A-la-mode PHLEBOTOMY NO GOOD FASHION: OR, THE COPY OF A LETTER TO Dr. HUNGERFORD, Complaining of, and Instancing in the Fantastic Behaviour and Unfair Dealing of some London Physicians when they come to be Consulted withal about Sick Persons living at a Distance from them in the Country.  
Whereupon a Fit Occasion is taken to Discourse of the Profuse Way of Blood: Letting formerly unheard of, though now adays so mightily in Request amongst us here in England.  
By RICHARD GRIFFITH of Richmond in Surrey. M. D. Formerly Fellow of University Coll. in Oxon, and now Fellow of the Coll. of Physicians of LONDON.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Phocylid. 
LONDON, Printed by T. B. for Joseph Hindmash, at the Black Bull in Cornhill. 1681.   

TO THE READER.  
READER:  
I Know 'twill be expected, and 'tis, I confess, no more than what is Reasonable, that I should here give thee some Brief Account of the Causes inducing me to make these ensuing Lines Public. If either I, or another man have received any Personal Injuries in Relation to ourselves or our Professions, what has the World to do with that? Those, and those only, are to be made Acquainted therewith, whose Particular Concernment it is to Arbitrate, and do Acts of Justice between Man and Man. To raise a Hue and Cry for the Loss of every Trifle, and set the Beacons a burning upon the Approach of every Petty and Inconsiderable Vessel? would make but a strange kind of Disturbance in a Kingdom or Commonwealth: And no less degree of Madness may it appear to be, for Men of Private Condition to write Letters of Sad Complaints to one another about the Matters appertaining to their own Particular Affairs, and then to put them in Print when they have done, with an Epistle before an Epistle, and Solemn Appeals to the whole Body of the People to pass their Verdict upon the Case, who are most like to be in the Right, and who in the Wrong.  
And then to make a Description at large how such an one was taken Ill, and what several Sorts of Medicaments were thought upon by one Physician, which were all again disallowed of by another; and so by that means, to swell up a Public Narrative with little else beside an Account of their own Feuds and Janglings, and Paltry Discontents may seem to be an Enterprise of just as weighty a Concernment as the other was before, and undertaken to every whit as Wise and Useful a Purpose: Because if they do fall out or fall in, as the People are wholly uninteressed in the Quarrel, so are they likely to be neither much the better nor the worse which Party soever gets the Victory. Is it not usual for most men whose Livelihood comes in after the same Manner to Wrangle and Squabble, and render one another as Despicable as they can, to the end that those who appear to be the Bravest Champions in the Encounter may be able to bear away the Greatest Share of the Employment to their own Side? And is it not enough for the Spectators to be set a Laughing at them for their Foolery when they do so? But that Proclamation must be made for all others that would be apt to pass by without taking the least Notice of what had happened, to be invited to come in and deride them likewise.  
These two, as they lie the fairest in the Way, so are they the most Material of all other Objections beside, that I can think of; and could we but get clear of them, I see no great Reason to the contrary, but that the whole of what has been Propounded, did it not fail in some Points relating to the Manner of its Performance, might be looked upon as Passable enough; but that is a Thing not at all to be either Disputed or Justified by us here in this Place; but rather to be left to the more impartial Determination of such, as shall be willing to be at the Trouble throughly to examine it.  
As for what concerns the former of these, I have only this to plead on my own behalf, That notwithstanding the Instances put may indeed seem to have a Respect, but to one or two particular Persons at the most. Yet the Reason of the thing is of a much larger Extent as comprehending under it no less than a whole Community of Men; there being scarce a Country Physician now living in England, but who either has been already, or else at some time or other in probability may come to be involved therein; and therefore what has been affirmed of one or two, may in a Sense proper enough be applied to them all in General: And then the Benefit arising from the Memorandum's given, can never be excepted against as restrained unto a few.  
And albeit it be scarcely to be imagined for any actually Resident in the Country to be so invincibly Stupid, as not to be convinced beforehand, of the Truth of what they shall find asserted, either through their own Experience, or the Complaints of those they at some times or other may happen to have had Communication withal. Yet ought it not however to be esteemed of as lost Labour, to be confirmed in the Belief of what they knew to be so, by the concurrent Testimony of others besides themselves. The doing so friendly an Office may serve as an Additional Corollary to their Heap, and be useful to them, if for no other purpose, yet at leastwise to excite their Care and awaken their Diligence for the preventing such Inconveniencies for time to come, as without it might possibly have been so much the more apt to have befallen them.  
But as for such young Gentlemen, who are in a manner unacquainted with the World, and who living still in the Universities, have both their way of Employment and Place of Residency as yet wholly to choose: Such an Allarm●s this may prove to be of much greater Consequence to them; for they by making a due Improvement of so Seasonable an Advertisement, may consider the better how to dispose of their own Affairs, and not be ensnared in a Noose all on the sudden, they never so much as dreamt of, as thousands others have been before them, to the utter undoing both of themselves and Families, as might be easy to show how and which way; but that all is so manifestly discovered in the Sequel of this Tract. I shall therefore make the more haste to the other Objection as yet behind.  
And here again, though the Examples produced may be but one or two for Number, yet are they virtually as many as the Inhabitants dispersed up & down the whole Nation; who might all of them have been served with the very same Sauce, had they but fallen under the same circumstances the others did, and but sent for the same or suchlike Wise and Faithful Counsellors to have afforded them their Assistance, or may yet in good time, when ever the like Difficult Occasion happens to present itself: And then neither can the Usefulness of what has been Observed be manely a ●le to Exception upon the latter Score. Because all such as in succeeding Times shall chance to fall ill of any Dangerous Distempers have an Item given them, if they please to take ●t, of divers Material Points; which otherwise perchance they would not have been altogether so well ware of. As first of all to take it into their Serious Consideration, Whether or no it may not be much better to make a Beginning with a London Physician, if it must ●ome to that at last, as a surer means ●o engage him to the greater Faithfulness and Circumspection in what he Undertakes.  
Secondly, Whether having consulted with a Neighbour at the First, it may ●ot be adjudged convenient to Adhere ●o much the closer to his Directions.  
Thirdly, Or if it shall be held meet ●o seek out for an Assistant, that may be Partaker of the same Cares: It may ●ot be good Advice to make choice of ● Person as well remarkable for Honesty, as Learning; it being the most likely for such an one to be Contriver of the least Mischief, as well as to be in a Capacity of doing the greatest Good. My Meaning is to have it well weighed, whether such men as cannot be denied to have a Competent Stock of Learning in their Heads, but withal are known to have a great deal more of Pride and Malice, and other suchlike Naughty Principles in their Hearts▪ may not be apt to pull down more with one Hand, than they are able to set up again with both, and so prove in the Issue instead of Helpers to be the greatest Hinderers of all.  
Or Lastly, to have it debated, Whether or no some earnest Injunction t● deal clearly and uprightly in the Matters they are entrusted withal, without either Prejudice or Humour, or Affectation of Vain Glory, or out of any other By-respect whatever, besides purely the good and welfare of the Patient they are sent for to Consult about, may be e'er a whit unseasonable. I know some will be apt to smile at this last, as supposing it to be a mere Folly to go about to oblige those by Obsecrations and Entreaties, that could never be prevailed upon by any Sense of Honour and Conscience, and the Engagements they have sometimes taken: But then they are such as have neither Conscience nor Honesty, to which an Obligation (if to any thing) ought to be fastened; that we have been all this while speaking about, and so they are soon answered.  
Besides, 'Tis none of the smallest Obligations they lie under, to treat one another civilly as oft as they meet together in Consultation; which Rule, how well 'tis observed, the many Slanders, Backbitings, and sometimes open Reproaches, which are wont to fall out upon that Occasion, do more than sufficiently witness: And then let any one show me a Reason why those that are false to their Engagements in one Respect, should not as well be the same to them in another, whenever it suits with their Interest to be so? And though, 'tis true, a good Man may do well for the Sake of Virtue alone, and though he should have no Supervisor at all to oversee him in his Actions: 'Tis neither impossible nor unlikely but that the Bad may receive the Surest Check of all to put a stop to the fullest Career of their evil Practices from some Accidental Considerations; such as is the Fear of Shame, and Censure, and Public Report: And if they have any feeling left them what the meaning of these things is, 'tis scarcely imaginable but that they should have the Faculty something the more quickened and rubbed up, when they perceive their Doing pried into, and had in Suspicion by other men.  
Some other things there are, which were all people but so Charitable or ingenuous as to take in the sense they were either intended or did naturally ●mport, would stand in little need of ●n Apology, they are so Innocent and Harmless; as namely, the Insisting for ●o long a time together upon the Sickness of a single Person; the seeming Reflections that are made in some Passages upon the Female Sex, and the cause of Scandal offered to all Physicians ●n general, by laying so foul Aspersions to the Charge of some of their Particular Members. But in regard there are so many turbulent Spirits in the World, apt to cavil at, and pervert the Meaning of almost every thing they meet withal, that is but capable of a wrong Interpretation as well as a right. I shall, for their Sakes, and for the preventing any ill Consequences that might be apt to ensue upon their distorted Commentaries, crave leave to add a few words for the Vindication o● them also.  
