ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE Medicinal Observations, OF THE Heidelberg, Palatinate, Dorchester Practitioner of Physic, Mr. FREDERICK LOSS.  
Non omnes falls, scit te proserpina Canum,  
Personam capit● detrahet illa tuo.  Mart. 
Responsum non dictum est, quia laesit prius.  Ter. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Socrat. 
By ALIUS MEDICUS.  
LONDON, Printed for William Willis next door to the Goat, in Kingstreet Westminster. 1674.   

Frederico Lossio Heidelbergensi, Palatino, Dorchestrensi Medico, salutem & sanam mentem.  
INiquissimus fores in me judex, Frederice mi, si non aequi bonique feceris meam hanc professionem publicam, contra Alium Medicum, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & sine ratione practicantem. Nulla re magis inquit Crato, quam exemplo docemur atque confirmamur: praesertim cum rationibus instructi actionum causas intelligimus, & aliorum factis, nobis quod ex usu sit, admonemur. De te igitur exemplum capiens, & ad eandem oculos collimans metam; seu virtutis ea, seu veritatis, sive etiam Artis nostrae ergo fuerit: in hasce quidem ingenii exercitationes quales quales, me, a mea tandem indignatione abr●ptum, permisi. Si quidquam in iis fuerit, quod te urat, (urent autem plurima) non est propterea ut mihi merito succenseas, quando id omne culpa factum est tua: 
— Pudet haec opprobria nobis,  
Et dici potuisse, & non potuisse refelli.  Ovid.  
Impresentiarum quidem, ob rationes alibi memoratas, paginas aliquot genti publicae conscripturus, eas & meo, & suo idiomate implevi. Noli tamen subirasci, bone Vir, neque hoc animo nimis iracundo f●ras, dehinc enim, si quidquam rescripseris, quod opera & oleo dignum fuerit, Lingua etiam Latina quam calles sane, quamque in deliciis plurimis habes, non defuturum tibi aliquando responsum fovet.  
MEDICUS ALIUS.   

TO THE Religious, Virtuous, and Discreet LADY, Mrs. ELIZABETH MOOR Of Spargrave.  
Madam.  
SOme Authors call their Books their Children, all sure must own them for their Conceptions. This of mine is but a Daughter, begotten then, when yours lay sick at Dorchester; and born, by the help and Midwifery of your obliging and Testimonial Letter, from Spargrave. But, having been sick almost as long as yours hath been well, she is but slenderly grown, and none other but a plain English Girl. But I hope what she wants in learning, she will make up with commendable simplicity; and that although her worth may come short, yet her honesty will hold out. I know very well, Madam, that you need neither her▪ nor my service. 'Tis both of us that want your Testimony, or rather, that give you our humble thanks that we want it not. My Daughter is now going abroad to service, and she most gratefully acknowledgeth, that nothing could have more encouraged her, to seek her fortune, than the hope she hath, of her being the better accepted wherever she comes, because so Grave a Matron, and so Honourable a Lady, as you, Madam, have passed your Word, that hitherto she hath been just and true in her dealing. The Hebrews, Madam, do express the Female Sex by a word whose root signifies to forget, and the Male by Memory. And (whatsoever Mr. Loss his judgement of me may be) I was willing so far to have approved myself Masculine, as remembering that I also am a Man, and do err, to ha●e devoted my Daughter (though she speaks of wrong, and injuries done to myself, and their just vindication) unto oblivion and forgetfulness, and hence (which would have been monstrous in Naturals, but is frequent enough in Artificials) this Child stuck at the Birth above twelve months; and if my threatening to be out against him in print, if my showing unto my Adversary himself what it was that I had against him; if my leaving my Papers with him three or four weeks together, many months since, and that before any body had perused them; if my answering of his Latin Letter, in Latin, as they are both appended at the end of this Book; if my employing others to speak with him▪ and to demand satisfaction; if my sending for himself, but to no purpose; if my speaking with his own Son, and making him sensible, but in vain; if my offering to refer it to whom he pleased; if my naming his nearest & best friends; if my readiness to appeal to four Physicians, my naming them, the time, the place, and giving him notice of it, but he would not come: If any, if all of these could have prevailed to have made him sensible of a public shame like to befall him, or could have awakened his Conscience, and made him sensible, that in justice he ought to have given me all the satisfaction he could for my wounded credit; this Daughter of mine had proved abortive, and had never seen light: But when my patience and forbearance could work nothing, not so much as a visit from him, or once speaking to me about the business, when I perceived that he still justified himself, and that my not-coming out against him, was interpreted as proceeding rather from the consciousness of my own impotency and guilt, than of his. At this throw at last the Child was born; and whether she will prove a plague to her Parent, and a dishonour; or may serve to cherish, and nurse up his wounded Reputation and Credit, Time will show. Mr. Loss is angry with her, that she is not a Scholar, and doth not speak Latin, perhaps it is because she speaks too plain English: but I have promised him a Son hereafter, that hath been at School and can write Latin. In the interim, I tell him, that in my opiniom, one Mother-tongue is enough for a Daughter; besides, she is to wait upon you, Madam, and therefore she must not speak an unknown Tongue, she pleads more for Truth than Learning; and appeals rather to your Virtues, than the abilities of some great Scholar. She designs not any Feast unto the Learned, nor to visit the Universities, as Mr. Loss his Latin Observations, who himself yet never was there, at least as a member of either of them, but determines to make out Matters, Fact, and to prove by witness, that he hath not truly stated your Daughter's case. To contend with him whether He or I can write best Latin, would be pedantic, and too much like himself, for he hath the wit to tell us that formerly he was a petty Schoolmaster at Dantzik; and he wisely relates this himself, upon as wise an occasion, in his 26th Obs. and 1st Book; that the world may know, that he cannot only write Latin, but teach it for a need; and that Physicians may see the reason, why he is so Magisterial in consultations. To vie with him, whether He or I be the abler Physician, would be as unworthy Me as Him; for this is a query too particular, and very unhandsome between any two, and is not wont to be agitated but between envious and proud persons: for Scholars disputes should be about things, and not about persons. Yea, and although in the case of a particular person, Physicians may differ in their opinion, and perhaps each think he hath all reason on his side; yet it is very base, for either of these to begin to print this case, and to condemn the other, were he never so guilty. For Example, This Gentleman, without giving me the least Item thereof, calls me to a public account, for a private Consultation, and says of me, that in the particular case of your Daughter, my Practice had neither Method nor Reason in it. For, though it be against the Laws of Logic, to infer a general conclusion, for a particular instance. Yet how prone are people, and apt to conclude that all my Practice is such? until I some ways vindicate myself from this aspersion? Answering his Objections, and chastising his Insolency, by canvasing his Art and Method, in my Animadversions: and divulging either his, or my own ignorance therein. The Matters of Art, which I have touched on in this Book, they are not very intricate or disputable: I am confident, Madam, you yourself can easily understand, and judge of them, as they are presented to you in English, much more Scholars, if any of them think them worthy of their perusal, though they be not here in Latin. For, the Matters of Fact which I am to prove, by yourself, your Daughter, and all that were with her in her sickness, to Country People in a Country Town, these of necessity were to be put in English; and to have put the other in Latin, would have made the Book a Linsey-Woolsey piece of work. Any one that reads, may judge, though he understand no Latin, whether Mr. Loss hath writ truth or falsehood; whether he doth not often mistake, and sometimes contradict himself; whether he understood some of those Authors himself quotes; whether he hath done prudently, or so much as honestly, so to divulge all his Patient's names, as he hath done; courting and flattering some, shaming others, and grossly abusing some others: whether he loves and always honoured Medicus Alius, that hath privately so many times slandered him, and at length publicly put him (as far as in him lay) to an open shame. These things, Madam, are as plain, and as easy to be understood here, as the English Tongue; they need not be judged by a Conclave of the Learned, or a College of Physicians. Alas, our private concerns put together, are not worthy of their taking notice of, and therefore I have not Dedicated my Book to any of them, but to you, Madam; whose Testimony will be most prevalent before a Jury of good Men and Women in and about Dorchester: The very same, that but a little while since, when that most worthy Gentleman your Husband Thomas Moor Esq was High Sheriff of our County, were witnesses of both your Magnificence and Bounty, and how handsomely ye managed and carried off with applause that public solemnity, with what Nobleness and Grandeur it was acted, and yet with what Courteous Affability likewise, and Prudence. To you, Madam, that are a Gentlewoman of no ordinary Abilities, and that have a Lady's skill in Physic also, and that make use of better Physicians than either of us; To you, who have done nothing else towards our Controversy, but given me a civil answer unto a Letter which I sent unto you, touching particulars in your Daughter's sickness; To you, that by better parts, and a greater reach, can pierce deeper, and see farther into the depth of a Physicians parts and honesty, than many others, who are easily imposed upon, with the formality of some self-willed and selfconceited Gentleman, who must be adored and bowed unto, whether he be right or wrong; To you, that are in yourself alone a Complication of Witnesses; for many that were then about you, when your Daughter lay sick, both friends and servants can witness, if there were need thereof, that what you have writ in your Letter to me, is truth; To you, that being the tender and very affectionate Mother of our Patient, made it your business to look after your Daughter, and to attend unto what we said or did: you were present therefore, and would be so to all our Consultations and Discourses; and heard both parties, and considered them well. To you, that when I begged of you, rather to follow Mr. Loss his advice, than mine; urging, that he was an Elder Physician, and your older Acquaintance of many years standing, whereas until that day wherein you sent for me, you had never seen my face; answered that you would side with me because you thought I spoke most Reason; which was probably the foundation of Mr. Loss his writing this Observation of your Daughter's case against me: To you Madam, whom the whole Country round about do honour and respect; To you, of whom Mr. Loss himself hath given this Character in print, in his 25th Observe. and 3d Book: That you are a Lady not only of great Birth, but of greater Virtue, being fully accomplished and adorned with all the comeliness of Virtues: in which he hath spoken so much commendation of you, that he hath left nothing for me to add, but that I believe you highly deserve it. Lastly, To you Madam, whom while every body honours, I am much more bound so to do, and whilst I live, readily to acknowledge myself,  
Madam, Your most highly obliged, and very Humble Servant, T. B.   

The Preface to the Reader.  
READER:  
WELL may Physic be acknowledged by all, a most pleasant & delightful study, because it opens the door & gives us entrance into one half of that Celestial Knowledge, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the understanding of our bodies, whose matter was indeed but earth, yet materiam superavit opus, and none but an Heavenly Artist could of it have made so wonderful a Fabric. Many have almost grown mad with the bewitching pleasantness of the outside only, which they call Beauty, but how great are their raptures, that can pass beyond the Shell, and come unto the Kernel? that can open this Cabinet, and look in upon the Jewel? that can wind up this Watch when it is almost down; and when it is foul, can make it clean and set it again in order? that know all the Wheels of this sort of Automaton, and how it comes about that they move each other, what ballanceth their motion, what regulates it, and what is the spring and Original of all? And, as Physic gratifies our inquisitive Knowledge with these Rarities, that are no impertinent Curiosities, but highly necessary, as well as inviting and pleasing Objects: so, by preserving and continuing of our health, and sometimes restoring it when lost, it gives us the more time to enjoy them; and leads us further on, and further into the inward recesses, and secret laboratory of operating Nature, there showing us her Utensils, and how strangely and wonderfully we were made: And besides all this, Physic is more or less the Foundation and Cause of all other Arts and Sciences whatsoever: for if the Body be distempered, the Soul can no more find out or work these, than an Artist can show his skill without his Instruments.  
And yet for all this, it is a truth I think, (and pity it is it should be so, but there is no help for it) that there is no Profession of any Art whatsoever, that in its practice is more uncomfortable, than Physic itself is, to some ingenuous and modest Physicians; not that any one need to regret or nauseat, more nicely than wisely, these first entertainments which we commonly meet with when we are sent for to a sick Patient; for who knows not, that his own Body was cast in the same mould, Homo, sum humani nihil a me alienum puto, may every man say. Nor that we ought to be so voluptuous, or self-delighting, as to be unwilling at any time, when we are called thereunto, to sit down and stay by a sick or dying Patient, and to compassionate in the house of mourning, his sighs and groans, and many sad complaints: neither need we be much concerned, that the ginger and Fortune-teller, the cunning cheat or suspected Wizard, the Chirurgeon, the Apothecary, the hold confident, whether Farmer, Groom, Shepherd, or Cobbler, the Mountebank, or the Cordial or Pill-Doctors, that are always to be spoken with all most ever-ywhere at some Bookseller's Shop, in any part of the Kingdom, and do practise without seeing their Patients, or feeling their Pulse, or knowing their Disease, or Age, or Sex or Strength, or any thing: that the Midwife, the Nurse, the Neighbour Gossip, Persons of all sorts, and of both sexes do turn Doctors, and find a nearer way to Physic than going about to the Universities, and many times far more profitable, but at no time so honourable, nor yet so satisfactory unto their Consciences, if they have any: for I would ask any of these Intruders into our faculty (I do not mean such charitable Gentlewomen or Ministers of a Parish, as do bestow their skill gratis upon their poor Neighbours, when no better help is to be had, but those that make gain of Physic, and upon boasting their skill, do prevent Patients from sending for others that have more understanding in the Art) I say, I ask these, how they satisfy themselves from being guilty of their Patient's Blood, when they happen to die under their Cure? and how they can approve themselves for humble Persons, yea, or excuse themselves from the height of Pride and Impudence; that, condemning the modesty and Practice of these men, that being bred Scholars from their youth, study first many years in the Universities, and afterwards go not forth to Practise, before they have submitted themselves unto the Trial of the Learned, and by them are approved and sent forth as fit for the employment, in a year or two, perhaps as few months, do take up to Practise Physic, and do out- hector the other, who know more, than to be so able as they are, to bluster and brag, as if they were the only knowing persons and skilful in the Art; though they have no other Testimony thereof, than their own, and yet the People believe them, and so let them.  
But this would grieve one indeed, but its helpless also, that when an honest, and perhaps able Physician, hath done all he can for his Patient, hath discharged his Conscience, his Friendship, his Kindness, his good Nature, and all his Art; he should yet miserably be obnoxious, and lie open unto the obloquys and slanders of all sorts of people; censured many times, and slighted when he cannot so much as study what his fault was; and condemned without being permitted first to answer for himself; neither indeed can he, for who can talk and reason his own case, with the hundredth part of the people, that will censure and condemn him?  
Physicians when they once go forth to Practise and leave the University, they seldom or never meet with any opportunity in the places where they dwell, of making any public proof that they understand their Art. If a Divine be a deserving Gentleman, and one eminent for Learning, he need none other help than his own to publish this unto the World; for every Sermon he delivers, is not only an exercise of his Function, but a Demonstration of his Abilities, whilst his Auditors that are always numerous, even every one of them that understands him, is at once a witness both of his Piety and of his Parts. If a Lawyer speaks handsomely and pertinently unto a Case, it is done in the audience of those Learned in the Law, and commonly before a Judge; and although the Client's Case goes against him, yet the Counsellors credit goes nothing the less, for the whole Court witnesseth, that he spoke as much to the purpose as could be said, and pleaded like himself. But the Physician is exposed naked unto every one's lash, and be he never so good, if the success proves bad, he hears generally ill, and there seldom wants some unhappy pickthanks or other, who perhaps to bring in a Friend of their own, into a Family that may be advantageous, can easily disparage and blast a Man's Reputation, with groundless surmises and suggestions. We have not only to do with the Apothecary and Chirurgeon, and both their Boys (for Patients will sometimes ask even these, of what value the Physician is); but with the Nurse likewise, and the Midwife, with the Tender upon, and the Hanger-on, the twattling Gossip, and the skilless busybody; in effect, every one is Judge in our Case, and most commonly those that have the least knowledge have the greatest confidence if not impudence in their verdicts. Let but any such an one say, this was too much, or that too little, this strangely neglected, or that venturously acted; though it be but a Fool that finds the fault, yet he is the Wise man, and the Physician condemned for the fool; and notwithstanding the Proverb says, Every one is either a Fool or a Physician, the latter alone must be both. Yea, good success will not always ward a Physician from others bad opinions, and I do not remember that I ever succeeded worse than when I succeeded best, and that by this Stratagem, which is the fundus nostrae calamitatis, and the worst of all that hath yet been said, other Physicians, that either do or should understand the Art, and be best able to vindicate both the Profession and its Professors, some of them are so selfconceited, envious, and covetous, that when they are called into a Consultation, they are often the first that fling the stone at their fellow-Physicians; and if the Patient die, they slanderously and privately suggest, that he took a wrong course, and killed him; if beyond their prognostic he recovers and lives, that he was so dangerous and venturous, he would have killed him, but that Nature was so strong as to contemn all the effort of his immethodical and irrational Practice.  
For my own part, I could never hitherto so highly flatter myself into so good an opinion of my parts or proficiency in learning, as to harbour any thoughts, much less resolve upon any means of coming forth into print: Alas! I am hardly so learned, as to know that the whole of what I know, is not the tenth of what I am ignorant of; and if I should come abroad as standing upon my own Legs, my stature is but low and my abilities lower, and I might justly be afraid, that I should be so far from appearing like a Saul among his Brethren, taller by the head than other Physicians (as me thinks all those should be that voluntarily put themselves in print) that rather I should seem like a Pigmy among the Giants. And, if in any thing I should pretend, Dwarf though I am, to stand upon the great ones shoulders, and by that means to see farther than they, so as to enlarge the Horizon of our Art, by making discovery of some Terra incognita, some new things in Physic not treated of before; Alas! there are many things new to me, which may be old to othery, and well enough known long before I was born; for I cannot boast to have read over, much less fully and deliberately digested all things, which all Authors both Ancient and Modern have already treated of in our faculty; neither can I demonstrate that there is anything new under the Sun, though there are many things that seem so to me. Besides, this Age is fertile of great Wits, by whom Truths as well as Persons, have got their changes of attire; and indeed, what else are new Books generally but old verities new dressed up, and set forth to sale; with such ornaments and embroideries, such spangling trim, and such sparkling Jewels, as the best Language, Fancy, and Wit of each Author could put upon them, to make them of the mode, and so acceptable; for the sceleton of common Notions, which they thus fill up and flesh, which they thus smooth and skin over, which they thus paint and beautify, is like the Earth we live on, through all our Generations the same.  
Upon these Considerations I have hitherto passed my days in a recluse, being much of his opinion, that a Man lives not the more unhappy, for being the less taken notice of; judging that it was enough for me, for one of so mean endowments, to sit still and be quiet, to live and learn, to read others books, and to leave it to the great Masters of our Art for to write and teach.  
But a kind of spiteful hap, hath disturbed my quiet peace, and a sort of Hurricane hath driven my poor Bark out of a calm Harbour into a Tossing and Tempestuous Ocean, a Sea of strife, and quarrelsome Contention, which I neither love nor like; for to put forth a Book, is in some sort to put forth to sea, and to commit one's self to the rude waves, for what else are the movable and uncertain Censures of the People? I thought often upon the beginning of that Ode in Hor. 
O Navis referent in Mare te novi  
Fluctus, O quid agis? fortiter occupa  
Portum, nun vides ut— etc.   
Applying what he speaks upon another occasion, unto my sending forth this small Bark my Book; and surely nothing but a bare necessity, could have forced me out in such hard Wether: stay I would, but stay I cannot, without I would be content to be shipwrecked in the Haven. The reasons of this undertaking are elsewhere mentioned, and must be passed by here, lest the Porch should grow so big, that the little house might run out at it: thus much only shall suffice to be here added; That private and public Slanders were the occasion, and that the vindication of others as well as of myself, is my Apology for what I have written: for though I bear the brunt, yet there is scarce any one neighbour Physician or Apothecary, which hath not suffered by the same Slanderer.  
And if this Gentleman, that would not Privately be convinced of his fault, nor answer or satisfy me, until I published my Papers, as one told me from him, be made truly sensible of the evil of his old wont, so as to mend it; and if others receive a small check, whose Consciences do tell them, they are guilty of this bad Practice, in that they see, the Backbiter may chance some time or other to pay for it, I have my end: for I should have been ashamed, to have given myself, much more my Reader, the trouble of these Sheets, if, besides my private concern, some public good, designed at least, had not been wrapped up in them.   

ANIMADVERSIONS On Mr. Loss, and on his Medicinal Observations in General.  
MR. LOSS is a Gentleman of ingenious parts, but not ingenuous; a good Scholar, but not so good as he esteems himself; one that writes smooth Latin, and knows it too, and hath made good use of it, and for it hath been highly esteemed for a great Physician by these that understand his Latin better than his Art; in which yet, he might have done much better, had his Modesty been equal with his Skill: but he is best understood in the parts where he lives, and is there diversely accounted of. If some of his Neighbours were to draw his Portraiture, it would be with a Black coal, others with a white, reputing him for a very honest man, and mighty able in his Art: whether he best deservs this, or that character, let the Reader judge.  
He styles himself the Heidelbergh, Palatinate, Dorchester Physician, being hard put to it for an honourable Title, because he is neither Doctor of Physic, nor yet a Licentiat that I know of, other than by the Bishop's Officer of the Diocese; and yet how he comes forth in print and in pomp too, with an affected bombast Title, full indeed in the Mouth, but in the Ear empty; it makes a loud noise, but to little purpose, much like the hard words of some outlandish Prince's Titles of Honour, and yet belonging to none other, than an Alien Practitioner of Physic in England. What I pray are we, or he, the wiser that he was born at Heidelberg, or that Heidelbergh is a City in the Palatinate, or that he now lives in the Town of Dorchester. 2dly. It is more to the point, that he was formerly a petty Schoolmaster at Dantzick. That afterward, because of the Germane Wars, he fled over into England for safety and subsistence, and applied himself to one Mr. Olivian of Blandford, famous in his time for Chirurgery and Physic, who took him into his house, as Mr. Loss himself tells us Lib. 1. Obs. 2. and upon what terms any one may easily conjecture, and some do know. That afterward, he was recommended to an honest Apothecary of Dorchester; one whom he hath required since his death, by publishing him by Name, Lib. 1. Obs. 22. for one debauched in his youth, and therefore Melancholy in his old Age, and pursued with impious and blasphemous thoughts against God. Taking up his quarter in this Town, and with this Apothecary, after a few Market-days, as many before him, and since have done, at an easy labour and price, indeed none at all, and without any trouble of performing any University Exercises, the Country Market-people, do by and by dub him, and he commenceth Doctor in the no-University of Dorchester; where he hath reigned as a Dominus fac totum these many years, adding to the repute of his Art, as great a Profession of Religion, and yet unworthily slighting and slandering all English Physicians that have lived by him, or have been joined with him; I could name their Names, but its needless. Pass we on from our Grave Author, but he is not è Coo senex, to his worshipful Medicinal Observations; and if they be not likewise as empty almost as his Title, excepting the Latin only, let any one judge.  
That I may not seem to cavil with him, or to be more willing to make faults in his Book than find them, I desire the Reader to take notice, that whosoever he be that puts forth Medicinal Observations, he doth witness unto the World the truth of these three things.  
1. That his Observations are Medicinal, that is, such as do belong to Physic, and of which a Physician ought to take cognizance in his Patient, or to use this Gentleman's one words, in his Epistle dedicatory, In dignoscendis & curandis Morbis.  
2. That they are choice, & Observatione dignissima, as himself also says; Things that highly deserve to be taken notice of, as being no rubbish, but finely seared and selected out of the mass of common and ordinary Medicinal matters.  
3. That they are true, not taken up upon trust from others, credulously, and by too easy a belief, much less mere forgeries in the Author's brains, but such as he hath had experience and proof of. Relictis enim (saith he again) inani logomachiâ, & sutilibus disputatiunculis, in quibus multi consenescunt, maximi semper feci experientiam, tantum enim novit medicus quantum aut vidit aut probavit.  
And yet notwithstanding all this, either I am grossly mistaken, or our Observator is culpable in all these three particulars.  
His Forgeries I shall prove in my Animadversions on the 15 th' Observe. and 2 d Book.  
His Trivial Remarks, and inobservable Observations, do fill up his Book almost every where; a taste whereof I shall give the Reader in my Animadversions on his 1 Observe. and 1 Book.  
His non-Medicinal Medicinals, I shall now give an account of; and that the ordinary Reader may be able to judge better of what I say, and to determine whether I deal fairly with mine Adversary, I shall first set down, what those Medicinal things are, of which Medicinal Observations ought to consist: & afterward, I shall present the Reader with a Catalogue of our Observator's non-Medicinal impertinencies.  
What things are Medicinal.  
All things that are medicinal seem to me compendiously reducible unto these two general Heads.  

1. Who.  
2. What.   
To the first. Who the Patient is, I refer all such accounts of him, as may contain whatsoever is in him observable, and may give light, either to the knowledge of his Disease, or to its Cure. Not, that all the particulars which I shall mention, need to be taken into consideration in all Patients; but that every one of them may be observable in some one or other. Not again, that they will give light to every one, but that they may give light to any Physician, that hath read Natural Philosophy, Anatomy, and the Institutions of Physic, and understands them.  
In the Patient there are these three sorts of Observables.  

