Fair Play for One's Life: OR, THE Sovereign Preservative OF THE Royal Family, Nobility, etc.  
AND, OF THE ARTS of Physic, and Surgery, and the Apothecary's TRADE.  
By a Gentleman of Quality of North Britain.  
Non avidiùs ipsum Alexandrum, quàm Medicum intuebatur Exercitus: pro se Quisque dextram ejus amplexi grates habebant, veluti praesenti Deo.  Q. Curt. 
LONDON: Printed for M. Wotton, at the Three Daggers in Fleetstreet; and Sold by J. Morphew, near Stationers-Hall.  
Price, Two Pence.   

Fair Play for One's Life, etc.  
United South-britains',  
THE Blessed Union (which I hope will never die) struggled in the Birth with Difficulties almost insuperable. How violent were the Opposers of our Partnership with you, whose Luxuries and Avarice will insatiably pray on the common Stock; 8 or 10 Leaders of the Parties and Projects shall set on the deluded People, to worry the most Honourable Zeal to do Good, to serve and to save their Country! How immense is the Difference of our Manners? The Protection of Life and Property is the first Article of the Compact of Human Societies. Your most Eminent Physicians and Surgeons have been publicly exploded by you, treacherous to the Patients, ignorant of all Diseases and Medicines: the Collegiates have often remonstrated the numerous and the powerful Causes of the Calamities of all the Ranks of the Nation. Are there any Gentlemen of Reason and Honour, able to detect the malignant Disease, and apply the Sovereign Remedy?  
But, the Day the most important Article of the Union was to be debated, a Petition of our Apothecaries was read for Permission to practise Physic and Surgery. I had the Honour to be commanded to deliver the Reasons of our Refusal; That we are obliged to protect the Physicians and Surgeons Properties, as we must defend our own Estates, and Titles, and Privileges: that, if we betray the most learned and useful Professions, we shall by the Example destroy the Law and the Church; and in the Consequence, our Universities must be abandoned and the Esteem and Pursuit of Learning extinguished; that the Libertinage will encourage their Trade to increase prodigiously, and at last, starve one another; that Million of Native and Foreign Empirics will break in on their Employment, and complete its Destruction.  
Strange! (my United South-britains') the Hour of my Arrival to the British Parliament presented me the Accomplishment of our Prediction. My Kinsman, who had invited me to his House, observed my Disorder from the Fatigues of the tedious Journey, withdrew, and brought his Apothecary. This good old Gentleman, he said, has advised our Family these Fifty Years, he has more Patients and Experience than ten Physicians and Surgeons in our Neighbourhood: Treats them from the Beginnings of all Diseases; They are called in only in the most Dangerous near their End. I presented him a Fee, as is our Custom to our Lawyers and Physicians. He persisted refusing to touch it. I declared most solemnly, I never will, while I live, be advised, when the Numbers and Prices of all the Medicines shall only pay the Reward; when I saw, passing your Streets, eight or ten Shops in every one, and the Prentices prattling and playing; no Preparation making, not a Remedy compounded; they are more numerous than the Sick.  
I was surprised when the good old Gentleman embraced me with the greatest Affection, when he wept for Joy, that he lived to see one of my Quality endowed with Wisdom to preserve my Life, and the generous public Spirit, to assert the Safety of the Royal Family, Nobility, Gentry and People. 'Tis only our taking no Fee, seeming to advise for Nothing, gives us the absolute Power in the Houses of the Nobility and Gentry, and makes us able to invade and oppress our Physic and Surgery. It is in our Power, (as you most wisely foresaw) to pay ourselves two or three Guineas a Day in the Wealthy, and one in the ordinary Houses, above the real Values of the Remedies, to continue it uninterrupted to the Recovery, and vastly above the Fees of the Physicians and Surgeons, who are called in late in the deplorable Cases, have their ten Shillings only every other Visit; when the Life is imagined in less Danger, they must often attend without any Reward to prevent the Relapse, to secure the Recovery.  
My dear United Britain's, I cannot express my Grief and Confusion. My first Reflection painted to me almost all the Physicians and Surgeons, treacherous to the Sick, and ignorant of all Diseases, and the just Uses of the Medicines. I importuned my good Apothecary, who I perceived, desired the Redress of these terrible Grievances, to report the Disease and the specific Remedy. My Servant attended to take our Discourse, to be published in a Sheet, as the Sermons, the cheap Antidote and Preservative of all the Inhabitants of the Island.  
N. B. I have heard, that (Ann. 1639.) the College reported the most weighty Affair to our most religious and learned K. Charles I in Council, all the Judges commanded to attend. The Attorney-General was directed to revoke your Charter; your Shops were to be adjusted to the Proportion of the City. The Rebellion prevented the Regulation. Your Physicians after the Restoration, published many Learned Discourses on the Subject, they and the Surgeons have often addressed, not for Preferments and Pensions, but the Cure of the Vileness and Desiciencies of the Arts for the public Service.  
S. B. Our Advice and most diligent Attendance of all the Sick in the Families of the Nobility and Gentry, being paid by our Bills, of as many Doses as we please, and at our own Rates, greatly exceed the Sums they are able, or willing to expend, to preserve their Health and Life. The Physician's Fee, (we will suppose the Surgeons are in all Points equally concerned) is, when superadded to our Load, the most intolerable Burden. It's our Interest to suggest the largest Fees, larger than they desire, to make them odious to the People. This makes them dread the Physicians, till the Pains and the Dangers are most violent. Then they request us to choose a Doctor for them. We will prefer none, but we can confide in, who shall justify and commend all we have done, who shall patiently bear the Scandal of the Death: He is abdicated for ever, we advance another on the next Occasion; we are never turned off, but by one of our Prentices setting up the next House, and prevailing on the Stewards and Nurses.  
N. B. Then farewel all the sincere and learned Practice of Physic and Surgery. The ambitious or hungry Solicitors of your Favour shall explode the Endeavours of the most generous Patriots of their Country to preserve the Royal Family, the Nobility, etc. and your Trade as well as their own Professions. Why are you on the sudden pale and disturbed?  