In answer to the First, of which i● may not be altogether unworthy the Noting, that the Composing huge large Volumes, filled with nothing else but the Observations that have been made by Physicians upon the various Estates of several Diseased People, and the Remedies applied to each of them together with the different Successes and Events that have followed thereupon was never (that I could yet hear of looked upon by any (though the mos● Critical in their Judgements) as any matter of Absurdity at all: And then wha● just Reason can there be assignable, wh● the same Favour should not be allowe● of, when an Example comes forth unaccompanied and single by itself, especially seeing such a Case is like to be so much the more narrowly sifted into, and set forth with all its Circumstances; whereas many things of a like Nature thronging in a Crowd together, cannot be attended to with an equal Regard, but must, and will of necessity prove an hindrance to one another.  
Whence it often happens, that what might very well have deserved a more serious and thorough Disquisition, comes to be huddled over with too much Brevity; which in all Cases is no other than the immediate Parent of Obscurity, and the Grandmother of Confusion and Mistakes, and by that means a Necessity is occasioned of making Repetition of the same things several times over; as we find it in divers Authors, which had they been handled more copiously at the first, and debated upon with that deliberation which the matter might have required, might have served but once for all; and those other Tautologies which we meet withal so often afterwards, have very well been spared.  
And then in the Second and Third Places, for the Reason is one and the same to both; because some few of a Kind or Profession have been represented as Blameworthy; therefore, to imagine that either any others, or all the rest of those Orders, who neither are, nor ever were intended to be such, should find themselves aggrieved thereat, is just such another wild and fantastical Surmise, As to suppose that all the Individual Persons belonging to any Community whatever, should be either Wise, or Learned, or Good; if that could but be made out for an Hypothesis to build upon, then indeed the taxing of any one of the whole Rank, might well be interpreted an insuring of them all: As they say it fares with the Strings of some Musical Instruments 〈◊〉 a Room together, if wound up to an equal height; touch one, and you would stir them all: But so long as the contrary is known to be most undeniably true, it can be no Disparagement to the best Societies in the World to have it spoken, because so easily to be proved that there have been, are, and ever will be some Faulty persons amongst them. Nay, 'tis so far from being any Diminution at all to the Worth of those that are in no wise guilty, that it commends it but the more, and sets it off with so much the purer a Lustre: Because had there been no Vice, there would have been no Virtue; and were it not for the Badness of some Men and Women in the Wotld, there could never possibly have been any Good. Nay the very World itself, setting aside Monsters and Prodigies, and other suchlike Deformities of Nature, could never in any sound Sense have been said to have been made perfect; because this Comparison above, giveth Beauty and Ornament to most of the things that are found in it, which would have neither the one nor the other if considered in themselves. We account some Persons to be Discreet, and Just, and Temperate, but they are the Fools, and Knaves, and Debauches that make them such. And those very Ladies which are wont to Attract the Eyes, and engage the Affections of almost every one they come a near, little think how much they stand indebted to the Blemishes of some of their own Sex for the place they hold in the good Opinion of their Admirers. And therefore I can see no reason why any Women, whose Displeasure is worth the serving, should pretend to take any thing amiss that can be said of them as deserve to hear ill. Not only because there can be no great hurt in Slandering any one with a matter of Truth, but upon the very account of their own Interest: For if they are such as most Women would be thought to be, and I, for my part, am willing to believe they are, unless the Faults and Misdemeanours of those who are their Foils, had by some means or other happened to have been rendered conspicuous: Those very Qualifications, upon the Score of which they are wont so highly to value themselves, had never in the least measure come to have been taken notice of.  
And this might very well have sufficed for the answering each of the two Particulars at once, might it have been but applied in the same proportion it bears to both of them alike. But in regard so much has been spoken in order to the excusing a word or two, and that when let fall but by the by only; because a little slenting upon that Sex, which is so much given to take Exceptions: Whereas the very Scope and Drift of the whole Design has been for no other end (as the Title Page truly enough seems to intimate) then the exposing the Unworthy Dealing of some Physicians to public Scorn and Contempt. I cannot but hold myself obliged in the best sort I can, to bespeak the formable Opinion of those Learned and Worthy Persons, who though wearing the same Titles, and inhabiting the same Place with them, do yet (I believe) as much abhor and detest their Leaguer du Main Tricks, as either I myself or any other man; and I do hope, and rest pretty well assured, That as there has not been any one Syllable of aught spoken by me intended to their Prejudice: So that neither it will be so understood by them. I do from my Heart believe the Generality of Physicians now living in London, to be the most Able, Learned, and every way well qualified Persons of any that are to be found again of the Profession throughout all Europe beside, as they have ever had the Honour, and that most deservedly, to be accounted of. The more than the pity, that these their good Parts should be abused to so ill purposes, by some rotten and corrupt Members amongst them; and so much the more need (one would think) there should be to set some Marks of distinction to difference the one from the other. And if I out of a Fit of Zeal for the public Good, rather than any great depth of Judgement, have been so little mindful of my own private Interest, as to set a helping hand to the promoting that which I conceived to be so honest an Undertaking; I hope no good Man will see any just reason wherefore to be offended with me for it. I may perchance deserve something of his Pity for intermeddling in a Brangling Business, which might have been much better for me, to have passed over in Silence, but surely nothing at all of his Displeasure. Particular Premises can never include any sufficient medium, for the warranting any Universal Conclusions. No more can the vicious Inclinations of some few of a Profession affix any just matter of Ignominy upon the Reputation of those that are good; But enough of this has been already spoken to under the former Head, which if it shall not be adjudged Satisfactory, I have only one short Request to make to them to whom it is not, and that is, That they would be pleased but to make the Case their own: as to speak the Truth of it, 'Tis impossible for any one rightly to apprehend the Concernments of another man, unless he do so.  
Let such but imagine themselves to have been at a great deal of Cost, and Pains, and Expense of Time more valuable than the other two; to have fitted and qualified themselves for an Employment for the Service of their Country; and when they had used their utmost Diligence in order to the attaining that End, and had at last pitched upon a place of Abode every way commodious to their liking: How would they whistle it to have a malapert man of their own Rank (and some years their Junior in that College, whose very Statutes obliges each Member belonging to it, to a civil respectfulness one towards another) without other provocation or Cause of distaste given him, other than what proceeded from the Malignity and Depravedness of his own cankered Nature;) sally forth amongst their Patients, and there bestir himself the best he could to possess their minds with wrong Notions of their Distempers and prejudices against all rightful ways of Cure taken by them, and all this out of a wanton Humour to bring them into a Disrepute with their Neighbours, and to convert the good opinion they might otherwise have been apt to have had of them into a mere Loathing and Abhorrency.  
Nay, let me yet put the Question a little further home, and ask them, Whether or no, if they had right on their side, and were able to make it appear so to the World, they would forbear to use the only means that was left them, for the justifiing themselves and Actions, for fear of giving offence to such as had no just reason to take any; and so out of I know not what scrupulousness of fancy suffer their own Credits, and the lives of their Patients, so oft as the same Project came to be renewed, to lie at the mercy of those who never had, nor were never like to have any regard at all to either. If they say they should not, as 'tis most probable they will, then neither am I by their own confessions to be blamed for what I have done; but if they should, though the groundless scrupulosity of some be no warrantable Rule for others to take example by; I care not much however, for this one time, if I do submit myself to the most rigorous severity even of their own Award; and so let them censure me as they think fit. And now I have made this bold challenge, I cannot foresee that so great hazard I am like to run thereby; because to be a Sot and a Dunce and an utter Ignoramus are the highest of Titles, the learned Rabbis, I have been endeavouring to decipher by their good would ever allow us poor Country Physicians to be in any capacity of attaining unto; as the constant series of their deportment towards us, and sometimes their discourses bolted out occasionally make evidently enough to appear: And then I'd fain know what sinister Accident that can possibly befall us in any undertaking we set about, can render our Persons more contemptible or our Condition much worse. But be it as it will, whatever may become of me and my small concernments when the business is brought to the upshot; I do not altogether despair but that (as it falls out with the unhappiest Projectors) some benefit may chance to redound to others, though I myself should be made a loser thereby, and that will be the compensation for the prejudice I am put to sustain, every way as ample as I desire.  
It was, for aught I know, and, which is somewhat more, am apt to believe, and now and then when I think upon it seriously to please myself (I confess) with the conceit thereof) prove an occasion of the saving much useful Blood and Spirits in the Bodies of a multitude of good people, who upon the reading over the Arguments contained in this little thing (though prosecuted I must needs acknowledge with weakness enough) shall not be altogether so forward to lend an ear to every plausible pretention, as otherwise they would have been.  
And 'tis not altogether impossible, but that some who by one chance or other may happen to peruse these Lines, and are withal conscious to themselves of having deserved the Character they shall find bestowed upon them (though 'tis very likely withal they'd ne'er be brought to acknowledge so much) may when they perceive their Actions taken notice of, be induced so far forth to reform their manners, as not to insult over their equals in every thing but pride and conceitedness, with half that domineering Lordliness that formerly they were wont. And it be but out of fear that as the thing is come to be commonly known, so the next time they come to act it in public, it may as publicly be laughed at.  