1. His Naturals.  
2. His non-Naturals.  
3. His former praeternaturals.   
To his Naturals, belong;  
1. His Parentage, what the stock is he comes of. I do not intend by this his Pedigree or Gentility, but whether his Parents were wholesome or not, healthy or unhealthy: for such as the Tree is, such is the Fruit. Yet my meaning is not again that if the Patient hath an Hereditary Disease, because the Physician ought to take notice of it himself, that therefore it is fit for him to publish so much to all the World.  
2. His Age; for our Temperament changeth much with our Age. Youth is hot and moist. Manhood hot and dry; Middle-age cold and dry, and Old-age cold and moist. And by the Temperament we in part come to know what humour abounds most in the Body. There are also Diseases proper to some Ages, and there are other considerations proper to this Head. But my purpose is not, that a Physician should publish a Register of all his Patient's ages: for neither do the old Ladies desire to be told that they are so, nor yet the very young, that they are Ladies yet too young; or if at present they do not concern themselves that their age is spoken of, because they are young, yet ten or twenty years hence, when the printing in this Gentleman's Book, will be as legible as now it is, they will not be overpleased, especially if they have not yet got Husbands, to have their age so easily looked into, at every Booksellers shop.  
3. The Sex: for Males ordinarily are hotter and drier, Females colder and moister. Males are more active generally, and their manner of life is more laborious and abroad, more exposed to dangers, and to company. Females are more sedentary and retired, and adapt to melancholy. There are also many diseases that are appropriated to each Sex. But I do not persuade any Physician to lay aside the modesty due to each Sex, & to publish the names of Persons that are yet alive, troubled with this or that disease, proper to their Sex; but not proper to be taken notice of by all of the other Sex.  
4. His Natural Constitution; To which I refer,  
1. His Complexion, which is wont to show itself principally in the countenance, whether that be fair, black, ruddy, or yellow. And this helps also to discover what humour is most predominant in the Body.  
2. His Temperament; whether that of his whole body, or more observable in any of the particular parts of it, as the Head, Stomach, Lungs, Liver, Spleen etc. that of the whole Body may be much guessed at by the Complexion.  
3. His Disposition; whether he be morose, or affable, weak, or pettish and angry. Hitherto also may belong what his other passions are, how he moans and how he dreams.  
4. His Habit of Body, by which I understand not his Bulk only, whether he be fat or lean, fleshy or thin, but also whether the vessels appear in the skin large and conspicuous, or little and small; whether the contextures of the skin itself be with wide and open pores, or with narrow and close; whether the skin feels soft or hard, rough or smooth; whether the Hair be of this colour or of that, much or little, harsh or soft, curled or strait, quick of growth or slow, long-lasting or that soon falls off, and decays.  
By these his Naturals, as by so many helps, the Physician may understand what humour is most predominant naturally in his Patient's Body, and whether the present peccant humour, and the disease be nearer or farther off from his natural constitution, and what measure of health is to be aimed at in his recovery, and what probability there is of it.  
To his non-Naturals, belong these queries.  
1. What is the Air he breathes in?  
To this belongs the Country he dwells in, the situation of his habitation, the time and seasons of the year, the wind, and weather, the influences of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the neighbourhood of any thing that is contagious or noxious.  
2. What Diet hath he kept?  
To this belong the substance, quantity, quality, manner of preparing, order of using, and the time of taking either his Meat or Drink. But it is not convenient, though the Patient should be a Drunkard, or Glutton, or great Tobacconist, to follow this Gentleman's example, and publish them for such in print.  
3. What Exercise doth he use?  
To this belongs whether he useth any exercise or none; what its kind is; when the time, before dinner, or presently after, and upon a full stomach; as also how long it is continued, whether only until the body begin to swell a little and grow florid, or until it sweats and is weary.  
4. What hath been his sleeping and waking?  
To this belongs the posture he sleeps in, the time how long, the time when he begins, as also the benefit or hurt which is received thereby.  
5. What are his Excretions or Retentions?  
To this belongs very many things, even all the particular sensible evacuations of the Body, or non-evacuations, and above all the insensible transpiration, which as Sanctorius observes in his Medicina Statica, by many degrees exceeds all the sensible.  
6. What are the Passions of his Mind? his Love, or Joy, or Grief, etc.  
To his former praeternaturals, belong an enquiry after such sicknesses as at any time heretofore he hath suffered in any remarkable manner, what they were, by what causes extraordinary they came about, what symptoms did follow them, and what did formerly do him either good or hurt. For these things many times will much contribute to the understanding of the present case, and its desired cure. And thus much briefly of the first General, Who the Patient is.  
To the second What, in the stating of cases already past, of which Medicinal Observations are made, do belong these two parts.  
1. What the Patient's Complaints were?  
2. What the Physician did foresee or prognosticate, what he did do, and what was the effect of all?  
To the first of these belong the Patient's praeternaturals in the case proposed, and they can be none other, than either his disease, or its causes, or symptoms, and because these are accidents, quae adesse vel abesse possunt sine interitu subjecti; but which cannot subsist without their subject, therefore hereunto likewise belong the disquisition of the part or parts affected.  
I shall not reckon up all diseases and what belong to them, their causes, or the parts affected; that would be to transcribe Physic and Anatomy, but forasmuch as the Patient's complaints are generally symptoms, and by symptoms principally are found out the disease, the causes, and the parts affected, it will be no great digression to such as I write unto, if I set them down here the heads of Symptoms.  
All the Symptomatical complaints which any Patient can make, they must belong to one of these three Heads.  
To his injured Actions or Functions, whether such as are diminished, or depraved, or totally abolished: and whether again they be,  
1. Animal: whether 

1. Principal, as Reason, Imagination, etc. or  
2. Less-Principal, as Sense and Motion.    
To Sense belong all a Patient's Complaints of Pain, whether heavy, pricking, shooting, corroding, beating, etc.  
To Motion belong all Gestures and Postures of the Body, as also Tremble, Shivering, Convulsions, etc.  
2. Vital, whether belonging to his 

1. Respiration, be it weak or strong, free or stopped, short or long; or  
2. Pulse, be it strong or weak, quick or slow, etc.    
Upon the Respiration of the Pulse do depend the Circulation of the Blood.  
3. Natural, whether belonging to 

1. The Formation of the Faetus in the Womb, done wonderfully and strangely, when neither We, nor our Parents think on't; a Meditation, which alone methinks is enough to convince an Atheist.  
2. His Nutrition and Accretion, subservient whereunto are vulgarly reputed, Attraction, Retention, Concoction, and Expulsion.    
I am not ignorant of some men's finding fault with this ancient Division, who do reduce it unto the Dichotomy of Animal and Vital, because the Natural is supposed to be nothing else but involuntary Animal: But, as far as I can yet understand, there seems then to me no necessity at all of any Division in us, for all our Actions may be accounted Animal, since I cannot conceive what Vital is, if I abstract from it Sense and Motion, which belong to Animal: and if the Formation of us in the Womb, be Involuntary Animal, as also our Nutrition and Accretion, why may not all our Actions be Animal Voluntary, Involuntary, or Mixed?  
2. To his Excretions or Retentions, whether  
1. Universal, by the Pores of the skin, or  
2. Particular, by the Eyes, Ears, Nose, Mouth, Bladder, Belly, Womb, etc. The things which belong to this Head are very large.  
3. To his Altered Qualities, whether  
1. Of the First Sort, as Hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, and their Compounds; or  
2. Of the Second Sort, as Hard, Soft, Rare, Dense, Light, Weighty, Subtle, Crass, Arid, Slippery, Friable, Glutinous, Rough, Smooth, etc.  
3. Of the Third Sort, as belonging to Colour, Smell, Taste, or Sound. And thus much of the First Part of the Second General, What.  
To the Second belong the Physician's Judgement on the Case, what is the Part affected; what the Disease; and what the Cause is of the Disease. His Prognostics touching the Event; His Method of Cure, and all his Instruments for the satisfying his Indications by a right use of Remedies Dietetick, Chirurgick, and Pharmaceutick.  
These and all things belonging to these, are the Limits and Boundaries of all such Medicinal things, of which Medicinal Observations ought to consist.  

A Catalogue of Mr. Loss his Impertinencies.  
IF I should go about to mention all the particulars of his Non-Medicinals in his Book of Medicinal Observations, I doubt whether I should not transcribe a great share of it; I shall therefore content myself with mentioning some of the chief Heads, to which they all seem reducible. As,  
1. Divine or Moral Meditations are not Medicinal, I do not say they are not good, yea most willingly I do acknowledge that Divinity and Morality do treat of the most Excellent things; such as so far exceed matters of Physic, as the Soul is in worth above the Body. And forasmuch as the World are generally apt to brand Physicians more than other Men, with the abominable sin of Atheism, I do heartily wish, that every Physician would vindicate his Profession and himself, as much as may be, from that most Ignominious slander, by demonstrating his Piety towards God, his Charity towards his Neighbour, and his Sobriety in his Life and Conversation; that the World may see that although his Studies lead him further than others, into the inward Recesses and dark secret Operations of Nature, yet even therefore is the God of Nature by him much the more admired, and most worthily Adored. But what hath a Physician to do with these things in a Book of Physic? The Cure of Souls doth belong unto an other Faculty, the Cure of Bodies is sufficient for ours; and although many Parson's turn Physicians, yet I would have no Physician turn Parson, except it be then, when there is none other to be had, to Comfort or pray with a sick or dying Patient. But to mix matters of the Soul, in a Book of Medicines for the Body, is Fanaticism; and what wise man will condemn Medicinal Observations in print, for not being Larded with Divine Meditations?  
2. Geography is no part of Medicine. Indeed the Region or Country a Patient dwells in, the Situation of his habitation, its being exposed to injurious Winds and Weather, or too much shut up from the access of free and open Air: the having in its Neighbourhood the Sea, or some Lake, Ponds, or Fens, or any thing else that may be noisome or infectious. These things do belong to Air, one of the six Non-Naturals; but I pray to what part of Physic belong these Observations following, gravely set down by our Author in his Book?  
That Dewlish is six miles from Dorchester.  
That Frampton is a small Town four miles from Dorchester.  
That Milburn is six miles from Dorchester, in the Road to Blandford.  
That Haw-Church is three miles from Lime.  
That Athethamston is four miles from Dorchester. And to put an end unto this sorry stuff,  
That Winston is three miles from Dorchester.  
One would think that in these and suchlike Observations, our Author were ambitious of showing himself a petite Geographer, one very well skilled in the Situation and distance of the places about Dorchester; not a Village there, or Gentleman's Seat, but as he hath occasion he mentions them, and tells you more exactly than any Map, which way these lie, and how far they are from his Citadel or Metropolis of the Town of Dorchester, where he hath lain as it were Perdiu, like a Spider in the Centre of his Web, for near forty years; and I believe when he is sent for there abroad, he is able to instruct the Messenger himself, which is the best way, and how far it is unto his Patient, for in all this time, he hath been all about the Country, even over and over; and he seems emulous in his Book, in those matters, to outvie the Post-boy and the Carrier.  
3. Heraldry is no part of Physic, and yet how many lines doth this Gentleman employ to tell us who are the Gentry of Dorsetshire, whose true Worths and Qualities needed none of his Blazoning. How busy is he to tell us who are Knights, and who are Esquires, which of these are in his account Heroes, and what Gentlewomen are his Heroinae; of what honoured stock and Pedigree they are, what their most Illustrious Descent is, who their Fathers were, and who their Ancestors, and of what Noble Family came their Mothers. He seems in those to have had a small Design or Plot upon them, by a sort of fawning flattery, to win them over to make use of him, or else, to buttress up his falling Reputation amongst them; Compensating unto himself their now neglect, by publishing what a great Physician he hath already been, by having been interested in so many great Families, as his Book makes mention of.  
4. Encomiums and Commendations of People is no Medicinal Observation, and yet how industrious in this particular also is our Gentleman? He tells us this is an honest Man, and skilful in his Art, that a most Reverend Minister and vigilant Pastor. And in his Commendations he spends the best part of the Observation, which itself contains in it little remarkable, and less that is praiseworthy; for he seems to have written it only, that thereby he might have occasion to name the Patient, and commend him. Such a Gentleman says he, was as eminent for Virtue, as high by Birth, and he died Piously. Such a Youngman played excellently upon the Lute. Such a Gentlewoman was Pious, and accomplished with the gracefulness of all sorts of Virtues. Another was much given to read the Bible, a third was Fair and Beautiful, a fourth an extraordinary good Housewife. I do not in the least either envy or deny any of these worthy Persons their deserved praise, but buying the Book for Medicinal Observations, amongst all those Commendations which this Author bestows upon others, me thinks I find little or none at all owing unto himself, for having in part thus deceived me, by putting into my hands a sort of Academy of Compliments.  
5. Publishing and divulging of other men's faults, errors, or sins, aught to be no part of a Physic Book, and yet how the same Man that commends some to the height, condemns others no less, ventilating their Actions, censuring them, and making his own Patients examples of God's vindictive Justice; but I will not name them in English, it's too much that he hath named them in Latin.  
6. men's Trades or way of Livelihood, when they contribute nothing to the Knowledge or Cure of a Disease, it is impertinent to mention them in a Physical case. And yet with what a Catalogue of the victum quaeritantium in and about Dorchester, doth this Gentleman furnish us; telling us who is a Carter, a Brewer, a Grocer, a Glover; and what not? So that if any one hath a Child to put forth to Apprentice thereabouts, or some occasion for himself to make use of any of these Trades, no Register-Book that had been kept in an Office for the purpose could better inform him in this matter, than this Gentleman's Book of Medicinal Observations: there he may find the several ways of getting one's Living; and who the persons are that have applied themselves unto each Trade; what their Christian and Surnames be, where the place of their abode: if out of Dorchester, how far from it; as also how they are to pass in the world: some he tells us are Rich, some Poor, and some indifferently accommodated with the goods of Fortune.  
Lastly, not to be tedious. It is impertinent to Physic, that in all cases, the Names of Patients, especially such as are yet alive, should be affixed unto the Narratives of their Diseases. Some good Authors have indeed sometimes set down their Patient's Name, and it is fit it should be so, if they be no ways injured thereby, & the case be so strange & rare, that otherwise it will not easily be believed. But this Gent. spares none, neither Male nor Female, be the Disease what it will; and be the persons liable or not liable, to be shamed or wronged; as if he had purposed to give the World a Catalogue of his Patients, more consulting his own Credit, in having the Repute of a Physician of so great Practice, than the Reputation of his Patients whom thereby he hath diversely injured. For,  
There are many Diseases which prudent persons do not desire that every one should know that they are taken with. Because, although we have all the same Comely and Uncomely parts, so that no man can reasonably mock another, for what is incident unto himself; yet it is too often seen that people in a pet, or passion, or to gratify some unreasonable fantasy or humour, do many times scoff and laugh at, or otherwise abuse their Neighbours; even upon such slight accounts: and therefore wise men what they can, prevent this, by concealing some Diseases; and surely they cannot but think otherwise of them that publish them. Besides,  
The Infirmity of the Body, is not always the only concern of the Patient when he is named. For sometimes his credit and reputation is likewise brought upon the stage, perhaps his imprudence and follies are examined: yea, his very sins and wickednesses raked into. I will not quote these Observations, yet I say thus much; Suppose our Author himself were guilty of some such things as are not fit to be named, and should fall into the Gout, or some other Disease that might give occasion of a seeming just defamation, and of making him an example of God's just Judgement upon him, in punishing him in his Age, for the sins of his Youth; I am persuaded he could not take it well; and yet for reasons best known unto himself, thus, even just thus, doth he serve some, who certainly never sent for him, or gave him a Fee, thus to defame them.  
What though some men have Palsies and weakness in their Nerves, who did in their youthful time drink strong Ale and generous Wines, more perhaps than enough; is it therefore a necessary and undeniable consequence that from thence only, or principally, they contracted their Palsy? Are there not hundreds that have drank as much, and yet were never so Paralytic? Or what if a Physician privately and with himself alone should conclude that this were the only or chief cause, must he needs therefore tell all the World his Patient's name; both his Christian and Surname, his Trade, and the Place where he dwells, that nothing might be doubtful in the stigmatising of the man? Alas! We are all of us more sinners than we desire publicly to be told of; and this sort of open reproof, especially without first trying private, is likelier to increase sin, by stirring up strife, than to work the sinner unto a true Repentance; and will sooner harden him with Impudence, than soften and melt him into Tears. And at length, this is the business rather of a Divine, than of a Physician; and it's a piece of charity much fitter for a Closet than a Printing-Press. And lastly, he that undertakes it also, must be sure not to be guilty of the same himself, or of as bad.  
What if any one hath got an unseemly Disease? though it be with never so much innocency contracted, may not his modesty yet oblige him perhaps to be ashamed of it? And may he not be unwilling that his Neighbours, his Servants, yea so much as his own Children should know it? And can such an one take it well, when he finds it put forth in print, with his name appended, and the witness of his Physician to attest it?  
There are many Women so modest, that unwisely and incautelously, they do sometimes sacrifice their lives to that mistaken virtue: concealing so long their Feminine Diseases from their Physician, until it is too late to discover them. Would not some such bless themselves and blush, when having told them to him, they should hear that he hath told them again unto all the World, and here put both their Diseases and their Names in print? These, and some such as these have been the effects of this Gentleman's publishing all his Patient's Names; a thing not only Impertinent, but Injurious, proving a discomfort, if not a discredit to several of them: and before he printed his Book, he was advised of the Imprudence of the action, but in vain.  
Having thus reckoned up some heads of Impertinencies, I cannot easily imagine any other cause why our Author should patch up Hypocrates his sleeve, with pieces and patterns of all sorts of stuff, unless he had been ambitious of a Particoloured Coat, to have something of every thing in his Book, with this Motto, Omne tulit punctum. But he may call to mind these two Verses; 
Grammaticus, Rhetor, Geometres, Pictor, Aliptes:  
Dum dubitas quid sis, jam potis esse nihil.   
And I do seriously question whether his Book, which by these and other stuff he hath swelled up to the bulk and price of half a Crown, if all this Garbage were out, and with it all his vulgar Medicinals and Trivial Remarks, might not be sold at near its worth, for half a Shilling.  

Observatio Prima. Contra-Fissura.  
VIta Humana non tantum angusto circumscripta termino, sed & plurimis miseriis & periculis obnoxia, & est quidam calamitatum Oceanus, non tamen idem omnibus. Quocunque te vertas, quae circa te sunt omnia non modo ambiguae fidei sunt, sed aperte fere minantur & praesentem mortem videntur intentare; ut nescias quid serus vesper vehat. Conscende Navem, uno distas a morte pede; incede per Vrbis vias, quot sunt in tectis tegulae, tot discriminibus es obnoxius; equo inside, in unius pedis lapsu vita tua periclitatur. Exemplo sit Vir hic, sexagenario proximus cui nomen erat Michaeli, in rheda quadrigis gubernanda & promorenda a multis annis egregie versatus; & hoc ipso opere victum quaeritans. Hic nullo lethi imminentis metu, a caballo sternaci, cui aquatum ituro insidebat excussus, frontem pavimento, durissimis lapidibus constrato, allisit; acceptoque eo loci ex lapsu vulnere, aliorum subsidio elevatus, semianimis domum suam defertur. Mox bilem eructat, & Nares ei cruentae; certo si Hippocrati fides habenda cerebri concussi, & venulae alicujus ruptae indicio. Accersitur mecum Chirurgus in Arte sua peritus, & vir probus; instituto diligenti scrutinio, vulnus vix cutem penetrasse invenimus. Chirurgus itaque sine ulteriori examine vulnus ex artis lege obligat; Interim, elotâ alvo enemate, sanguinis aliquid in corpore plethorico a Chirurgo de cephalica detractum. Sequenti die omnia deprehendimus graviora, & prorsus lethalia. Corpus è Febri incaluit cum obstupescentia & desipientia, atque ad interrogata omnimoda obmutescentia, quae summus noster in Medicina dictator 1. Aphor. 14. in Capite laeso mala pronunciat. Vnde pessime de eo sperare coepimus; Nihilominus manum tanquam deplorato admovimus, & Chirurgus, ne quicquam eorum, quae in his casibus ars praescribere solet, omisisse videretur, quo certius pateret si quae noxa frontis ossi inflicta esset, quod Hippocratis oraculo moniti verebamur, vulnus in fronte inflictum, dilatavit; sed os integrum & noxae expers inventum, neque sedula capitis contrectatione aegro planè stupido & muto, quicquam animadvertere potuimus, quanquam fracti cranii multa erat conjectura. Itaque de aperienda per Trepanum Calvaria consilium initum; sed quid fit? Misellus iste senex, cum per totum fere diem quasi Comate quodam correptus esset, sub vesperam horrendo spasmo convulsus, paucarum horarum spatio, mortalitatem exuit. Aperto a morte cranio, in opposita fronti occipitis parte rima, seu contrafissura, quam Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocant, reperta, & magna cruoris sanie permisti copia, crassae meningi incumbens; unde mors: ut vere dixerit Celsus, Medicorum ille Cicero, even●e interdum solere, ut alterâ parte ictus insederit, & altera fiderit.   

The First Observation. A Countercleft.  
THE Life of Man, is not only circumscribed within narrow bounds, but obnoxious likewise to many miseries and dangers; and it is a certain Ocean of calamities, but not the same to all. Which way soever you turn yourself, all things that are about you be not only uncertain and not to be trusted unto, but for the most part, they threaten openly, and do seem to intend a present death: so that you know not what a night may bring forth. Go a Shipboard, and there is but one foot between you and death; walk in the streets of a City, and look how many tiles there are on the houses, so many are the dangers you are obnoxious unto. Get a horseback, and if but one foot falters, your life is in danger. Take this Man for an example, near threescore years old, whose name was Michaeli; for many years much accustomed to govern and drive forward a Cart with four Horses, and by this very labour earning his living. This Man, little fearing that death was so near; being cast from a stumbling Jade, which he rid upon going to water, dashed his forehead against a stony ground, and receiving there a wound by the fall, by others help he was taken up and carried home half-dead. By and by he vomited choler and fell a bleeding at the nose, a sure sign if we may believe Hypocrates, that the Brain was shaken, and some small Vein was broke. There was called with me a Chirurgeon, one skilful in his Art, and an honest man. Having made diligent search, we find that the wound was hardly skin-deep. The Chirurgeon therefore without more ado binds up the wound according to Art: in the interim, the bowels being first washed with a clyster, some blood in his Plethoric Body was taken away by the Chirurgeon from the Cephalick Vein. The next day we find all things worse, and plainly deadly; for his Body was in a Fever with stupidness and deliring, and being mute unto all that was asked, which our chief Dictator in Medicine, in the 1st of his Aphorisms, and the 14th tells us are very bad in hurts of the Head: whereupon we begin wholly to despair of him. Nevertheless, we give him our helping hand in his deplorable condition. And the Chirurgeon, that he might not seem to omit any thing which in such cases Art is wont to prescribe, & that it might more certainly appear whether the forehead-bone had any hurt, which we were afraid of, instructed by the Oracle of Hypocrates, dilated the wound inflicted on the forehead, but that bone was found whole and without hurt: neither could we observe any thing by our diligent feeling about his head, the Patient himself being plainly stupid and mute. Yet there was great conjecture of a broken Skull: and therefore we took counsel about opening it with a Trepan. But what falls out? This miserable old Man, having been almost all the day seized with a sleepy Disease, towards evening fell into an horrible Convulsion, and within few hours died. His Skull being opened after his death, in the hinder-part of his head opposite to his forehead, there was found a Fissure or Countercleft, which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; and great store of gore mixed with corruption, lying upon the dura matter, which was his death. So that Celsus said true, that Cicero of Physicians, that it is wont sometimes so to fall out, that the blow lights upon one part, and the Fissure happens in another.    

Animadversions on this first Observation.  
HAD not Mr. Loss highly incensed me with such vilifying expressions behind my back, as did not only report me for no Doctor, but no Scholar likewise; I should never have been so pragmatical or busy as to have concerned myself with him or his Book. But, since besides his private slanders, he is pleased to publish an harsh censure of me, in his 15 th' Obs. and 2 d Book. Before I answer what he hath Objected against me in that Observation, I think it honest and fit, a little to examine the depths of his Worship's Learning; taking to task what comes first to hand, and what, himself being Judge, seems best to deserve to be the Captain and Leader of these Medicinal Observations, which he hath been forty years a gathering.  
I confess I once thought to have followed this Gentleman on, as his Observations lie, but I found it too fulsome a task. His Learning appears so full in this Observation, and his Learning and Honesty in the 15 th' and 2 d Book, that for my part, I have enough in these two.  
The Life of Man is not only, etc.]  
It is indeed a grave and serious Meditation which this Gentleman begins his Book with, and it takes up the first page thereof, further than which, if one reads not, he may well suspect that he is mistaken, and instead of Medicinal Observations, hath bought a Book of Divine Meditations. But let him but have the patience until he comes to the story of the Carter, and then he will find how ingeniously from his fall, came the rise of this excellent Meditation. The knock over the Carter's Pate, did very likely beat it into the Physician's brains; it mindeth us of being always prepared and in a readiness to die, because our life is every way hazardous; some of those hazards the Author hath reckoned up, but amongst his Casualties, he hath not named this, which yet flows naturally from the Observation, that if it should be any of our chances by a blow in the forehead, to have a Countercleft behind, and we happen to fall into the hands of such an Artist as our Author, that suspects something, but understands nothing of our Disease, before we are dead, it is not only hazardous, but certain that we have lost our lives. But to divert us from these thoughts, he hath subtly practised their craft, who have learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and cunningly turns Divine, that he may somewayes expiate his fault as a Physician, making his dead Patient, whom for want of skill he could not cure, to become yet a sort of living example of the Calamities and Casualties of the life of Man. Thus by a new sort of contrasissura, the Physician receives the blow, and the Divine sends forth at the fissure, the Meditation.  
Near threescore years Old.]  
It's true, the Age of a Patient is so generally mentioned by all that write Cases of Physic, that it is almost never forgot, and the reason is, because the knowledge of a Patient's Age, may upon several accounts be very useful to the Physician; it helps very much to understand the Patient's Temperament, which varies according to his Age, and withal the predominant humour in his Body; which will always be some ways answerable to the Temperament. It also helps to understand the strength of the Patient, when we are to pass our judgement what the Event will be; it likewise helps to indicate or contra-indicate Bleeding or strong Purging, and the Rules of diet, and the right ordering of the six Non-Naturals varies much according unto our Age. Besides, in this particular case of a Countercleft, there is scarce any thing that deserves so much to be considered of, as the Patient's Old Age; for if by it the future's of the Skull be obliterated, great reason there is upon such a knock on the Pate, to expect a Countercleft. But this Author of course reckons up his Patient's Age, but who can show in all the Observation, where he makes any use or advantage of it?  
Whose Name was Michaeli.]  
I suppose there was some mistake in the Printer, and that his Name was either Michael, or Michael, but not Michaeli.  
This Observator is very punctual in setting down the names of all his Patients, but I admire that this good man did forget the Christian Name of this same Michael; he did remember well enough all his four Cart-Horses, and yet that he should so unluckily forget the Carter's Name, whether it was Dick or Jack, or Tom, Names that they are more often called by than by their Surnames. But I'll say that for our Author, that I do not know of any such another neglect in all his four Books of Medicinal Observations, where we have Thomas, and Robert, and William, and John, and Katherine in abundance. But here indeed, the Christian Name was forgotten, whether out of the abundance of his Divinity, in his many lines preamble to this Observation, he forgot Christianity; or that being conscious of his having digressed too long, he would now make the more haste and speed to the matter in hand: or that because it was but a poor Carter, there was not any thing to be gotten by these formalities which he bestows upon the rich. I say, whatever the cause was, the matter is not great, nor indeed any thing material to the Medicinal Observation. But I see if men will be wise, they must be wise unto themselves, for on a Deathbed, others will leave us to our own Christianity, touching this, we alone must answer for ourselves.  
Accustomed to govern and drive forward a Cart with four Horses.]  
How this Author came so well skilled in the Carters Trade I cannot tell; but from him I learn, that our English Phrase, To drive a Cart, is in a manner as preposterous, as to place the Cart before the Horse; the Hind may whip the Cart long enough before it will drive, but he must first drive the Horses; and whilst they draw forward the Cart, it is his office to guide and govern it in its progressive motion.  
It is likewise observable that although this Carter fell but from one Horse, (and it would have been an Observation of Observations, if he had fallen from more) yet forsooth this Carter had three more which he used to water, for he had four Horses to his Cart, and yet all four little enough to draw this one remark into a Medicinal Observation.  
A sure sign if we may believe Hypocrates.]  
This inference is true, but trivial, and it doth not reach the case in hand. The Carter's Disease was a Fissure in the Skull, a part containing, this speaks of a concussion of the Brain, and the breaking of a Vein, parts contained, and yet how formally are these Inductions made; they are verities almost as plain as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Truths that no Body hears mentioned, but he forthwith grants them; so evident and beyond all doubt, that methinks it is ridiculous to go about to prove them by Authority, and yet our grave Author brings in the Name of the great Hypocrates to confirm their Truth. These sort of consequences, are much like those which make up a merry Ballad, which serves not to teach, but to cause laughter. 
There was a Mouse crept up a wall,  
When she fell down, she had a fall, etc.   
To which may be added these two somewayes suitable. 
When as this Carter first was taken,  
His Skull being cracked, his Brains were shaken.   
There was called with me a Chirurgeon, one skilful in his Art and an honest man.]  
I perceive then that every one is not a pitiful Chirurgeon in this Author's account, so he be not likewise a Physician, one thought so well of, as to be joined with him in a Medicinal Consultation. All his spite is at another Physician; and I think he never gave so honest a character of any Physician that was his Neighbour, much worse I am sure he hath: neither do I believe that he doth deserve it himself; for sure I am, I had never been put to this trouble of writing Animadversions on him and his Book, if he had quitted himself as one skilful in his Art, and an honest man.  
Having made diligent search.]  
What search might have been made with diligence, and to what good purpose I shall anon declare: and indeed now was the time, now the opportunity for this so to have been done, as that the poor Patient might have received benefit thereby, and the neglect of this opportunity was for aught I know, the miscarriage of the Carter; for had not our Observator been a foreright Artist, one wholly taken up with the scratch in the forehead, he might easily have reflected with himself, that it was impossible that these bad Symptoms above mentioned, which befell this Patient by and by after his fall, could ever have proceeded from so slight a wound only in the forehead, as was hardly skin-deep; and if he had considered the Patient's Age, and the probability of a Countercleft, he would never have rested satisfied with so slight a search, and yet this must pass for a diligent enquiry: What could be more formally said, what could be less done to the purpose?  
Binds up the Wound according to Art.]  
Not a scratch in the forehead, which any good Woman might have dressed, but it is bound up according to Art, if this Observator hath the overlooking of it; so worshipfully formal is he in all things.  
In his Plethoric Body.]  
Believe it who will, that this poor old Man, that laboured hard every day and fared hard, was yet overcharged with good Blood in his Body; I rather think that this is another piece of the same formal Gentleman, who knew well that Plethora indicat venae sectionem, and therefore being to tell the world that he bled an Old man, whose Age was otherwise a Contra-inditation to Venaesection, he makes up the reasonableness of his Act, by telling us, that his Body was Plethoric; whereas good man, whether his Body had been Plethoric or not Plethoric, the bleeding of him might have been requisite for Revulsion from the Head; and to prevent as much as might be, the Inflammation of the Brain, and the coming on of the Fever, and other Symptoms.  
From the Cephalick Vein.]  
And what more proper in a Disease of the Head, than to bleed the Patient in the Cephalick Vein? That which indeed carries the name and show of some Art, but as far as I can yet understand, it is but a show only, and may therefore pass for another piece of outside skill in our formal Observator; for since the Head-Vein, the Liver-Vein, and the Median, are all Branches of one and the same Trunk, what reason can there be given, why one should more respect the Head than the other?  
The next day we find all things worse, and plainly deadly.]  
As negligent and ignorant as our Observator was yesterday, when the poor Man's life was only in hazard, and required some effectual and speedy means for his recovery; for beyond the binding up the scratch according to Art, and the exhibiting of a clyster, and bleeding him in the Cephalick-vein, all which was but as a Bulrush instead of a Leaver; yet to day, now that his own credit was in hazard, he desires to appear very diligent and knowing; to salve therefore his own reputation, when he saw the Patient was going, he is not only content to acknowledge that all things were worse; for what efficacy could there be in his inefficacious means? which came far short of the Disease? But he says plainly the case▪ was deadly, that the World might think, that it was not want of skill in him the Physician that the Patient died, but because there was an impossibility of his recovery; and to prove this, he huddles together as many bad Symptoms as he thought might serve the turn; though he doth it without either Method or Reason: and to use his own Words against Medicus alius; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & sine ratione.  
1. Without Method, for he reckons up this Patient's being Dumb, his obmute scentiam omnimodam ad interrogata. In the last place; whereas his being speechless should have been the first thing taken notice of in the first visit. The Words of Hypocrates in his 58 Aphorism and 7 th' Section are these, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Such whose Brain hath been shaken by some manifest cause, of necessity they must forthwith grow speechless. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signify to morrow, the day after the fair, but instantly and forthwith, even the first moment the blow is given. And therefore this ought not in order to have been mentioned last, even last in the second day's narrative, and after other Symptoms, which were subsequent to it as the Fever, etc.  
2. Without Reason, for in his haste that he might be sure to lay load enough upon this man of carriage, and thereby take off the burden of reproach from his own shoulders, for having done so little good in so great a danger; he inconsiderately packs together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and will have it, that this poor man said never a word, and yet talked idly: because Deliriums are many times fatal signs, he thought, that to tell this Patient did delire, would add unto the great dangerousness of his sickness; but he forgot that it was nonsense to say he did delire, cum obstupescentia & omnimoda obmutescentia. This Gentleman is wont to say of his Practice, that in it he follows still the Authority of the best Authors: but, good man, he doth not always understand them. Let any one read the Aphorism which he here quotes, and tell me whether this Gentleman understands Greek as well as Latin, and whether he cannot put up with Nonsense as well as Sense, so he doth but think he hath Authority for it. The Aphorism is not right quoted in our Author's Book; but that I suppose was the Printer's fault, but that it was not misunderstood by our Observator, whose fault was it? The Words are these, sect. 7. Aphor. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Upon a blow on the Head, Stupidity or foolish deliring is bad. It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as our Author would unreasonably have it in this his Patient: For, if this Carter was stupid, and neither did nor spoke any thing, how could he do or speak things incongruous and without reason? If he did or spoke things that had no reason, how was he stupid and mute? I presume that one Horn or the other of this Dilemma, will goad our Observator, and that rather than he will attempt to make good the truth of contradictions, he will himself be a little infected with his Patient's Disease, and upon such a blow on his head, he must needs also either be mute, or talk idly.  
Whereupon we begin wholly to despair of him.]  
The ground of this utter despair, our Observator takes from the forecited Aphor. whereby appears a second mistake of his in the meaning of one of Hypocrates his Aphorisms: for although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is many tim●s taken in Hypocrates for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such a Case, upon which death often follows: yet it cannot be construed in this Aphorism for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Case utterly desperate and past all Cure, as our Observator seems to intimate this was, for which purpose he hath these various expressions, Omnia deprehendimus gravior a & prorsus lethalia, and then he reckons up bad Symptoms, and quotes this Aphorism and says, Vnde pessime de eo sperare coepimus, which yet is a sort of tacit acknowledgement, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not deadly; and therefore afterwards yet once again, Manum tanquam deplorato admovimus: thus often, and thus variously doth he labour to possess the Reader with an opinion of almost an impossibility of this Patients being cured; and yet so simple is he, as to subjoin in the very next Observation an Example of one cured in such a Case: which notwithstanding the blind of a ridiculous Title he puts upon it, is easily discernible to a judicious eye. Mr. Hawl's Case was not indeed a Countercleft, but it was a Cleft; or else the Gentleman rid a Hunting with an Helmet on his head, and kept it on, to safeguard his Skull from cracking with so many blows, whilst his Horse dragged him near a mile knocking his Head against the ground.  
We give him our helping hand.]  
This was that helping hand, which afterwards we find so busy to no purpose, in feeling about the Carter's head; and exploring whether there was any hurt in it besides that in the forehead. But one would think it had been better employed, in scratching the Observator's forehead, and rubbing up his Wits and Memory; that he might have be thought himself of some more suitable and better means (such as might have been made use of) for the discovery of the Fissure, which certainly it was impossible his Fingers alone should do, whilst the Cleft-bones were yet so close, and the Skin and Cover of them not at all wounded.  
That he might not seem to omit any thing which in such cases Art is wont to prescribe.]  
There was scarce any thing of Art made use of to find out the place of the Fracture in this Patient's Skull, and yet what a pretence is here of having done all that Art is wont to prescribe in such Cases. This vaunt of our Observator is an imitation of the shaving of Hogs, where there is a loud Cry, and but little Wool.  
Whether the Forehead-bone had any hurt.]  
This Observator was so led by sense, that because the blow was there given, he could not yet forbear puddering again in the poor man's forehead-bone; seeking for the hurt before, which was in truth behind: an evidence to me, that he no more dreamt then of a Contrafissura, or understood it probably, than perhaps he now thinks many do, that first meet with the word in the Title of his Observation.  
Instructed by the Oracle of Hypocrates.]  
If all this Gentleman's errors be Oracles, what are his Truths? We have already seen how simply he understands the Oracles of Hypocrates: but, he is at it now again, and tells us, that he had not put this old and sick Patient to the trouble of a second search in his forehead, and a further dilating of the Wound, but that he had the best Authority for what he did: for Hypocrates had bid him be afraid of a Fracture there, or some other hurt than he could yet meet with. But any one may justly admire and wonder, how it's possible for this Gentleman, be he of never so great parts, thus easily to gather things out of Authors, that were never in them. Let him name the place in Hypocrates out of which he was thus advised or instructed; that there was some hurt in the forehead-bone, for assuredly there was no such matter; Even by his own confession the forehead-bone was without hurt. One would think that this Observator did not yet know, that the forehead might be knocked, and yet the forehead-bone not hurt.  
There was great conjecture of a broken Skull.]  
Now first doth our Observator mention something of a Fractured Skull; but even now it is only by way of Conjecture, and not absolutely concluded.  
Therefore we took counsel about opening it with a Trepan.]  
Was not this a wise Consultation? wherein our Observator, upon a Conjecture alone that there was a Fracture, without examining what sort of Fracture it was, whether such as requires a Trepan or Raspatories only, without being satisfied of the place where this Fracture should be? For he had hunted for it in a manner until he was weary, but could not find it; always like himself, a safe Physician. He was about, and could have found in his heart to have Trepan'd this poor old Man, but where, who can tell? Most likely in the forehead; for that was the place he had been twice so busy about, and so much concerned and unsatisfied with; whilst yet there was no mention made of any suspicion of a Cleft behind. This Gentleman, Artist-like, having Mr. Olivian's Practise in the next Observation for his precedent, he would let out the Gore, but where to go to work he knew not; though by a good Chance he might have hit on't, if he had done it likewise in the same place as Olivian. But this forward Gentleman could not forget the forehead, Hippocratis Oraculo admonitus. But what falls out? This poor Patient that had already too much of misery, was in this only happy, non tam claritate vitae, quam opportunitate mortis. That his death was so opportune, that it prevented the further Torture of this grave Consultation held to Trepan him, before ever the Disease was nearer known than by Conjecture; and not so neither as a Countercleft, but only as a Fracture in the Skull, whose place yet was wholly to seek.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉·]  
Some indeed do call it so, but more properly others name it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and therefore also is Contrafissura, otherwise called Resonitus.  
A Fissure or Countercleft.]  
A Fissure or Countercleft are not words synominous, the latter being a species of the former; and there may be a Fissure or chink without a Countercleft.  
Now at length the great Conjecture was come unto a direct knowledge of the thing, and not before. After the Patient's death, when the Chirurgeon had opened the Skull, and showed unto this knowing Physician, what the matter was that had so puzzled him, pointing unto him as it were with his finger where the place of the Contrafissura was, then at last, first began our most intelligent Observator, to understand a Countercleft, and to light upon the subject of this first grand Observation, which marcheth indeed in the front of all the rest, as having much to do with the forehead of the Carter, but little with the brain of the Physician, except that with some help thereof, this Gentleman having the blessing of his Eyesight, did then and there when it was showed him, behold a Contrafissura.  
Having thus given some piece-meal Animadversions on this first Observation, I shall from the whole draw some Conclusions, and so dismiss it.   