S. B. By Heavens! we have carried the fatal Jest too far, we are undone. The People's Affection, as the Fondness of an indulgent Mother, betrays us to our Ruin. We have our Prentices forced upon us to have the Title of Doctors, to practise Physic and Surgery, and the Apothecary's Business. We have this Hundred Years from our Charter, Ann. 1616, by two or three Prentices increased to an immense Number, filling all the Streets with eight or ten, as you observed, and three or four in all the Villages about the City. Our Gentlemen never think, or to no Purpose, for themselves or us. Our excessive Increase must infallibly compel us to bring them more Medicines in all Diseases whatever, and, from Year to Year, to raise the Prices of the Doses. The Payment grows more and more oppressive, the Physicians and Surgeons must be more feared and abhorred, and insulted, when they crave to be heard. But why do they not save and rescue us from ten Thousand Empirics starting up here, and from all Parts of the World, who take the Bread out of our Mouths? The busy or hungry Clergy set up with their secret Cures. An horrible Number of Nurses undertake the Management, with their own Remedies, of all the Fevers, Smallpox, etc. The Quacks of the Advertisements deal with their single Preparations to cure infallibly this, or the other terrible Disease, or pretend it shall cure forty or fifty as surely as one; they make the most dreadful Havoc of the Sick and us. How many Pretenders live plentifully by the Sale of Elixirs, Spirits, Tinctures, Pills and Cordials; the Papers of their Virtues and Uses pedlared about from House to House? Then the Gentlemen of Quality, who pretend to top us on the Physicians and Surgeons, beggar us without Mercy; they buy the Spirits, Tinctures, Laudanum, at the first Hand. We must strive to make up our Losses by thrusting more of our Medicines on them, they struggle against us, by those, and many of their own Preparations, and take the Goa stone, etc. from all the Visitants. And (will you be able to believe it) there are many subtle Projectors of our Company, who have put off their Shops, have contrived to destroy me and my Brethren. They invade our Property; We shall not furnish a Sea-Surgeon, our Brother, our Kinsman, or old Acquaintance, they must have their Chests at the Hall, more than they want, certainly dearer; and will you imagine them better than ours, when they are the most competent Judges of the Remedies they use?  
N. B. You see the necessary Tendencies of encroaching on one another. Do not the Magistrates know how the Public suffers by the Invasions of the sacred Boundaries of the Professions and Arts engaged in the Preservation of Health and Life? You have attempted the Regulations of the Law; the lurking Pochers of the Game are deterred by the severest Penalties. It is now your turn to appeal, to implore the Protection of the Government. Has not your Company resolved to lay its own, and the Public Distress before the Parliament?  
S. B. An Apothecary has in Print demonstrated the Necessity of repelling the Empirics, and of reducing our Numbers. He proposes, That one Half may be obliged to serve the other as hired Servants. There are many of my Brethren (when the College has often desired us to foresee the Consequences of our endless Multiplication) have in the Hall earnestly recommended our using only Labourers to prepare our Medicines. I know many Surgeons, who lament with us the deadly Confusions and Disorders, and the necessary barbarous Ignorance of the modern Practice from the feared Destruction of the College. You know the sovereign Medicine prepared by the Royal Martyr, and the Lords of his Council. You have seen the Discourses of Dr. Goddard, Dr. Bates, Dr. Merret, etc. and lately, the Dispensary-Poem, which remonstrates the Integrity and Learning of the Professions sinking more and more into the vain Presumptions of Arrogance, or the humble Compliance of using only the 30 or 40 vulgar Remedies of the Shops, contrived by Divisions into numerous Doses in all sorts of Diseases, to compliment our Choice of them, to raise for us out of every Fever, Smallpox, etc. 30 or 40 Guineas; out of the long Cures, 100, or 150. This you see is the only Title and standing Army of our Power, and their slavish Subjection. As there are 3 or 4 Champions of our projecting Parties, there are 8 or 10 Apothecaries gain their 1500, or 2000 Pounds a Year: We raise about as many Physicians and Surgeons, Bold Britons who stick at nothing. The Court, the Gentlemen of Quality, can never see their own, and the common Calamities, when their Physicians and Surgeons are presented by us to them, pretending to the Learning in vogue, the empty Cyhimaeras and Romances of Hypotheses, every day changed, and assoon out of fashion, the Whimsies of the unseen Motions and Operations of Atoms, nothing to the purpose of curing Diseases, or the Cases of Surgery. And these unfortunate Guessers and Operators are commanded by us, to observe the Instructions we give them, to defy and damn the College and all the generous Attempts to preserve the Public.  
N. B. How many Thousand Crimes form their Character? They must abjure their own Societies and Professions, they must for the Honour of their Preferments, for their Salaries, expose their Patrons and the People to certain Death in all dangerous Diseases, and carefully transmit to Posterity these detestable Accomplishments of their Arts.  
S. B. Will you allow, that they have reported almost these hundred Years, the most Learned and public Spirited of the Society, the most troublesome Disturbers of the Public, the most factious Reformers; that a Collegiate must be warily observed, and prevented, or expelled from any Post of Public Service. Shall the Royal College, Learning or Virtue flourish, when their most deadly Enemies infatuate the Gentlemen to fly from them, to assault their best Preservers?  
N. B. Is it conceivable, that none of the Gentry shall be able to discover their true Interest, and detect the Impostors?  
S. B. When they leave the Care of their Wives, and Sons, and Daughters to the Nurses and the Attendants, to us, and our Physicians and Surgeons, all these our mighty Grievances must grow in Stature and Strength. As the innumerable Empirics, and the lurking Venders of Medicines multiply, we must enlarge the Numbers of Doses, and their Rates; the Fevers, and Smallpox, etc. must produce the 20 l. to 40 l. 50 l. the Chronical, the 100 pomell or 200 l. How can I and many of my Brethren stint the Numbers and Prices, when every Year necessitates us to larger Numbers and Rates? When a large Part of us gain the Dr's Fee out of every Bowl, and the Cordial-Draught to wash it down; when 3 or 4 Guineas a Day are gained and 3 Papers of a Powder (worth 2 d.) shall produce almost the Guinea, must they not turnpale tremble at the Sight of a Physician and Surgeon. dreading we are laying our Taxations more heavily on them? Must they not implore us to keep them out to the latest Exremity, and then bring the Adviser, who must enlarge the Account.  