And to speak the plain Truth of the matter, though I all along make myself a party principally concerned; the occasion that has been offered is admitting of no other way of management. Or at leastwise this being the best that my dull and barren fancy was able to suggest to me; yet the main Scope I have from first to last intended, has lain couched under these two particulars beforementioned, which if I obtain, I shall have had my end; but if I miss of it, though every thing else should succeed that may seem desirable upon any, or indeed all other accounts besides whatever, it will signify but very little or nothing to me. But I both must, and shall for ever look upon myself to have been totally disappointed.  
As for what concerns the lateness of this Publication, so long after the occasion given: I have only one short word to allege in the vindication of myself, which is, That though I had finished what I have now written timely enough yet there being some things contained in it of a reflecting nature, which could not be avoided. And I being then engaged in a business, the most important of all others to the concernments of Humane Life; which was not to be meddled withal and any thing like Controversy at the same time. I was in a manner compelled to give respite to the one, till I had fully accomplished the other.  
Farewell.   

SIR,  
HAving been lately informed of a pleasant passage befalling you in your practice concerning your Patient. Sir H. F. I have made bold to be a little curious in enquiring into the truth thereof; and so much the rather, because the Catastrophe excepted in very many particulars, more than a little resembling a Case I have had of my own.  
I was given to understand how, that after Sir. H. F. upon a Fall he had received near Windsor, was committed to your care. A Physician from London, by the importunities of some friends of his, was brought down to visit him. How that the many Arguments of their Discourse insisted upon almost all the way they came, was to bewail the lamentable Condition of the unfortunate Gentleman, whose hard hap it had been to catch his harm so far distant from London; the only place (as they conceived) where the means of Relief in that and the like dangerous misadventures was to be sought for; That his Lady was much to be blamed for not looking out for better advice sooner, and for having so little reason with her, as to rely upon the fumbling skill of a poor Country Doctor.  
How that the Learned Man, so soon as ever he was carried into the Parlour, was observed bitterly to inveigh against the irregularity of your Prescriptions; without so much as taking time to see any, or hear any account given of what had passed before his coming thither; most magisteriously to have issued forth his orders for the taking away of thirty Ounces of Blood from your Patient's Arm, Peremptorily alleging there was an absolute necessity for so doing: The only possible scruple remaining with him, being this; whether or no such wholesome advice might not come somewhat of the latest, through the supine neglect of those foolish people who had been all this while about him to so little purpose; as the usual pretence upon such occasions is wont to be with all the Fraternity of like Principles with himself; so that if the Business had come to have succeeded well, the credit of the Action, had been wholly his, if otherwise, the Odium and Disgrace thereof had fallen to your share. A pretty trim Invention this, and a cheap way of gaining glory to ones self; because hazarding nothing at all the mean while for it; unless it be a Patient's life; or another man his good name; or so forth: A couple of petty and inconsiderable things.  
I hear, how that the Lady was a little surprised at such unwonted confidence; and considering with herself; that he had lost Thirty Ounces already, was not altogether so forward as was expected, to give entertainment to this so sudden a motion; whereupon she was severely chidden for her waywardness; and given further to understand, that unless his commands were punctually observed, her Husband was, in reason, to be looked upon as no other than a lost man; and so she might do even as she pleased, choose whether she would have his Life saved when it was offered, or not: But she, it seems, being a Person to be swayed with some thing else, besides passionate words, and big looks, remained utterly dissatisfied with these his hasty conclusions, and absolutely refused to follow his directions, unless happening to be seconded by your approbation: that the Doctor was bemadded thereat, threatened a departure out of Town, at break of day, next morning, (pretending I know not what urgency of occasions) unless your more early arrival there happened to prevent him. All which subterfuges not serving his turn; but you appearing beyond expectation, and both disliking and confuting his counsels, and they thereupon being rejected as unsafe; I am credibly informed the Gentleman to have been restored to some memory again, and as well recovered of his Malady (all circumstances duly considered) as would reasonably have been expected.  
If it be so, Sir, I hearty congratulate your safe escape, from this notable underminding stratagem, that was so artificially contrived, for the blowing up of your reputation, and glad I am with all my heart, that the inventor thereof (be he who he will) was so luckily catched in the same trap, he had designed for another. Truly such a facetious story as this is, deserves to be laughed at right hearty; because ending Comically: but had the Plot taken effect, and the blame of the miscarriage lighted upon your head, together with the loss of your Patient's life to boot, ●'de fain know, how either you, or the wisest man living in your stead, could have been able to have helped yourselves.  
Give me leave to tell you, Sir, that you have run a kind of desperate hazard; because happening to be brought of by a mere contingency, all the security you had being bottomed upon the slight Basis, of but a single woman's opinion: And where there is one in that or a like case, the decision of the point being referred to their arbitrement, would have given it on your side, there are five hundred would have inclined to the opposite party; and have been apt to have cried out without any further examination of the matter, that the doctor from London had said it, and it must needs be so: Ay indeed must it, Ay and all that, and a great deal more; and this had passed for an argument as irrefragable as demonstration itself: as good have set yourself against a Torrent with a pitchfork, as to have presumed to have muttered the least syllable in opposition against it. But all must have been done, and you must e'en have suffered: There had been no remedy: For if he had died, no body had killed him but you, for not causing him to be let blood in a sufficient quantity sooner. But if he had happened to survive, than the Gentleman from London, had shown himself an incomparable Artist and performed an unexemplified cure, not only saved a man's life, that's a matter of small moment with such rare Practitioners, but what is somewhat more dificult, restored him to his senses and memory again: which without the interventions of his happy assistance had been irrecoverably lost. Then had not only the Patient himself, but his Dependants and Family been indebted for their preservation, to this most excellent person: And it had been an obligation of so endearing circumstances, as never to have admitted of a plenary recompense by any possible acknowledgements, that could for ever after that have been paid him: Then had he road back to London in most triumphant manner, vaunting and boasting in all the companies he had come into of the happy relief he had given to one in the country, just at the very instant of being cast away, through the ill mannagery & want of skill of one that passed for a Doctor amongst them. And then the Country Doctors, they must have been frumped and scoffed at; just as the poor Curates are wont to be at an Act or Commencement, and forced to look simply, so of't as they had chanced to meet with any that had been disposed to have been pleasant with them. And now what a sad and woeful condition are you, and I, and a hundred more of us in, who by the inauspiciousness of the Planets we were born under, are condemned to take up our Abodes in Country villages, to be thus always liable to such disadvantages as these are, and left to the mercy of a part of extravagant hotheads, to put tricks upon us at their pleasure.  
He that is a Heathen in his principles, and a mere Atheist in his practice, in fine, that is either a fool or a knave, or both or all together, whether he be Empiric, or Chirurgeon, or Apothecary, or Legal Physician, if coming but from London, and dignified with the Title of a City Doctor, he carries all before him; and is at liberty to make havoc of us, with the turning of a finger, in spite of all the defence in nature, we are capable of making for ourselves; Unless through their own hair-brained, rash actions they happen to be plunged into a manifest absurdity; as in the case but newly recited; and another of mine parallel to it as shall be showed anon.  
As thus; the evidence of the matter appears as transparent as Crystal, and he who has but half an eye in his head, cannot choose but be made sensible of it, at the very first blush; All we who live near the City, must unavoidably upon the declining condition of our best Patients, evermore be Subject to have some or other of them to be brought down upon us. The new Physician is like the rising Sun; every one's eye is cast upon him for some Ray of comfort: his presence always brings hope along with it, at least, though it should afford nothing more, And what ever falls from his mouth, hit or miss, is usually esteemed of by the company as little less than Oracle. The women never fail to gather about such a one at his first arrival; whose hearts as they are ever tender, so are their tongues talkative: And I pray, Good Sir cry they, what may your Judgement be in this matter, life or death? we have had a restless night here: such and such things have been administered before your coming: we wish they may not have been too hot nor too cold: Do you believe them to have been all proper? Ah! this is luscious language to a proud heart and a haughty mind! this feeds the swelling humour till it be ready to burst again, and this flyblows the man's head with conceitedness, so as to make him utterly forgetful of his duty both to himself and others: For whilst the bladder of pride is thus bloated up, he takes himself for some other Creature then what really he is, and looks upon all his equals with pity and disdain. And now he is put into the way his Genius so much inclines him to, he may very well be let alone to act his own part: For seeing others have been forward to declare the good liking they have of him, he is resolved not to be over-bashful in setting a value upon himself; be domineers, and he dictates, and his sentences are all irreversable, admitting of neither disquisition, alteration nor appeal; but must all be submitted to with a blind obedience, and an implicate faith: and nothing in fine can ever be performed regularly, and as it ought, unless happening to agree with the exact platform of this wise contrivance. There is no tutor insults more imperiously over his young pupil, than some that I could name, do over those they are super-induced to consult withal: especially if they find any of the family peeping in upon them to make observation of their Actions: for then something must be spoken in a key higher than ordinary: Some latent Error upon a more serious review discovered, and the pen snatched out of the others hand to mend it withal, and if it be but on purpose to show who gives check to the consultation, and where alone the Legislative Power lies.  
'Tis true if he be a man of uprightness & integrity, as there is a number of such in this City, to give them their just due: then he either Justifies what was done formerly, if in ●his conscience he believes the Physician to have proceeded according to the rules of art. But if otherwise: he fairly debates the matter with him, and labours either to convince him by making it appear where the mistake ●ay, and is willing upon your reasons shown by the other to be overcome by him: and brought over to his opinion.  