1. That Mr. Loss did not understand this Patient's Disease before he was dead.  
WE have an English Proverb, that a Disease once known is half cured, but it turns little to the reputation of that Physician whose Patient is throughly cured of all Diseases, before his Disease be half known: neither will a seeming hard word, Contrafissura perhaps sought out since, mend the matter much; or excuse this Gentleman who after so great a blow which an old man, heavy and helpless, received by a violent fall from his Horse, upon his bare forehead dashed against a stony place, whereby he became forthwith speechless and almost lifeless; by and by vomiting up choler, and bleeding at nose, passeth none other judgement upon the Disease, than that the Patient's Brains were shaken, and some small Vein broke; Certo indicio si Lossio fides adhibenda, that he knew not yet what the Disease was: and this appears further in that the first day, the Wound in the forehead being bound up according to Art, there was no further search made, nor any intimation of a suspicion, as if there were any where else any hurt done. The second day there is mention made of such Symptoms, as Hypocrates says are bad when the Head is hurt; and every one that knew he had the fall, knew also that his Head was hurt. And what more doth Mr. Loss mention yet of the Disease? Yea, so little did he think of the os occipitis, that it was cleft, that the second time, though he had once diligently searched it before, he directs his enquiry after the Disease, in the os frontis. But what need we any further proof of this point, for after this second search likewise, habemus confitentem reum, and he says plainly, neque quicquam animadvertere potuimus, quanquam fracti cranei multa erat Conjectura: so that the nearest that he came unto the Knowledge of his Patient's Disease before he was dead and his Skull opened, was a general Conjecture only of a Fracture, but no direct Knowledge of a Countercleft.   

2. That Mr. Loss might have understood his Patient's Disease before he was dead, if he had been more an Artist.  
FOrasmuch as this Proposition will be more doubted than the former, and some may be apt to plead an invincible ignorance in vindication of this Gentleman, I shall therefore take somewhat more pains to prove it, than I did to prove the former; and I shall do it gradually by these three Assertions.  
1. He might have absolutely concluded, that this Carter had some Fracture or Fissure in his Skull at first.  
I know of but three Fountains of signs from whence a Physician may have the knowledge of a Disease, and they are its Essence, Causes, and Effects. Diseases are sometimes so plain and evident of themselves, that every one can tell them; thus any one as well as Mr. Loss might have told that this old man had a Cleft in his Skull, when they saw it; but then is it, that a Physician's skill is seen, when by its Causes and Effects he makes discovery of a Disease, whose Essence by itself doth not appear. Therefore,  
1. Here were the Causes of a Fracture or Fissure in the Skull, as fully and clearly set down as if any one had made it his business to describe them: viz. Here was a sudden violent blow upon the head with some hard thing. Had this Carter walked only, and tripping fallen with his head upon a stone he might have broke his Skull, much more then, by a blow more violent at a greater distance from the ground, and by a fall from a Horse, his feet being wholly from the ground; so that by them, he was not able to help himself, by stepping forward, or otherwise bearing up part of his Body, that it might not have fallen with its whole weight in a lump. His hands likewise, whilst he was in the Air lesser time than to bethink himself where he should fall, and whilst his eyes could not direct him, nor but probably so providentially strecthed forth as toward the blow and keep off the violence of the stroke upon his Head. Besides, he was an old and therefore impotent man, and being slung off with a force from a Carthorse, he must needs fall heavy; thus the blow was both sudden and violent, and it was likewise upon his bare forehead; for if he had an Hat on, its probable that it fell off: and lastly it was with an hard thing, for he dashed his forehead against the stones.  
2. Here were also the Effects of a cracked Skull; which I shall reduce to these two Heads, Immediate and Subsequent.  
1. Here were the Immediate Effects which are wont presently or by and by to fall out after a Skull is cracked, for presently upon the blow his eyes failed of their sight, his speech was taken from him, and if he had not fallen before, he must needs have fallen upon the blow, for he could not rise, but was taken up by others half dead, and so brought home. By and by also he vomited up choler, and his Nose fell a bleeding.  
These Symptoms are of so great concern in this Disease, that from them we may not only Conjecture that the Skull is Fractured, but likewise absolutely conclude it. And because this makes home to my purpose, I shall back it with the authority of Celsus, an Author not only generally approved of by Physicians, but particularly quoted by Mr. Loss in this Observation; and (which is strange, for why then did he not read or understand him?) in the same Chapter, viz. the 4 th' of the 8 th' Book, he writes thus; Vbi calvaria percussa, protinus requirendum est, num bilem is homo vomuerit, num oculi ejus obcaecati sint, num obmutuerit, num per nares, auresve sanguis ei effluxerit, num conciderit, num sine sensu quasi dormiens jacuerit, haec enim non nisi osse fracto eveniunt. If the Skull be cracked, you must forthwith make enquiry, whether the Patient vomited, whether his eyes failed of their sight, whether he was dumb, whether blood came from him at his nose or ears, whether he fell with the blow and lay without sense as one asleep: (all which are plain and evident in this Carter's case) for these things cannot be, except the bone be broken. An evident proof that Mr. Loss might at his first visiting this Patient, have absolutely concluded, that he had some Fracture in his Skull. But,  
2. Here were the Subsequent Symptoms, which are wont to follow a Fractured Skull some time after it's done; and which Authors do make mention of, as a Fever, a Stupidness, a Sleepiness, and a Convulsion. And thus much for my first Assertion. That Mr. Loss might at first have absolutely concluded that this Carter had some Fracture in his Skull.  
2. If Mr. Loss had so far wisely understood the Case, as at the first visit, by the Immediate Effects to have absolutely concluded, that somewhere there was a Fracture in the Skull; he must of necessity have known before his Patient's death, that the Disease was a Countercleft: for, although the word seems to intimate a Fracture in a part opposite to that which received the blow, yet it is a Countercleft if it be in any place else besides there where the blow was given. And Dr. Read in his Treatise of Wounds Lecture 22. writes thus. A Resonitus or Contrafissura falls out when the Craneum is stricken upon one part, and Fractured in another; and this happens either in the same bone, or in divers; in the same bone either sideways on the right hand, or on the left, or perpendicularly from the upper to the lower part; in divers bones, as when the right side of the head is beaten, and the left Fractured, or when the left side is beaten and the right Fractured; or, as in the Case in hand, when the forepart is stricken, and the hinder part cleft. But that there was no Fracture in this Carter's forehead, the place where the blow was given, Mr. Loss himself witnesseth after a double search; had he therefore known there was a Fracture, he must necessarily have known likewise that the Disease was a Countercleft.  
I do not say it had been a very easy business, to have found out positively where the Fracture was, for whilst the skin is unbroken, the cleft may so lie lurking under it, especially if it be Capillary or small, as may puzzle a very good Artist to find it out. And had Mr. Loss showed himself so skilful, as positively to have declared before his Patient died, that it was his Judgement that this Carter had a Countercleft, he had much saved his credit, though in the shortness of the warning, and hurry of the danger of his life, he could not have well found where it was: and yet, because this Gentleman boasts that nothing was omitted which in these cases Art is wont to prescribe, I shall add this third Assertion.  
3. If Mr. Loss had known that there was a Countercleft, most probably he might have also found out the place where, before his Patient's death: if he had wisely considered his Patient, and made use of all means which Art is wont to prescribe to find out a Fracture. For,  
1. He would have found his Patient a very fit subject in whom he ought to have reasonably expected an opposite Countercleft. For,  
This sort of Fracture happens when the party struck, hath no sutures at all, or as good as none, they be so close, and so very obscure.  
Herodotus and some others do write, that Skulls have been found in Persia undistinguished with sutures. Aristotle also speaks of one such found in his time, at neither of which saith Vesalius do I admire, for very old men's Skulls show nothing of the figure of the sutures, and but very obscurely so much as the place where they have been. That which we may the more easily believe, if we know and take notice that even the very backbones of aged people do unite and grow together, that old men cannot move them as formerly. Whether this Patient's Skull had sutures or no, I do not know, that Mr. Loss, (curious enough in impertinencies) did so much as inquire after. This I know, here was one near threescore years old, and in such a dry Skull, drier yet by hard labour, and it may be harder fare; what could Mr. Loss upon such a fall, after a double search in the forehead bone, which both times was found whole, more reasonably have expected, than a Countercleft behind? the force of the blow strongly forcing the Air and Spirits within the minute parts of his Skull from his forehead on both sides, by an intestine violent motion to change their places and pass forward, that is, backward towards the hinder-part of his head. These little bodies or globuli, like these that from a Gun driven violently by the blow on each side his Skull, and having little or no vent given them at the sutures, did pass on unto the farthest place they could recede unto in the os occipitis, and there meeting each other full-butt, and forcing each other violently and suddenly back in their Recession or Resilience they cloven the bone, and with it some Vessels of the dura mater appended to it, some of whose blood came forth after by the Nose. I say, what less in reason could Mr. Loss have expected than all this? But,  
2. There are several means whereby Art will help us to find out a Fracture, which will not show itself. Dr. Read in his newly cited Lecture, says thus.  If signs of a fracture do appear (as here they did) and no chink appear in the wounded part, (as here there did not) than you are to take a view of the opposite part; if you find any tumour there or softness, you may be sure that the Fracture is in the Skull subjacent: If you find no tumour, than you must shave the head, and apply such a plaster, as he there prescribes; spreading it upon Leather, and applying it to the opposite part to that place where the knock was given; if when you take it away the cutis musculosa be in any place more soft than other, moist, or swelled, it is likely that there is the Fracture.; 
These things ought to have been done in this Case very speedily, but I question whether any of them were done at all. But besides these, I shall offer at two things more that might have been done for the discovering of the Fractured place.  
1. There is a slight and familiar way, speedy and easy, known almost to every Chirurgeon, though not practised in this Case by this grave Physician, viz.  
A Lutestring might have been fastened to this Patients Teeth in his upper Jaw, that Jaw which moves not, and is therefore not only contiguous but continuous with the Skull: if the Chirurgeon straining this string with one hand, had as it were played upon it with the other, the continuation of that vibration, motion, or sound, which the fingers would give the string, and which the string would communicate to the Teeth, and they to the upper Jaw, and that again per motum nexus unto the Skull, might at length have arrived unto the Fractured place, and there jarring by an unpleasant rough and interrupted motion, it would have given such a disturbance to the weak, yet sensible part; and caused so much pain, as might have forced the Patient, mute though he was, to have spoken by signs, and by putting his fingers to the place, Vbi enim dolor ibi digitus, he might have told or at least himself pointed out where the Fracture was.  
2. If Mr. Loss had been sure there was a Fracture in the os occipitis, and upon view or feeling could not have found it, because the cutis musculosa was whole, He might have been so courageous, having a skilful Chirurgeon by him, to have commanded him to have made incision unto the os occipitis, about the middle of it, and the wound as occasion required might have been dilated this way or that; and the bone laid more open for further search. Such a wound would not likely have been mortal, nor could any justly have called this cruelty upon so necessary an account, in so stupid a Patient. And if the Cleft had been invisible, by being so hair-like and small; it might have yet been made visible by applying a rag dipped in Ink, or done with Ivory half burnt, and mixed with a little Vinegar to make it more penetrating, and after a while taking it off, and gently washing or wiping away the black, for the Cleft part of the skull, would have yet retained so much black in its chink, as would have discovered the place. But thus much shall suffice for my second general Conclusion, that Mr. Loss might have understood this Patient's Disease before his Death.   

3. That Mr. Loss did little or nothing material towards the Cure of this Patient's Disease.  
ANd indeed how should he? whilst he had no other knowledge of the Disease, than that his Brains were shaken, some small Vein broke, his Head hurt, and great Conjecture of a Fracture; but where it should be he knew not.  
All that I read of what he did, was a clyster, a searching the forehead-bone twice, a feeling about his Head, the letting him blood in the Cephalick Vein; and the binding up of the scratch.  
I do not deny that a clyster and Bleeding are good general Remedies for hurts in the Head, but there was little reason to expect that they should bring away the Gore and extravasated blood, which lying upon the aura mater, perhaps penetrating both dura and pia, and obstructing not only the Vessels, but the very pores of the brains themselves, thus infecting, contaminating, irritating, and yet stopping the free passages of the Spirits, caused those direful Symptoms above mentioned, and in short time death itself. Something therefore Mr. Loss did; Ne nihil fecisse videretur, to use his own words of Alius Medicus who had yet better success with his Patient. But that something was in effect nothing, for the next day he was found no whit the better, yea much worse, and at night died.   

4. That it was not impossible for Mr. Loss to have cured this Patient, had he taken a right course with him.  
THis Gentleman is reputed to have a very ready faculty of censuring other Physicians when their Patients die, that they took a wrong course with them, though he was not there, nor knew any thing more than by hear-say of what was done. What he did for this Patient is by himself put in print; and I have proved that it was nothing to the purpose: I now add, that he might have done something to the purpose, if he had taken a right course. If he had first speedily satisfied himself that he knew the Disease, and the part affected (as I have proved he might) and had then caused a section to be made through the soft parts over the middle of the os occipitis, to discover the Cleft, and what place would be convenient for the Trepan, and had then by opening of the Skull let forth that extravasated blood and filth, which himself says was his death.  
It's true, the warning was very short, and the opportunity of Cure quickly gone, but the Cure was not therefore impossible, and the greatness and fearfulness of the Symptoms should not have discouraged but quickened an intelligent Physician, to have set about it, and not to have put up the first day with the binding up according to Art the scratch in the forehead, and the second day, with a pretence of doing whatsoever Art in such cases is wont to prescribe, when he did little else but fumble about the head of him, by which himself confesseth he could discover nothing: thus letting slip the opportunity of action, and deferring the consultation of the Trepan, until the Patient was a dying. That in which Mr. Loss was the more to blame, because he had before this seen a Patient so Cured, as appears in his next Observation, where the Gentleman's case, in the most essential circumstances, is parallel with this of the Carter's. And this also is a further Argument to prove this fourth Conclusion, for ab esse ad posse valet consequentia.   

5. That after all this ado, a Countercleft is no such news in Physic, as to have deserved to be the subject of the first of these Observations, which have been forty years Collecting.  
THat a Countercleft is no news in Physic, let these Author's witness for me.  
Hypocrates in Lib. de Vulneribus Capitis.  
Soranus in scriptis de Vulner. Capitis.  
Aurelius Corn. Celsus de re Medicâ, Lib. 8. Cap. 4.  
Nicholanus Florentinus Serm. 7. Sum. 2. Tract. 4. Cap. 1.  
Valeriol. Append. Loc. Com. Cap. 5.  
Fallop. Comment in Hippocrat. Cap. 14.  
Paraeus in his 8th Chapter, and 9th Book.  
Doctor Read in his Treatise of Wounds.  
James Cook in his Marrow of Chirurgery.  
And in a manner every Chirurgeon else. Now, after all these, of what moment is this Chirurgo-Medicinal Observation? which is only an addition and overplus added unto the scale, sufficiently already weighed down by the gravity of so many good Authors as have written on it. And although Paulus did oppose Soranus, and Gorreus in his Medicinal Definitions, doth side with Paulus, and that chiefly, because Galen says that the Skull was not made one solid entire Body without Sutures, lest being struck on one place, a great portion of the Skull should be broke, which is prevented by the Intervening Sutures stopping the violence of the blow from passing over these lines, and doing hurt on the other side of them; yet probably Gorraeus did not know that some Skulls have had no Sutures; and that Age many times obliterates them in these that had them: and perhaps he did not consider, that the same force of a violent blow upon the Skull, which would quite break it, if it had no Sutures, in some distant place, may yet instead of a Fracture, make a Fissure there, though there be Sutures, if by old age those Sutures are more than ordinary united, and dried up. So that besides the authority of numerous Authors, Reason also seems so well satisfied with the possibility of a Countercleft, that it would be almost as ridiculous for any one to question or doubt it, as it would be in me, to doubt whether there be any such place as Newcastle, because I never yet saw it: and indeed, what else doth Mr. Loss in all this Observation, but carry Coals to Newcastle, tells us what we knew before, and brings us the proof of his Testimony, for that which I know no Body doubts of: and this very discreetly having prepared a Book of Medicinal Observations for a Treat and Banquet to be set before Physicians, as a Taste of the fare which they are to expect afterwards, he presents them for the first dish of the Feast, with a Colewort more than twice sodden.  

Observatio 15, Lib. 2 d. Pleuritis benigna intra septimanam resoluta.  
NObilissima Puella Elizabetha Nobilissimi viri Dni. Thomae Moor Armigeri Filia natu maxima annos decem plus minus nata, gracilis & biliosa ac rarissimae constitutionis, Dorchestriae in gynaeceo hospitans melioris educationis gratiâ, catarrhis obnoxia, autumnali tempore, quo alias eventilatio minor est, ut ea propter ad internas partium inflammationes suscipiendas pronius sit corpus, praecedente quodam rigore, corripitur febri, mitiori quidem, sed continuâ, & quotidie sub vesperam excandescente, cum dolore punctorio lateris sinistri, ad jugulum usque extenso, & spirandi difficultate, cum tussi & sputo cruento. Ad hanc vocatus, consideratis modo dictis, nobilem hanc Puellam pleuritide laborare judicavi, cujus causae externa in refrigeratione consisteret, cum tempore frigido, multa vespera, nudo pectore, pro more nobilium virginum, prodeambulasset. Vt enim calor humores colliquans; sic etiam frigus eosdem compingens, pleuritidem facilè introducere solet; sanguine scil. propter refrigerationem, circa vasa intercostaliae collecto, membranaeque costas succingentis, Pleurae dictae, cum vicinis internis musculis, inflammationem producente. Mox itaque cum vires utcunque perstarent, de venâ secandâ cogitavi, ut quae summum in pleuritide commodum afferre soleat: Cum vero venaesectionem Galenus in pueris ante decimumquartum annum vix suscipiendam suadeat, praesertim in corpore molli & raro, atque ad dissolutionem prono, quale erat hujus puellae, siquidem internam habent copiosam & perpetuam vacuationem ab actione sui innati coloris excitatam, qui substantiam humidiorem facilè digerit, & abs●mit, unde timendum ne huic liberali vacuationi altera addita vires prosternat. Itaq: sanguinis uncias quinque, sic jubente Doctissimo Sennerto, hirudinibus ex internâ sinistrï cubiti vena emungendas curava; praemisso enemate emolliente & refrigerante. Hoc facto dolorem lateris fotu & unctione lenire studeo. Fovebam autem malvarum, florum Camomillae, meliloti, anethi, & seminum lini decocto, admota insuper inunctione ex unguento dialtheae, pectorali & oleo amygdalarum dulcium; superimposito cataplasmate dolorum lenitivó. Recipe, Malvae, florum Camomillae, ana M. 1. Meliloti, Anethi, Violariae, ana M. s. Floram Violarum P. 1. Seminum Foenugraeci, Lini, ana unc. s. Decoquantur in aqua, & contusis adde Olei Amygdalarum dulcium unc. i. Pinguedinis Gallinae unc. s. farinae hordei & fabar. ana q. s. Fiat Cataplasma; quibus continuatis, dolor plurimum alleviatus. Hinc ad promovendum sputum conversus, mane in jusculis exhibui Oleum Amygdalarum dulcium, recenter sine igne extractum, quo alvus quoque fluidior reddita, subsequente promtâ & facili anacatharsi; interdiu verò utebatur linctu ex Syrupo Violaceo, capillorum veneris, diatragacantho frigido, diaireos, & Saccharo Cando, atque penidiis. In principio morbi assumpsit tincturam florum papaveris erratici cum aqua cardui Mariae & scabiosa, cum spiritu sulphuris, addito pugillo uno vel altero Florum Violarum, extractam. Postea etiam Decoctum pectorale officinarum hausit; & pro potu ordinario bibit decoctum hordei cum passulis, liquoritia, & Seminibus Anisi. His summâ diligentiâ administratis, aspirante Gratiâ Divinâ, & Natura cooperatrice, intra paucos dies puella haec a lateris dolore & sputo cruento liberata, ut e lecto surgeret, remanente tussi non admodum molestâ, cui removendae phthiseos vano metu visum est nobilissimae Matri, instigatione avunculi, Alium Medicum in Concilium adhibere. Hic acta pro more multorum accusans; maxime veró quod venaesectio neglecta, & quae sanguinis per hirudines detractio instituta fuisset, nullius sit momenti: venaesectionem instituit sexto morbi die cum febris & reliqua symptomata cessassent; detractis, ne nihil fecisse videretur, quatuor circiter unciis sanguinis, ex basilicâ dextrâ oppositi scil. lateris, id quod inter errores Medicorum a doctissimo. Fuchsio numeratur qua plures rationes in contrarium allegat. Die septimo, exhibet pulverem senae, quo sexties vel septies fuit purgata. Sub vesperam ejusdem diei, incidit in sudorem spontaneum copiosissimum, a quo omnino convaluit, assumpto tamen aliquandiu Balsamo Peruviano. Haec licet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & sine ratione instituta nullo tamen aegrae damno; quod vires ubi valentes sunt, quales erant in hac Puellâ, omnia contemnant & tolerent; ubi infirmae fuerint, a quovis offendantur.   