N. B. I see these Gentlemen of the Faculties must stick at nothing; but what Methods can you and your devoted Physicians and Surgeons use to destroy the Physicians, whose generous Disinterest preserves you, with their Society and Profession?  
S. B. They shall assault them with the Rage of a Gladiator. Dr. G. has published our Attempts on the Life of two of his Patients, to kill his Reputation with them. The pious Cabal of our Surgeons and Apothecaries, near our Cathedral, hired the Nurse to affright and poison a Lady in the Smallpox, with Child, on the same great Design. The Assassination was prevented by her Recovery, when their honest and skilful Management dispatched to the Grave a Gentleman of the House, a Party of the Company and Plot.  
N. B. I am an Accomplice with them, I must take my part of the Gild and the Punishment, if I do not in the next Parliament, lay the Universal Calamities before the Committee of the State of the Nation. We must, in the first place, protect you from the Numberless, most ignorant and daring Empirics, from the sly Pedlars of the Remedies. We must then preserve you from being undone by your two or three Prentices in all the Shops. We cannot defend our Life, but by the just Proportions of the Medicines in the various Diseases. We must betray our own, and the Life of all the People, we must abolish the Faculties in your two famous Universities, if we do not restore the Sincerity and Sufficiency of the Profession, the most implored in the greatest Distress by Mankind. The Gentlemen then of Great Britain will explode the perfidious Physicians and Surgeons, will detect the ignorance of the most Arrogant, will applaud the most honourable Zeal of the Collegiates, from the Address to K. Charles I in Council, to the modern Reformets' of the most vicious Practice.  
S. B. You may please to add, who have been assaulted by our Outguards, our Physicians and Surgeons in all the Houses about the Court, but when they presented the Public Calamities to the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen and the Common Council, and Our Company unhappily rejected the Expedient, the Panacea, which can only redress the Confusions and Malignity of the modern Practice, which the Committee had resolved after long and the most mature Deliberations, the City requested the College to erect its Dispensaries. But we cannot live without the great yearly Payments from the Poor and the Wealthy: This gives us our Power, confirmed more and more by the long and consuming War, to raise to ●ame, or starve the Physicians. The Poem describes our Champions assaulting the College, and the greatest Part of the Dispensarians have been forced for Bread to revolt to us.  
N. B. The imminent Danger of the Invasion will unite us, will rouse our vigilance and Courage, when we reflect, that we must die in all the most safe and secure Diseases, without Hope of Relief in the most intricate and severe.  
S. B. All the Professions and Arts, the Serious and the Amusing must be fed and led by the Hand in their Infancy, will conspire in their Evidence, and assist us to make the surest Judgement in the Cause. A young Gentleman buys a Commission, he must be instructed by the Officers, or learn from their Footmen and the Sutler's. The Professors in the Universities do not inform the Students, what Authors give the most certain Observations of Human Nature, of the infinite Diseases, which are expelled by Nature alone, of the various Medicines and the Seasons of applying them. The Physicians of many Years Experience, with a Generosity almost peculiar to the Profession, were the most candid Patrons of the young Practisers. The young Arrogants now raise themselves by insulting their improved Learning, their Observations of the Happy, or ill Success of the various Methods and Medicines in all kinds of Diseases. But they must have one or other to introduce them. Our Apothecaries of the different Designs, oblige them with the suitable Instructions. You must prescribe the common Juleps and Bowls, and three or four sorts of Apozemes, from 30 or 40 Medicines, we have confined the Practice to. You must make the greatest Pother with them, and Blisters, and Scarifying, and Seton's, to amuse the Assistants. The greatest Part in the common safe Distempers will recover. You must pronounce every Escape a mighty Cure, shift off from a dangerous Business, but proclaim in all your Companies, you could have saved the Life: If you find them recovering in 2 or 3 days, show your Care, and damn all the Medicines be fore prescribed. How different was the Practice, when I came first to the City? The Physicians from the Universities, examined and applauded by the College (as the Clergy by the Bishop) supported by the old Practisers, visited all the numerous Cases of the meaner People in their Neighbourhood, as the Gentlemen of the Gown open the Causes, and advise in the Purchases of less value. The proportioned Fees, and the Cheapness of the Medicines, introduced them to all the Families. The Success was assured by the frequent Converse with the Patrons of the Art, by their Instructions or Consultations in the most Important. We were not then their dangerous Rivals or declared Enemies. Our Shops were open to them, to confirm and improve their Skill in the Drugs, to examine their Qualities and Virtues, and Preparations, or to observe the Trial of the New, or lately improved. The frequent endowed Lectures often convened the Collegiates. The Conversation discovered the never-failing Methods to subdue the Epidemical malignant Fevers, the specific Medicines in the acute or most obstinate Chronical Diseases. They may now debate their own Distmpers, if the Dispensary Poem has truly drawn by the Instructions of the Precedent, the Characters of the Mirmils, Querpoes', the Bards. Will it therefore surprise you that we frequently foretell in the Chamber, that the Dr. we present to them, will order only this and the other Remedy, and Blisters and Cupping, that the Gentlemen of Quality avow they can see no Difference, that their Apothecaries do as well as the most Arrogant? Shall the General enter the Field to turn the flying Troops; or the Judge, when the Plead are ended? Can they ever understand a Disease, when they are brought in by us, when all the natural Powers are ruffled and broken; when the fatal Symptoms are first discovered by the Attendants?  