But if on the other hand as is not seldom seen (and we have already supposed) he proves to be disingenuous and base, and devoide of that moral honesty, which all Physicians by their education, and some by virtue of their relation to particular Societies are more especially obliged to, as there is no profession of men whatever, but must of necessity have some that are bad amongst them. Then he projects all the ways he can how to salve his own credit, & consign the other over to the condemning power of the giddy multitude, who as they are always ready to take up the most malicious slanders upon Trust without so much as examining the reasonableness of them, whether likely to be true or false; so are they as industrious to improve a calumny to the utmost; and help it forward with all the agravating circumstances, it can possiibly admit of.  
He usually tells them for his part, that truly he could have wished it had been his fortune to have been sent far sooner. Several things being proper to be done at the beginning, which are not altogether so seasonable at the full height of a distemper, much less at what time Nature is almost overcome; but that which he prescribes is the only thing as the case than stands▪ possible to do the party good, and if that will not, he knows nothing else can.  
There are degrees of wickedness, and if the man be not fully fledged therein, it may be this reprehension shall serve the turn, which though but gentle in comparison of the unmercifulness of some others, yet (if believed) is of sufficient validity to clip the wings of his Antagonists (for such he esteems and such he takes him to be,) so as to keep him from ever soaring over-high in the good opinion of his neighbours. But now if he bent to be mischievous indeed, either through the propensity of his own nature or prompted to be so by the instigation of others: Then he goes a down right way to work, and finds fault with every kind of thing right or wrong that has been made use of, before his coming: And all the questions he makes are raised for no other intent whatever, but merely to deprave.  
Was the Patient let blood, why what cools or chills him? There being more need of Addition than Substraction, of pouring fresh into his veins (could it conveniently be effected) rather than letting any out, because in this case the distemper is to be carried off by fervent and a more quick Circulation of the blood, whereas now it Restagnates and Suffocates the man, who might have done as well as any one in England, had he not most unfortunately happened to have been abused and over-tampered withal.  
But if there was no blood at all taken away, why then the case becomes clearly altered, and that was the only Remedy Imaginable, & aught to have been celebrated upon any condition; but now 'tis too late, the humours being all quarred and settled about the Noble parts, which might easily have been drawn away by Revulsion when time was. And then he gives a grave no● with his head, and a shrug with his shoulder as intimating some worse business than all that to lie behind, which he good man out of mere modesty and pity to the others ignorance, is hearty ashamed to make mention of.  
If he finds he hath been purged pretty tightly, that has utterly dejected Nature: if but gently, than it has done the more mischief, by stirring the humours only, and not throughly removing them, if moderately and between both extremes, than 'twas wholly improper, and should not have been done at all, but he should rather have been sweated or vomited, or any other course taken with him than that which was, and the like is to be said indeed of any other application what ever. All which, and a great deal more, being most maliciously suggested by him, and with the same Rancorousness of mind entertained by the Gossips of the place, (I speak in the general, & would have my words taken as they are intended, in reference to the whole English Nation) who are always ready at hand to make their observations how matters go; Away they run with it immediately, and happy is that Woman that can make the first step over her neighbour's threshold, to carry a Report of these lamentable Tidings; how that the Doctor from Lond, is just now come, and says there might have been an other gets course ●aken with the Patient than was; & had he been but sent for sooner, he could most undoubtedly have saved his Life. Upon which, without farther proof, taking all for granted to be as 'tis related, they both lift up their hands to Heaven, and bless themselves, that one who pretends any thing to Physic, should be so strangely overseen; & yet now they think ●on't again, who could ever have expected any other from him; for they, for their parts, never took him for any other than a pitiful shallow-brained man; And this puts them ●n mind how such a one, and such a one di●d under his hands, and they lay much after ●he same manner too, and none of them were blooded neither, and truly they believe them to have all gone after the same way, and to have been merely destroyed for want of an able Physician.  
I'd have such silly souls as these are, but consider a little with themselves, whether the place where Physicians have their education be not one and the same to all; and when they have done that, peruse the weekly bills of Mortality in London, and see if they don't find some figures there as well as all Ciphers; Nay if the Numbers of their dead do not equal, to say no more, those amongst us in the Country, all due proportions being aloud; & then let all the world judge if these bold Undertakers be not hugely to be credited, that can have the impudence to talk thus  
There are some Stratagems never to be made use of above once; and if they do happen to come about a second time, are sure to be discovered, provided against, and baffled but here is a piece of Artifice beyond all Precedent, never to be worn Threadbare or ou● of fashion, but like the never failing Cordial itself holds out everlastingly; and recourse may be had to it upon every occasion, An● as it has been Practised time out of min● (though perchance never publicly declaimed against before now) so is it at length become hereditary, pleads a kind of Prescription, and passes for currant even from Generation to Generation; it being by constant observation, found exactly calculated to the Meridian's of all Country parishes in and throughout England.  
And if we consider over and above the length of its duration, and vastness of its extent, the sweetness of the Custom itself, and how throughly it has been snatched by a great many of those, whose interest it is to have it still kept up, we must needs conclude it a task exceeding full of difficulty, let what can be said against it, ever to procure it totally to be laid aside again; and it be but for these two reasons following: First of all, That it is a Project making such dead sure work then ever 'tis put in Practice. Secondly, that it is so easily performed. For 'tis but a bold man's crying out against a wrong course, and his being sent for too late, and there is a firm foundation laid for the raising what ever malicious superstructure Mr. Slanderer shall Judge convenient, and he who is but qualified according to that most excellent Character we have been all this while making a description of, and has once let fly these words; is ipso facto upon that very account perched up above the common Standard of all his equals, and vested with an Authority far surpassing the absoluteness of any Judge; for whereas a Judge is to act by virtue of his commission barely, and has his power limited and circumscribed by the known Laws of the land, whereby he is under a necessity of following the tract of a dozen plain Countrymen, the Verdict of every one of which is to take Precedency of his sentence; here's one has the Law put into his own hand; or rather indeed; who makes his own List his Law, and takes upon him to Arraign, Judge, and Condemn at mere Random and Peradventure. A Pish, and a Tush, and a distorted countenance, are of authority sufficient to dispatch the credit of as good or a much better Physician than himself in a breathing while, if happening to have the place of his Residence without the Precincts of the City-wards: And the very name of a Country Doctor puts in a bar of Exception to all he can either say or do; and in a word renders him a mere outlaw to the least pretence of claim, to either civil respect or fair usage: And all they who are thus exalted above them, look upon themselves as privileged to trample them to pieces, like so many Worms or Mushrooms, as often as the hasty mood chances to be upon them, 'tis an ancient custom 'tis true, as has been supposed; and that's all that can be said for it: But 'tis as wicked as unreasonable; indeed so very wicked a one, as that, though it may, and does oftentimes no doubt Minister occasion of laughter to fools, and such as who, so they can but be merry, care not at what rate it is they purchase their present pastime; yet would it if well thought upon, set a considering man a trembling to ponder with himself what are wont to be the fruits thereof in the horrid consequences that do attend it.  
And I could wish that all such, as cannot but know themselves to be highly guilty in this particular, my meaning is of opposing and threatening the despised men we have been all this while speaking about, and that for no other reason, then that no reason at all which has been likewise assigned by us, would but a little lay the matter to heart▪ perchance the diversion they shall give themselves would not be altogether so full of merriment as sometimes it has been, and the forethoughts of an after reckoning might prove some allay to the great contentment, many are apt to fancy to themselves in their chewing the Cud upon the blasted Reputations of other men. For the thing however light and trivial it may haply appear to Vulgar eyes, is not so in its own nature, but to be reflected upon by such as will Judge rightly of it, under a far different Notion: because when once this common bank of charity comes to be tumbled down 'tis easy to discern what an Ocean of inconveniencies, and those none of the meanest sort neither, stand ready to enter immediately upon the breach; Because he that has once shown himself a busy body in endeavouring to prove his Brother a fool: 'Tis ten to one if he do not in the next place discover himself to be an Errand Knave, by adventuring upon those mad prescriptions which otherwise he would have been ashamed of: For has the other taken a wrong course indeed, and has he said it then? rather than to give his own tongue the lie, he is engaged in point of credit to run counter to all the other party has done before him. And when once matters arrive to that height it may very well be suspected that he who made but little conscience of breaking the ninth Commandment, will be as regardless of violating the Sixth; and he who could think it no crime at all, to bear false witness against his Neighbour, will with as little regret of conscience, be inclined to the Commission of Murder: Especially when it may be brought about after an indirect way: And when egged on thereto by Pride and Malice, and a fearlesness of ever being called to an account; but instead thereof being so surely provided of a Cloak-Father on whom to lay the obliquity of the Action, in case of its happening to be searched into. This makes him all for Projects, and experiments and trying of conclusions.  