Observation the 15 th', Book 2 d. A Benign Pleurisy resolved in a Week  
THE most Noble Damsel Elizabeth, Eldest Daughter of the most Noble Gentleman, Mr. Thomas Moor Esq aged more or less about ten years, thin and choleric, and of a very rare Constitution, boarding at Dorchester at a School-mistress' house for her better education, subject to Rheums; in Autumn when eventilation is less than at other times, for which cause the Body is more prone to admit of the Internal inflammations of parts, after a precedent rigour was taken in a Fever mild indeed, but continual, and worse every day towards evening, with a pricking pain in the left side reaching to the Throat, a difficulty of breathing, a cough, and spitting of blood. Being called unto her, and considering what has been said, I judged that this noble Maid was sick of a Pleurisy, whose external cause was by catching cold, seeing that in a cold season late in the evening, she had gone forth a walking, with naked breasts, as is the manner of Noble Virgins. For as heat melting the humours easily causeth a Pleurisy, so doth cold likewise by compacting them, the Blood being gathered by reason of cold about the Intercostal Vessels, and causing an Inflammation in the Membrane compassing the Ribs called the Pleura, and the neighbouring internal Muscles. Presently therefore, for as much as her strength was yet pretty good, I was thinking of opening a Vein, as being that which uses to give great relief in a Pleurisy. But because Galen adviseth hardly to admit of bleeding in Children not yet 14 years old, especially in a body soft and spare, and prone to dissolve, such as this Damsels was; for these bodies have a continual and plentiful internal evacuation, caused by the action of their innate heat, which easily digests and consumes their moist Substance; so that there was reason to be afraid lest her strength should fail, if to this liberal evacuation an other should be added: Wherefore, following therein the command of the most learned Sennertus, I took care to evacuate by Leeches five ounces of Blood from the Internal Vein of the left Arm, having first ordered an emollient and cooling clyster. Afterwards I made it my business by fomentation and unction to assuage the pain of her side. My Fomentation was a Decoction of Mallows, Chamomile-flowers, Line-Seeds, and Dill; after which she was anointed with Althaea and pectoral Ointments, and oil of sweet Almonds; and this Cataplasm was applied. Take of Mallows, Camomile-flowers, of each one handful; of Dill and Violet-Leaves, of each half one handful; of Violet-flowers a pugil, of Faenugreek and Line-Seed of each half an ounce: boil them in Water, and when hay are bruised, add to them one ounce of Oil of sweet Almonds, half an ounce of Hens-grease, and as much Meal of Barley and Beans as is enough. Make a Pultess. These things being continued the pain was much assuaged, applying myself therefore to promote expectoration, I gave her in the morning in her Broth, oil of sweet Almonds fresh-drawn without fire, by which She was also more soluble; and a ready and easy expectoration followed. But in the day She used a Linctus of Syrup of Violets, Maidenhair, Diatragacanth, frig. Diaireos, Sugar Candy and Penidice. In the beginning of the Disease she took a Tincture of Wild Poppy-flowers extracted with Waters of Card. Marand Scabioso, Spirit of Sulphur, and a pugil or two of Violet-flowers. Afterwards she drank the pectoral Decoction of the shops, and for her ordinary drink, a decoction of Barley with Raisins, Loquorice, and Aniseeds. These things being most diligently made use of by the blessing of God and cooperation of Nature, within few days this Virgin was freed from the pain of her side and spitting of Blood, so that she could rise out of her bed; a Cough remaining, but not very troublesome; to remove which out of a vain fear of a Consumption it seemed good to the most noble Mother, through the instigation of the Uncle, to call into Counsel another Physician, who after the manner of many others accusing what had been done, and especially that a Vein had not been opened, and that her having been bled by Leeches was of no moment; orders on the sixth day of the Disease, that a vein should be opened, then when the Fever and other Symptoms were gone. So taking away some four ounces of Blood that he might not seem to do nothing, from the Basilick Vein of the opposite side, that which by the most learned Fuchsius is accounted an error in Physicians, who allegeth many reasons to the contrary. The seventh day he gives her Powder of Sena, by which she was purged six or seven times. About the Evening of the same day, she fell into a plentiful voluntary Sweat, by which she grew altogether well, excepting that for some time afterwards she took Balsam of Peru. Though these things were ordered without method or reason, yet they did the Patient no harm; for strength when it is good, as it was in this Virgin, it contemns and tolerates all things, but when it is weak, every thing offends it.   
I have already above mentioned what the Medicinal Materials are, with which a Physician is to build any Medicinal work; I shall now offer at the Method of ranging these into a Medicinal Observation, which according to what I yet best understand, aught to consist of these five Parts.  
1. A Title, which is to invite the Reader to peruse it, telling him what it is he may expect in the Observation, and therefore it ought to contain either the sum of it, or something very remarkable in it, and commonly it speaks the Patient's Disease.  
2. A Narrative of the Case, containing its history or the matters of fact, which the Physician met with in that Case, such as are these three especially.  

1. His Natural, viz. His Parentage, Age, Sex, and Natural Constitution, in which I include his Temperament, Complexion, Predominant Humour, and his habit of Body.  
2. His Non-naturals, which some thus in short express. 
Aer, Esca Quies, Repletio, Gaudia, Somnus;  
Haec moderata juvant, immoderata nocent.   
3. His former Praeternaturals, what Disease he hath formerly had, from what Causes, and with what Symptoms, as likewise the Juvantia and Laedentia, what did formerly do him good or hurt.   
3. The Judgement of the Physician founded upon this Narrative, and this Judgement ought to be the delivery of his Opinion, touching these three particulars especially.  
1. What the part Affected is, and whether it be Primarily affected, or by Sympathy.  
2. What the Disease is, I mean the Principal Disease, and that in regard of its Essence, Accidents, or Mutation.  

1. In respect of its Essence, whether it be a Similar Disease, a Distemper only, or an Organical; consisting in some default, of 

1. The Conformation of the Part Affected, respecting its figure, its roughness, or smoothness, or Cavity, in its being Compressed, Obstructed, or Dilated.  
2. The Magnitude of it, when the Part is either Bigger or Less than it should be.  
3. The Number, when in a greater Organical part, there are more or fewer lesser Organs.  
4. The Connexion, when a Part doth not Cohere where it should, or Cohere where it should not; or is otherwise faulty in its site.    
2. In respect of its Accidents, of which four are especially considerable; As, 

1. It's Magnitude, whether it be a great Disease, such as being very intense, afflicts the Body with a great force; or a little Disease, that receding but little from the natural constitution, doth but little impair the strength.  
2. It's Motion in respect of its Quantity, in its parts, as being in its beginning, increase, state, or decrease; or in the whole, whether it be an Acute Disease, or a Chronical.  
3. It's Motion in respect of its Quality or Manner, whether it be a Benign Disease, or a Malign.  
4. It's Event, whether it be likely to be Salutary or Mortal.     
Besides these Accidents taken from the Properties that do accompany the Essence of a Disease, there are also other accidental differences, that a Physician may judge of: As 

1. Whether in respect of the subject or part affected, the Disease be Idiopathick or Sympathick, Protopathick or Deuteropathick. If Sympathick, whether Positive or Privative, whether Sympathick by reason of Neighbourhood, Society of the same kind, Communion of Office, Site, or Connexion.  
2. Whether the efficient Cause of the Disease, or peccant Humour, be Legitimate or Bastard.  
3. Whether in respect of the Causa sine quâ non, especially the Region or Place where the Patient lies sick; the Disease be Endemick, Epidemic, or Sporadick.    
3. In respect of its Mutation, whether it will change into another Disease, or itself terminate either by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; in Life or Death.  
4. The Practice of the Physician, according unto his Judgement of the Case▪ his Method of Cure, and his Remedies made use of, whether Dietetick, Pharmaceutick, or Chirurgick.  
5. The Event and Success of what was done.  
I do not undertake to prescribe to any one this Method for his framing of any Medicinal Observation, but because I think it doth contain whatsoever needs to be taken notice of by any Physician in any particular Patient's Case; according to it, I shall follow my Examination of the newly mentioned 15 th' Observation of Mr. Loss his Second Book of Medicinal Observations; supposing that my having premised it, hath not been any fruitless digresson, since by it the Reader may be informed, unto what head each Particular that shall be spoken unto belongs, and thereby himself become a more competent judge both of Mr. Loss his Observation, and of my Examination.  
This 15 th' Observation is more than ordinary remarkable, in that there is a double case to be taken notice of in it.  
The First did belong to young Mrs. Bridget Moor, the Sickness of her Body.  
The Second doth belong unto myself, her other Physician, who was sent for to consult with Mr. Loss in her Sickness, and it is the wounding of my Reputation, by his private whispers, and now public slander.  
The first of these Patients, by the blessing of the Almighty, grew well in a short time, and she may now say to me, Physician cure thyself. To which my Answer shall be, the very same that when she lay sick it was unto her honoured Mother, upon somewhat the like question. The Case is indeed very dangerous, but I'll do the best I can for the Cure. And although it is not in my power to persuade any one, contrary to what they themselves please, yet it shall be my fault, if what I have writ and proved, be not enough to vindicate me to any indifferent Reader. And I hope, that the Almighty, who knows the wrongs and injuries, which for several years last passed I have suffered by this Gentleman's means, will so far favour the innocency of the Cause, now that it must needs become public, that he will prosper me in this Cure also.  
In Mrs. moor's Case I shall Examine.  
1. The Title of the Observation.  
2. The Narrative of her Case.  
3. Mr. Loss his Judgement both of her Disease, and of the Cause of it.  
4. His Method of Curing her.  
5. The Event of what he did; which I shall refer unto the Second Case.  
1. In my own Case, I shall insist on these particulars.  
His Preface thereunto, being a pompous but false Narrative of his wonderful success in the first Case; and a plotted and studied piece of forgery to persuade the Reader by a plausible tale, how it came about that notwithstanding his great Cure, Alius Medicus was sent for.  
Here likewise, upon occasion of his naming me Alium Medicum; what I could not put into the Preface of my Book, for fear of swelling it too much, I shall here insert, viz. my Answer unto some Objections against it. As, 

1. That it is not seemly for one Physician, to write against another.  
2. That Wise Men love neither to be pattern, nor patron of any Controversy.  
3. That Mr. Loss having not named me, I needed not to have been concerned at his Book.  
4. Being his Book is in Latin, my Answer ought to have been in Latin also.  
5. That writing in English, I needed not to have spoke so plain.  
6. That after I have done all, uncharitableness and envy will be the Censure of my undertaking; and more strife and trouble the fruit of it.    
2. His Narrative of my Case, containing all his charge of Accusations against me.  
3. His Judgement of my Disease, that it was want of Method and Reason in my Practice; and of its external and moving Cause, I did what I did, that I might not seem to Mrs. Moor or others to do nothing, being sent for to the Patient.  
It is not to be expected that I should here mention in the fourth place his Method of Cure, for he did not wound me, but on purpose that I might bleed.  
4. His Relation of the Event, that by Accident I did the Patient no harm.  
5. Instead of his, my Method of curing this Disease.  
1. By sufficient Witnesses, proving matter of Fact.  
2. By Reason and Authority, vindicating matters of Art; and answering every particular Observation. And because his first Accusation is, That I Accused what he had done; I shall there take occasion of aggravating that most unworthy Trick of some bad Physicians that make it their practice to backbite and slander others of the same Profession: then I shall give instances of Mr. Loss his thus dealing with me; and lastly, a direct answer to this and every other Accusation against me, as it lies in order.   

1. Of the Title of the 15th Observation. A Benign Pleurisy resolved within a Week.]  
THere is little in this Title remarkable that should invite the Reader to take the pains of perusing the Observation, and when examined, let any one judge if there be not as many errors in it, as there are words. For,  
1. This Patient's Disease, to speak properly, was not a Pleurisy, but an acute Fever; whereupon Symptomatically followed a Pleurisy.  
2. That Pleurisy that was, was rather Malign than Benign.  
These two Propositions I shall prove, when I come to examine Mr. Loss his Judgement of the Disease.  
3. This Title doth not answer the Observation unto which it is prefixed; for according unto that, it should have been thus.  
A Pleurisy and no Pleurisy cured before the sixth day, and yet lasting until the seventh.  
These pretty Contradictions of our off and-on, in-and-out Gentleman, would have made any Reader admire the Writer; and above all his Book to have pitched upon this Observation, where (to prove what I have said) in his Judgement on the Disease, he says, Considering what hath been said, I judged that this noble Maid was sick of a Pleurisy; and his Method of Cure, and Medicaments do all speak the same thing. But in his Narrative of the Case, he says, After a precedent rigour, she was taken with a Fever, mild indeed, but continual, and worse every day towards Evening, with a pricking pain in the Left side, etc. A plain demonstration that the Disease was not a Pleurisy with a Fever, but a Fever with a Pleurisy. And yet again, on the sixth day of the Disease, the Disease was no Pleurisy; no, nor Fever neither: for before Alius Medicus was sent for, Mr. Loss tells us, These things being most diligently made use of, by the blessing of God, and Cooperation of Nature, within few days this Virgin was freed from the pain of her Side, and spitting of Blood; so that she could rise out of her Bed, a Cough only remaining, but not very troublesome.  
This Gentleman had cunningly packed away the Disease before I was sent for, (that I might have nothing to do, and that if I did any thing, he might say of me, that I did it, that I might not seem to do nothing) not the Pleurisy only, but the Fever also and other Symptoms; for so he says: Medicus Alius orders on the sixth day of the Disease, that a Vein should be opened, then when the Fever and other Symptoms were gone. This augments the Contradiction, and makes the Observation still more wonderful; That there should be a Pleurisy and no Pleurisy, a Fever and no Fever, a Disease and no Disease: for how could there be a sixth day of the Disease, when the pain of her Side, her spitting of Blood, the Fever and other Symptoms were gone? But our Observator is still more wonderful; He says, this Pleurisy was resolved within a Week, if he means that it did not last a week, but was gone before the sixth Day, he contradicts himself in saying, About the Evening of the Seventh day she fell into a plentiful voluntary Sweat, by which she grew altogether well; a proof that she was not well before. If it be said, that some remains only lasted until the seventh day at Night, but the Pleurisy itself was gone before the sixth, I deny this Assertion; for the Pleurisy was not gone on the sixth day, much less the Fever, which was her principal Disease; and whose conjunct Cause was not yet discussed until after the Sweat; and whilst the Cause remained, the Effect did also remain.  
If he means, that it did last a Week and no longer, how doth he contradict himself in this again by saying, he had cured this Pleurisy before the sixth day? This Gentleman, that hath been noted for one that almost perpetually contradicts what another Physician, or his Patient offers to have done, though many times soon after he prescribes the same thing himself; and in so much, that some play with him as with a Child, and work him to consent, by urging for that which is contrary to what they would have. I say this Gentleman, that hath many times uncivilly contradicted others, is so civil, as here and elsewhere to contradict himself.  
4. This Pleurisy was not resolved within a week, for the great Sweat which did resolve it, befell not the Patient until the Evening of the seventh day, and the seven days were out before the sweat was off.  
5. It is no news nor worthy Observation, That a Benign Pleurisy should be resolved within a Week; for of all the five ways by which a Tumour may terminate, Resolution is not only the safest, but the nimblest; for the Morbific matter is not probably very great in quantity, if it passes off by discussion, nor very thick; for than it would rather end in suppuration, or induration; neither doth it make any great stop of the circulation of the Blood in the part affected; and Nature is still Mistress in this way of Termination, neither is she wont then to be long about her work.  
If he had told us of a Pleurisy that ended by Induration, or Corruption of the Part, and yet passed off in seven days, he had given us an Observation indeed, but to tell us of a Benign Pleurisy resolved in seven days, is trivial. There is scarce any Disease that admits of so speedy a Cure, as this doth sometimes. I have heard a Patient presently upon bleeding, before yet his Arm was tied up, tell with rejoicing how he plainly felt his pain go off, and such a discussion of the Disease hath followed, that it returned no more: what then is the great observable, that this Gentleman seems ambitious that the World should take notice of from him; Is it, that of his certain Knowledge a Pleurisy was resolved within seven days? Alas! Almost every Body can tell, that such a thing may sometimes happen in less than seven hours.   

2. The Narrative of the Case.  
THis begins with the Observation itself, and reacheth unto these Words; With a Cough and Spitting of Blood.  
Elizabeth.]  
This old Gentleman did forget that his young Patient's Name was Mrs. Bridget: this would have been a gross mistake in a Law-Case, but in Physic, notwithstanding all the ado Mr. Loss makes in the Naming of every Patient, it little concerns him that readeth the Observation, to know what the Christian or the Surname of the Patient was.  
In the Autumn.]  
This Second mistake is a little more Material, because the time of the year when a Patient lies sick, is Medicinal; but the third mistake of this Patient's getting this Sickness by taking cold in her Breast, whereas it was by violent heating of all her Body, and drinking cold Beer whilst she was hot, was yet grosser, as we shall by and by see: in the interim, have we not just reason to admire this Author for a very Trusty Observator? A faithful Historian in matters of Fact, upon whose authority and verity, the Reader may securely build his belief and confidence of the things he writes, that they are true and certain? Such, as (he would make us believe in his Epistle Dedicatory) he either saw himself, or sufficiently examined? This Patient had but two names, and he hath hit right in one of them; and hath some reason why he mistook the other, for the Mother's Name being Mrs. Elizabeth, who would have thought that her eldest Daughter's Name should have been Mrs. Bridget? But he recovers himself a little from this ominous stumbling in the beginning; he tells us truly, whose Daughter she was, and how she was his eldest Daughter, things very Medicinal no question: that she was about ten years old, and she might have been 12, or 20, or almost of any other age, and yet have been taken with a Pleurisy. That she was thin and choleric, and of a very rare Constitution; this Disease might have befallen her, had she been full and fat, phlegmatic, and of a very thick Constitution, as he will have it, taking Constitution for the Skin. It's true also that she was at a Boarding-School for her better education, but little to our better notification; and that this School was in Dorchester, a place he could not easily forget, for he hath lived in it above thirty years. But as for the time when, & the occasion whereupon this young Gentlewoman fell Sick, these must be looked upon as less Material than those above mentioned, and as faults easily pardonable in a Gentleman of his Gravity. But what! May he mistake the Disease likewise, the Cause of it, the Cure of it, the Success and Event of it; and all the Forgeries he hath invented and vented against Alius Medicus? Let others think what they will, for my part I shall not easily confide in such a mistaking Author, but rather think that he did not begin to write, before he began to dote, giving us a mighty formal account from the Time of Autumn, of his Patient's Disease that lay sick in the Spring.  
When Eventilation is less.]  
That it is so in Autumn, it is confessed, but this Patient'ts sickness was in April.  
These words make nothing to the Observation, they serve only to convince the Reader, that this mistake can with no reason be attributed to any fault in the Printer, since Mr. Loss himself builds upon it, and gives a reason why the Autumn did contribute unto this Patient's Sickness; imitating in this the forwardness of some young Philosophers, though himself be old, who will readily give you a reason of any thing, even before they know whether the thing be so. But if he had ever read my Lord Herbet's Zetetick Questions in his Book de Veritate, he would have found that An sit, is the first, neque enim tutò in reliquarum profundum solvitur, nisi exploratâ istâ.  
After a precedent Rigour.]  
This cold shrug in the beginning or first onset of a Fever, is one of the signs that show that it's putrid; for when the Blood begins to boil through Putrefaction, the sour, crude, and nitrous parts of it, which have not yet arrived unto maturity and sweetness, the bond of mixtion being much loosened, naturally they get together as Birds of a Feather, and unite particles, and so make up a body of Crudity and Sowrness, which at first smothers the fire in the Blood, and hinder much the Circulation of it; in which yet, those cold sour particles do associate themselves most willingly to the comparatively cold Membranous parts of the Body; which Membranes, partly through the absence of the influential natural heat, which the Heart, all this time oppressed, cannot send forth vigorously enough; and partly by the overmuch presence of these cold sharp Particles, do suffer that i'll and general vellication, which I suppose is the Rigour, or cold shrug. But why should Mr. Loss I pray, be so busy to inform us that this Fever was a Putrid Fever, which in its very Essence is dangerous, though not always mortal; seeing that in the Title, he tells us that the Disease was Benign?  
With a pricking pain in her Side.]  
It is no hard task for any Physician to reckon upon his fingers the five Pathognomonick signs of a Pleurisy, but then the Spitting of Blood is none of them; and why the Pulsus durus, which is one of them, should not be here mentioned, Mr. Loss can tell.  
We have seen something of the Narrative of the Case, there is yet one thing more taken notice of by Mr. Loss, but both mistaken and misplaced; it appertains unto the Patient's Non-naturals, her Walking late in the Evening in a cold Time with naked Breasts. This I conceive should have been mentioned in the Narrative, and before he had come to pass his judgement of the Disease. There were also other things belonging unto the Narrative, which Mr. Loss hath not mentioned at all, viz. That formerly she had an Issue in the left Arm: to which humours flowed so fast, that becoming troublesome, by some advice or other it was shut up.  
That not long after the shutting of it up, she began to have a pain in the left side of her Breast, which had continued more or less some two years' time when she fell sick, with such soreness as would not easily suffer an ordinary impression of ones hand.  
That just before her sickness, she overheat her Blood at Play, and then drank cold Beer; Things as material I suppose, as many of these which Mr. Loss hath mentioned.   

3. Mr. Loss his Judgement on the Case.  
THis Judgement concerns the Disease, or the Cause of it; Touching the Disease his Judgement is double.  

1. That it was a Pleurisy.  
2. That it was a Benign Pleurisy.   
Touching the External Cause of it; That it was her taking cold in her Breast by walking forth late.  
If I do not mistake, all these three are false.  
It seldom happens that any one falls sick, so as to lie by it, and to be in great danger, but there is a complication of Diseases in the Case; and then the Physician is not to rest satisfied with the naming of some Disease or other which may be in the Patient, but his Art requires of him to find out that which is the Principal, and upon which the other do depend, and from it to name the Case, Denominatio enim est a potiori; otherwise he will show himself an Empiric, and must needs make mad work in his Method of Cure.   

This Patient's Principal Disease was not a Pleurisy.  
IF her Side was neither the first part ill-affected, nor the Principal part that suffered, than a Pleurisy was not her Principal Disease. I do not see any reason to go about to prove this major Proposition.  
But her Side was neither the first part ill-affected, nor the Principal. Ergo.  
I prove the Minor in both its Parts.  
1. It was not the first part ill affected; for upon her drinking cold Beer when she was hot, the Stomach must first suffer before the Side: but because this was not considered of, nor perhaps known to Mr. Loss, I add that her Heart and all its Vessels were first ill-affected with a Fever in her Mass of Blood, before the pricking pain in her Side, and other Symptoms of her Pleurisy; and this is made out both by the reason of the thing, and by a double authority.  

1. I prove it by Mr. Loss himself in this very Observation, who says, She was taken in a Fever, with a pricking pain in her Side. If he meant that the Pleurisy was her Principal Disease, he should have said, She was taken in a pricking pain in her Side with a Fever; for a Fever that went before, though but some few minutes, could never be the effect and symptom of a Pleurisy that came after; though Mr. Loss says afterwards, that on the sixth day of the Disease the Fever and other Symptoms were gone, as if the Fever were the Symptom of a Pleurisy, which followed after it.  
2. I prove it by Sennertus, who in his Chapter the Pleuritide observes, That although the Ancients did call these Fevers, that do accompany the Inflammations of the Internal parts Symptomatical; yet of a Truth they are nothing so, Si quis enim rem diligenter perpendat, animadvertet, non Febres ab hisce inflammationibus, sed potius inflammationes istas a Febribus originem habere; If any one, saith he, considers the matter well, he shall find that these Fevers have not their Original from the Inflammations of the Internal parts, but rather that those Inflammations have their rise from the Fevers. And if so, the Fevers are the Principal Diseases, that which also the Method of Cure shows plainly, and did show in this particular Patient.   
2. It was not the Principal ill-affected.  
Amongst other Rules which Physicians give to know what Part is principally affected, these three are very considerable.  
1 That which suffers most grievous Symptoms, is the part principally affected. But it is plain that the Effects of this young LADY's putrid Fever, were much more grievous in her Heart, than these from the Pleurisy in her Side.  
2. That Part which is continually affected, and never at ease, is the part principally affected; but her Side was much at ease: and if you will believe Mr. Loss, her Pleurisy was gone, then, when Alius Medicus was sent for, and then, when all the Family where She lay Sick despaired of her Life. And her Heart was never at ease, but still troubled more or less with a continual Fever, until at length the Universal Sweat completed the Cure; and the Fever once gone, there was no news of the Pleurisy.  
3. That Part which receives no benefit by these Remedies which do help another Part, is the Part principally affected; but her heart was but little benefited by all Mr. Loss his Emperical Cure of her Side.  
Therefore.  
This Patient's Pleurisy was not Benign.  
A Benign Disease, is such an one as goes on in a gentle mild manner, not much troublesome or offensive to Nature, nor yet so dangerous as to hazard Life. And I do admire that Mr. Loss should title this Disease Benign, for I am sure that before I was sent for, the good Lady the Patient's Mother was sent unto, that She might make haste to come twenty miles out of the Country, to see her Daughter that lay very sick in Town; so little belief was there then of the Benignity of the Disease: and I am sure, that when I propounded to purge her, after She had been bled; Madam Moor told Mr. Loss, who was against it, that She would try the Purge; for my Child, said She, is a dead Child in your account. But afterwards, when Mr. Loss saw that the Patient was able to bear both Bleeding, Purging and Sweeting, and in few days was strangely recovered, to my credit, and his no little disturbance; being to write this Observation, which I think he put forth on purpose to honour himself, and shame me what he could in this particular Case, the good Man changeth his Note of the great danger our little Patient was in, and out of a Malignity to the other Physician, Benigns the Disease. That which is also the more ridiculous, because this Gentleman in the immediately preceding Observation, viz. the 14 th' of his 2 d Book, says thus of a Pleurisy in general; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Graecè, a loco affecto, nimirum Pleurâ, Latinis morbus costalis seu lateralis dicitur, estque inflammatio Membranae costas succingentis, quae Pleura nominatur; Haec inter morbos acutos & lethales, vel imprimis numeratur, gravia Symptomata, & pericula secum adfert, & morbus est gravissimus: A Pleurisy is called in Greek Pleuritis from the part affected, to wit, the Pleura or Side; In Latin it's called the Rib, or Side-Disease; and it is an Inflammation of the Membrane that covereth the Ribs within, which is called Pleura; Amongst acute and mortal Diseases a Pleurisy is especially reckoned, it brings with it grievous and dangerous Symptoms, and is a most grievous Disease. A Pleurisy than is a most dangerous Disease when Mr. Loss cures it; but when Alius Medicus cures it, it's a Benign Pleurisy.  
The Nature of an Acute Disease consists in two things, in its being a great Disease, and in its moving nimbly with vehemency and danger. Young Mrs. moor's Fever was peracute, putrid, continual, worse every night, it had joined with it an Inflammation of an internal Part, next neighbour to the Heart. It was occasioned by Choler, in a Bilious thin Body, it caused bad Symptoms and threatened death; and if notwithstanding all this, it must pass for one of Mr. Loss his Benign Pleurisies, so let it.   