N. B. How easily are Fevers, as Fires, extinguish'h by timely Care? How easily are almost all Distempers prevented from the most dangerous Symptoms? Has the Royal Family, the Nobility, etc. the Physicians early Conduct? How shall they ever know the Manners of the Invasions of Diseases, their Advances, the Ravages they make of the Natural Strength, when they have lost the ten Thousand Cases of the Patients near them, who must stand in the Front, receive the Shocks of Diseases, and protect the Life of the Royal Family, and the Nobility? When shall their Physicians begin to understand them, when all the Novices in all the Arts, are allowed their Proportions of Defeats and Blunders, especially in the Practice which wants the experienced Patrons Instructions and Cautions?  
S. B. When the natural Tendencies to collect and separate the mortified Humours (by which only Life can be preserved in all Diseases) by the different Evacuations are assisted, directed, or controlled, if too vehement, the Diseases shall be rendered more benign, the Ferments of the Humours to greater Malignities prevented, and a large Part evacuated the first Days, the Feeble remaining subdued by the internal Motion of the Blood. When they are suddenly brought to the unhappy Turn of the Disease, what can we expect from their Observations and Advice only in the Morning, when after the Storm during the Night, all the Symptoms are allayed? While the Medicines prescribed are preparing, they often begin to rage's more violently, seize on the Brain, the Breast, the Bowels. The Medicines may be in the Evening destructive. The salutary Exclusion of the Humours may be fatally stopped, or the Evacuation fatally promoted by them.  
N. B. I remember you asserted, That the Physicians are confined to 30 or 40 vulgar Remedies always ready in the Shop, to be mixed and divided into the Doses. I suppose, because you are engaged in the advising and attending your own Patients, and cannot attend to any new, or nice, or difficult Preparation, how can they apply them to the many different Indications of Cure?  
S. B. It's now thought unbecoming the Physicians to examine all the Chemical and Galenical Preparations, and select the best of both. We have many Years past, deterred them from that most necessary Part of their Art. We have therefore, often in the Court of Requests, and in the private Families, published their lamentable Ignorance, that if they hazard the Prescription of any but the common Receipts, the Colours, the Scents, the Tastes, the Consistences expose them to the Laughter or Pity of our Prentices, that they must be redressed by us, before they are sent to the Patients. And we may send in what Remedies we please, without the Dread of their Discovery of the Fallacy. You will be informed, that 6 Eminent Apothecaries Preparations, now of the most general Use, were condemned in our Hall, vilely sophosticated, wanting every dearest Ingredient; that 3 or 4 Apothecaries supplied the Army in Ireland with the most infamous Drugs, confessed by the Druggist; that our Gentry often debate, whose Apothecary has the best Things; but our Physicians never distinguish, if the Bowl, or Julep, or Powder, or Pill which are mixed by their Order, of 8, or 10 Preparations, are compounded of the best or the worst Ingredients,, cannot be assured, if the Bark, the Laudanum, the Spirits or Tinctures are good; whether the Ignorance of the Disease, or the horrible Remedy prevented the Cure. The College lately voted the Necessity of composing a new Dispensatory, rejecting the worst Preparations, and substituting the most rational and efficacious, which the improved experimental Philosophy in all the other Parts of Europe has discovered, but the modern Learning is of no Use to them and the People: Disease and Medicines can only be known by the most diligent Observations and Experiences.  
N. B. Are not the Gentry able to detect the Imposture?  
S. B. They have many Years suspected it; In almost all Diseases, fly for Help to the experienced Preparations of their Families communicated to them, before our Physic and Surgery were corrupted and debased. But when we and the Artists combine to disguise the Fraud, how easily will the Amusement prevent the Conviction? If the Fevers are attempted to be cured by Acids, the Chemical Corrosives are used, whose Force the Metals cannot resist; they operate with too much Violence, precipitate and colliquate the Blood. If by Alkalies, what Success will you hope, unless the Constitution can expel the easy Disorder, when 1000 Doses may be taken without any sort of Operation; and the Bezoar is demonstrated by the best Physicians of the Age, and many late Experiments to be indissolvable, which the most corrosive Chemical Spirits cannot penetrate. Not many Years past, 5 Medicines only pretended to conquer all Diseases whatever, with our Cordials, designed only to fill the vacancies.  
N. B. What are the Remedies we want?  
S. B. You know the Bark is a powerful Specific in all intermitting Fevers, which mixed with the Blood subdues its effervescence, but it must be fatal, when the Humours are malignant and detained by it. The College therefore in the Poem complains, That the Art is dwindled into the mere Craft of deceiving the Sick with few vulgar Compositions; but it wants the generous Specisicks or Alteratives, that the great Inquiries or the Recovery of them, have been lately expelled the Practice. Dr. P— has in his Comments, explained the Design of the College in that Publication, as my Lord Cook the Tenors of Littleton. Common Sense, as well as the Philosophy of Physic will inform us, the morbid Humours are not always prepared to be evacuated by Sweat, by Urine, by the Bowels, that the vicious Qualities of the Blood must be reduced and disposed for the Evacuation, by the Medicines of the contrary Qualities. The alteration of the Blood inflamed, extremely Vicious, fermenting with Violence, and preventing the collection and expulsion of the morbid Matter, or acid or watery, or roapy, or the Crasis broken, and the necessary Ferment too languid, aught to be the first Intention and Design of the Physician. Then he must warily observe the Progress of the Natural Efforts, and distinguish which of the different Evacuations are chosen in the various Constitutions, then assist and promote, and direct the Exclusion, or moderate or repel the precipitate or excessive Evacuations.  
N. B. This is the most Sovereign Present Mankind can receive, if the Health and Life of all the Inhabitants, are of any value to themselves or the Public; oblige me with a short Report of it.  