Nero, when he had set the City of Rome on fire, could afford to make the better pastime at the flames thereof, because he had the Christians ready at a dead lift, to entitle to his wickedness: and just so, and no otherwise do these mischievous and ill natured sort of men serve the poor Country Physicians when ever they come amongst them, let who will inflame the reckoning, they are evermore put upon it, to pay the shot: Because they and none else, in case the Patient happen to die, are to be accounted of as his Murderers; but if he chance to escape, as the only instruments of bringing his life into jeoperdy. So that fall back, fall edge, they are certain evermore to lie next harms way. And take the Dilemna by which Handle you please, either is like to prove but a wrong one to them. The others like his holiness, are not so much as capable of commiting the least oversight, or if they do amiss, by a strange kind of transmutation, their Vicious acts are all turned into virtues, only by becoming theirs. It puts me in mind of some great Commanders in a Sea-fight, who they say after they have been insconsed in Cable, and enveloped about with Cordage, even from the head to foot, are then fiercest of all, to give forth their orders for the joining of the battle: and after the same manner do these prime Artists let out their mad receipts upon the bodies of the miserable Patients, and when they have done that, stand by, and see how well Nature and the Disease combat together, and are all the while (to the praise of their great prudence, be it spoken) free from danger, and out of Gun-shot themselves.  
It strikes me with amazement, sometimes when I think on't, that the besotted Relations that are about the sick party are not offended at such a fulsome way of Procedure, but can be content to hear them out in what they have to say, and suffer them to go on in a slandering backbiting way, without check or control, as some do, so as to flesh and encourage them in this their sly kind of Knavery, and 'tis a wonderful strange thing to me, that they don't urge them to make good what they say face to face, seeing the parties are so near together, who are of these different persuasions, and seeing it may be done with so little trouble, to the end they may be the better enabled to come to the knowledge of the truth of the business, and to pass some little estimate how matters stand themselves, though every Man is not a Physician, yet he must be a very dolt indeed, who is not so far forth a Master of his own Reason, as to understand sense when 'tis spoken upon so common a Subject, and their are few bystanders at a bar of Justice, but upon a faithful opening of the cause on both sides between the parties, may be able to give a guests something near the matter where abouts the issue is like to rest. Whereas they, who have an ear only for the Plaintiff, can never Judge of things impartially; but must unavoidably be Subject to mistakes and incertainties, and it be but for this only Reason, because the knowledge they are capable of having, is no more than contingent; if happening to be true, well and good: 'tis more than he who receives the information, could reasonably have been assured of, and consequently ought not to acquiesce in; because it was equally probable that it might have been false. So that albeit in the profound Mysteries of Artificial wrangling, it be looked upon by those who are well Versed therein, to be a huge step towards the carrying of the Cause, to be able to cry Whore or Thief first: Yet amongst sober and discreet persons, the Case is far otherwise; and that very Circumstance of Pre-occupation, in drawing up the Charge against another, instead of aggravating the Crime, does but abate the Clearness of the Testimony given in, and render the Complainants Allegations so much the more suspicious.  
To speak hardly behind one's back, and to be the Inventor of little detracting Stories, to the Dispraise of another Man, who may be supposed in the Opinion of the world, to stand upon Grounds equal with ones self, is a practice so mean and ungentile, and creeping base, that 'tis a Riddle to me, that any who does but pretend to either Learning or Parts, or an ingenuous Education, should ever condescend upon the most tempting provocation, to make use of it. What then we shall think of those who can speak smoothly to a man's face, and yet upon the turning into another Room, so soon as ever they can fit themselves of an opportunity and place to vent their Malice in, must be darting out their slanderous Suggestions against those they just before seemed marvellously to approve of? This is an Action so purely Diabolical, and smells so hot of Brimstone, that those Nostrils must be dull indeed, that scent it not at the first Breath. It can be resembled to nothing more fitly than the kill a man when fallen fast asleep, or the stabbing of one behind, what time he least of all thinks on't. Surely all such as have hearts bad enough to propound the doing of such vile things as these, if their Wit were but proportionable to their spite, one would think however, they should be deterred from the performance of them; because if their meaning come once throughly to be understood, as 'tis plain enough to every indifferent capacity that it should; they might very well expect to meet with a good smart Chiding, instead of a welcome Entertainment, and so no doubt they sometimes do, as in the Case but newly instanced in, and divers others, which every ones Experience may be able to furnish them withal. But such, alas! is the Folly and Madness of the World, that People are generally so tame, as to suffer themselves to be miserably imposed upon by these palpable Abuses; and under a pretence of having their Eyes opened, are content to be led about by the Noses any whither; they are made to believe, that a strange Cure, (such as theirs is, be it what it will) can never be wrought but after a strange and extraordinary manner. Their own Doctor, poor man! 'tis true, might haply do well enough, were he to wade in some shallow Stream he had been acquainted with before; but as the Case stands, he is now quite our of his Depth, and at a plunge what to do, and which way to turn himself; that is in plain English, less daring and adventurous about mad projects than themselves; and when once they have brought simple people to that pass to swallow any thing they'd have them, then let them alone to make the best of their easiness of Belief; for now they have gained the point they aimed at, and like the Wolves in the Fable, when they had persuaded the Sheep to leave off the Company of the Dogs, whom they pretended to have had some evil Design upon them, have it in their power to deal with the wretched defenceless Creatures as they list, and worry them at their pleasure.  
The Daughters of old Pelias, when they were once throughly possessed with an opinion of their Fathers being made young again, what desperate undertaking was it that they either scrupled or boggled at: the Poet tells us, that she who was the most Pious above all the rest, shown herself the most forward, and active instrument, in cutting the Old man's throat, and draining his very heart blood out, and all out of a ridiculous hope that much better and fresher might be transfused into the room of it; which dutiful Office, so soon as ever they had performed, away flies she who had given them this good Counsel, hurried by a pair of Winged Dragons in the Air; and so they were finely left in the Lurch, with the Ghostly Spectacle of a Father's murdered Body before their eyes to gaze upon, and to bewail their own Credulity when it was too late.  
The parallel is the same to a hairs breadth, in the Case we have been describing. The Patient waxes ill, and upon Summons, down comes a man of rare Parts and profound Skill (or is believed to be such at leastwise, and then 'tis the same thing in some respects, though not in all) and he looks gruff, and talks big; and usually the more extravagant his Discourse is, the more 'tis admired by those who desired his Assistance; for should there be any reason to be given for what he says, that would utterly spoil its Excellency; because capable of being understood, and appearing like something vulgar and common, which they did not expect to hear from him. And then so soon as ever the Word of Command is given, though perchance so hastily, that 'tis impossible for any mortal Wight living within so narrow a Compass of time as is then taken, to arrive to the perfect knowledge of all Particulars necessary to be considered of: Yet notwithstanding all that, without so much as examining what proportion it may bear with the present Exigency of the Party, or suffering others to do it for them; What running, what hurrying, what posting, what packing, to have it speedily put in execution! Every Minute seeming seven years till the Will of the Learned be fulfilled. And when the Remedy does come to be made Trial of, instead of growing better, it may be the Patient becomes much worse than he was before; and if it be a desperate one as is not seldom seen, then immediately upon the applying of it, he falls downright into a sinking condition, and so dies away under their hands; and then they look upon one another like a company of Amazed, Giddy-brained and Besotted Wretches; and whatever they confess with their Mouths (if they have any kindness at all for their deceased Friend) wish in their hearts at leastwise, they had been better advised.  
As for his part who did the Mischief, to carry home the Comparison, he is far enough out of hearing, before ever the effect of his wretched Counsel comes to take place; and when he knows it, so little is he concerned thereat, as that he is in as fair a way as ever for the trying such another Experiment. And the next time he is invited out upon a like occasion, the very self same Game comes to be played over again, some few Circumstances of Time and Place only excepted; and he puts the same Tricks upon Physician, Patient and Bystanders, and abuses every one of them in their Order, as has been already shown; and so he runs round in a Circle, and no one knows how to trap him; ●ay, ten to one, if some of the most able Gossips of their Tongues upon the Place, don't take his part for all this, and justify every thing he has either said or done, if it be but merely to maintain matter of Argument to discourse about, or to render their own Physician the more ridiculous, or for ●ome other vile Reason not at all deserving ●o be enquired into.  
And this I have ever persuaded myself ●o have been one main Reason why so very few Physicians, however otherwise Learned and honest men, yet if happening to live without the Verge of the City of London,, seldom or never to come to attain to the Greatness of an Estate equal with them, who either are Inhabitants of the City itself, or else happen to have the Place of ●heir Abode at a more remote distance from ●t, merely upon the account of issuing forth of the ill-Natured Men above mentioned, upon their sick Patients▪ who, let them behave themselves never so warily, advise never so regularly, or to have been never so happy in their Practice; all's one for that, a hundred to one but that at some time or other they shall have a Slur put upon their most innocent Actions, which shall both sully their Credit, and bring their Persons into a Disrepute; Calumny being ever of that defiling Nature, that like the Dirt raked out of the Channel, if it be but lustily set on, it shall very rarely be so washed out again, as not to leave something or other of a stain behind it; especially, if happening to be performed by a Party, who in case of underdoing, is in all likelihood to be condemned to the very same Penalty himself.  
'Tis true indeed, there are two things, which considered of barely in themselves, render it an extreme difficult Matter for any Countrey-Physitian whatever, to arrive to any eminency either of Estate or Reputation: But if the Accession of what we have been speaking of, happen to fall in likewise▪ than next to impossible.  
The first whereof is, the exceeding thinness of the Inhabitants they have to do withal. Citizens, as they live close together▪ so many of them may be visited in a little time; whereas a whole day will scarcely suffice for the going from one Family to another in the Country, as the Case may be, and where the gross Sum is but small, there a little Abatement brings it to just nothing at all.  