Mr. Loss his Judgement of the Cause of this Patient's Pleurisy, Examined.  
THE Conjunct Cause of her Pleurisy was Inflamed Blood. The Antecedent-Causes were of two sorts, some did cause the Blood to be inflamed, as her Plethora quoad vires, and her Cacochymia: Some did cause her inflamed Blood to fall upon her left Side, as the the weakness and debility thereof, that Side being weakened first by an Issue, and afterwards by an Afflux of Humours causing a soreness in her left Breast some years before her sickness. The Procatarctick Causes were her being obnoxious to Catarrhs, her Choleric Constitution, her overheating her Blood by play, and her drinking cold Beer whilst she was hot; that which Sennertus takes especial notice of for a Cause of a Pleurisy. But Mr. Loss mentions no other Cause, but an External only, her catching cold by walking forth late in the Evening, in an Autumnal cold Season, with her Breasts naked, as is the manner of most Noble Virgins.  
This is but a vulgar account, any one that comes in to see such a sick Patient, can readily suggest that She might get her sickness by taking some cold, and being too late out in the Evening.  
It is too general an account, and although it gives sometimes very good satisfaction unto ordinary Persons, that understand little of Physic or Philosophy; yet, how will any wise man acquiesce, if ask after the Cause of a Particular Disease, his Physician tells him he hath got cold, which is in a manner a general Cause of all Diseases?  
It is an illogical Inference; She got cold, therefore She got a Pleurisy: for we may predicate of an Individual, the Species, and next Genus, and so upwards; For example, Peter is a Man, A Man is an Animal, an Animal is a Corporeal Substance, etc. But we cannot invert this order, and go downwards, saying, A Corporeal Substance is an Animal, An Animal is a Man, A Man is Peter. Thus we may say, That a Pleurisy may be caused by catching of cold, but we cannot say, catching of cold is the cause of a Pleurisy; because a Genus cannot be confined to one Species, and catching of cold might as well have caused other Diseases, as a Pleurisy.  
The Consideration of such a Cause, is useless to a Physician, he can make no benefit of it: for, Causa transiens non indicat, because it is one of the conditions of an Indicans, that it be Manens in corpore, for how else can it indicate its ablation from thence? What though this young Lady did catch cold? that was passed before Mr. Loss was sent for; and the need a Patient hath of a Physician is to find out and remove the Cause that doth actually cause the sickness, not to talk of that which is already gone.  
If Mr. Loss had understood, that the division of Causes of Diseases into External and Internal, is an error among some Physicians; because it may so fall out, that against the Rules of Logic, both Members of the division may be predicated▪ of one and the same thing; as when a Dagger is stuck into the flesh, He would not have called the cold Air an External, but a Procatarctick Cause of her Disease.  
Besides all that hath been said, this only account which Mr. Loss gives of this Patient's Sickness, is also false; either this young Lady was too hard for this old Gentleman, by concealing her overheating herself at play, and then drinking cold Beer; or else our trusty Observator, according unto his manner of seeing and proving things in his Observations, never troubles himself to examine the business, but easily takes upon trust, what as easily he puts forth in Print.  
But suppose we that what he says were true, let's a little dive into his profound Philosophy.  
I know this old Gentleman is no friend to the new Philosophers, he had rather that those that went before him should be accounted wiser, than any that come after him. Antiquity he reverenceth, but he doth not consider that the younger generation of Men is the older World; and that as all things else here below, so Knowledge and Learning cannot but grow and increase by time and the daily experiments and inventions by which it is improved and advanced; or else (for which I see no reason) he must conclude that Learning is passed its Zenith, and upon the decline. I shall not therefore trouble him with questioning whether Heat be an Accident or a Substance: I mean that Heat, which he saith so easily causeth a Pleurisy, by melting the Humours; but I ask him in what Subject it is? It's plain that he means by Cold, the cold Air, that which caused as he says this Gentlewoman's sickness; and therefore I presume he means by Heat the hot Air. But how hot Air can insinuate itself into, and single out the Pleura, a membranous and colder part, and yet there by melting the Humours easily cause a Pleurisy, I cannot easily understand; I acknowledge it may help to increase Choler in the Body, which abounding may take fire and inflame the Blood: and I can easily imagine that some of this inflamed Blood may strike to the Pleura and inflame that; but then this is contrary to what Mr. Loss would have, for thus the Fever must needs precede the Pleurisy, whereas he says positively that the Fever is a Symptom of the Pleurisy, as appears by these words; Sexto morbi die, cum Febris & reliqua Symptomata cessassent.  
If the Humours be melted by the hot Air, than they were not melted before, and if not, how were they fluid and Humours?  
One would think that heat should rather dry up and consume moisture, than make it more fluid; and that if it did make humours more fluid, they should therefore the rather pass more easily within their own Vessels, than break forth into the Pleura: why should hot Air cause a Pleurisy so easily, and not as well a Frenzy or any other hot Disease? If it causeth any other hot Disease as easily as a Pleurisy, Mr. Loss is but a pitiful Philosopher, that can, or doth give, none other but a general Cause for a particular Effect.  
If he means by melting of the Humours, nothing else but their rarefying by the ingress of hot Air, whereby they cannot now be contained within their former bounds, what directs them to break forth in the Pleura? and what Philosophy calls the rarefaction of humours, their Colliquation? Frigus humores compingens, Pleuritidem facilè introducere solet. Cold (saith he) easily causeth a Pleurisy by compacting the Humours.  
Who can imagine that the cold ambient Air can compact and congeal the Humours in a living Body, especially in the Breast or Side, parts so neighbouring unto the Heart? Why did not the extreme parts grow rigid and stiff with cold at the same time? how can the Humours be supposed to be an Ice, and the solid parts yet be warm and move? How can such a cold do less than quite stifle the insensible transpiration, especially in the part most exposed thereunto? and if so, why did not her naked Breasts gangrene, the natural heat being wholly suffocated? And besides, who can imagine that a freezing cold should cause a melting inflammation, especially in a cold Membranous part? His meaning sure was, that the cold by constipation of the pores, by accident caused heat. But this falls out then only, when the pores of the Skin are lessened, but not quite shut with the cold; but such a cold as can congeal the Humours within, must needs quite shut the pores without, and so stifle and put out the innate heat, not raise it into a flame.  
Lastly, Who can understand the reason of this Antithesis? As Heat, says Mr. Loss, makes the Humours get out of their Vessels into the Pleura, by Colliquation, and so inflames it; so Cold makes them get thither also (for so they must if they cause a Pleurisy) by Congelation, and also inflames it?   

Mr. Loss his Method of Curing her.  
IN the Cure of a Disease are two things Considerable.  

1. The Method.  
2. The Means or Instruments.   
The Method is, by attending unto the Indicantia, to find out the Indicata; what it is that must be intended or designed to be done.  
The Means are all those Remedies which will help to bring these things to pass, whether they belong to Diet, Chirurgery, or Physic.  
Mr. Loss seems to have been a mere Empiric, in respect of the Method he made use of for this Patient's Cure; as will appear in these three things.  
1. He did not concern himself what Part was principally affected, or what was the principal Disease, it was enough to him She had a Pleurisy.  
2. He did nothing material towards the removing of the antecedent Causes, for he was wholly against bleeding of her by Lancet, and Purging her.  
3. All his applications were to a Symptomatical Disease, and without satisfying first the Indications from the Cause, his first and whole business was after a few Leeches applied to the Arm, which did not remove the Cause, to cure the Disease, by his Fomentation and Unction of her Side, his Cataplasm, Linctus, Tincture, Barleywater, Oil of Sweet-Almonds, Pectoral Decoction, etc. of all which Medicines he hath given us not only a Narrative, but their Recipes. I do not blame his Medicines, had they been with Art applied; neither yet do I know any thing extraordinary in them, for which they deserved to have been printed: But I do blame his playing the Empiric, and his labour in vain, attempting to cure a Disease, without first removing the Cause; and I do say, that for aught I know, if no other Method had been made use of for her Cure, this Patient must have perished.  
The Event of what he did; I shall refer unto the now following Preface of the Second Case.   

The Preface Mr. Loss makes unto the Second Case.  
THese things being most diligently administered, by the blessing of God, and the cooperation of Nature, this Damsel was freed from the pain in her Side and spitting of Blood.  
One would almost laugh at this Gentleman, to see with how much gravity and formality, he sets forth at large, his doing of little, or not much to the purpose, for this his Patient. But I dare not make sport of, or laugh at his mockery, in calling as it were God and Nature to witness an untruth, that She was freed from the pain in her Side; whereas Mrs. Moor says positively, the pain in her Side continued very violent.  
Some one may think perhaps that this untruth was some mistake, or came some-ways inconsiderately from him; but it would be strange that he should light by accident upon that, than which nothing though designed and plotted, could make more for his purpose: for if She was freed from the pain in her Side, the Reader takes it easily for granted, that her Pleurisy, her Disease, was gone; and then he easily consents that the sending for Alius Medicus might be upon such an account as Mr. Loss tells him; and that Alius Medicus was guilty of the faults are laid to his charge, and that he did nothing to the Cure, for that was done before he was sent for; and that what he did was without Method or Reason, and done only because he would seem to do something. Thus the Relation of the Event in the first Case, is a very convenient Preface to the second; for it argues the great Art and Skill made use of, besides the blessing of God upon it, to the honour of Mr. Loss who so speedily and safely had wrought Cure; and è contra, the ignorance and madness of Alius Medicus, that should bleed and purge a Patient that had no need of either, but was recovered before.  
The main business Mr. Loss had to do in this Preface, was, how he should so handsomely and conveniently bring Alius Medicus upon the stage, as to rob him of the credit he had got of this Cure, and to take it to himself, and cast dirt upon him. First therefore, he gives the Reader a plausible story of what he had done, and for the better credit of the business, he tells him what intentions he followed to cure this Pleurisy, and sets down also the Recipes of his Medicines; both which, an indifferent Physician might have easily translated from many Books, that write the Praxis of a Pleurisy, into his own. Then he boldly and positively says, that by these means She was in effect cured: but thinking with himself that it might be objected, Why then was another Physician sent for? Surely so discreet a Lady as this Patient's Mother is, and held so by me that know her, will not easily be thought one so empty i'th' brain, though full i'th' purse, as to take hastily a Journey from Spargrave to Dorchester, and after She comes there, to send for another Physician, when her Daughter was recovered.  
To Obviate this, he is forced to recede a little from his first brag; and to acknowledge that notwithstanding all that he had done, there remained yet a Cough, but this must not be thought to argue any substance of the Disease in being, which should make this shadow or Symptom; and therefore, lest this should take from his Cure, he takes from it, and says, Though there was a Cough, yet it was not very troublesome. And yet to remove this forsooth, it pleased the Mother, who might do what She pleased in this Case, to send for another Physician. But he seems to fear and doubt that this motive was yet too weak by itself, and therefore he strengthens it with a double prop: on the one side he suggests, that the Mother was afraid of a Consumption, but he tells the Reader, this was a needless fear; and indeed the Mother says plainly that at that time She had no fear of a Consumption: on the other side, he says, that the Mother's sending for another Physician, was because of the Instigation of her Uncle. Now what else can be the meaning of all this winding and turning, this studied and forged preamble, but only to ward off and fence himself from having the Imposture discovered of his pretended Cure, as also the dissatisfaction of the Mother in what he had done; which might reflect either want of Care, or Art in him: and lastly, to bring in with advantage the scroll of Accusations against Alius Medicus, who yet (say some) must not answer them.   

Objections Answered against my writing this Book.  

Obj. 1.  
IT is not seemly for one Physician to write against another.  
Resp. Let the blame therefore lie at his door that began first; se defendendo, self-preservation is the other's sufficient excuse. It was very unseemly in him, especially without any warning, or just provocation, to publish me in print for one that had neither Skill in a Disease, nor did understand the Method of Cure; but is it unseemly for me to show my skill and method, if I have any? No man can deny, but that it was very unhandsome in him, to throw dirt upon me, either privately, or publicly; and is it any unhandsomness in me to wipe it off? He ought not to have vented slanders; but will any one say, that I ought not to vindicate my Reputation, or that it is unseemly, because by doing it I write against another Physician? which of necessity I must do, if I will write for myself. I confess, it is with much regret that I come forth at all, and I have given my Adversary the advantage of some seeming reproach, though it deserves rather commendation, that my Answer was not out sooner; it might have been, but my unwillingness to write against him that I knew was obnoxious, made me wait many months, to see if he would use any means to prevent me, but in vain; and therefore now at last that I do write against him, it is the less unseemly. And since there is no Profession whatsoever, that can boast of all its Professors, that they are good, I hope no man will think the worse of Physic if by this Book I make discovery, that even amongst Physicians themselves, there are some sometimes sick of this Epidemic Disease; whose cause yet doth not belong unto the Art they study, but unto the corrupt and depraved nature of mankind in general.   

Obj. 2. Wise Men love neither to be Pattern, nor Patron of any Controversy.  
Resp. As I need not fear my being at any time Patron, so, all things seriously considered, I hope I am not yet a Pattern of any Controversy; for, if I had not thought, that what I have writ is so home and plain, and so fully proved, as probably to end our Controversy, I would not have printed it.  
Though of necessity I have touched upon some points controverted in Physic, (or else I could not have answered his Accusations) yet matters of Fact are that which I contend for with Mr. Loss; whether he or I speak Truth in what we have writ; Matters of Dispute are endless and foolish: and I have so little pleasure in beating the Air, and so small confidence of my opinion being better than his, or any others, that I should hardly have shript Cross or Pile for the Mastery in a wrangling dispute; much less should I have taken these pains merely to have spun out a fine thread, wherewith to make a Cobweb to catch Flies.   

Obj. 3. Mr. Loss having not named me, I needed not to have been concerned at his Book.  
Resp. He neither doth, nor can deny he meant me, if therefore I should shuffle off my Answer, upon this frivolous pretence, Prudens Sciens vivus vidensque pereo, I see the Snare, and go into it, and am willingly taken in the very Gin that he hath set for me. This is it that he would be at: he would have me beholden, to him forsooth, to save my credit, who seems to me the only Adversary that hath made it his business to ruin it. Alius Medicus is a Vizard-Mask of his making, and he wisheth none other than that I should be so much a Fool, as to wear it, for when he please he can look under it, and when he lists he can pull it off, and discover who this Alius Medicus is.  
But because Mr. Loss himself hath made this Objection, and several of his Friends at Dorchester; I shall be somewhat large in my Answer thereunto.  
Had Mr. Loss named Truth, and not named Me, I should have had good reason to have acknowledged his great civility, in suffering my guiltiness to have passed incognito; but if any one commends his charity, for thinking thus to conceal my reproach; let him if he can, excuse his folly in so doing. He names the Patient, and her Parentage, the Town, yea the House where She lay sick; and with what wit could he imagine to cover me with this Net, which every one could look through? He should not have meddled with me at all; for, faintly to shadow me over, was the only way to make the people the more inquisitive, and the discovery the more acceptable; for public slanders, as well as private whisper, never spread more, than when they are delivered by way of secret.  
If this Alius Medicus were as much a stranger to me, as is he whom I never saw or heard of, yet being I am able to prove, that the Matters of Fact whereof he is accused, are false, and that the errors laid against him in his Art, are false likewise; I ought in charity to him, and out of a just indignation against Mr. Loss, to write against him, if it were but only to defend Truth, and to be virtuously angry with Falsehood, and with so base an act and injury, as is not sufferable to be offered, no not to the shadow of another Physician, though he had in him no substance to defend himself. But I find that Alius Medicus is very near me, and my very good friend; one that I am confident would have scorned to have dealt thus with Mr. Loss; and therefore I have no reason to see him injured, neither ought I to desert his Cause.  
If Mr. Loss was so civil to name me Alius Medicus, I have likewise been as civil to put forth my Book under the same Name, and I think the Courtesy of each is much alike.  
There are many reasons why, out of respects unto himself, Mr. Loss would not name me.  
It would have been too gross and palpable, and have smelled over-rankly of his own malice, if he should have told the World by Name which of his Neighbours was so ignorant in his Art.  
It would have some-ways necessitated him to have named my Degree also, with which probably he did not care to honour me; because himself had never taken any; and formerly said so of me also.  
It would have been too high a provocation, not to have been suffered without a Reply. It puts courage even into a very Coward to fight, when there is no way to escape; lest therefore I should be forced to answer, and might discover his falsehood and dishonesty, having done my work for me as he thought, that he might hear no more of me nor be troubled with me, he craftily leavs open a Rat-hole, for me and my credit dishonourably to creep out at, and this was in not-naming me.  
It would have made his Accusations, which probably he knew too weak to bide a Test, more strictly examined, and enquired into; whereas laying them against an ignotum Caput, they are better passed over, and easier consented unto.  
It might have disobliged others as well as me; worthy Gentlemen, Justices of the Peace, and Persons of good Repute and Estate, many of them in and about Dorchester, to whom I have had the honour to be related by the Marriage of my Wife, and for whose sakes, (not leaving the City, before that first left me no house or home) I have been contented with a retired life. I say, some of these, upon such an open and barefaced affront, might not only have been angry with him, but have sit upon his skirts for the abuse.  
But besides all this, I ask any one that would not have me answer Mr. Loss, whether then, my silence will not more condemn me with most, that have or may take notice of it, than his speech? for notwithstanding his Accusations, I may yet answer for myself and be heard; but if I do not appear to answer, I therein bear witness for him, against myself; either that his Accusations are true, or that I am as pitiful as he represents me, if having Truth on my side, I cannot yet answer for myself: for who will not say I would, if that I could?   

Obj. 4. Being his Book is in Latin, my Answer ought to be in Latin also.  
Resp. This I confess hath been objected unto me not only by Mr. Loss (in his Latin Epistle to me, which I have printed, where he sticks not to tell me in a manner to my face (as he hath also vapored over others) that I cannot write Latin) but by others also: To whom I reply; besides what I have said in my Epistle Dedicatory, That I had rather that any one who please, should think me not able to write Latin, (because I know I could have done it when I was but yet a Kings-Scholar at Westminster,) than that any English-Man should so much as hear of such Accusations against me in print, for my ignorance in the faculty I profess, and not be able to read a full answer unto him in English.  
It's true, to write Latin well is an accomplishment very desirable and commendable, and that by which Mr. Loss I think hath principally got the credit of being a Scholar, sending abroad upon all occasions his Latin Epistles, to such as he thought might understand better than answer them; and hereby publishing himself, for no low hedg-Doctor, or pitiful pretender to Physic, that knows not well perhaps how to write true English; but for an Highdutch-Man rather, that can write true Latin. But for all this, I say, that it is not the Sibboleth or Shibboleth, of a Scholar or no Scholar, to be able to write Latin, witness any one that please to read this Gentleman's Latin Medicinal Observations. Depth of Learning hath not always, yea, it seldom hath readiness of utterance, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Eloquence, are often wanting to the profoundest Clarks.  
A grave Professor of Physic, that was my Tutor beyond Sea, told me, That he had once a Patient which in her Sickness when the heat of her Fever had elevated her Spirits, talked so elegantly and learnedly about various subjects, as they came into her fantasy, that he went many times on purpose to sit by▪ and hear her, who when she grew well again, was a very Dolt. And which is yet stranger, I am told of one in Dorsetshire, that in a Fever spoke a Language never understood before, nor since, nor then I think: and look, as I am not able to give a full and rational account of these instances, no more can I describe that particular Crasis or Temperament of Brain, whereby Germane do generally more naturally as it were write and speak Latin. And look as Poeta nascitur non fit, so I am prone to think some are born more adapt to this or that Language than others. But when all is done, Language is the Shell only, and not the Kernel of Learning, from which it differs as much, as speaking from doing. And since Mr. Loss hath as it were sent me a challenge by scandalising me in print, for one ignorant in my faculty, and guilty of several errors; I think it is of right due to me to make choice of my Weapon; and why should I choose that which he should be most skilful at, and contend with a Schoolmaster about a piece of Latin? it will serve my turn, if in any Language I can be too hard for him. Yet even in Latin also I have promised to him an Answer to his Reply, if it doth deserve it; for these things I write in English, deserve not to be told in Latin to Scholars, they are so ordinary: In the mean time, whilst the Innocency of my Cause makes me not ashamed to plead it before all, even any one that can but understand English; let Mr. Loss brag, that he hath covered the guiltiness of his, by writing only unto some English, in Latin.   

Obj. 5. Writing English, I needed not to have spoke so plain  
Resp. If I do it not to the purpose, it is to no purpose what I do: The Dorchester-World will not believe any thing amiss in their Saint and Oracle, who had his Tripos near forty years amongst them, unless it be spoken so plain, that neither he nor they can excuse it, and perhaps not then neither. And Mr. Loss, if fair means would have brought him to a private Treaty, and a giving me satisfaction for the wrongs he had done me, I should never have attempted it by storm, and to take what satisfaction I could myself, by coming forth in Print.  
Some Men when they err, they do but nod a little and forget themselves, such are easily awaked with a word or two, and they come to themselves quietly and without noise: but others, like this Gentleman, are Lethargic and Apoplectical in sin; and there is no making of such sensible of their faults, without Incisions and Caustics; ad ignem enim & ferrum confugiendum est: When such a Viper stings a man in his credit and reputation, I know no better Cure, than to catch him if one can, and pound him, and clap him to the sore, until he hath sucked back and reimbibed the Poison, which himself first spit forth.   

Obj. 6. After I have done, uncharitableness and Envy will be the Censure of my undertaking; and more strife and trouble the fruit of it.  
Resp. If it proves so, I shall be sorry, though it is not my fault, that People will censure as they please: But let me Instance a little against such censure of my being uncharitable in this undertaking.  
Is an honest Traveller uncharitable, that pursuing a dishonest Thief that robbed him of the best of his goods, such as he had no mind to lose; brings him to open shame and condign punishment?  
Is a Defendant uncharitable, if by telling his Story, and producing his witness to clear himself, the injurious Plaintif, that perhaps hath passed many years for a very honest and godly Man, be proved to be quite another in open Court?  
Is a Chirurgeon uncharitable, that finding an Imposthume ripe, Lanceth it; because forsooth by this means the corruption comes forth, appears, and shows itself, even to the nauseousness of the Beholders?  
If any of these be uncharitable, then am I But if this Gentleman suffers no more than his guilt deserves, if he falls into that very Pit which he digged for another; if with his own hands he hath pulled down upon his own head, that mischief which no man intended him, and which no man could have brought upon him, but with his own assistance; if climbing higher than his reach, he hath miss his footing and got a fall; if talking too eagerly and too open-mouthed against another, he hath let slip the bead and his Vizard-Mask be fallen off: If by robbing the neighbouring Bees of their Credit, sweeter unto them than Honey, he hath got a Swarm about his Ears, and whilst some others buzz only and strike at him, some one perchance Stings him; Whom hath he to thank for all this but himself? For my part, I do not think that Charity unto my Neighbour doth in all cases oblige me to be uncharitable unto myself, and suffer my own Reputation unvindicated; what Charity requires of me, to sacrifice my Credit and my Practice, as an Offa unto Cerberus, as a morsel to be devoured, and eaten up by the envy of an ill-natured Person?  
Charity says I must not vaunt myself, but must I not therefore vindicate myself?  
I must think no evil, what, not when I see it in legible characters and in print? When I hear it, and know it, and feel it?  
I must be without dissimulation; therefore as real Love needs no Counterfeit, so real Hatred of evil Practices needs no cover, and I publicly own it.  
I must not seek my own, not by a huckstering kind of way projecting for gain, without love to virtue; but may I not seek my own when it is lost, or keep my Credit from his ravishing, that would unworthily wrest it from me, and deflower it?  
I must bear all things, that aught to be born, not that can be born; Charity is not an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sottish insensibility, but a meek and well-grounded suffering of such things as are an exercise of virtue: but what virtue is it I pray, to let another stab me, or rob me, or defame me, if it be in my power to help myself?  
I must not revenge 
— quip minuti  
Semper & infirmi animi est exiguique voluptas,  
Vltio.  Juv.  
But I suppose such a Revenge is only spoken against, when I do another hurt, and myself none other good than that which results from the poor and low satisfaction, of having done another hurt. But had it not been to have vindicated myself, I would never have ventured my credit to have hazarded his.  
I must not envy. But here I presume aught to be remembered, that there is a double Envy, the one a Virtue, the other a Vice, and yet both are compounded of sorrow and hatred.  
The Verruous Envy is a Natural Passion implanted in us by the God of Nature, whereby we condole the undeserved sufferings of a good Man, or the immerited prosperity of a wicked Man; and this is a Branch of Justice, for whatsoever is undeserved is unjust; this is properly that which is called indignation, and this sort of Envy I own.  
The Wicked Envy is a sorrow at, and a hatred of another man's happiness, be it never so much deserved, or honestly acquired. And from this let Mr. Loss quit himself if he can, in what he hath writ in this Observation concerning me.  
Touching the further strife and trouble which my writing this Book may occasion, it will be I hope only between Mr. Loss and Me; and as he likes of it, so am I likewise resolved to comport with it.    

2. His Narrative of the Second Case  
THE charge that he brings in against Alius Medicus, is either for 

1. What he said; or for  
2. What he did.    
The Particulars against what he said are three.  
1. That he accused all that had been done.  
2. That he blamed in particulrr the neglect of bleeding her by Lancet.  
3. That he should say, the bleeding of her by Leeches was of no moment.  
The Particulars against what he did, are these that do relate either to his Bleeding or Purging of her.  
In his Bleeding of her, he is condemned in no less than all the four Requisites unto the right administration of that noble Remedy. As;  
1. That the Time was not seasonable; for he did it on the sixth day of the Disease, when the Fever and other Symptoms were gone.  
2. That the Place was mistaken, it should have been in the Left Arm, but he did it on the Right.  
3. That the Manner was Erroneous; it ought to have been done by Leeches, and he did it by Lancet.  
4. That the Quantity of the Blood taken away, was either too much or too little.  
In his Purging of her were these faults.  
1. That he did Purge her at all; for he was against it.  
2. That he Purged her on the seventh day.  
3. That the Purge was so slight a business, as is Powder of Sena.   

3. His Judgement on the Second Case.  
HAving seriously considered, gravely and judiciously weighed all those bad Symptoms abovementioned in the Narrative, Mr. Loss passeth a double Judgement upon Alius Medicus.  
1. That the Disease he was sick of, was the Simples; for he had neither Method nor Reason for what he did.  
2. That the External Cause, was, Ne nihil fecisse videretur. The Motive was, that he might not seem to do nothing.  
The Truth is, This Gentleman lost the reputation of curing this Patient, both in the Family where She lay sick, and with her Mother and other Relations; and therefore to heal himself, he makes Alius Medicus to be sick, and this he doth in Latin, which he wot well few or none of them that knew my Innocency could understand. His design seems to have been to make out to Scholars, the unreasonableness of their opinion who attributed the Cure to Alius Medicus, and did not side with him in his Judgement; for this purpose he patcheth up a Relation according to his fantasy, concealing some things, and forging others, that it might pass plausibly with Persons that knew no more of the Case, than what he hath set down: and I must confess ingenuously, that if I were myself a stranger to these matters, and had known no more than what Mr. Loss hath told, I could not deny, but that Alius Medicus must pass for an Ass; for what less can he be, that practiseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & sine ratione. But what an Ass Mr. Loss hath found him, let him hereafter publish at large. In the Interim let him read over that of the Wise Man: He that is first in his own Cause seemeth just, but his Neighbour cometh and searcheth him out.  
Touching the Procatarctick Cause of the illness of Alius Medicus, Mr. Loss fetcheth it from one of the six Non-naturals, his passionate desire to appear to do something, and his great unwillingness to seem to do nothing.  
Ne nihil fecisse videretur, hath in the belly of it the spawn of many other accusations; as if Alius Medicus was so covetous, that rather than not let in a Fee into his own Purse, he would let out his Patient's Blood, though the Fever and other Symptoms, and Pleurisy were gone; and rather hazard her Life, than her Money: As if Alius Medicus had such base and low thoughts of this Patient's Friends, who were nobly generous, that he feared being sent for, that if he did nothing he should have nothing: As if he were in a manner Knavishly cunning; some slying report or other had encouraged Mrs. Moor to send for him, and lest she should repent herself, by finding that he was a Person that could neither say nor do, craftily he resolves upon both, and says this and that against Mr. Loss, and does this and that, and tampers with the Patient when there was no need, for she was cured before: As if, as cunning as he would seem, he was in truth but a simple fool that would venture Gold against Counters, his Patient's Life and his own Credit, to have the Reputation of a Cure which was wrought before he was sent for: As if he were cross-grained and self-willed, and loved to be opposite; Galen and Mr. Loss said, she must not be bled by Lancet; but therefore he will have her bleed by Lancet, and put her to the trouble and smart of it, without any need: As if he were very unhandsome, if not right-down dishonest towards Mr. Loss. He good Man, with great diligence and lucky success upon his industry, had upon the matter cured this Patient; the Mother indeed, out of a mistaken fear of a Consumption, and to gratify the importunity and instigation of her Uncle, did send for another Physician; but there was nothing for him to do, and yet to lessen Mr. Loss his reputation, and cunningly to to share in the Cure, if not also to run away with all the credit of it; Alius Medicus under a pretence of doing something, unworthily undoes what Mr. Loss had done, and no question had injured the Patient as well as the Physician; but that her strength of Body, and his strength of Wit and Parts, scorned it.  
I do not doubt but Mr. Schoolmaster thought that this was a Rod made up of many Twigs, a Whip of several Cords, and that with it he hath lashed and paid off Alius Medicus to the purpose. But the best is he doth not feel it smart yet, for in these Mr. Loss hath only beaten the Air and himself. Ne nihil fecisse videretur, in all these senses is still senseless by being false. 
— has Lossie Culpas,  
Emendare omnes una litura potest.  
Maugre these many faults, with ease a Pen,  
By one cross dash, sets all to rights again.  And I know, that when Alius Medicus was sent for, there was great necessity of doing something, and that all that Mr. Loss had done before was in effect nothing.   