S. B. The Comments Publish and Demonstrate the 4 certain Principles or constituent Parts of all Vegetables and Animals, which variously altered and mixed produce the Healthy and Diseased Qualities of the Blood: The happy Application and Union of the Qualities of the Medicines cannot fail to restore the Natural and Healthy Crasis. They present us the abundant Plenty of the Degrees of those Qualities mixed and compounded in the vast varieties of their Virtues, the Magazine of Medicine, Providence has provided to prevent and subdue all Diseases. Chemistry has unfortunately attempted to improve them by separating and destroying the Divine Compositions. The separated Principles cannot unite with the Blood act on it with the most vehement Impressions, are only of the noblest use in the rare Cases, when the Salutary Violence is demanded, as the Burn and Incisions of Surgery, are most necessary to inflame the languid Spirits and Blood, but they dissipate and waste, with themselves flying off, the most active Spirits of the Blood and the Nerves. They are (the Vinous and Volatile Spirits, the Oils) most necessary to enforce the Evacuations of Sweats and Perspiration, to blow up the Vital Fire when almost extinguished, or (the Acid Spirits, the fixed Salts) to cool and repress the inflamed Oil of the mixture of the Blood. But how despicable is the Penury of Chemistry compared with the Riches and Magnificence of Nature. All the Vinous, and Volatile and Acad Spirits are but three Medicines differing only in the Degrees of one Quality. The unfermented Oils are only discriminated by the being more or less diluted. All the fixed Salts are only varied by the Circumstances of their Fusion. The Magistcries and Calcinations are a deed unactive Earth. when you except the Preparations of the Minerals. The greater part of the Additions of the crafty Arabians to the most rational Pharmacy are the most absurd Medicines in the World. Most of the Conservet and Sycups pretend only to prevent the trouble of preparing the most generous Remedies, the Extracts, Infusions and Decoctions, but are the most oppressive in the Stomach, the most corrosive corrupters of the Blood. The largest Part of their Compositions is infamous from the horrible tumults of the contrary Qualities of 50, 100 Ingredients in one, controlling and destroying one another's Efficacies.  
N. B. The most Self-evident and serious Truths! The noble Specisick, the Bark, must be taken without Addition, Powdered, or, infused or decocted, or extracted, shall it be debased by Sugar to a Conserve or Syrup; or Distiled to a Simple vapid Water, or to a Brandy Spirit from a fermented Liquor? Shall the stronger Fire force over the stinking Oil? The wonderful Composition of its Principles is vitiated or wanting, or corrupted by their brutish Cookeries of the adored Specific. Surgery will use the Oils, or the Subtilizations of them by Fermentation in the Vinous Spirits on the rare Occasions, but the Fomentations, and all the other Topical confess their powerful Operations from the preserved entire Qualities of the Vegetables. How ridiculous are the Pursuits of Chemistry, designed only for surprise and the Pleasures of Amusement? How vain the Ambition to outdo by our Artifices the inimitable Masterpieces of Nature? How unhappy are the Great and Noble, poor in their Confinement to the enjoyment of the Trifles they reserve to themselves?  
S. B. The Alterative Specificks are the Medicines, which in all the Ages past, restored the most Difficult Diseases to Health, by correcting the vicious Qualities of the Blood, by uniting with it and supplying the Principles defective in the respective Disorders. The innumerable Fevers, Diseases of the Brain, Breast, Bowels, the Viscera, the Dropsy, Jaundice. Gout, the Scorbutical Colliquations, the Disorders of the Sex can only be cured by the frequent use of their Alteratives in the proportioned Quantities, as the Waters, to dilute with the Efficacy of their Minerals. The Comments range them under the obvious Classes of their Qualities and Virtues, 1. The Aromaticks, the Acrid, Spicy or Cordial, the Restorers of the Oil and internal Motion of the Blood, 2. The Astringent, 3. the Bitter, 4. the Acid, 5. the Sweet, 6. The Watery. But the Wisdom and Powers of Nature are boundless. The Aromaticks are more Acrid, or attemperated by the Astringent, or Bitter, or Acid, or Sweet or Watery Qualities, every other Class regales us with the same large Abundance and Variety.  
N. B. You observed, That the more rare Indications demanded Bleeding, the Vomits, Purgers, Sweaters, the Chemical Spirits, and the Vinous Waters, to revive the Vital Flame. I have heard, a Sect of Physicians has cured all Diseases by the Alteratives you have described conveyed into the Stomach and Blood, with the Nourishment of our Foods, and the three last are avowed to be restorative by Nourishment, and Medical, and Correctors of the Vicious Humours. Will not the Patient's fear, that the dead distilled Waters of the Fruits and Herbs, will turn their Blood into a Dropsy, that the fermented Spirit of the Grape, of all the Vegetables will evaporate and consume the more active Parts of the Blood, the Spirits, and therefore every Hour raise the craving a new supply, till the Appetite and Digestion are destroyed to a Dropsy or Consumption? Will they command their Cooks to prepare the Flesh with Sugar, or Distil it to a Simple or Compound Water? Will they feed on the Drops of the Oil extracted from it?  
S. B. Not more than 3 or 4 Centuries are past, since the Arabian invented the Distillations. EUROTE long preserved the use of the Specific Alteratives, the collusions of the last Age made the fatal Deluge of the Simple and Compound Waters. The Ease and Profit of the Apothecaries have abdicated the vast Numbers of them. Milk-Water and of Black-Cherries, and 3 or 4 of the Compound are only retained in service. The Physicians are indifferent which of them make the Julep for the Head, Breast, or Stomach, etc. The Evidences of the Comments are irresistible, from the attestations of all the most successful Practisers of this Age, who avow they only divert their Patients with the temperate Juleps, as Sweetmeats, and from the Philosophy of all the kinds of Distillation, which can bring over no one Part of the great Natural Composition from any of the Specific Vegetables but the Aromatic, and from them only the Oil separated from the other Principles. If there are 50 Plants in the Compound Water, and 25 Aromatic; you have 25 Oils with the smatch only of the Qualities of the Plant: Every Oil must vehemently inflame, raise the Nauseas and Flatulencies, and the Tempests of Wind they are pretended to break. The good Sense therefore of our Gentlemen and Porters prefer the Simple Spirit, or the Infusions Rattafia and Vsquebaugh before them, and the surest Success in all the windy and Phlegmatic Colicks supports their Judgement. Shall our Arrogant Physicians and Surgeons be able to appoint none of the Appropriate Remedies, but these most offensive Punches, in all the Hours of all the Diseases of all the Constitutions and Ages? The Appropriate Alteratives, either the Watery Oily, or the Watery Sweet, or the Sweet Acids, or the Acid bitter in the most agreeable Animal Liquor lately presented from the most efficacious Plants of the Field, and the more agreeble Liquors, whose Oils are attemperated by the other Principles, shall abate every Hour the deputary Motion of the Blood in all the inflammatory Diseases, reject a part of the Recrements, every Hour, by the Pores, by Urine or the Bowels, and gradually reduce the ferment to the Natural Temper, and make the just Crisis by Sweats, and the other Evacuations or the Cutaneous or Glandular Separations. When we shall have this and a thousand other Reformations, the Physicians and Surgeons obliged to learn, and prescribe the most useful Medicines, the Apothecaries carefully preparing the Remedy adapted to the Circumstances of each Case and Constitution: The People will generously reward our Industry, we shall not insult and destroy the Professions to make our Reprizals on them, because Million of Empirics, the daring Privateers and Pirates on our Trade, invade and plunder us.  