And the Second is, That Spirit of censuring Countrey-Folk are generally endued withal; whether it be from the variety of Objects, multiplicity of Business, the Genius of the Place, or Humour of the People, or what else may haply be said to be the reason thereof, I shall not much trouble myself to inquire; yet certain it is, we shall seldom or never observe these Inhabitants who take up their Dwellings in populous Cities, to be half so diligent in searching into the condition and qualifications of their next Neighbours, as your Countrypeople usually are, who as they pry narrowly with their Eyes, seldom fail to speak as broadly with their Tongues whenever occasion serves, and to Trumpet out all, and sometime more than all their Miscarriages for the information of others, that they have been at the pains to make Discovery of themselves. He that either is ignorant of, or unwilling to believe this untoward Disposition of too many, let him but lend an ear to the frivolous Reports that Neighbours in the Country are pleased to busy themselves every day to spread about of one another, and he will quickly be brought to confess that the matter of the Assertion is not altogether without Grounds. The Rule we have given us to walk by, is, to love ou● Neighbour as ourselves, and to deal by other● as we would have others deal by us; in place of which, commonly succeed Envy, Whisper, Evil Surmising, the worst of Constructions upon the most harmless and innocent Actions, together with a Delight in nothing more than the Ruin and Downfall of those very persons we are so much engaged above all others to be in love withal▪ And whenever the Gentlemen we are discoursing about, happen to strike in with a sort of People thus excellently well qualified, how utterly impossible is it for their Designs to do otherwise than take effect? 'Tis like the meeting of Fire and Brimstone together, where the one is full out as aptly disposed to receive, as the other to Communicate. And when things are thus prepared to their Wish, they are only with Caesar, when he overcame the gentlest of his Enemies, just to stretch forth their hands to receive the Victory when offered: There is only need of an Attempt in some Cases; and this is one of them. How happy then must those Persons be accounted of, who are thus highly privileged above others? And how great an Act of Self-denial must that be in case of a fair opportunity presenting itself, not to make use of those Advantages.  
I have always had this Notion thoroughly fixed in my head, ever since I have had any thing to do with Commerce in the World; that the readiest way to maintain the greatest correspondence with those we live amongst, was to maintain the least of all. Because though intimate acquaintance be a Medium proper enough if considered in itself, both to beget love and cement affections together: Yet by accident and through the evil disposition of those it oftimes happens to be found amongst, it produces a quite contrary effect, and becomes the greatest Makebate & Incendiary of others again in the Nation.  
The reason of which if we but consider things aright, is no whit difficult to comprehend, in regard those who meet often together, can never well be supposed destitute of some matter or other, fit to make the subject of their discourse. And then it being not probable for all to be of the same mind, much discourse cannot choose but gender a great deal of disputing; no disputation though never so frivolous can possibly be managed without opposition; that and quarrelling with some, are one and the same things Whence ensue distastes, animosities, and heartburnings. These with with many after they have lain festering in 〈◊〉 their minds awhile, degenerate into implacable maliciousness. Which gradation once admitted of, as indeed 'tis as evident as the Sun shining at Noonday, what can be more Natural than for those of the same Neighbourhood to be evil affected one towards another. To say nothing of a thousand other little circumstances, which do almost every day fall out, and minister new and fresh occasions for a petulant humour to work upon. To all which may be added the unalterable disposition of some men, to envy all their Superiors, malign their equals and despise whomsoever they conceive to be beneath them. And then surely it mus● needs be an extraordinary hard task, for an● to undertake to cohabit with such, and ye● not at all to be liable to the stroke of thei● invincible displeasure; here just such another vain attempt, as to walk amongst bur●ing Coals, without danger to ones Feet, o● be pudling at the hole of a Hornets ne● and never expect the mean while to be at a stung by them.  
And therefore what a mountain of discouragement has that Physician to brea● through, and it be but upon those two accounts forementioned; who is necessitated to take up the place of his residency in a Country village; the good esteem of those he dwells amongst, being in a manner all he has to trust to, and the only foundation whereon to build for the advancement of his future practice.  
Those persons at a distance being evermore willing to be determined in their thoughts, by the testimony and character which shall be given by such as live nearer hand, because as they have the more frequent opportunities of making their observations of the man's actions; so likewise may they reasonably be imagined to be the better enabled to pass a right sentiment concerning them, so that if he fails here, 'tis like stumbling at the Threshold, he must look to have good success no where, but to be affronted and baffled, in every action of moment he shall happen to be interested in afterwards, throughout the course of his whole life.  
Purely upon which consideration, and no other motive of what nature or kind soever, though I had relation to many places since my leaving the University; I never yet durst entitle myself an inhabitant of any one of them, but like some Knight Errand upon his journey; or the Island Delos in the Sea, before the birth of Latona her Children; have evermore kept myself in a kind of locomotive posture. At length, wearied with the inconveniencies that attend a wand'ring life, I resolved upon fixing my abode at Richmond upon Thames, which as 'tis a place for pleasantness of situation: so for candour and civility of its Inhabitants, scarcely to be matched again throughout all England.  
Where, before ever I could put my designed Purpose into execution, down comes that Monster of Ingratitude Dr. Willis his quondam Journeyman, and serves me the very same Trick for substance that the other Gentleman his Neighbour did you. I confess the same part might have been acted by another as well as by him. I have already supposed it, and the Subject Matter hitherto treated about, is a sufficient Evidence thereof; but yet I have reason for my own part to take it most kindly from his Hands, because I am principally to thank myself for his being sent for, and because it was an Action so like the Authors own self, and so patly suiting With his Genius.  
For what could be more agreeable, than for one, who had the Foundation of his Practice laid in the Defamation of his own Master, to contrive the carrying on the remainder of the work by the selfsame kind of Ingenuity. There are a sort of Savage Creatures in Nature, that will be ready sometimes to take a leap at the Throats of those who flesh them most: And there are some men that are like them; but that by the way the more full Relation of the matter, be pleased to take as followeth.  
About the latter end of the Month of January, I was sent for to a Lady of good Esteem, aged upward of Sixty, of but a weakly constitution of Body, and much addicted to the Scurvy and Gout; as the knottiness of her Joints, pains in and about her Limbs, together with several other Indications not at all necessary to be here recounted, made sufficiently enough to appear. Her Urine was pale and clear, without the least show of Sediment; and her Pulse but low. The reason of her present Indisposition was taken from walking abroad in a cold and damp Garden. 'Twas ever her Custom, and she owned it, when ill at any time, to consult with several Physicians, to hear what each of them had to say to her, but to follow the Directions of few, or none of them, when she had done. And if at any time some one above the rest proved to be so happy as to prevail with her, to fancy aught of his Prescriptions, 'twas at best observed after so lame and imperfect a manner, that by a kind of Synechdochical Interpretation, a part was to be taken for the whole: And let what would be debated, and resolved upon, and by whomsoever, she would be sure to reserve the casting Vote to herself; and in the close of all, determined the state of the Controversy that way which seemed the most agreeable to her own Opinion. I knowing her to be of this Temper, and she expecting it should be taken notice of, aught in reason to be so much the less positive in pressing any thing I perceived her obstinately set against; but rather to endeavour to work her over by degrees to what I looked upon in my Conscience to be mostly for her Good. There are some Natures, may by a gentle compliance be brought to the doing of divers things, who will be compelled to just nothing at all.  
That which she seemed to complain of principally at this time, was a Pain in her Head and Side: As a Remedy against which I proposed Bleeding at the very beginning; but that was a thing she utterly disliked of, and desired with some passionateness of expression, that it might no further be insisted on.  
The day was too far spent to admit of a purgative Potion, and which I at that time a little scrupled at (I must confess) had it been more early, for fear of calling in the Arthritick Humours towards her Stomach and Bowels. But the application I was more especially inclined to, and that which she herself best liked of (whose Approbation was in no wise to be left out) was a Carminative Clyster, as considering most Gouty Bodies to be generally oppressed with Windiness; hers I knew to be so in an eminent manner, and therefore conceived so much the better hopes of drawing down such Flatulenties as might give annoyance to either Part above mentioned by way of Revulsion. Upon the admission of the Clyster, she avoided abundance of Wind, rested pretty well that night, and was in some hopes of amendment the next day; but the Pains in her Chest and Head, though something remitted, yet continuing in part, and her Stomach but weak withal, I advised her farther to the keeping close to her Bed, and the drinking once in five hours' time three or four Spoonfuls of a good sprightly Cordial, which I oft found by experience to be of a very expelling Nature, some few drops S. C. C. being thereunto superadded; and that between whiles she should not forget to take plenty of Posset-Drink, in which Marygold-flowers, Sage, and Shave of Hartshorn had been throughly decocted; the intendment of which Prescription was chief bottomed upon these Reasons following.  
First of all, To secure her Stomach from the influx of Noxious Humours, which upon the least disturbance might be apt to be congregated there, and keep them off at a further distance.  
Secondly, To digest and expel those Flatulenties that the Clyster had as yet left unremoved.  
