his memory. Whence it happens, that that compounded Medica∣ment receives its efficacie not from the qualities of the Simple Ingredients, but from the Fancie and Unluckie choice of the Physician, while he by some secret and hidden motive, whether Natural, Celestial, Demonia∣cal, or Fortuitous, is prompted to chuse this or that thing before another. And indeed, this is the vulgar Saying, and which they themselves confess, that one Physician is more fortunate than another, and that ma∣ny times the Ignorant proves more successful than the Learned. I my self have known and seen a most Learned Physician, under whose Cure very few have escaped: I have known another half-witted fellow, that has happily cur'd not onely his own Patient, but those who have been left in a desperate condition by others. And I remember I have read of a Physician that cur'd all Noble-men and rich men that fell into his cure; but all his Patients that were of a mean condi∣tion, either dy'd, or run very great hazards. Hence we may easily see, that this Shop-physick, where the good Fortune rather than Learning of the Physician prevails, is to be lookt upon onely as a piece of Fortune-telling, and to be exploded and condemned onely as an art of Murther and Witchcraft. Which made the Romans when Cato was C•nsor to expel all Physicians, not one∣ly cut of Rome, but out of all Italy, as abominating their Cruelty and Lying, for that they kill'd more than
Page 298
they heal'd; and for that being very dextrous at poy∣soning, by Hatred, Ambition, or Gain, they were easily hir'd to administer Poyson with their Physick, and for Reward to entrap the lives of men. Thus the Physi∣cian of Pyrrhus, whether Timocharis, according to Gel∣lius, or Nacias, as others report, who promis'd Fabri∣cius to poyson his Lord and King: but Fabricius dete∣sting the fact, admonisht Pyrrhus in a Letter to have a care of his Physician: of which Clandian thus writes.
The Romans for their vertue ever fam'd,
The traytor and his treason still condemn'd.
Fabricius nobly to his foe declares
What his own servant 'gainst his life prepares.
He fairly taught to vanquish, that his War
All acts of secret treason did abhor.
Cato in Pliny writes to his son about the Physicians of the Greeks: They have sworn to kill all the Barbarians with their Physick; but this they do for Money, to gain Credit, that they may make the quicker dispatch. And a little after the addes: Whence then proceeded so many cheats in Wills, the same means they have now to hide A∣dulteries; as by the example of Eudemus, in Livia wife of Drusus Caesar. Socates also in Plato advises not to let Physicians multiply in a Citie. It were very con∣venient for the Commonwealth, that there were none, or very few; and that there were a Law to make their Unskilfulness and Negligence capital. For it is a Ca∣pital crime; and it matters not whether a Physician have endangered a mans life by Folly or Negligence, by Ignorance or Malice, unwittingly or designedly: and that there should not be such an Impunity for Physi∣cians to destroy Mankinde, who have onely this com∣mon honour with the Hangman, to be hired to kill men, and onely to be rewarded for Murther, for
Page 299
which all other men are condemn'd without mer∣cy. This is the difference between the one and the other, That the Hangman puts none to death, but what have receiv'd sentence of death by the Judges; the Physician destroys the Innocent, without any sen∣tence past. Therefore the Pontifical Constitutions for∣bid Clergie-men to practise Physick, as if they might be as lawfully Hang-men as Clergie-men. Not im∣prudently also Cato prosecuted them, as being such as strive to increase the Fame of their Art by Novelty; and when they have nothing new, try their Experi∣ments with the hazard of our lives, and learn their Art by prolonging and increasing our distempers, to their own profit and advantage also. Therefore to remedy this mischief, the Aegyptians had a Law, that the first three days the Physician was to cure the sick, with the hazard of the Patients life; after three days, at the peril of his own.