My dear United Britain's,  
I assured my good old Gentleman at parting, that War shall be proclaimed against the wicked Empirics, that their Defeat shall give the first Triumph to Great Britain. Tho' they are as numerous as the French in Flandess, our Gentlemen of Honour and Virtue, (if every one cares only for himself) will bravely attack their Intrenchments, when their Courage shall be inflamed, after reading the Memoirs of the English Practice, presented to me by all the Physicians and Surgeons of Integrity. When the Arabian Chemistry had presented to Europe the admirable vinous and volatile Spirits, and the Oils, the acid Spirits, and the fixed Salts, which justly applied, exert the almost miraculous Powers; the first reviving the almost dead vital Flame, the other instantly extinguishing the Fire of the Blood in the Dose of few Drops and Grains: Million of Empirics pestered Italy, France, Germany: Every one pretended to his own Discovery and laborious Preparation of a supernatural Remedy, each Drop demanded the Peice of Gold, the Reward of its Title and Achievements: An Army of Empirics, as the old Saxons, invaded our Island. The Princes and Nobility, (who is secure from the Enchantments of the Craft of Physic?) admired and applauded them, decried all the Learning, and Observations, and Medicines of the Practisers refusing to rely on them in all the Diseases of Mankind. The fiery Quackery triumphed, till the Cheapness of their little Doses was detected, were forced to load the Sick with the Proportions of other Medicines, which could support their Gain. The Manufactures flourished in all Parts: The Officers licenced the Strolers of Plays; the Tumblers, the Monsters and Elephants, and Tigers, and Bears: They first granted their Licenses to the Stages, to delude, and cheat, and destroy the People. Our glorious Patron of Learning, K. Henry VIII. the Lords and Commons, (Ann. Dom. 1524.) Established, by Law, the College, and the Surgeon's Company, avow in the Act, that they dread the most public Calamities impending on the Nation, if they expose the Life of the Subjects to Undertakers, not examined whether they understand the innumerable Diseases, and the cautious Use of the Medicines. Secondly, If the Advisers receive their Reward from their Arbitrary Numbers and Rates of the Doses, obtruded on all Disorders whatsoever. Would to God, Committees of the Nobility, Gentry, and Clergy, were appointed to sit, till they had collected all the Calamities, which the Sick from the Numbers of Doses in all the Diseases and Constitutions must suffer. In that and the following Reigns, the Kings in Council, the Lord Chamberlain, the Judges, frequently animated the College, to the most vigilant Detection of the Empirics, often commanded the Lord Mayor, the Justices, to assist the Censors in their Apprehension and Punishment. The Society is composed of the Graduates from our famous Universities, which can only give the Lauguages, the Philosophy, the Rudiments of the Art, but must be advanced to the greatest Perfection in the most popoulous City, which presents Million of Cases, the most diligent Attendance, the Reports to one another of the salutary or unhappy Success of the most different Methods and Medicines. The Nobility and Gentry meet in the two Houses of Parliament to debate de arduis Regni Negotiis, the Physicians mutually impart and receive in the endowed Lectures, and their Conferences, their Observations of the most difficult Diseases, the Triumphs of the Specific Remedies. There is nothing can baffle the most wise Establishment of the College, but the Arrogance of the Physician, who assumes to himself, as our Prophets, the whole Art of raising his Patients, as from the Grave, has monopolised the Science of all things past, present, and to come, affirms all Societies are useless. But in the Reign of K. James I (Ann Dom 1616.) all the legal Establishments were overturned by the Grants bought of the Courtiers, to invade all the Professions and Arts. Then 114 Apothecaries obtain a Charter to deal only in Medicines. The Waters, Spirits, Tinctures, had been sold by the Distillers. The Confections, Powders, Pills, Ointments, Plasters, by the Grocers, who sold the Spices, Fruits and Drugs, and the Medicines in the large Quantities to the Families, who had learned the Mixtures of the Waters, and the Divisions of the others into Doses from their Physicians Instructions.  