And thirdly, Though I was not ignorant how indisposed a Body she had for Sweeting: Yet I did believe it however an apt means to re●serate and keep open the Pores thereof, so as to let forth those Fuliginous Vapours by a kind of insensible transpiration, which could not be avoided otherwise. Which last, though it be a Doctrine understood but by a few, yet is it of general use; and by all such as apprehend it as they ought, and ever will be looked upon in very many cases as a Remedy inestimable; and I could hearty have wished that the Lady herself had been one of that small number, who had been able to have judged of that particular Intimation as of right it deserved, perchance it might have been ne'er the worse for her; or at leastwise have been willing to have submitted to it upon the Authority of those that did. But Physicians are only to give forth the best directions they can, and then to acquiesce in the Integrity of their own Consciences. 'Tis a thing impossible for them to transmit their Notions into the Heads of those who have not capacities to receive them.  
And then as for the so frequent repetition of the Decoction before recited, I, who understood no better, dull Creature as I was! remained hugely well satisfied in my own thoughts with such alike reasons to these. First, I considered, that notwithstanding she had never as yet from the time of her first illness, had any the least Symptoms of a Fever appearing upon her, as indeed she never had any till the Tuesday before her death: Besides, what was occasioned by one single Fit of an Ague (which upon the use of fitting Remedies, as shall be showed in its proper place) never returned afterwards; Yet that was an evil however, both to be feared and armed against, and that not only upon that one general Account, because few other Distempers of what kind or nature soever, but what are oft times found to be the Harbingers thereto; but also because the acute pains in the Membranous Parts of her Body, and the Inflammation in and about her Throat she had hitherto so often complained of, might seem in some measure more immediately to threaten it.  
Secondly, For that I had perceived her Stomach to be much enfeebled, as was very clear, to set aside many other Circumstances, from her exceeding proneness to vomit upon every light occasion. Whereupon thought I, what more inoffensive Nourishment and easy of digestion could possible have been administered to her, than that was?  
It came to my mind likewise, of how very thick and coagulated a substance the Blood of Scorbutic People is usually found to be, and how destitute for the most part of that Serous Humour that should render it more fluid, and be a means to help it forward in the performance of its Circulation▪ And upon that I was brought to conclude without any great matter of scruple, that the most probable Expedient for the reducing it to a ●itting temper, must be by a plentiful ingestion of something of a like nature, unto that which by its absence had occasioned it to be so, and which might the soon and most easily of all others be communicated to the whole Mass.  
But now, What thing is there in nature approaches nearer to an Identity with Blood, than Milk doth? abstract but the Colour and some few accidental Differences, and that man must have more than an ordinary subtle head-piece who is able to resolve wherein the disagreement lies betwixt them, so as really to distinguish the one of them from the other. From whence it follows by the clearest evidence of Demonstration, that the loss of those useful qualities whenever they happen to be wanting in the Blood, is best of all repaired by the accession of some such others as are to be met withal in a Milky substance; and therefore the Decoction recommended by us cannot otherwise choose but be of singular use in the present case we are now arguing about, as must needs appear to any one who has but a Stock of Reason, competent enough to make a due comparison between such sensible Objects as shall be presented to his view.  
In Milk there are three parts deserving consideration, two of which are of a more gross substance convertible into Cheese and Butter, and both of them are known to be great Supporters of humane Life; but the other remaining, is of a thin and subtle Nature resolvible into Whey only. The two former may well be looked upon as no whit subservient 〈◊〉 our Design, not only because disagreeable to an enfeebled stomach through which they are to pass, and in which they were to be more laboriously wrought upon before ever they could become good Nourishment; but likewise because partaking in too great a measure of those other qualifications which the Blood was supposed to abound withal more than sufficiently already. But the Wheiey part, of which our Decoction solely consists, both recreates the Stomach by a nourishment standing in need of little or no concocting at all (which if it did, Nature could in no wise afford at that time, as being otherwise more busily employed.) And being thence carried away without any great matter of difficulty into the Veins and Arteries where the Distemper is more immediately seated; may well be said to do greater execution there: I say it again, and will prove it when I have done, much greater Execution by its presence there, than any other Remedy beside of what kind or quality soever. My Reasons are, because, as has been already intimated, being once communicated to the Blood, it supplies it as much as is possible with those qualifications it stood in want of before its arrival thither, is capable of being impregnated with the Virtues of several Medicaments, and those very useful ones too, which are not altogether so fit to be made use of in their own substance; and than if considered simply and in itself, is apt to obviate and prevent all that other train of horrid Symptoms, which divers sick people are found obnoxious to upon the smallest alterations. Was the Radical moisture nigh-hand wasted before? This furnishes it with a fresh Supply. Was the Circulation put to a stand? This renews its Course, and maintains it from the time of its admission in a constant movable Disposition. 'Tis this contemperates the Heart, irrigates the Brain and Nervous Parts of the Body; which, as they are the only Organs destinated to sensation, so if happening to be drawn into a consent with others that are actually inflamed, presently become heated and distempered together with them, so as to hasten on Convulsions, Frenzies, an invincible Restlessness of both Body and Mind; and in the conclusion of all, even Death itself. Upon which Considerations I was always careful to see her well supplied of what I conceived so highly conducing to her Preservation; and to put those who were Attendants upon her often in mind of the same thing.  
I perceived by the whistling of her Pipes that her Lungs were somewhat oppressed, and in danger of Suffocation: and therefore for the timely preventing any inconvenience that might arise that way, to the incommoding so Noble a Part, advised her likewise from the very beginning to the use of a Pectoral Lohoch, which by joining with the Spittle ●f her Mouth, might by its gentle distillation upon the Aspera Arteria commix with the congealed Matter contained there, and dulcify the sharpness thereof; render it ●e● Viscous and Clammy, and by that means more inclineable to be brought away by Expectoration.  
But this was rejected, as the Advice for Bleeding was before; and an answer returned thereto of a like import with the former; how that sweet things as they were always enemies to her, so she likewise in requital was the same to them again. And that for her part, she was resolved neither to meddle nor make with any thing of that nature.  
So that sometimes the Rule comes to be inve●ted▪ Patients cannot away with sweet things from the hands of their Physicians; and when it so falls out, ten to one if they are not p●t ●on it to receive something of a bitter quality 〈◊〉 ●em: And to speak the truth, 'tis out fi●ng they should. Sick Persons and Children having always a right indubitable to an Indulgence in all things, which have not too great a tendency to their prejudice and harm.  
But though Lambatives were excepted against, as a sort of Medicament contrary to her Genius; at the time of my next coming I found she had provided herself of a Pectoral Decoction, either of her own composure, or by the assistance of some officious Neighbour of hers: which being made up of a many innocent and harmless Ingredients; such as Liquoris, Figs, Maidenhair, Raisins of the Sun, and the like; I gave it my approbation by speaking nothing at all against it.  
But withal calling to remembrance how familiar a thing it is for Pectoral Drinks to be mistaken; insomuch that to speak within compass, there is scarcely one of a hundred, if the matter were rightly examined, would be found to make use of them after a due manner; I ch●se rather to order something to be taken in form of a Syrup, of which more hereafter in its proper place.  
In the mean while, to make good the Assertion but newly laid down, let it be but throughly considered of for what end, especially these Pectoral Decoctions are prepared? Are they not (as the Name sufficiently indicateth) ordained as a Remedy against the Affections of the Chest; they are so undoubtedly, and so understood by all. And yet for all that, the usual way of admitting them is so very preposterous and contrary even to common Sense and Reason, as must clearly appear to any one who has but the least Knowledge of the Structure of Man's Body, and the Relation the Parts thereof stand in, one towards another; that 'tis utterly impossible but that almost the whole of the Preparation should be rendered in a manner ineffectual for the attaining of those purposes unto which it was primarily designed.  
As for instance, and to descend to an enquiry into the particular nature of the thing itself: Whether or no it be from the commonness of the Denomination? all Drinks being generally looked upon in strict propriety of speech to denote something, than the most useful, after it comes to be swallowed down; or from the prevalency of an Erroneous Custom, the doing whereof, as it sometimes proves all the warranty it hath; so likewise for the most part all the reason it carries along with it.  
Yet so it comes to pass, that in case of all Catarrhs and Distillations; whether risen from some cold, newly taken, or an ill habit of body going before, or from what other cause origination, else imaginable. The Pectoral Decoction, whenever it comes to be used; is with the same hasty speed suffered to make its entrance into the Stomach, that all other Drinks commonly are. And the poor silly Patients are apt to satisfy themselves very well in what they have done when they so take it: and to expect the greatest benefit of all after its admission thither; in so much that some persons have been known to take down huge quantities thereof upon that only Score; and then to have fancied to themselves some great matter of advantage to have redounded thereby; which if happening to be so as they imagine, must needs be no other, than the working of their own fancies indeed. Because the only possible way to come at the Lungs, and so by consequence to do them good, is down strait way by the Larynx or Windpipe (as has been formerly supposed) and therefore whatever Medicament comes once to be transmitted beyond that; and is but imagined to have made its approach to the confines of the Oseing, cannot otherwise choose but be past all possibility of arriving at the Chest, unless any will be so vain as to imagine it to fetch a compass about by the Veins and Arteries; and so to visit it in its progress along in Circulation with the Blood; which Opinion, as it can never be defended with the least shadow of reason; so neither can it be long adhered unto by any sober and considerate man.  