4. His Relation of the Event.  
HE could not help it, he was forced to pass this favourable report of what Alius Medicus had done, that it did the Patient no harm: for he could not well invent what harm to name it; and he thought he could not easily be believed, because in less than a Week, the Patient that was thought dying when Alius Medicus was sent for, was so well as to come down into the dauncing-School, and her Mother carried her home in the Country, where for aught I know she hath been well ever since.  
But Mr, Loss is by no means willing that the Reader should mistake this Event, as if it were caused by any thing that Alius Medicus did; and therefore he hath provided a treble Bolt and double Lock to shut him out from any such Interpretation, as is observable in these five particulars following.  
1. He Benigns the Disease, and is content rather to abate a little of the brag of his own Cure than that this Patient's recovery should be an occasion whereby Alius Medicus should by any body be thought worthy of being taken notice of. The Nature, saith he, of this Disease was Benign, and it was so mild and gentle, that in a manner it went off of itself.  
2. He attributes the main of that Cure which was unto himself, and that before he makes any mention of Alius Medicus.  
3. He will have the great Sweat, which indeed perfected the Cure, to be spontaneous; forgetting that it was occasioned by his allowing her to drink Beer after her purging, against my order, and that there-upon she fell sick again, and that by Bleeding and Purging a great portion of the burden which she groaned under being removed, Nature became Mistress of the Disease, and drove the remains forth by Sweat.  
4. He passeth a direct sentence against Alius Medicus, that all his proceedings were Immethodical and Irrational, enough to satisfy the Reader fully, that he had no share in the Cure.  
5. He magnifies the strength of Nature in this young Lady; had it not been for this, Alius Medicus was so far from doing good, that he had done her hurt. It seems he would have hurt her but she would not be hurt. It seems also that by continuation of her sickness, whereas others grow weaker and weaker, until they be upon recovery; she wonderfully grew stronger and stronger: for in the beginning of her sickness Mr. Loss says she was too weak to bear bleeding by Lancet; and yet on the sixth day, though it was done Irrationally, her strength was greater than to prise it. On the seventh by no means would he admit, if he could have helped it, that she should be purged; no question he thought it very dangerous for so weak a Body, and in such a Disease, and at such a time; but afterwards, notwithstanding such mad bleeding, and purging, and such voluntary large sweeting, enough one would think to have made a well body sick; she was so strong, she contemned all, and of sick grew well. If here be not Contradictions, let the Reader judge.   

5. Alius Medicus his Method of Cure.  
HE knows but of two ways of Answering his Adversary.  
1. To produce sufficient Witness to prove Matters of Fact.  
2. To Answer unto every particular Accusation with Reason and Art.  
It hath been a custom with me, especially in Patients or Diseases of more than ordinary remark, to keep a Diary of my Practice, partly for my Patient's sake, that I may the better understand what should be done for them, or what at any time I have done that they found good in; partly for my own sake, that I might have the surer foundation to build my experience upon in Physic. But I little dreamt of making this further advantage in my Journal of this Case of young Mrs. Moor, as by it to help to prove particulars very material unto my own Case; and to satisfy both myself and others that what I depose, is not out of my Memory, whose unfaithfulness might betray me unto mistakes, but out of my Papers, which I then writ, even the day when I was first called unto this Patient, which was Thursday the 29 th' of April 1669. Examining them and Mr. Loss his Book, I find our Notes did not agree, and although I do not know why my Papers produced, should not be as Authentic for me, as is a Shop-book for a Tradesman; yet in this Case, I thought it more prudent to get some other Testimony, than to confide in the evidence of my own Papers alone. For I did not know but Mr. Loss might have taken Notes too, and if so, what stranger could judge whether his or mine were true? Knowing therefore that it would be to no purpose to go about to build without a foundation, and to vindicate myself from his slanders, without I could produce sufficient witness for matters of Fact; I bethought myself of writing this Letter to Mrs. Moor to whom I have Dedicated my Book, because she is a witness not to be excepted against, as appears by what I have said of her in my Epistle Dedicatory.  
Madam,  
I Humbly beg your pardon, if for my satisfaction I give you the trouble of returning me a particular Answer unto these few Queries concerning your Daughter's being Sick at Dorchester.  
Is her Name Elizabeth?  
Was she sick in Autumn?  
Was her pain in her Side and her Cough in a manner gone when I was sent for?  
Was your sending for me, for fear of a Consumption, and at the instance of your Uncle?  
Did I accuse what Mr. Loss had done?  
Was her Fever and other Symptoms gone when I Bled her?  
Was the Purge I gave her Powder of Sena?  
Your Resolves unto these Questions will highly oblige  
Madam, Your very humble Servant.  
THE ANSWER.  
SIR,  
YOU may well think me very ungrateful, that I have so long been silent; had I received your Letter sooner than last night, I should have before this time answered your reasonable desire.  
My Daughter's Name, which the Lord made you an Instrument of preserving from the Grave, is Bridget.  
Her Sickness to my best remembrance, was either in March or April.  
The pain in her Side continued extremely violent, her Cough as those that have a touch of a Pleurisy continued very much, in so much as I was highly displeased that She had never had any Pectoral drinks; and I ordered the Apothecary's Servant to make some and bring it me, before I got any rest myself.  
My sending for you, was not to satisfy my Uncle; but to discharge my duty: not being satisfied with what had been done before your coming.  
I did not at all at that time fear a Consumption.  
I must profess you never to my knowledge Censured Mr. Loss, or accused him of any thing: but did very modestly desire me not to employ you, telling me you feared what would happen.  
I know you met with some discouragements by language, but you granted my request in taking no notice of it.  
The day when you Bled her, She was so ill, as I and all the Family despaired of her Life; and I remember I asked both yourself and Mr. Loss, if no more were to be done? you told me, that unless a Purge relieved her, you could not tell what to say; only you had hopes that the Scurvy was much of her Distemper, and that gave you hopes that she might do very well again, if Mr. Loss would consent unto a gentle one, that you might try her. He was very stiffly against it, and I remember I thus said, I will try it, my Child is a dead Child in your account, and I will do my utmost for her.  
The Purge was a small quantity of Holland powder, with half an ounce of Manna (in a draught of Pectoral Decoction) Mr. Loss was so angry that he went from me and left her when she had taken it, which was no small trouble to me; you stayed with me. Within half an hour she fell into a quiet sleep, and slept one hour and a half; she than awoke, and vomited and purged, and then slept again; and so after that she had two or three stools more: she presently revived, but being admitted to drink a draught of Beer with a Toast, (this she hath told me since her Letter, was by Mr. Loss his order) grew ill again for two or three hours, than fell into a very great Sweat, and did never burn after, or had any light speeches; and her Urinal was much better. I bless the Lord I brought her home with me in one Week: She hath confessed since, that she got her Distemper, by an extraordinary overmuch heating of her Blood at Play, and drinking cold Beer. She is yet alive, and with myself gives you her thankful service for your very great Care of her.  
Your very Humble Servant, Elizabeth Moor.   

Alius Medicus his Answer unto all Mr. Loss his Accusations. To the First.  
HE After the manner of many others, Accusing all that had been done.  
I conceive that there may be two Reasons, why he hath set this in the front of all his other Accusations.  
1. That he might imitate the craft of some Females, who cry Whore first, and thereby make me the Aggressor and first beginner of the quarrel; which is a matter of no small consequence in the Case.  
2. That disarming me of my Innocence, he might usher in a more easy belief of my being guilty of what he had to say against one that was so undeserving a Person.  
Forasmuch as Backbiting and Slander, were the true impulsive Cause that drove me with indignation to write this Book; not only against this Gentleman, but all other high, and yet low-spirited false and selfish Physicians, that are guilty of this uncharitable and base Practice. Before I give my direct Answer to this first Accusation, I shall take leave;  
1. To Aggravate the fault, and show a little its unhandsomness and unworthiness.  
2. To give some Instances of Mr. Loss his thus dealing with me; whom yet he thus accuseth.  

The unhandsomness of any one Physician's Backbiting or Slandering another Physician.  
It was but a little since urged, that it is unseemly for one Physician to write against another; but how great is the unseemliness when they Backbite and slander one another?  
To speak ill of another behind his back;  
It is a cowardly trick, it comes behind a man and strikes him, as those do that are fuller of malice than manhood; with this advantage, a Coward may conquer the stoutest Champion, and be sole Victor when he thus fights alone; though indeed this is not to fight but to destroy.  
It is a Treacherous perfidious Trick, this Gentleman tells me in his Latin Letter, that he loves me, and honours me, and what not? and yet behind my back, he not only slights, but slanders me.  
An open and bare-faced hostility, is like itself, always held commendable, for its fortitude and valour, strength and prowess; but whisper and backbitings are a Treacherous Poison, deadly, but not seen; felt to the purpose in the evil effects, but not easily found out; for what is delivered as a secret, must be kept as such; and those that are willing to entertain evil thoughts of any one, will never go and tell him out of Love, who suggested them; and if by bandying, it comes about to the ears of him that is slandered, they that tell it him, probably cannot, at least commonly will not, prove it, and produce witness for what they hear say: for who will be so faithful as to give himself the trouble or inconvenience of making the slanderer his Enemy, by discovering and proving him such to his Face for another's good; for few I think are so conscientious as to think themselves concerned in their neighbour's Credit; and that in Charity they are bound when they can, as much to vindicate his Reputation as their own.  
It's below a Gentleman of any Parts or Abilities. He that can work out his own Fortune and raise himself, what need he take the advantage-ground to stand upon another's Ruin?  
It's below a Physician that hath but common honesty and ingenuity; his business is to do what he can towards the saving of his Patient's Life, not to do what he can towards the stabbing of another Physician's Credit; his Practice should lead him to the Charity of curing Sick Bodies, not to the uncharitableness of making Sick Minds, by wounding Men in their Reputation.  
It's infinitely below a Christian, and gives that man the lie, notwithstanding all his loud noise and Profession of Godliness and Piety, that thus wants Charity to his Neighbour. It is unreasonable; for why should one condemn another before he hath answered for himself? And what doth the Censurer know what worth may be in the Censured? If he be sure he be ignorant, is it reasonable therefore to divulg it, and to shame him for that which perhaps he cannot help? No; Let him rather pity him, and help him up, than stamp upon him because he is already on the ground; let him commend him in what is commendable, and let the other alone; he wants buoying up of his Reputation, which of itself without loading will sink fast enough. If one doth not well, well is it for the other if he can do better in the Profession; let him mend the others faults what he can, not make them worse: If he be so able, let him rectify the other in his judgement, that he may do more good in his Calling, not vilify him that he may be able to do none at all, neither to himself nor others. And why should it not be as well one man's due to live by his Profession as another's? why should not either, have as good a repute in the World as he can get? And he that will Labour doth he not deserve his Bread? and why should he not eat it? If either be the better deserving, it should be so in others opinion, not in their own; and he that hath received most should be most humble, as being most indebted, and as sitting higher than those that deserve as well. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Every sin is an act of Ignorance: and it is pity, but it cannot be helped, that any Physician should be esteemed of as the better Physician for being the worse Man; for bragging and vapouring of himself, and vilifying others; whereby he plainly manifests that he is more wickedly ignorant.  
It is a Villainous Trick. Private Slander is a sort of Civil Gunpowder, that blows up whole Families at once; He that thus robs a Man of his Practice, (though I thank God it is not my Case) may sometimes with him famish his Wife and Children; and he deserves their curses against him, as well as their cries.  
Lastly, It is a dangerous Trick both to the Slandered and to the Slanderer.  
To the Slandered, because it strikes at his Credit, which is precious, easily lost, and hardly if ever recovered.  
1. It's Precious; Life is Precious, but a good Name is better than Life, especially if Liuly-hood also goes away with it, as it is many times seen, when a slander falls upon a Man in a Profession, and for it: for external repute is many times of far greater consequence than internal worth. How many are there that with small parts make a great bustle in the World; if their reputation stands but fair, and they themselves be but industrious in their way, affable and obliging in their carriage; whereas great parts if they be once cried down by slanders, they can hardly hold Boat to Wind, or keep their Heads above Water.  
2. It's easily lost. Credit is indeed of great worth, but it is very delicate. It is like a Flower, delightful to look on, pleasant to smell to, and it may be of excellent Medicinal use, but it is easily sullied and deflowered, and when once withered, for  
3. The most part it is gone, and lives no more: It is like a Venice-Glass, bright and clear; but withal fragile, and if once cracked, though it may be soldered or plastered and serve for some use, yet it is despised, undervalved, and in a manner fit for nothing. Credit to men in a Profession, is like Virginity to Women; it enhanseth their price and just esteem mightily; but if it once be lost, how shall it be retrieved?  
People are as ready to catch at slanders, as slies are to light upon a galled place; and they have their impudence to come again, be they never so often beaten off.  
When a Slander hath once taken Air, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, who is able to stop or stay its wildfire from doing mischief? It's like a poisoned Arrow, if it once fetcheth blood, who can keep it from infecting or tainting the Heart? A Man can never therefore be too careful of his credit, he must keep it as the apple of his Eye, many times guarding it when there is no hurt near, but always defending it when it is in danger.  
To the Slanderer; for it's forty to one, but sometime or other Murder will out, and Slander also.  
I cannot easily sit down and imagine with myself any Person so impregnable, so next to impossible to be discovered and convicted, as was Mr. Loss: for being near forty years a Practiser of Physic in one place, he hath had the opportunity of doing Courtesies and Kindnesses to most about him, and hath thereby gained their good will, and being all along a great Professor of Religion amongst those that are perhaps really good, and apt to think others so likewise, he hath gained an easy belief, that whatsoever he says is true; And yet this Oracle of Physic, this piece of starched Honesty and Religion, to speak against whom one told me, was all one as to set my shoulders to heave an house-end, will probably in any place besides Dorchester, and possibly there also be reputed for another Person than he was taken for; for if I mistake not, his passions have so at length befooled him, that his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his meash of denying things being now stopped, quia litera scripta manet, what no man else possibly could have done, he himself I think hath effected, in the discovering of his own slanders, not of me only, but of many other Physicians also, and Apothecaries.   

Instances of Mr. Loss his Slandering of Alius Medicus.  
Some six years since I was sent for to a Person of quality not far from Dorchester, Mr. Loss his Patient; who notwithstanding all that was done for her, continued many days under the torturing pains of a Scorbutic Colic; I than told him, that in my opinion it was high time to give her some ease by an Opiate Medicine, for which she was not yet too weak: he opposed my advice, for fear forsooth that any thing which had Opium in it should further impact the Morbific Matter. I argued that Symptom urgens did indicate as a Cause impairing her strength, which without ease given could not well hold out, until the conjunct cause of the Disease should be removed; and besides, that whilst Nature was thus on the rack and in a rage, no Physic that should remove the Peccant Humour, could work or have its due operation; for Nature must first work on it, and she was at present otherwise employed: but to take off all doubt, I told him that my purpose was to have respect at once both to her strength & the Morbific matter, for I purposed that she should take the Laudanum in a Purging Bolus; with some reluctancy he at last consented; the Event was, that it calmed the enraged Archaeus, as the Chemist's love to speak, and stopped the violent fermentation of the humours, and having first given her great ease, it afterwards gently carried off good part of the Morbific Matter, but not all; for within a small time, the remains, and what was new generated, began again to ferment afresh, and her Torments did return, insomuch, that early in the morning whilst we were both of us in bed together, she sent up her servant to acquaint us with the sadness of her condition; Mr. Loss that had intimated unto me a little before, that I need not be too diligent, my pay would not be answerable, speaking thus of a Family he hath got many a score Pounds by, begins now to give me himself for an example of that Rule he would needs instruct mein; let the Lady therefore toss & tumble and cry out for pain, I saw he could lie quietly and at his ease in bed and let me get up in a cold Winter-Morning, though it was to mind our Patient's ease more than my own. I found her very ill, and by such means as were at hand in her Closet next her Chamber, reposited there I suppose chiefly for charitable uses, she herself by the blessing of God received such help and so great benefit in this her extremity, as pleased her so well, that she bade me write down her Name in my Book for the best Patient I ever had, being a sort of promise that she would be so: and some hours after, when Mr. Loss was got up and come into her Chamber, in my hearing, she bade him get out of her sight, she could not endure him; If this Gentleman, said she, had not arose and come to me, I might have perished for all you. And this I think was the foundation and first beginning of his quarrelling with me: For finding how things went, and what an interest I had gained in this Patient, he begins to think it high time to look about him; and reflecting with himself that some of her nearest Relations were still his fast Friends as well as old Acquaintance, for he had been about twenty years a Physician to the Family, and I never there before; he takes the opportunity of the next returning of her pains, for neither yet was the Disease wholly extirpated, and then when grief and sadness had again seized the Family, whilst I was yet in the house, behind my back he makes his complaint to the Husband and Mother-in-Law, of my irrational proceedings; insinuating, as if what I had done that Morning when he kept his bed, was the repeating of some Opiate which had impacted the Morbific Matter, and was the cause of these her returning torments, adding more expressly words to this purpose, that I had already done more than I could answer, and that if they did not set a spy upon me, I would kill her, I was so venturous: and accordingly forthwith a spy was set to see that I meddled not, or mixed any thing for the Patient. No question but this good man saw in his Bed, if not in his sleep, what Medicines I took down in the Lady's Closet, and how I ordered them; or else the Nurse guessed at them, and told him. But a Gentleman of good Credit, whom I can Name, told me, that he heard him speak to the Husband and Mother, these things he said of me behind my back. Whereupon I went to her Mother, and told her, that I understood what Mr. Loss had said of me, and that as her Daughter's Life was in hazard, which was dear to her, so was my Credit also which was dear to me; upon both accounts I desired her to send for a third Physician. He when he came approved of what I had done, but the Husband would not believe him, so much had Mr. Loss frighted him with my venturousness, until that third Physician brought with him the next day Dr. Willis his Book de Scorbuto then newly come forth, and showed therein the Medicine in effect which I had given, with this commendation, that nothing was like it in such a case as this was, to preserve Life; and then the Husband told me I was in the right, but still my spy was continued upon me, though it's like the young Lady knew it not, so much I think were her Relations afraid, lest the Physician, whom yet probably for the Patient's sake who applauded me, they would not let go, should yet hurt her by his stay. But although Mr. Loss had thus manacled my hands, yet I was not so disingenuous towards him, but helped to contrive a way how to give him his liberty of acting what he had a mind to, which otherwise he could not have had. Nothing was so proper in his Judgement, as Fomenting of the Part; I asked him, in what time he thought this would give her ease? In four or six hours replied he, if she will lie quiet, who yet, alas, would hardly lie still so many minutes. But to further his satisfaction, and to help forward the use of his Fomentation, I used this Stratagem. The young Lady had found so much ease by the Opiate Medicine, that nothing now would satisfy her, but she must have Opium. I asked therefore her Mother, if she had no Pills in the house, and she brought me some Mastich-Pills, of some whereof I made very little Pills, supposing with myself that the young Lady would take them for Laudanum; as soon therefore as the Fomentation was laid on, I gave her a Pill, enjoining her to lie as quiet as possibly she could, and compose herself to sleep, promising her another Pill, if within one hour she slept not. Thus beyond all expectation we kept her tolerably quiet, but not finding the effects of Laudanum, she did find out I presume the honest cheat, and afterwards was disgusted with me also, as I then thought. Not long after, the Fomentations were again prepared, and that night Mr. Loss watched; the next morning very early, her servant comes up and awakes me, and tells me positively that her Mistress was dead, but however I must rise and come to her Master, and finding him not in his own Chamber, I went unto his Ladies, where I find the Mother staying her Daughter's Head, which was quite limber, with one hand, and with the other rubbing her Temples. Mr. Loss standing at the bedsfoot, and dooming that this was not Syncope but Mors. I that was prepossessed with her being dead, though I saw some little life; yet looking upon it as the glimmering only of the Sun going down: I took her Husband aside into the next Chamber, using such discourses as I thought I had been called unto: after a good while returning, and finding all things in their postures as before; I began to think with myself that the Case was not altogether desperate, and therefore went about to the other side of the bed and felt her Pulse, and called up Mr. Loss and told him, if this were the pulse of a dying Lady, I would never trust pulse more. He owned that it was not so very bad, but yet this was Mors. I then asked leave, to lay my hand where her pain use to be, and she started; calling therefore for two Silver-Spoons and the Glass of Cordial, I got some of it into her Mouth, and by degrees she revived and is yet alive; but neither She nor her Husband did ever make use of me afterwards, though they had several times occasion for two Physicians.  
Not long after, I was called to a young Maid in Dorchester, not quite ten years old: when I came there, I learned that she was Mr. Loss his Patient, but the Mother would fain have had me undertaken her cure alone, but I would not do any thing before he was first sent for. Her Disease was a Pleurisy, and I was for Bleeding her, to which he would not give consent because she was not fourteen years old, perhaps because it was his fault it had not been done already. I modestly urged my reasons, but he uncivilly broke from me, and left me with this threat; That I should take it upon my own Shoulders. She did bleed, and did recover, but when he could not fasten any ill Event upon me in the Case, he yet possesses the Parents with the unreasonableness of my Practice, and how that their Daughter would hardly ever recover my bleeding of her; and I was never made use of more in that Family.  
Within a short time happened this Case of young Mrs. Moor, in which I met with some Discouragements by Language from Mr. Loss, but I passed them by; yet after this Patient was recovered, in which still he could not fasten any unluckiness of success behind my back again, he tells Mrs. Moor, (for she herself told it me again, and will witness it,) that she had great reason to give God thanks that her Daughter fell into her great Sweat, (mark the Piety of the Man) for otherwise I had killed her, (mark his Charity unto his Neighbour, in one and the same breath): but she, better like a Christian and a Physician too, made this answer; Nay Doctor I am not of your opinion, for if my Daughter had not been Bled and Furged, how should Nature have been able to have discharged the remains by Sweat?  
These Cases, and another of a young Gentleman, whom he had given over, that was afterward my Patient, and is yet alive, following one the other so successfully, made Mr. Loss so heartily angry with me, that a while after, Mr. Baynard of Cliff being ill, and not finding so much benefit as he wished for by what Mr. Loss had done for him, told him, (for Mr. Baynard himself told it to me again) that upon a settlement of but one piece of Land, he used to have the advice of two or three Lawyers; and his Life being more dear to him than his Estate, he did desire, having heard a good report of me, that I might be joined in Consultation with him: He answered, that he would not join with me any more, I had so abused him in the Case of Mrs. moor's Daughter; he added also such vilifying words as Mr. Baynard cannot deny, and which I do not think fit to print, having by this Book I hope sufficiently proved them false: But they prevailed then so, as to make me lose my Patient.  
I could add other instances, but these are sufficient to prove Mr. Loss his slander of me, and the damage I sustained by them in my Practice, though I do not much matter that, for else I would never have lived thus retired; and in my reputation also, but this I will not so easily part with, except I lose it in my Vindication.  
And now after all this, to Answer directly to this first Accusation, I say;  
I am not conscious of any unworthy slandering of this Gentleman, and I have now owned in print more against him, than ever I related to any one in private, and I am ready to answer unto any particular wherein he shall say I have wronged him. Touching this Case, I knew his temper by those experiences above mentioned, which were before this young Gentlewoman was sick, and therefore was so far from provoking him, that I desired Mrs. Moor to have me excused from meddling in the Case, for I was rather willing to have lost the profit of so generous a Patient, than to have to do with her first Physician: but it being the Mother's earnest desire we should consult, I modestly proposed, and not Magisterially, what I thought best, and told Mrs. Moor that I should not be honest, if being sent for to consult, I should not freely deliver what my judgement was; but having so done, I did not desire that my opinion should out-ballance his, yea I pressed her not to follow my Advice, but rather his; urging that he was both an elder Physician, and her old Acquaintance: but she protesting before us both that in her Judgement, I spoke more reason than he, sided with me against him whether I would or no, telling him then unto his face, that he must lay aside his prejudice; which angered him I believe the more, and put him upon falling thus upon me in print.  
But this first Accusation is evidently and plainly proved to be false, by witness, for it is matter of Fact; and who can better tell, whether I accused all that Mr. Loss had done than Mrs. Moor herself, who was present, and would be so to all our Consultations; and who says in her Letter which I have yet to show: I must profess, that you never to my knowledge censured Mr. Loss, or accused him of any thing; that is, of what had been done.    

To his Second Accusation. Especially that Bleeding by Lancet was neglected.  
THough I did not accuse what was done, yet I could not advise bleeding of her by Lancet, without tacitly blaming what was left undone. Turning therefore this Accusation of Mr. Loss from me upon himself, what I did not uncivilly before, I do now directly accuse him for, even that bleeding by Lancet was neglected; and the reasonableness hereof will appear in these three Propositions well understood and proved.  
1. A Child under fourteen years old may be bled by Lancet.  
2. This Gentlewoman, young Mrs. Moor, might have been bled by Lancet.  
3. Mr. Loss was to blame that she was not bled by Lancet before the sixth day.  

1. That a Child under fourteen years old may be bled by Lancet.  
This I prove three ways, by Reason, by Authority, and by Experience.  
By Reason.  
Where there may be a Plethora, be it quoad vasa, or quoad vires, there bleeding by Lancet may be appointed, if weakness of strength do not contraindicate:  
But there may be a Plethora, whether ad vasa or vires, in a Child under fourteen years old, and yet no weakness of strength to contraindicate;  
Therefore a Child under fourteen years old may be bled by Lancet.  
If the strength do not contraindicate by being too weak, the Age cannot, for that is a consideration subservient to strength, and it never prohibits bleeding but upon this account, that a person of such an Age, is not able to bear so noble a Remedy as bleeding by Lancet. Now some Persons of ten, are as strong as others at fifteen; and some at sixty as others at fifty. Although therefore the consideration of tender Age, and of evacuating much by insensible transpiration, aught to take place in a Physician's enquiry after the strength of his Patient; yet if the strength be still good, the Age is inconsiderable. Sicut enim unum tantum ab una indicatur, it a unum uni tantum contraindicat; and since, virium imbecillitas is the one Contraindicans to Venaesection, the Age cannot be another Contraindicans.  
By Authority.  
Riverius in his Institutions Lib. 5. Part 1. Sect. 3. Cap. 3. answers directly unto Mr. Loss his Quotation of Galen touching this point, viz. Vires in pueris sunt it a debiles, ut vix ferre queant Venaesectionem, Pueri enim corpus habent molle, tenerum, & patens, quod sponte suâ assidu● digeritur, & diffluit. Ideo Hippocr. 4. de Victus Ratione in morbis acutis, aetatem florentem cum magnitudine morbi & virium robore, ad sanguinis missionem requiri praecipit, quem secutus Galenus 11. Meth. Cap. 14. ante annum decimumquartum venam secare vetat. Quod de pleniori illâ veteribus consuetâ vacuatione audiendum est, nam moderatam quae viribus & plenitudini aut par aut inferior sit omnis fere aetas ferre potest: si vegeta & robusta sit aetas enim non tam annorum numero, quam habitus & virium robere metienda est, quod eleganter Celsus confirmavit Lib. 2. Cap. 10. Antiqui, inquit, primam aetatem sustinere non posse hoc auxilii genus, judicabant, postea vero usus ostendit, potiores observationes adhibendas esse, ad quas dirigi curantis Consilium debeat, interest enim non quae aetas sit, sed quae vires sint; ideo firmus puer tuto curatur; sic Avenzoar Filio suo trino se utiliter venam secuisse commemorat & nos plerunque experimur pueros 4to aut 5to anno aetatis a gravissimis morbis venaesectione liberari.  
Strength in Children is so weak that they can hardly bear opening of a Vein: for Children have a soft, tender, and patent Body; which daily and of itself digests and dissolves: Therefore Hypocrates in his 4 th' of Diet in acute Diseases, commands that there be required to the opening of a vein a flourishing Age with the greatness of the Disease and the strength of Nature: and Galen following him in his 11 th' of Meth. the 14 th' Chapter, forbids such bleeding before fourteen years of age. But saith Riverius this is to be understood of that large bleeding so much in use amongst the Ancients. For almost every Age can bear that moderate bleeding, which is equal if not inferior to the strength and Plethora in the Patient, if he be strong and lusty of his Age. For Age is not so much to be reckoned by the number of the years, as by the habit of Body, and its strength. That which Celsus elegantly confirms in Chap. 10. Book 2. The Ancients (says he) were of opinion, that the first Age of Man could not bear this sort of Remedy, but use afterward showed, that there were other considerations more eligible, according unto which the advice of the Physician ought to be directed. For the concern is not what a Patient's Age is, but what his strength is: Therefore a strong Child is safely Cured. Thus Avenzoar makes mention of his successful bleeding his own Son at three years old; and we find by experience, that Children of four or five years old do by bleeding most commonly escape dangerous Diseases.  
The same Author likewise, in his Praxis and Chapter of a Pleurisy, says thus: Adeo necessaria est Venaesectio in principiò, ut nunquam omitti debeat, nedum in seen, puero, gravidâ puerpera, & menstruas purgationes Patienti, docuit ènim Experientia, hisce omnibus utilissimam fuisse Venaesectionem presente hoc morbo.  
So necessary is opening of a Vein in the beginning of a Pleurisy, that it must never be omitted, no not in an old Man, or Child, or Woman with Child, or that hath her Terms: for Experience doth teach us, that in all these in this Disease, opening of a Vein hath been most profitable.  
By Experience.  
It is not long since that I knew a Girl not five years old, that fell into an Atrophy, a mere wasting and pining away, without any Symptoms of a Consumption or Phthisis; she was too young forsooth to be bled, and all other means were to no purpose, for she died, and upon the opening of her Body, her Liver was found so largely grown, as to outweigh the Spleen seventeen times. Now whether the Liver be the Fons Sanguinis, or the Heart, or neither, but that every Bowel contributes its office towards the making of the Blood, yet since the Liver by separating the Choler into the Gall, sweetens the Blood much, and that sweetness helps to increase both Liver and Blood, as also doth the absence of the acid ferment from the Spleen; and I am prone to think, that the Helluo the Blood eat her up, and caused such an over-fast growing of the Liver, as starved the Spleen and other parts. Should another such a Case offer itself of such a Plethora, would any rational man forbid bleeding until the Child were fourteen years old, of which there is no likelihood it should live until seven? I am sure I did not in a Brother to this Sister, about seven years old, that not long after was treading in her steps, and making haste apace unto the same end; but being forewarned, I bled him, and I never saw more advantage by bleeding befall a Man, than happened unto this Child; his recovery was so speedy and his health so good ever since, as those then about him can witness.  
I might instance also in the two abovementioned Experiences, wherein Mr. Loss himself can bear me witness of successfulness of bleeding under fourteen years of Age.  
Yet by all this which I have said, I do not mean that I would encourage any Physician to be rash and venturous, one that should hand-over-head pellmell bleed all younger Patients as readily as Men, without due consideration of their tender Age: but I only urge from what I have written, That there may be a time, wherein it may be necessary to bleed a Child by Lancet under fourteen years old.   