My dear Britain's. I assure you, Providence can never fail in the abundant Provision of all things necessary to support Life. Have the People the Property, and the just Right and Demand of our Care of the Plenty of Bread and the other Foods? The most sovereign Medicines are equally the easy Purchase of the Poor, or the Charity of the Wealthy. I appeal to your Experience of the Medicines prepared in the Houses; of the Quantities bought of the Apothecary, Chemist, Druggist, or the Compositions imported by the Merchants, of our Hospitals, where many thousand Patients are yearly medicined at the Expense of a Nobleman's Family. But the Physician's Fee is more affrighting than the Pain or Fear of Death. But our Kings, the Ministers of State, the Officers of the Fleet and Army, the Judges, the Clergy, have their Fees from the proportioned Taxations of all the Conditions; and the Nobility and Gentry, receive the little Payments of the Cottages of their Manors. The Fees of the Nobility and Gentry can have no Bounds, but all the Populace cheerfully presented their Gratuities proportioned to their Circumstances, but with the inestimable Presents of the innumerable Diseases, which daily increase the Treasure of the Physicians Knowledge. The Nobility, etc. The Merchants, etc. then gave their Physicians their proportioned Salaries. The Physicians then near their Houses, (warranted by their learned Education, and the Examination and Applause of the College) were tortured by their greatest Interest to subdue the Disease in its Invasion, abate the Malignity of the Fevers, and often overcome them in 3 or 4 Days, to prevent the necessary Attendance of the Mornings and Evenings of the tedious Course. Their Interest compelled them to communicate the cautious Use of the most excellent Medicines in the frequent safe incidental Diseases of the Families. The vicious sophisticated Medicines were prevented or expelled from the Chambers. Will you be surprised, when I affirm, that the Physicians advising all the Sick, and the numerous Distempers near them, shall in few Years acquire a Science ten thousand times more estimable than the Moderns can presume? They observed all the Acute and Chronical Diseases, as the Gardner his Plants rising out of the Earth; and, as a Pilot at the Helm, had no Opposition from any separate or contrary Interest, and were in all the Dissiculties assisted by the Council of the most generous Patrons, who bequeathed the Arcana of the Diseases and Remedies their Predecessors had left them. Will it be objected, we pursue our Luxuries and our Avarice beyond all the Universe, but then in the intervals, we are the bravest, and wisest, and most public Spirited, outdo all in Improvements of Wit, and Pleasures, and Manufactures: Our Physicians and Surgeons, (though in the great Assemblies we despise and abhor them) are imagined from their imprudent Prattel in the Public Houses the greatest Artists of Europe. We have often (my dear United Britain's) fought for Plunder on the Borders; here I defy you, as the Princes of old contested the Discoveries the most useful and Royal. Our Physicians demonstrate, that the Philosophy of Nature has but lately advanced Northward, has been insulted in its Progress by the fierce Disputes of imaginary and impertinent Notions, by the Hypotheses of Principles and Corpuscles above the Reach of their Senses and Understanding. Physic, which claims the Honours and Prerogatives from employing the Philosophy of all Nature to the Divine End of preserving Health and Life, was the Pursuit of all the Princes, Nobility, Philosophers, after the first Affright of Diseases. They collected all the Observations of the Powers of all the Natural Causes and Energies, invading or protecting Mankind. Hypocrates and Galen, etc. collected all the fundamental, infallible, universally received Laws of Physic, diversified, as the Governments, by the various Climates, and Manners, and Diet. The Establishment of the Royal College, designed the Detection of the Diseases from our Climate, Air, Manners, and Diet, the Adjustment to them of the Methods of Cure, and the Qualities of the Medicines approved by the numerous Ages. The barbarous Irruption of Empiricism, as of the Goths and Vandals, has broken almost all the Attempts. Dr. Sydenham revived the vast Enterprise, by the Care of all the Sick in his Province, comparing the Impressions of all the Diseases, the Efforts and Tendencies of Nature, (the first and most powerful, and most solicitous Agent in all the Diseases) where its Symptoms promise and operate the never-failing Recovery, where it craves to be assisted, directed or moderated, or opposed. History gives the surest Instructions to all the Governments in Peace and War. The Conduct of Diseases, the Uses of almost all the Parts of the Universe to prevent or conquer them, are to be addressed to the peculiar Constitutions of the distant Nations from the great Magazines of their Success. But we must imitate the Ancients in their Sincerity and Industry. Our Physicians had the little, but mighty and most necessary Artifice almost peculiar to themselves; had the proportioned Fee in the Morning, but to prevent the mortal Suspicions, assumed the frequent Visits most necessary in the most acute and impending Dangers. How often did they preserve the Patients, and enrich their Knowledge by the hourly Views of Apoplexies, profuse Vomiting, Purging, Bleeding, when they remarked the Operations of the Medicines, directed more powerful, or more feeble, when they saw the Approaches of new and contrary Symptoms? I have been assured by my Physicians of Honour and Virtue, that the first Degrees of all Diseases, which can affect Mankind, are safe, the appearing fierce and painful Symptoms often ensure the Life, the Efforts of Nature directed, not repelled and destroyed, but the advanced Degrees of all the Distempers are as fatal as the Pestilence. Our Physicians than could hear or see the first Signals of Danger. They did not in the first Moment's decree the Methods of Bleeding, Vomiting, Purging, the 8 or 10 sweeting Doses for the succeeding 24 Hours. But they warily observed the Pulse, the Heat, the natural Evacuations by the Pores, Urine, or the Bowels; the next View demonstrated the Blood now depurating itself, the Salutary Evacuation begun, or the continued Evacuation rejecting the morbid Humours, abating the Fury of the Disease, and promising the Victory. The other Artifice produces its wonderful Effects. The different Conditions gave the half Fee in the Chronical Diseases at the Physicians House. They did not advise the poor Gentlemen at the tippling-houses, without the Informations of the Urine, an Hour before a Part of the Blood, and the surest Messenger from it, examined with the other Evidences.  
Shall we then, my dear South Britain's, conclude with the Gentlemen of Quality and the Remonstrance of the College in the Poem, that the Modern Physic is a Dangerous Craft, and put it down, as the Royal-Oak-Lottery, or restore it to its Integrity and Sufficiency. The Disease is known, and the Remedy most obvious, the excessive disproportioned increase of the Apothecaries, and the Oppressive Invasion of their Property by the infinite Empiries. In all the wise Government in Europe they are prevented from their multiplication pernicious to themselves and the Profession and People. The 114 in the Charter (An. 1616.) increased by the 2 or 3 Prentices in every shop, had filled all the streets of the City and the Villages about it. In their Distress from the Encroachments of the Quacks and themselves, the Court-Physicians, and a small part then of the Collegiates proposed to go snacks with them, taking the half of the 20 or 30, or 40 l. from all the Fevers and the Smallpox, etc. the most easy and secure, as the most perplexed and hazardous, and 100 or 200 l. in the long Disorders. How can it be? But what cannot the combination of 2 Artists achieve? The vulgar Medicines are only to be used; the Cordials, Sweaters, Sleepers, etc. Instead of their Mixtures and Divisions in the Family from the then known and cheap Quantities, all must be parted by the Apothecary into little Doses. They are disguised from their Knowledge by contrived Pompous Names, in the Latin Prescription. Every Dose must be pretended to be a rare and precious thing, all the Bowls and Powders avowed to be compounded with Bezoar, though the ten thousandth Part is not imported, and all the Juleps in all Disorders must be enriched with Pearl, inferior to many of the most plentiful Alkalies. That the Prescript may swell to the admired Bulk and Grandeur, the common Medicines, which are each perfect and complete for the respective Intentions, must be jumbled together 20 or 40 in each Dose, whose Ingredients may make 300 or 400 Drugs in each Medicine. You see My dear South Britain's, That the first Great Law of Nature is violated, that, as the Bark, its Sovereign Medicines in all the other Afflictions ●hall not be affronted and disturbed by the absurd additions, which certainly make the benign Distempers most fatal, and the dangerous most deadly. The Physicians and Surgeons then confessed, that ●hey killed the Patients and their Arts and Societies, but they would ●ast their Time, they had the greater Fee for the Morning Visit only, they had the enjoyment of good Company. The Apothecaries had the ●are of the Symptoms of the Evening and Night, the Medicines must be taken at the appointed Hours, or new directed by them, or from their Report of the greater or new Distress to the Physician. The Conspirators generously bestowed the meaner Patients on the Apothecaries, and assumed the Grandeur of treating only the Diseases of Quality and Wealth. But when the terrible Payments of the Bill made the Fees insupportable, the Houses were compelled to use the Apothecaries in all Cases, till the Life is despaired of, who then appoint the most choice Physician. Is it not inevitable, that the Men of the Character of the Mirmils, Querpo's, and the Bards, shall attest that there is no Omission or Commission in the Method of Cure the Patient has been under, that they communicate their Knowledge and all their Medicines? They shall be discarded if they abate the number of the Doses of the now 30 vulgar Medicines of the Shop, if they presume to restore the Appropriate Specificks, which must govern the Cure of Diseases. It is not impossible (my BRITAIN'S) to find out the Redress of your Calamities; Your Ancestors have reserved many of the infallible Medicines long since abdicated, and thy have bequeathed to you their care of the Public, and their Wisdom to preserve it. Their first care was to support the Fidelity, and Industry, to improve the Science of the young Physicians, warranted to the People, as the Judges of the Circuits, as the Coins and Measures. The Charters preclude the Hospitals from usurping the Diseases from the Physicians and Surgeons care. They are commanded to receive only the maimed and wounded Seamen and Soldiers, or the Casualties of the City: They foresaw the Dangers of the Diseased from the rude conveyance to them: from the stench of the Rooms, by the excessive Numbers, and the Scents of Dress: from the Sleep broken, by the Groans of the Pained and Departing, and the clamorous Attendance: from the gross Diet as in the Houses of Labour: from the use of the vulgar Remedies only, and the suspected cruel Refusal of the just Proportions: from the rare and confused Advices of the Physicians and Surgeons. The Clergy, who in the Spittal Sermons, report the Restrictions of their Charity to the wounded and maimed, will revive in the Citizens the Ancient Usage, when the Poor were saved by the hourly care of their Physicians and Surgeons, observing the tendency of each Disease, and the Powers of the Remedies, with the affectionate Attendance of the Houses, the undisturbed Reposes in the Air not corrupted, the Diet adjusted to all the Constitutions, and the steady use of the Specific Medicines. This Charity will introduce the Rewards given to the Physicians and Surgeons in all the Cities of Europe, with the Assurance, that this Method only can raise Physic and Surgery to the greatest Perfection, and the Applauses of the Calamitous near them relieved by their Bounty. The Universities and the Clergy will animate your Zeal to protect the Professions established by Law. The College has in the Poem humby proposed, That the weighty Affair may be examined and judged by Visitors, who will command the surrender of the Physicians and Surgeons, and Apothecaries Charters that Statutes shall be adjusted, which shall not be broken by their mutual rage and the abhorred Apostasies of their Members. We may fix the necessary Boundaries from the Laws the Eastern Emperors and Ministers 〈◊〉 State Religously observe, who must, every Year, hear an Hour one of all the Professions and Trades. In the mean time, the Physicians and Surgeons, must most industriously discover the innumerable Circumstances of all the Diseases, must examine the Qualities, and Virtues, and Preparations of all the Medicines. Then the Government will view with Pleasure, when it shall restore the Societies, (as when the Universe was formed from nothing,) the Beauty, and Goodness, and Harmony of the Parts. The Harangue on St. Luke's Day, will entertain the Audience, that we have at last begun to apply the Sacred Truths, the Observations of many Ages, collected by the famous Greek and Latin Authors, to the British Diseases, whose Language and most useful Philosophy has not been understood by our most eminent Practisers. Will the Orator be able to persuade, that in England, the Advice for Nothing had undone the Poor in every Sickness by the Sovereign Medicines, ten times cheaper than their Food: that it raised the Apothecaries and the Empirics on the Ruin of Physic and Surgery, who are elevated and sunk by the Apothecaries, and must therefore, with the most infamous Treachery, assault and destroy one the other, and their Professions: That the Physicians and Surgeons near the Court, had never seen the Rise and Progress of any Disease, had tampered only with the common Receipts of 30 vulgar Remedies, almost always fatal to the Royal Family, the Nobility, and Million of the People? How will they be surprised, that an hundred Years had passed, during the Sales of Patents and Charters, and the Rebellion, and, after the Restoration, and the more pernicious Civil-War of our Follies and Vices, before the Collegiates could convince the Nation, that the Right and Property in the Plenty of all the Remedies, and the Protection of their Life, can only be restored by the Defence of the Apothecaries against the Deluge of the Native and the Foreign Empirics, and the Regulation of the Number of their Shops?   
FINIS.