2. That this Gentlewoman, young Mrs. Moor might be bled by Lancet.  
Here were several Indications for Bleeding, and Coindications, and there were no Contraindicantia nor Correpugnantia.  
The Indications.  
Here was Plethora quoad vires, such a fullness of Humours in the Mass of her Blood, as Nature could not rule well or manage, so as to preserve them in their due Temperament and Mixture, from separating and corrupting, and therefore to remove this Morbific Cause, and to disburden the Body of a good share of that load it was pressed under, that so Nature might the better comport with the remainder, and by degrees master and subdue the Disease; opening of a Vein was requisite.  
Here was also need of Revulsion from a weak Part, and Revulsion did Indicate Bleeding: for this Patient was represented to me when I first visited her, as a Child always Sickly, Splenetic, and Scorbutic; and having her left Side weak by being Splenetic, and pained in her left Breast more or less for two years before she fell sick. Formerly she was obnoxious to Catarrhs, and now also there was a flux of Humours in the mass of Blood flowing to her left Side, part of the inflamed Blood had already got thither, and lodging itself within the Pleura and Vicine Muscles, caused in her a Symptomatical Pleurisy, and there was great fear lest that inflammation should increase farther, and therefore as bleeding was principally Indicated by the Plethora, so was it likewise accidentally Indicated by Revulsion.  
Here was Heat likewise, that did Indicate accidentally the opening of a Vein, in order unto the cooling her whole Body which was in a flame, she having a putrid Scorbutic Fever for her principal Disease. Now this Preternatural Heat and Fire was to be put out, and bleeding would help upon two accounts.  
1. By it, part of the Fire, even part of the Inflamed Blood might be taken away.  
2. By it, Insensible Transpiration (whose Evacuation alone, is greater far than all the sensible together, as Sanctorius observs in his Medicina Statica) might be promoted, the Pores of the skin opened, whereby the Heat might breathe forth, and perhaps the cold Air get some ways in. These Pores were before as it were wedged up with the plenty of Humours, as is sometimes a Church-door by a throng of People, each hindering another from getting forth; but bleeding might unwedg them, by letting some out another way, and giving Nature room to drive forth what was superfluous by an open and free Transpiration, as was also effectually done in this Patient, who not long after fell into a great universal Sweat, which completed her Cure.  
The Coindications.  
Some were taken from her Naturals, and some from her Non-Naturals.  
To her Naturals did belong her  
1. Strength: This was good even Mr. Loss himself being Judge: so good, as nothing could hurt.  
2. Habit of Body: For lean people are generally fuller of Blood, and have larger vessels than those that are fat and gross; their Blood also wants more sweetening: and  
3. Her Age: Though it was not fourteen, yet was it about four.  
It seems noways unagreeable to Reason, to assert that one and the same thing, may both Contraindicate and Coindicate bleeding, as it is diversely considered. For example; He that considers of age under fourteen years that it is tender, and wastes very much by the pores, or habit of Body, may so far look upon it as a Contraindicans, as not to bleed in such an age, except there be great need and good strength, for fear the Patient should not be able to bear two large Evacuations at once. And thus Mr. Loss seems to have considered this Patient's Age: but notwithstanding this, if need requires and strength will bear bleeding in a Patient not fourteen years old; this Age as it intimates predominancy of Blood, it may coindicate bleeding; and this Mr. Loss seems not to have considered of at all; though it be evident, that this Age is one sign of the Predominancy of Blood, for Riverius in Cap. de Signis Sanguinis in Corpore Predominantis, amongst the efficient Causes of it, reckons this Age for one, Aetatem a Pueritia usque ad pubertatem. Now Childhood in a large sense is one of the four stages of the Life of Man, Youth, middle-Age, and old-Age being the other three. And this stage of Childhood is subdivided into four parts: Infancy lasts till four years old, some say until seven: Pueritia or Boy-hood lasts from seven to fourteen: Puberty from fourteen to eighteen, and Adolescency from eighteen to twentyfive. Pueritia therefore from seven to fourteen years old, is an efficient Cause of the blood's Predominancy in the Body, for the Temperament now is hot and moist, and so is the Bloods; Children also do eat much, and being full of play and exercise, they generally digest well, and they have neither cares nor fears nor any inordinate passions to waste or drink up their Blood, at least its Life and Spirits; so that this Patient's not being fourteen years old, at which Mr. Loss hath ignorantly made all this stir, did in truth more Coindicate than Contraindicate her bleeding.  
4. Her Part Affected, which besides her Heart, was her Pleura or Side; which being a Membranous part, in its Substance and Temperament Spermatick, not Sanguifick, having exquisite Sense, and in its situation being neighbour unto the Heart, a part that upon all these accounts was very unfit to have any Blood, much less inflamed Blood poured out upon it, did also Coindicate Bleeding; partly that it might be relieved from what it already suffered, by having strength to discuss or concoct it whilst it was not much; partly that it might be delivered from the imminent danger of new hot Blood flowing unto it, by a Revulsion of it with bleeding.  
To her Non-Naturals did belong;  
1. The Air to which belongs the time of the year when she lay sick, It was in the Spring, a Season most seasonable for bleeding; for like the Sap rising in the Trees, our Blood also Ferments afresh; the Time itself being hot and moist, and the return of the Sun towards us gives us a sort of new Life and Spirits. Besides, The approaching Summer gives something of encouragement to venture bleeding, because in it we may the better hope for a fit Time to recover in, if we should lose a little strength by bleeding.  
2. Eating and Drinking.  
This young Lady drank cold Beer when she was hot, by which sudden alteration, that motion which Nature was then in, a centro ad Circumferentiam, her Body being in a Sweat, was inverted a Circumferentia ad Centrum, the Spirits retiring upon this Alarm inwards, whither also by this means were carried all, or most of those Superfluities, which before were reaking forth and passing per habitum Corporis: hereupon she fell into a Fever, and because her left Side was weak, by default in her Spleen by Catarrhs falling on her left Breast, and by use and Custom of Humours falling formerly to the Issue in her left Arm: with the Fever she fell into a Pleurisy in that side, which doth Coindicate bleeding, as the Cure of it.  
3. Motion and Rest.  
To her Motion did belong her overheating of her Blood at play by too violent exercise: This also as a cause of her Fever and Pleurisy, did Coindicate the Remedy of them, bleeding.  
4. Passions of the Mind.  
Her being merry and cheerly and full of play, did contribute also unto the increase of her Blood, and in some small measure coindicate bleeding.  
Contraindicantia, here were none.  
The Reader may please to take notice, that Indicantia and Contraindicantia, do belong to things Preternatural, which can be none other than these three; The Cause of the Disease, the Disease, and the Symptoms.  
I have already above showed, that the Disease, and the Cause of the Disease did Indicate bleeding by Lancet; let Mr. Loss show how either of them did Contraindicate bleeding by Lancet in this Patient. What concerns the Symptoms they do never Indicate or Contraindicate as such; indeed when they urge, they are considered of as a Cause; and so weak strength, as a Cause of increasing the Disease, doth many times Contraindicate bleeding, but that cannot be pleaded here.  
Coindicantia and Correpugnantia, do belong to things Natural or Non-natural, even unto all such as are either Causes or Signs of a Patient's Strength. I have showed above, that there were Coindicantia of bleeding this Patient; let Mr. Loss again produce the Correpugnantia.  
Juvantia and Ledentia, are very good Topics, by which may be proved in a good measure, the agreeableness or unagreeableness of any Remedy made use of, and the success in this Case is not to be disputed.  
And by this time I hope I have sufficiently proved my second Proposition, that this young Gentlewoman might be bled by Lancet.   

3. That Mr. Loss was to blame that she was not bled by Lancet before the sixth day.  
To quit himself I think from this fault, was I suppose, the main reason he opposed my bleeding her. The sooner one bleeds in a Disease that doth require it, the better; for why should a Disease be suffered to take rooting, or to grow to an height and hazard a Patient's Life, if it may be prevented?  
But this Patient's Disease did require opening a Vein. Therefore Mr. Loss was to blame, it was not done before the sixth day.  
I do not know that the Major needs any Proof.  
The Minor hath been proved already. And Mr. Loss doth confess that he did think of bleeding this Patient in the beginning (if we may believe him) for, saith he, Venaesectio summum in Pleuritide commodum afferre solet; Bleeding in a Pleurisy, useth to be very advantageous. His only obstacle was, that the Patient was not fourteen years old: but that was in truth no obstacle, as hath been proved.  
In the beginning of this young lady's sickness, there was none other Physician but Mr. Loss: there was then no animosity or prejudice against any other Physician, for to his Cure alone her Life was recommended, and no body disturbed or hindered him from doing what he thought best; that he did not therefore bleed her by Lancet, cannot be well attributed unto any thing else, but to his ignorance; he did not know that a Vein might be opened in a Child under fourteen years old, or if he did, he was yet more to blame. And thus much for his Second Accusation.    

To his Third Accusation. That the bleeding of her by Leeches, which had been appointed, was of no moment.  
WE have an English Proverb, Better is half a Loaf than no Bread; and it is true also, if we cannot do as we would, we must do as we can: Where the Lancet may not be had, I never said bleeding by Leeches was of no moment; but I do say in this Case it was but of little moment. For it was not a Salve large enough for the Sore, nor a Remedy answerable and proportionable to the Disease, whose greatness and nimbleness did not require bleeding for simple Evacuation only, but for speedy Revulsion also; which could not so answerably be performed by the faint droppings of a Leech, as by the full stream of a Lancet. The inflamed Blood was in a carreir, flowing on apace with a full tide, to this Patient's weak Side; some had got already into the Pleura, and there caused a Pleurisy, and more was following, called thither by the anguish of a pricking pain in a very sensible Membrane, sent thither by the opening of a vent that way; would any one think that the fleabite of a Leech in the Arm, would turn such a course of Blood? or that Nature (though in a mistake) being in her haste upon an errand of life and death, would probably stay to take notice of the little barkings or bite of the small Curs the Leeches. No, but if by a Lancet such a breach be made, or so wide a door opened, that within a small time the blood, and with it the life, might quickly run out; upon such an Alarm indeed it may be reasonably supposed, that by letting forth but four or five ounces, the stream may turn, and Nature be so highly concerned, as to neglect a lesser danger, the relieving of the side, to prevent a greater, the losing of life; or quà data porta ruit; the Blood running out faster by the Arm, than into the Side, the stream must needs go that way where there is most vent: whereas by Leeches, a man's life may leisurely and insensibly drop away without any notice almost. And I pray of what great benefit could be Mr. Loss his bleeding of this Patient by Leeches, when-as notwithstanding she continued so ill, that all the Family despaired of her Life?   

To his Seventh Accusation. Taking away, that he might not seem to do nothing, about four ounces of Blood.  
IT is evident that he condemns me for not observing that requisite in bleeding, a due Quantity; but it is not so evident whether he finds fault that it was too much or too little.  
If the Fever and other Symptoms were gone the sixth day before I bled her, there was no need of bleeding at all, and then four ounces was too much; but it lies upon Mr. Loss to prove that the Fever and other Symptoms were then gone.  
I ●●ther think he means it was too little, because he adds that it was done merely to appear to do something: and to this I answer three things;  
1. That Mr. Loss himself the day before did acquiesce in so small a quantity as five ounces, taken away by the Leeches which he applied to the left Arm. And the having lost five ounces then, I think according unto his own proportion, abating but one ounce of as many more, the day following four ounces were enough.  
2. For the same Reasons for which Mr. Loss durst not bleed her at all by Lancet, it was reasonable that I should not by bleeding take any great quantity from one that was not yet fourteen years old.  
3. As little as four ounces seems to be, being let out by Lancet in the right Arm, it is reasonable to believe they might make some Revulsion from the left Pleura, which was the very Intention for which they were, there, and so let out.   

To his Sixth Accusation That the Manner of bleeding was amiss. It ought to have been done by Leeches, but it was done by Lancet.  
THere needs none other Answer to this, than what is already given to the Third Accusation: for if his bleeding by Leeches, neither in Reason could, nor in Fact did do much good, the Lancet was evidently more eligible and preferable.   

To his Fourth Accusation. That the time of bleeding her was not seasonable, it was on the sixth day of the Disease, when the Fever and other Symptoms were gone.  
THE time of Bleeding a Patient, aught to be determined by the presence of the Indicantia, and by the absence of the Prohibentia; for one may then bleed a Patient, when bleeding is requisite and indicated, when strength will bear it, and when nothing forbids it, so as to threaten a likelihood of more hurt than good by it.  
It's true, nearer the beginning of the sickness, had been the best time to have bled this Patient upon several accounts, and Mr. Loss might have done it, but I was not called before this sixth day; and therefore could not do it earlier. But bleeding in a Pleurisy is not forbidden after the first five days, as if it might not be done so late as the sixth day: for saith Riverius in his Chapter of a Pleurisy.  
Venaesectio in principio morbi praecipuè confert, si tamen omissa fuerit, aut insufficienter celebrata, etiam post septimum, novem, aut undecimum diem venam secare licet.  
Bleeding especially profits in the beginning of the Disease, but if it be then omitted, or not enough performed, you may bleed after the seventh, ninth, or eleventh day: that is, if the Patient be able to bear it.  
Now this sixth day she had not at all been bled by Lancet, and Mr. Loss his bleeding her by Leeches was not sufficient, the Indicantia and Coindicantia did still remain, and there was no such decay in her strength as to forbid bleeding; therefore even now the sixth day she might be bled, unless a Crisis had been towards health expected the next day, but there was no reason to hope for any such thing, the dies Indices did not forwarn, nor Mr. Loss mention, that he expected a Crisis, for indeed Nature still groaned under the burden of the Disease, so far she was from being Mistress of it; for the Disease was likely to grow stronger every day, and more and more to threaten the hazard of the Patient's Life. And why I pray did I do amiss to bleed her on the sixth day, since I could not do it sooner, and durst not put it off longer?  
Touching the other part of this Accusation, That I bled her then when the Disease was gone. It is an egregious untruth: Mrs. Moor, and all the Family where she lay sick, can witness, that all that time she was so sick that they all despaired of her life. And let Mr. Loss blush when he reads this, That a Gentleman of his Age and Gravity, so great a Professor of Religion and companion of good men, so Ancient a Practitioner of Physic, so curious and formal in punctilios and trifles; should be so wicked as to invent, so foolish as well as impudent, as to put forth in print such a material forgery to honour himself and dishonour Alius Medicus, as can be contradicted and proved a lie, in the Town where he hath lived near forty years, by several Persons that were then with this sick Patient: and that he should be so simple, as to contradict himself in the delivering of it: for, If this Patient had now no Disease, how was this the sixth day of the Disease?   

To his fifth Accusation. That this Patient was not bled in the Right Place.  
From the right Basilick Vein of the opposite side, that which Fuchsius says is an Error.  
THat I bled this Patient in the right Arm, I do not deny, nor yet that Mr. Loss opposed me; in the Consultation I told him, that to satisfy Revulsion, (meaning proper Revulsion, not that which is a sort of derivation) it ought to be in the contrary Arm, but he told me, that whether it were for Revulsion or Derivation, it must be in the same Side where the Pleurisy is. And because I was not of his opinion, he urged against me the Authority of Sennertus, at which I wondered, and told him, if I understood Latin, Sennertus was against him; and the next day, Mr. Hern a Divine, at whose House the Patient lay sick, coming to my study to ask if she might drink Beer with a Toast after her Physic: I than showed him Sennertus, and in him the Figure engraven on purpose to show the difference of bleeding for Revulsion and for Derivation, and we did both admire that he should so mistake an Author which himself quoted. But it seems, having since studied upon the point, though he quoted Sennertus, his meaning was the most Learned Fuchsius.  
For my part, I do not intend to trouble myself or the Reader, with a dispute so well and so largely handled by Sennertus, who hath taken the pains to relate the opinions of near thirty several Authors touching this point, and amongst them Fuchsius is one, and yet Sennertus holds for me.  
I shall only tell the Reader what Reason I had to bleed this Patient in the contrary Arm.  
I took my Indication for bleeding her, from the Putrid Fever which was her principal Disease, and not principally from her Pleurisy which was Symptomatical.  
Now the Putrid Fever did not Indicate bleeding, either for Revulsion or Derivation, but Evacuation only; That part of the putrid and corrupt Blood might be carried off, which did burden Nature, and make her unable to manage the mass of Humours in the Vessels: and this Evacuation might be performed as well in the right Arm as in the left. But beside the Putrid Fever, I had to consider of in this Patient a Symptomatical Pleurisy in her left Side, and that which made Mr. Loss so fierce for bleeding on that Side was in my judgement a main reason for the contrary: for seeing bleeding for the Fever, might be indifferently done in either Arm, who would have chosen to have done it in the left, thereby drawing the Humours more to the weaker side, weak formerly as hath been mentioned, and now much more so, by the inflammation of the Pleura on that Side, and not rather in the right Arm, by which at once Revulsion was made from the Pleura inflamed, and Evacuation of the putrid and inflamed Blood fully as well, if not better performed, than in the left Side: so that what Mr. Loss allegeth as my fault that I bled her in the right Arm, would have been my fault, if following his counsel I had done it in the left.  
I know well that bleeding in a Pleurisy is usually in the same Side, and I have many times so Practised, when I had no fear of any great Plethora, or of the flowing of Humours to the part especially weak before, and when the Pleurisy was more urgent than the Fever. But at this time, here was no Pleurisy at all, if we may believe Mr. Loss, and yet angry he is, that I would not help to bring it again, by drawing the Humours what I could to her weak Side,  
I could fill up much Paper upon this subject, but I am not willing to anticipate Mr. Loss his Reply, he may perhaps pick much meat out of this Goose-Eye: yet My comfort is, that although I am for the opposite Side, hitherto, as luck would have it, it hath been for the right.   

To his Eighth Accusation, That I Purged her.  
He gave her powder of Sena, by which she was six or seven times Purged.  
THis is the first of those faults he finds concerning Purging of her. That I did Purge her.  
In the Consultation he would by no means give way that this Patient should be purged, for fear a Diarrhaea should happen; and he was so angry when the Purge was given, that he went from Mrs. Moor and left her to her great discomfort.  
There can be no greater reasons to be given that I know of, why a Physician should purge his Patient than these. Here were Indications, Coindications, and there were non-considerable Contraindicantia or Correpugnantia.  
As Plethora quoad vires did indicate her bleeding, so did Cacochymia her purging, that the foulness of the first region, and her abundance of Choler might not still add fuel to her inflamed Blood, but be removed; her strength and bilious Temperament did coindicate. I need not be so punctual in this particular of her purging; because I have been so above in that of her bleeding.  
Mr. Loss seems to oppose two Contraindicantia unto this which I did.  

Obj 1. The Disease itself inasmuch as he judged that it was a Pleurisy, did forbid purging.  
Resp. I do readily acknowledge that a Pleurisy as such doth forbid purging; for that is not the immediate way to remove the inflamed Blood from the Pleura, nor yet any corruption that is there gathered. The Conjunct Cause of a Pleurisy must be either evacuated by bleeding, dispersed or expectorated, and purging seems a contrary motion. But yet I say, That in the Cure of all Diseases, the first Indication that is to be satisfied by them that understand the Art, though sillily neglected here by Mr. Loss, is the removing of the Antecedent Cause. He spent all his shot at the conjunct cause, the asswaging of the pain in her Side, and the helping of her expectoration, and was so far from bleeding her by Lancet and purging her, that he did not only neglect them himself; but was so ignorant, as to find fault with another in print for doing them; & thereby discover his own want of skill. Had he understood himself aright, he would not have been so mad, as to have hazarded his Patient's Life, by acquiescing in his safe Medicines; his Emollient and cooling clyster, Fomentation, Cataplasm, Linctus, etc. & in the interim to suffer the opportunity of Cure, and the strength of his Patient worn out by sickness, to pass away. But this is his safe way of Practice for which he hath been long famous; storing his Patient with Juleps, Almond-Milks, Pearle-Water, that is, a little Cordial-water with a little Cinnamon-water, & sweetened with Manus Christi perlata: and let these that thus admire him, use him still. But with what reason can any Physician approve his this way curing of a Pleurisy, whilst the Fever was yet permitted to rage? or who besides him, could have been so confident of success in expectorating the Conjunct Matter, whilst yet the Antecedent 'Cause was so busy? When Nature concocts, she is at leisure, and is Mistress of the Disease, that which I cannot understand imaginable, until the burden of Humours be first taken off by purging. And therefore it is, that they which please to read the Practice of Physicians in the Cure of a Pleurisy, will find that in it they many times prescribe purging as well as bleeding, though it be not the principal Remedy, and respect not the Conjunct Cause but the Antecedent.   

Obj. A Diarrhaea might happen.  
Resp. I am yet to learn what great reason Mr. Loss had to be afraid of a Diarrhaea; there was here no real fear of a Consumption, Mr. Loss says so, and blames the Patient's Mother for it; neither was the Patient so weak, as if a looseness, if it did befall her, should make an end of her, alas, she was able to bear any thing, and contemn it. And why I pray should possibile contingens, that is both future and uncertain, weigh-down the Indication of a present Morbific Cause, that doth actually endanger the Patient's Life? This is all one, as to leave a Patient whilst an enemy is upon him, and stabbing him, and to run forth to meet forsooth another enemy that is afar off, who if he comes, may possibly do him some mischief;— Furor est ne moriare mori. And it is not reason, but madness, to let a Patient die of this Disease without rescue, for fear he should die by a future contingent Symptom.    

To his Ninth Accusation. The Seventh day he Purged her.  
IT is confessed Purging is forbid on a Critical day. When Nature is both busy and able about her own work, she ought not to be interrupted and disturbed by Art, which like an handmaid ought to wait upon her motions, and not to prescribe her which way she shall walk. But it is not confessed that the seventh day of every Disease is Critical; for in many Diseases there is no Crisis at all; and although the seventh day of a Fever is many times Critical, it is not therefore always such a Sabbath that it is a profaning of it, if a Physician gives then his Patient working Physic; for if Nature on a seventh day be not able but impotent, and the Disease prevails, what disturbance I pray is it to help her off with her burden, especially whilst she is able to comport with the trouble of removing it? otherwise indeed a Physician ought not to defame so noble a Remedy, but to leave that Patient to his Destiny, whom to help it is as much in vain, as it is to pull-up a snuff in a Lamp that will go out if you touch it. But that was not the case here, for here was excellent and invincible strength; only the number of the Enemies that were upon the Patient were too many. But we must not forsooth help Nature, no not on her own day when she would willingly help herself if that she could, but then, when she most needs, treacherously leave her unto herself, and the enemies with all their force upon her and against her.  
Had Nature had the better of the Disease, so that this seventh day I was to have expected a Crisis, Mr. Loss should have told me, that on the fourth ●ay, (for I was not there) which is dies index septimi, there were signs of concoction, and a forewarning of a Crisis, and that therefore I must not purge her: but not a word of any such thing in the Consultation; and had there been, the bleeding of her the day before, might have altered the case; only he had a mind to publish me for so ignorant a Practicant, as on the seventh day to give a Purge, as if Critical or not Critical, all days were alike to me, that had neither Method nor Reason in my Practice, as Mr. Loss observes.   

To his Tenth Accusation. He gave her Powder of Sena.  
THE precedent Accusation respected the Time when, this Medicine wherewith; all whose fault is, that I know of, that it's so simple: for this Gentleman seems to have designed to have set me forth every way for a most pitiful Physician, one that had neither method nor reason in his Practice, and as to the Materia Medica, the height of his skill was to arrive unto no more knowledge, than that a little Powder of Sena would purge; which weighed with the many Recipes, which himself hath set down at large in his Book, and which particularly he prescribed for this Patient, are in no ways comparable. My Answer is, that how mean soever it was, it did the work, and the slighter the means, I think the greater was the Art. Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri potest per pauciora. And in my opinion, that Physician is most judicious and best understands himself, and learns more experience by his own Practice, that confines himself ordinarily to a few Medicines, and that never makes use of a compound, where a simple will serve turn. It's true, People are apt to slight all things which they know, and to admire those things only which they do not understand, and this fills the apothecary's Shops; but were there more honesty in some Physicians, and less simplicity in some Patients, a less pompous way of prescribing would serve turn. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. It is not great that is always good, but good is always great. And Mr. Loss hath no great reason over much to slight so simple a Medicine as Sena; for besides that it hath helped him to get many a Fee from others, he may also chance to want it to purge away his own Melancholy.  
If this Answer of Alius Medicus doth not satisfy Mr. Loss or others, he cannot help it, and must rest content, that for the present it satisfies himself, who resolves yet to conclude very amicably with his Adversary to whose person he bears no ill will, and in his own words, the Tables changed; Haec licet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & sine ratione instituta, nullo tamen alterius Medici damno, quod vires ubi valentes sunt; quales oportet sint in Alio Medico, omnia contemnunt & tolerant; ubi infirmae fuerint, a quovis facilè offenduntur?   
FINIS.   

Mr. Loss his Letter to Alius Medicus.  
Clarissime D ne. Doctor.  
CErtis Autoribus non semel ad me perlatum est, Te conscripto contra me vernaculâ linguâ nescio quo libello, Stomachum in me erumpere, quod obliquo te in observatiunculis meis, ut putas, calamo perstringam. Mirantur mecum omnes, quotquot libellum istum viderunt, & ne unus quidem probat praeceps hoc consilium tuum, summopere tibi obfuturum, & nomini tuo, si recte consideraveris, plurimum detracturum. Tibi enim respondere & reponere mihi necesse erit. Ut ut sit, Immodici amoris argumentum est, temere de amico suspicari. Equidem te amo, & honorifice de te semper sensi & locutus sum, rerumque tuarum studiosissimus famam & existimationem tuam pro virili sum tuitus; nemo sane est omnium, in quem magis, quam in te, mea sit & semper fuerit propensa benevolenti●. Utinam eodem modio mihi responderes, qui nescio quo malevolo & depravato in me affectu, vehementer semper conatus es, famae meae, quantum in te est, detrectare, clientes meos alieno in me animo reddere, meque si fieri possit praxi mea medica, exiguâ quidem & admodum frigida, totum exuere, dum operam meam desiderantibus persuades, me cum aliis Medicis in consultationem venire penitus recusare. Inique sane. Etsi enim quandoque praestet unico saltem Medico uti, nunquam tamen cuiquam, quod sciam, multa minus tibi, imo nec aliis teipso Doctrina & judicio vel inferioribus, vel superioribus etiam, hoc ipsum quo me immerentem accusas, denegavi. Opinionem saepe aliorum, fateor, magisterie obtrusam, illotis manibus sine debito examine recipere, recusavi, consultationes nunquam. Forsan ex tuo ingenio me judicas. Tantum sane abest ut eas averser, ut eas non tantum necessarias, sed & tum Medicis, tum aegris semper summe utiles judicarim. His docti ab indoctis discernuntur. Siquidem venerandus noster e Coo senex, primo acutorum dicit, quod materiis iisdem, ad victus rationem pertinentibus, tam boni, quam mali Medici utantur, sanguinem quoque mittant, purgent, cordialia exhibeant, & alia; ob id quis melior sit, vulgus discernere nequit, neque novit, quinam tempestive & debito modo praesidiorum materias aegris adminis●re●t, & quinam citra haec. Imo, quod magis est, observant nullum esse Medicum in cujus manu non sanentur aut moriantur aegrotantes. Qui vero vel Medici diligentia sanatus fuerit, vel ejusdem culpa perierit, discernere nesciunt idiotae. Consultationes itaque necessariae, ut appareat, qui sint artis periti, qui imperiti. His add, quod cum consultationes fiant de rebus illis, quae ut plurimum eveniunt, incertae tamen sunt, quomodo evadant, qualia sunt remedia, quae licet ut plurimum prodesse consueverint, saepe tamen ob materiae medicae varietatem, morborumque conditiones, quae saepe multiplices sunt, graves, obscurae, confusae, quandoque novae, imprimis vero individuorum proprietates, quis non videt consultoribus opus esse, ut in aliis magni momenti rebus, in quibus nobis ipsis diffidemus. Plures prudentes simul convocati longe melius percipiunt, quae agenda sunt, quam unus, juxta tritum illud, plus vident oculi, quam oculus & poeta inquit, quod tu nescis, fortassis novit ocellus. Sic Medicus sese internecionis crimine purgabit, aegri vero obtemperando facilius convalescent. Palmarium sane est omnium Medicorum, praesertim vero summos in salutis humanae praeside arte Medicinae honores adeptorum munus, ut aegros communi consilio adjuvent. Unde & in ipso inaugurationis actu pileo capiti imposito donantur, intus quidem, qua parte caput ambit, rotundo, quod ea figura capiti conveniat, ut scil. in eam capsulam non solum immensos doctrinarum Thesauros reconditos habeant, sed & opibus nunquam perituris indies adaugeant; Extra vero quadrata figura conspicuo, ut a quatuor Angulis in idem centrum convenientibus, tanquam symbolo admoneantur: ut quando opus plures Medici convocentur, & convocati bene invicem conveniant, quodque in aegri salutem cedat, concordes citra livorem cogitent & sedulo exequantur. Certe, quod multi collegia hujusmodi aversentur, id inter alia evenit, quod in artis operibus minus sunt exercitati, nec faciendae Medicinae habitum perfecte sunt adepti. Non enim facile est, nisi sis solide doctus, de aegra parte, morbi natura & vero schemate, causis morbificis, signis, corporibusque aegris, nec non aptis remediis disserere, idque serie, ut decet, certa, & validissimis rationibus de his suam munire sententiam, hisque adversa labefactare; melioribusque semper cedere. Quotusquisque est, qui hoc aevo his par sit? Sed de hac re satis superque, ad alia propero; Siquidem ad omnia, quae ad aures meas pervenerunt, breviter respondere, tibique, si fieri possit, satisfacere constitui. Ut acrius me oppugnes & famae meae maculam inuras, astute admodum Anglicana lingua contra me calamum stringis, ut cum doctis nequeas, vulgo me odiosum reddas, qui quaevis facile credunt; & insuper etiam nescio quas a Domina Moor obtinuisti literas, Libello tuo praefigendas, omnibus viribus utens, ut existimationi meae deroges, meque quantum fieri potest, abjectissimum reddas. Equidem ejus in scribendo, tuam vero in producendo eam in scenam imprudentiam & temeritatem satis mirari nequeo. Nec enim vel minimum contumeliae & injuriae aculeum patiar, sed nomen meum ad aras usque defendam. Sed qui animi magnitudine prestant, prudentia ut plurimum minus valere solent. Quid illa quaeso de Medicis judicet, colo & rei domesticae administrandae assueta? Quid illa de pleuritide, cujus essentiam ignorat, de qua saepe Medici ipsi contendant, non quod signa sint incerta & conjecturalia, sed quia illi falluntur, neq, conveniunt circa exactam eorum cognitionem? Multa sunt in literis illis, si vera audivi, insignem erga me animositatem redolentia, quaedam etiam veritati injuria, id quod accidit, quia filiae non adstitit nisi quarto a prima morbi invasione effluxo die. Possem facile ad singula respondere & tela ejus adeo facile evitare ut Priami telum Pyrrhus, Rauco quod protinus aere repulsum, E summo clypei, nequicquam umbone pependit. Sed nolo cum faeminino sexu in arenam descendere, quem si vicero vincar. Hoc saltem dico, nullum sub Lunae concavo odiosius esse crimen ingrati animi culpa. Hùic ego matronae & toti familiae medicinam faciendo fidelem operam per plures annos locavi, idque fausto Apolline & felici successu, ut mirer animum ejus per te adeo alienatum esse, ut ab eo tempore omnem meam operam neglexerit, imo & contra me scriptitare ausit, nulla alia de causa, quam quod acriter pro salute filiae ejus contendi. Haec scil. sunt industriae meae & laborum praemia, hi fructus. Sed quid ego? Varius fuit omni aevo & mutabilis semper Sexus hic, hodie amans cras odio habens. Eo itaque valere jusso ad te me converto, qui vitio mihi vertere videris, quod sim peregrinus & advena, quasi ideo non debeam praxin Medicam exercere, aut Medicinam facere. Vix credo hoc ulli unquam a quoquam objectum. Sum peregrinus fateor. At non sine autoritate a Serenissimo Rege derivata praxin sum aggressus, in qua per quadraginta annos, & quod excedit ultra, medicinam faciendo subditis ejus, sine invidia aut remorsu cujusquam, singularem fidem operamque meam indefessam omnibus probavi. An non Deus ipse in Sacra Pagina peregrinos & advenas amari, beneficiis ornari, suscipi & nutriri jubet? An tu panem invidebis, quorum Deus ipse singularem curam gerit & victu atque amictu providet? Adi, si lubet, pentateuchum, & plura in hanc rem invenies praecepta. Ut unum e multis producam, vide, quaeso, Levit. Cap. XIX. Si peregrinus fuerit tecum, in terra tua inquit non opprimes illum, sed erit tibi instar indigenae, amabis eum ut teipsum, quia & vos peregrini fuitis in Egypto. Sic & Deut. X. & aliis in locis. His add, quod, si non Lauream Apollineam & Doctoratus insignia, quibus ornatus es, maximam saltem eruditionis & Doctrinae tuae partem peregrinis debes, ut iniqua sit ista tua obtrectatio quemadmodum & aliae. Imprimis vero te mihi iratum esse & aegerrime ferre intelligo, quod te Medicum saltem in Observationibus meis, non vero Doctorem nominem. Ecquis quaeso novit, quis sit Medicus iste, cum nulla fiat nominis tui mentio, aut quis otio suo abutens inquiret facile, quisnam sit, imo quis rem ipsam observabit? Vix unus e mille. Multi summo Doctoris titulo insigniti reperiuntur, qui non sunt Medici, & multi inveniuntur Medici, qui Doctoris axi●ma non retulerunt; Medicus est, qui Medicinam facit, cumque hanc Artem exerceas, non est, ut Medici nomen dedigneris. Hic omni semper aevo omni honore dignus fuit judicatus, utpote ab altissimo creatus. Unde Graeci olim Hippocrati, ut Medico, eosdem honores, quos Herculi, decreverunt. Hunc omnes velut praesidium aliquod & numen tutelare vitae, salutisq, suae omni aevo coluerunt, & venerati sunt. Idem divini Hippocratis judicio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aestimatus, ut sine causa vitio mihi vertas, quod te Medicum, non Doctorem vocarim. Multo minus sum culpandus, quod aegram puellam nobilissimae titulo insigniam, quasi hic titulus sit altior quam ei competat. Civilitatis est honoribus blandiri, quos amamus & in quibus virtutis aliquod specimen apparet. Sed ut tibi satisfaciam in hoc etiam, sciendum tibi; vocem hanc aliter apud Anglos, aliter apud Latinos accipi, in quorum lingua scripsi. His ex nosco notum, nobilis, quasi noscibilis, vel notabilis dicitur, & Graecis eodem plane sensu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellatur, id est, notus, cognitus, praeclarus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, illustris, excellens, clarus, qui scil. in hominum notitiam ex aliquo seu turpi seu illustri facinore venerit. Saepius tamen accipitur in meliorem partem. Ita Nimerodus, consceleratorum manu stipatus, nobilitatem sibi scelere paravit. Marius vero & Tullius, Arpinas uterque magistratus adeptione & rebus bene gestis nobilitatem acquisiverunt. Apud Classicos sumitur vel pro generis claritate, vel quacunque alia celebritate, imprimis vero virtutis, unde Euripides, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Bonus Vir mihi quidem nobilis, improbus vero etiamsi Jove ipso meliore patre editus sit, ignobilis tamen videtur. Et certe nobilitas atque decus non tam proavorum stemmate & imaginibus, quibus tamen aliquid dandum, quam virtute, quam vitae integritate, quam morum probitate metienda. Unde & Democritus olim interrogatus, in quibus nobilitas consisteret, respondit, pecudum nobilitatem in bono validoque corporis habitu sitam esse, hominum vero in morum probitate. Cum itaque virtutis & proborum morum plurima specimina in puella hac appareant, eam non sine causa nobilitatis honore ornavi, siquidem virtutem possidere est vere nobilem esse. Sed & aliud quid his accedit. Romani, a quibus hic nobilitatis honor ad nos derivatur, illum definiebant nobilem, ut Asconius Orat. in toga candida observat, qui novi hominis filius esset. Novum autem qui primus in sua gente magistratum curulem adeptus statuae sibi erigendae jus habebat. Et cur non liberi, qui hujus comitatus vicecomitis munere perfunctus est, nobiles vocari non deb●ant, nullus video. Possem plura in hanc rem in medium proferre, sed nolo in his minutulis contra me objectionibus tempus conterere. Ad rem ipsam accedo, unde omnis inter nos contentio oborta. Ac primo quidem mirari subit inconstantiam tuam, dum a sententia tua de aegrae puellae morbo omnino desciscis, ut quam, cum convocati essemus ut aegrae communi consilio opem ferremus, pro pleuritica habebas, jam non pleurisi, sed febri saltem cum lateris dolore laborasse affirmes. Revoca quaeso in mentem disceptationem nostram de vena in pleuritide secanda acriter inter nos agitatam, qua contra me contendebas, non tantum Phlebotomiam esse instituendam, sed & quoad locum sanguinem e dextro cubito, Sennerti de pleuritide authoritate, detrahendum esse. Imo ut aegrae puellae matrem in tuam sententiam adduceres, digito ex Sennerti figura in pectore ejus depinxisti trun●um venae cavae cum utriusque brachii venis, & surculis inde oriundis; ita ut tui oblitus in aliam sententiam abeas, & quae membranae costas succingentis inflammatione laborabat, febri cum lateris dolore affligi perperam judices. Dolor lateris punctorius, membranis proprius, ad jugulum usque extensus; Febris continua acuta, sanguine in venis ebulliente in membranam costas succingentem effuso & inflammationem pariente; Respiratio difficilis & crebra, partim ob usum auctum, calorem scil. febrilem, partim ob impeditam sufficientem partium inflammatarum ad magnam aeris copiam attrahendam distensionem; Tussis, pleuritidis inseparabilis comes, Natura, quod molestum est, expellere nitente, commota etiam a materia in pulmones residente facultate expultrice; Pulsus durus ob membranae tensionem, qua arteriae etiam distenduntur: omnia haec ab ipsa pleuritide ortum ducunt & sunt essentialia & scientifica ejus signa. Quae quidem cum in aegra puella concurrerint, necessario pleuritica erit judicanda. His add sputamen cruentum ab ea excretum, quod etsi neque in omnibus pleuriticis, neque in omnibus morbi temporibus appareat, ideoque inter signa pathognomonica non recenseatur, attamen ubi cum dictis conspirat, pleuritidem indubie indicat, eamque legitimam, a sanguine bilioso in membranam costas succingentem effuso. Erras itaque qui aegram nescio quam febri cum lateris dolore conflictasse dicis. Possem hoc pluribus probare, siquidem in notha pleurisi, ab inflammatione musculorum intercostalium & externa thoracis parte pronata, ut & in aliis pectoris doloribus, febris vel nulla adest, vel saltem non acuta; Tussis, nisi catarrhus coincidat, est nulla, & nihil, praesertim cruenti, excernitur, dolores sunt mitiores nec pungitivi & ejus generis alia. Sed cum supra probaverim aegram pleuritidis tyrannidi succubuisse, idque per signa ideam ejus complectentia, non est opus, ut his pluribus insistam. Caeterum absurdum tibi videtur, quod puellam aegram benigna pleuritide laborasse dicam, cum pleuritis sit morbus acutus; quasi vero acuties & benignitas sint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aut contraria. Sed plurimum erras. Acutus enim morbus est, qui cum brevitate junctam habet magnitudinem. Ideo celeriter movetur cum vehementia & periculo. Huic vulgo non benignus, sed chronicus opponitur. Ut hoc tibi manifestum faciam, sciendum quod variae sint pleuritidis differentiae, quae desumuntur ab idea ejus, a causis efficientibus, a magnitudine seu vehementia, a more, & partibus affectis, & tandem ab eo, quod est per essentiam vel per consensum. Quae a more ejus desumitur, vel est maligna vel benigna, vel inter utramque media. Et moris ratione non tantum pleuritis, sed & alii morbi dicuntur vel maligni vel benigni, hoc est mites & nulla inferentes saeva symptomata. Ut vero morem cognoscas, supervenientia symptomata sunt cognoscenda, quae a Galeno Medicorum praeceptore, desumuntur ab exeuntibus per sputum in pleuritide & a modo exeundi. Si igitur sputamina sint nigro aut viridi colore praedita, si non exeant omnino vel cum difficultate excernantur, corpus jactetur, cibum aversetur patiens, male se habeat ad oblata, deliret, saepe in animi deliquium incidat, haec omnia malignam arguunt pleuritidem. E contra si anacatharsis sit facilis, si quae expuuntur rubicunda sint aut flavo colore tincta, nec prava appareant symptom ata, benigna judicatur, Quae cum in aegra contigerint, non sum culpandus, qui eam pleuritude benigna laborasse affirmo, idque non mea, sed Saxoniae, Cortesii, Foresti & aliorum autoritate innixus, apud quos hanc ipsam pleuritidis in malignam & benignam differentiam invenies. Sed his missis, de quibus nemo vel mediocriter saltem in medicina versatus ambigit, ad alia progredior inter nos maxime controversa. Imprimis vero doleo quod ob bimula verbula, dum te in casu aegrae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & sine ratione egisse dico, adeo mihi succenses, ut & Librum contra me intendas. Quodsi rem pacato animo consideraveris, res non est tanti, ut adeo graviter annotetur. Ordinariae sunt hujusmodi inter disputantes, & doctos quoque in omnibus Universitatibus, locutiones, huic etiam duriores, quae tamen a nemine observantur aut a quoquam sinistre interpretantur. Quis quaeso Medicorum est, qui non saepius relicta vera curandi ratione & methodo experientiam saltem ducem sequatur, ut mirer te offendi, praesertim cum nominis tui nullam mentionem faciam. Si rem aequo animo ruminaveris, invenies me nihil aliud egisse aut intendisse, quam ut methodum meam in curanda aegra susceptam, a te vero oppugnatam, pro virili probem & defendam. Justitui in aegra, pleuritidis carnificina efflictim emacerata, sanguinis detractionem per hirudines, internae cubiti venae in eodem latere, in morbi principio, dum humores fluerent, applicatas, idque fausto Apollinis numine, magno aegrae commodo. Qua in re imitatus sum Clarissimi Sennerti consilium, qui in pueris ex Galeno ante decimum quartum aetatis annum vix tentandam esse venaesectionem monet, cum vires ea aetate debiles sint & ob mollitiem ac raritatem dissolutionem alias insignem patiantur. Quodsi vero morbus urgeat, praesente plethora circa annum nonum, aut decimum aetatis, hirudinibus sanguinem elicere jubet. Hanc methodum tanquam praeposteram, inutilem & nullius momenti coram puellae Matre accusasti, & suasisti cubiti Phlebotomiam, quam ea consentiente mox instituisti, quicquid in contrarium afferebam, idque in cubito contrario, non vero ejusdem lateris, Sennerti autoritate, ut dicebas, fretus, quem hac occasione eadem hora perlustraveris. Sed non videris mentem ejus assecutus. Probat ille quidem, Arabum Doctrinam secutus, venae sectionem in contrario latere institutam, ut sanguis affluxurus a parte inflammata, quam longissime revellatur, sed hoc in plethoricis & principio tantum morbi, dum fluxus humorum durat, faciendum consulit. Si vero inquit, paulo post, Medicus in primo morbi principio non fuerit vocatus, & sanguis, qui morbi vehementia, febrili calore & inedia minui solet, non abundet, nec magnus amplius sit affluxus, aut si pleuritis sit mitior, statim in loci affecti latere venam aperire licet, ut humores divertantur. Vide n' ut Sennertus nihil pro te faciat, qui progresso morbo, sexto scil. a prima invasione dic, sedata inflammatione & dolore punctorio● inde orto, nullo amplius sputo cruento apparente, nulla praesente plethora aut affluxu, venam in contrario lateris affecti cubito aperuisti. Certe ubi nulla est venae sectionis indicatio, nulla etiam instituenda, praesertim in pueris & puellis, quibus alias non convenit venae secti●, Galeno teste Lib 2. Method Med. Cap. 14. Si in puerum, inquit, febris incidat, qui decimum quartum aetatis annum hactenus non attigit, mitti illi sanguis non debebit, propterea quod tantillis, cum praesertim calidi & humidi sint, plurimum corporis substantiae quotidie defluat, ac digeratur. Ita quod ex incidenda vena moliendum nobis fuerat, id ultro nobis ex curati corporis natura praestatur. His de causis venaesectioni opposui, ut & purgationi, die critico instituendae, corpore etiam cacochymo existente. Galenus enim Lib. quos & quando &c. inquit, observandos optime esse dies criticos in exhibendo pharmaco praesertim subductorio, quia nescimus, an Natura, morborum medicatrix, sit factura crisin necne, nec per quam partem & ad quam viam vergat materia. Ut plurimum tamen natura & facilius facit crises bonas per superiora, licet & per inferiora interdum faciat bonas. Ne igitur impediamus Naturam, crisin per hanc aut illam viam intendentem, abstinendum est a pharmaco in die critico, tum subductorio, tum vomitorio, sed usque ad finem diei decretorii spectatoris persona induenda. Quodsi tunc Natura nihil egerit praesentibus signis concoctionis, pharmacum exhiberi poterit. Sed de his docta Medicorum cohors judicet. Possem plura adjicere, sed haec spero tibi fatisfactura. Tu in me aequo sis animo, & quae a me facta sunt in meliorem partem interpreteris, qui nullo animi morbo aut livoris aliquo stimúlo, sed nudae veritatis amore scripsi, quae scripsi, meque in favorem tuum recipe & in amicorum numero habe, qui tibi omnia opto & auguror felicissima.  
E. T. Sudiosiss. FERD. LOSS. Dorchestr. XVI. Cal. Nou. MDCLXXIII.   

Alius Medicus his Answer to Mr. Loss.  
Clarissime Observator.  
DIE Saturni ultimo, multâ vesperâ literas tuas accepi, Scriptas & a tergo nec dum finitas, imo, qùod mirandum, neque adhuc etiam, rem ipsam attingentes. Authores vestri verba non dederunt, sic est profectò ut dicunt. Tu verò verba dedisti plurima, & ad rhombum nihil facientia. Festinans Canis coecos parit catulos, & Responsio tua, parte inauditâ, aut saltem non recte intellectâ, alterâ; praecox nimis & praepropera est. Descendis quidem in arenam, verum tota haec tua digladiatio Epistolaris, verbo dicam▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est. Minutiarum enim quas memoras, isto in libello, cujus scribendi satago, nihil ferò quidquam invenietur. Non meus rumor est, sed vox Populi, Te, a consultationibus semper alienum fuisse, ea propter iniquè culpam in me unum confers, praesertim vero, quasi ex meo Te ingenio in eâ re judicem, in quâ falsus es non minus quam in figura pilei quo donantur Doctores in ipso inaugurationis actu, qui non est extra quadratâ, uti refers, sed rotundâ figurâ conspicuus. Quantum valeam tam doctis quam indoctis, Te, ob multa merito odiosum reddere, maculasque plurimas Tuae Famae inurere, brevi fortè, plus satis experiêre. Interim, totus gaudeo quod hac in re tuâque hac Epistolâ, me omni culpâ de Libelli mei futuro eventu, quantum spectat ad famam tuam, evolvis; quandoquidem Te murum aheneum praedicas, neque uspiam Telis meis penetrabilem, literatis praesertim, & viris edoctis coram. Quis te audacior & confidentior? qui, cum Libellum meum nondum videris, quia tamen vernaculâ Linguâ conscriptum audis, quam docti aequè, atque indocti intelligunt, praelium ante de victoriâ gloriaris, quod cum doctis nequeam, vulgo Te odiosum redderem. Age verò, & perge inquam, neque amittas tuam banc confidentiam, nomenque, si potis es▪ ad aras defendas; rectè enim tenes, tibi respondere, & reponere necesse fore; atque ostentare quantis sis viribus, quantisque virtutibus. De meâ vero imprudentiâ, Temeritate, aut Nominis aliûs jacturâ, in oculum virumvis conquiescito. Interim tamen ex iis omnibus qui tecum mirantur, & quorum ne unus quidem probat meum hoc praeceps consilium, siste si placet, unum, aut plures, permagni enim nostrâ interest, illos paucis velle, & lubentissime aurium operam illis dicerem. De Domina Moor, si quicquam ulteriùs mussitare ausis, perlegas suadeo tuam ipsius Observationem Medicinalem 25. Lib. 3. & Te pudeat: eam ibi omni virtutum decore cumulatam praedicasse, de qua, in hisce literis, ingratam cum dixeris, omnia dix'ti. Quis vero, Te obsecro, hoc tibi commentum in animum tuum induxit; me vitio tibi vertere, quod sis Advena? aut ille certe, aut tu egregiè fingis, quando 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ego maximo semper in honore habuerim. Neque ignobilem quampiam, contra nobilitatem virginis, controversiam faciam. Quod attinet vero ad Medicum Alium, pleuritidem aegrae puellae benignitatem morbi, venaesectionem sexto morbi die institutam▪ in puellâ nondum quatuordecem annos natâ, purgationem exhibitam die septimo; & instituta mea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & sine ratione: quod attinet ad professionem vestram, quantum me amas, quam honorifice de me semper locutus sis, quam pro virili tuitus sis famam meam & existimationem; quam propensa in me, prae omnibus aliis, tua semper fuit benevolentia; de his omnibus in Libello meo. Cujus institutum si desideras; rursum adeas (si placet Pentateuchum (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dixit Socrates, & licet id ad rem meam faciat, maximè tamen faciet autoritas Divina, quam legere est) Cap. 19 v. 16. Deuteronomi, his verbis; Si quis in quenquam iniquus Testis extiterit, & falsum contra illum protulerit; Ambo homines, quos inter controversia est, apud Jovam stanto, coram Sacerdotibus & Judicibus, qui tunc temporis erunt, Judices autem sedulò inquirunto. Quod si falsum illum Testem esse deprehenderint, & falsum contra alterum dixisse: Facitote ei quod ipse in alterum commentus erat, malumque de medio vestrum tollitote. Quod cum reliqui audiverint, timeant deinceps ejusmodi facinus apud vos suscipere, nève miserescitote: vitam pro vita, oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, manum pro manu, pedem pro pede.  
Quid opus est multis, Te paenitentem, non defensorem agere expectàssem; verum rem multo aliter evenire intelligo; ut ut sit, vestram secutus humanitatem, ea omnia quae tu mihi, ego etiam & tibi, opto atque auguror felicissima:  
Observationum tuarum Studiosissimus, ALIUS MEDICUS. Datae Frampton, die Lunae; XI. Cal. Nou. MDCLXXIII.   

ERRATA.  
WHereas several Errors have crept into the Impression of this Book, which the Author saw not, until it was too late to mend them in their proper places; the Reader is desired for what he will there meet amiss, to read here as followeth.  
In the Title-Page, read Practitioner in Physic— Proserpina canum— Personam capiti detrahet.  
In the Epistle Dedicatory, r. to make out matters of fact.— it is very base for either of them to print the Case.— to infer a general Conclusion from a particular Instance.— to Countrypeople.— though he understands no Latin.  
In the Preface, read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— nauseat those first entertainments, stercus & Vrina Medicinae fercula prima, which we commonly meet with— Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto— condemning the Modesty and Practice of those men— fling the stone at their fellow-Physician.  
In the Book itself, Pag. 1. line 11. read by those that understand his Latin better than his Art. lin. 23. a Licentiate. P. 2. l. 7. blot out 2dly. l. 31. slandering almost all— P. 3. l. 8. own words. P. 5. l. 35. meek or pettish. l. 36. he moves. P. 11. l. 12. for Winston r. Muston. P. 12. l. 1. r. seems in these. P. 13. l. 28. f. Name, r. Names. P. 14. l. 26. he could not take it well that any one should publish this, and yet— P. 15. l. 32. and hath put both their Diseases and their Names in print. P. 16. l. 6. unless he had been ambitious of a particoloured Coat, and, by having something of every thing in his Book, of this Motto— P. 18. l. 32. a Chirurgeon. P. 23. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. P. 25. l. 31. far beyond the binding up— P. 26. l. 16. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. l. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— P. 27. l. 10. but that it was misunderstood. l. 13. blot out foolish. P. 28. l. 36. r. shearing of Hogs. P. 29. l. 12. he understood the Oracle of Hypocrates. P. 30. l. 33. words synonymous. P. 33. l. 23. His hands were not probably so providentially stretched forth as to ward off the blow. P. 36. l. 36. like those shot from a Gun. P. 41. l. 30. Gorraeus— P. 42. l. 24. and thus very discreetly. P. 47. l. 14. Scabious. P. 48. l. 23. His Naturals. P. 55. l. 17. leave out and. P. 62. l. 2. the principal part ill-affected. l. 9 than those from the Pleurisy in her Side. l. 21. by those Remedies. P. 63. l. 12. blot out and. P. 70. l. 32. held so by all that know her. P. 73. l. I should hardly thrip cross or pile. P. 76. l. 16. a full Answer unto them. P. 78. l. 5. and if fair means would have brought Mr. Loss to a private Treaty. l. 33. Is a Defendant uncharitable. P. 80. l. 14. such a Revenge is spoken against, as doth another hurt. l. 23. The virtuous Envy is— P. 84. l. 14. in all those senses is still senseless by being false. l. 30. into the dancing-School; l. 31. carried her home into the Country. P. 86. l. 24. this further advantage of my Journal in this Case— l. 32. I found our Notes did not agree—. P. 90. l. 21. high-spirited, and yet low; selfish, and yet self-abasing Physicians— P. 92. l. 20. he wants buoying up— P. 93. l. 3. that he is wickedly ignorant; l. 33. blot out 3. The, and put at l. 38 before Credit to men in a Profession— P. 96. l. 6. mind my Patients ease more than mine own— P. 99 l. 13. Her Disease was with a Pleurisy— P. 102. l. 34. unum tantum ab uno indicatur— P. 112. l. 27. for quà port a ruit— P. 113. l. 3. Here and elsewhere the number of the Accusations are misplaced, but their order may be seen p. 81▪— P. 113. l. 21. she having lost five ounces then— l. 32. the intention for which they were let out. P. 115. l. 30. at that time she was so sick. P. 120. l. 30. die of his disease. P. 122. l. 14. this the Medicine, wherewith. l. 23. is no ways comparable.  
FINIS.