Because in the first place, the Stomaches even of the most healthful, are constantly affected with an acid kind of Juice; which will be sure to impart something of its own quality to whatever Liquor it comes to have any communication or intercourse withal; and then after its departure thence into the Venal and Arterial Vessels, whereby it becomes united as it were, and incorporated into one Body with the Blood: what further degree of change and alteration must it of necessity be supposed to undergo again? So that albeit in its pristine Estate it may, and aught to be accounted of as purely Pectoral. Yet after all these shift, changes, and variations; It would cease to be so any longer, as becoming of a quite and clean different nature from what Originally it was And therefore if happening from that time forward to contribute any thing of Relief unto the Patient; it can in no wise be allowed to do so under the former Notion of being Pectoral; but upon some other accidental account: and so any decoction whatever, that was not Pectoral, might have done every whit as well.  
But farther, it being by way of Concession granted (though it can never be proved that these first qualities, it was at first endured withal, have not been all this while impaired; but to have remained altogether unchangeable; and in the self same condition they were in from the beginning. Seeing nothing can be said to operate after any sort whatever where itself is not. I would farther demand which way, and by what secret instinct it should be directed to its journey's end, so as to find out those very parts which stood in need of its assistance; because in all likelihood some competent portion thereof must be subject to be diverted in its course by sweeting; othersome again be drained away by Urine. And then as for the Residue which shall be translated thither: It must either pass upon the account of Nutriment, or some other Title beside. If the former, than no other part of the Body whatever, but what may lay as fair a claim thereto, as the Lungs can be supposed to have; because Nature, being the same common Mother to them all, designs the distribution of her nourishment to every part of the Body alike; If the latter; It must in probabilty make some reasonable stay there, in order to the producing so generous an effect; which is another matter extreme difficult to conceive of: because than it must all on the sudden shake hands with a new Acquaintance, in whose company it is supposed to glide along, and with whom it had just before as it were contracted a new League of Alliance; and which is itself always maintained in a progressive, endless motion; as being still pushed on a little more forwarder than it was before, by every repeated Systole of the Heart. Besides after all that can be either said or granted, the advantage gained thereby, amounts only to thus much; to be conveyed so far forth as the extremities, or mere outparts of the Lungs, whereas the Grievance calling for Redress, lies much more inwardly and occult; even within the very cavity of the Windpipe itself: and the divided & subdivided Branches thereof; (I speak now of Catarrhs, & Distillations, for which these Drinks are frequently misapplyed: not but that there are Cases in which the Lights may be affected without any thing at all of a Distillation from above what time Pectoral Medicaments are allowed to be alike proper, as they are now; but those being but rarely seen in comparison of the others: and the very same way of application we have been contending for, being most deservedly even in them to be preferred: It makes nothing at all against what I have been discoursing about) and that as proceeding first of all from the matter of the Catarrh so falling upon them. Or Secondly, from some noxious quality accompanying it in its Descent, both which are sure to set the Lungs a coughing: The One of them as filling up that space which by Nature it was never ordained for: and so consequently not long to be endured there: The Other by irritating those Vessels it happens to approach unto by the ungratefulness of its Touch. And neither of these two Inconveniences can possibly be remedied by any thing remote, or kept at a distance from them.  
No, it must be something nearer hand, that is to satisfy such Intentions as these are. Something that by joining itself with the matter of the Catarrh, may have an innate aptitude to abate its acrimony; take away or prevent that viscide toughness, which after a little stay is wont to be contracted there, and thereby become a means to help Nature, disburden herself the more easily, when a Fit of Coughing shall next succeed: and also may be able by some virtues of a countervailing nature immediately to affect the very parts themselves that have been prejudiced thereby; and that in the very same places where they had received their harm, which can be admitted of no otherwise, than by way of Lambative only; and so long as Pectoral Drinks are so taken, I have nothing at all to object against the free use of them. But because I find the custom, but now reprehended, so constantly put in practice; and that not only by the common rout of ordinary People; but also such as would willingly be thought to be of abilties, to render a reason for what they do: I have chosen to insist the longer upon this tedious, though I hope not altogether unprofitable, digression; which being at an end, I proceed to go on where I left off before; only craving leave before I do so, to acquit myself from an Obligation I lie under, of giving a brief account of the Medicament, I desired might be taken in Lieu of the other, together with the manner of its preparation, which was no other in short but this. To take some few Cloves of Garlic, and infuse them for a convenient time in a sufficient quantity of Fountain-water made scalding hot; and so to be boiled up with a due proportion of Sugar to the consistency of a Syrup.  
This I knew to be of efficacy for the opening of her Pipes, and the exonerating them of that burden they seemed at present so much oppressed withal; and which could be hurtful to none who did not afterwards catch cold upon it; which inconveniency I looked upon her to be sufficiently secured from, as being under an indispensable Necessity of keeping within her Chamber; and then by reason of her averseness to meddle with any thing, with the composition whereof she had not before hand been made acquainted. I both prescribed the way of making and applying it at large: Leaving her to the conduct of herself and attendants, some few general directions excepted.  
For now there began to be a seeming abatement of her first illness; and we were all willing to conceive hopes, at leastwise, of a farther amendment suddenly to follow after.  
That Physician who shows himself over-prodigal of his Visits amongst the more fickle sort of his Patients, shall quickly give them a Surfeit of his company, and therefore it may do well some times, and upon some considerations to withdraw for a little time; though perchance upon others of lesser moment, a longer continuance amongst them might not have been altogether improper.  
Whereupon the Friday following; which was some two or three days after, I was again sent for, upon a fresh Summons: The Nature of her Distemper, being now much altered from what it was before; and disconverting itself apparently in the form of a downright Ague, she had been held for some two hours' space together with a shivering all over, which afterwards concluded in a burning fiery Fit: at the time of my arrival there, I perceived her to be both hot and feverish; and her Pulse, never so till then, exceeding quick and high.  
The Result I came to upon the present exigency, was This; that an intermitting Fever was by no means to be tampered with all till the Paroxysm were over. How that Nature was then busy about her own work, which none could do for her, especially at that juncture of time, so well as she herself; and therefore not to be diverted; but the safest way I knew, and the most likely to help on with the same design with hers, was by a plentiful drinking down of a decoction of Cardumus Benedictus; that thereby the febrile matter would in probability be somewhat diminished by Sweat and Urine: The Fermentation in her Blood, and heat within her Bowels come to be the better qualified, and her Body by reason of a Specific Virtue peculiarly incident to that Plant; rendered so much the less disposed for a second Invasion at another time.  
Adding withal, that the next Morning, when the present commo●ion was at an end; I should adventure to give a purgative Potion, which might gently evacuate her Stomach, where the Foams of the Distemper was (as I conceived) principally contained; and this I was the more inclinable to do, in regard I foresaw what inconvenience was like to befall one in her weak condition, in case any more such accessions as that should not have been seasonably prevented.  
I have not forgotten what, I was suggesting ere while, my great fearfulness of Purging her at the beginning of her Illness; as being unwilling to offer any occasion of drawing any of those Humours more inwardly, which might happen to lurk near her Stomach and the Regions thereabouts, and could very well have been content to have been of that opinion still, had Circumstances remained the same they were.  
But Necessity, as it is always to be obeyed in the first place; so is it capable of neither Consultation nor Advice, but is evermore determined to one and the same thing. Whereupon the next morning I gave her the common Oxford Infusion, much in use, I remember, what time I was a Student there, and which I have had frequent experience of for many years since; some gentle Syrups only superadded thereto, which wrought very kindly and moderately with her: And from that time forward she never complained of her Aguish Distemper more: Her Body continued soluble for some competent time after it. In order to the resettlement whereof, she had a Bolus appointed her to be taken hora somni, ex Conserv. Rosar. Rubrar. Flor. Ror-marin. an q, s. cum Dioscordii semi-dragm. & sp. C. C. gut. 5. una commixtis; which also was repeated in the same proportion the Night immediately succeeding that, and had an Effect answerable to what might reasonably be expected from it.  
Die Dominic. the Pains of her Head were pretty well assuaged, but apt to recur still at times: And now over and above she began to be seized on with a kind of Lethargic Drowsiness, so as to be much more heavy to sleep, than at any other times of her former Illness: Wherefore fearing a settlement of Humours upon the Nervous Parts of her Head; and in order to the preventing any such Accident that might possibly have so fallen out, I forthwith caused an Epispastick Plaster to be laid to her Neck, as also to each of her Ankles and Wrists.  
She complained very much of a burning heat about her Throat, and the parts adjoining thereunto; for the mitigation of which she had a Gangarism prepared of Barleywater. q. s. in which the Leaves of Bramble, Cinquefoil, Columbines, and Red Roses had been boiled; sweetened with Syrup of Mulberries to her taste, and rendered gratefully sharp with two or three drops of Spirit of Vitriol.  
She was inclinable to vomit, as has been noted heretofore; and for the redressing of that, had a quick and lively Cordial constantly in a readiness, Mithridat. un. Drach, superaddit: & ad moderatam dulcedin●m redact. Syrup Caryoph: & Rosar Rubrar. an q. s. and a Julip of a sharp and delightsom taste to refresh and comfort her so oft as she was disposed to call for it; and over and above the Medicament, beforre cited against the oppression at her Chest, there was Syrup de Marrubio appointed for her, to be licking of at pleasure.  
On the Monday I found her Estate to be but low; and considering that many things had been refused at the first of her illness, which were not at all fitting to be directed now; nor she in a condition fit to receive them if they should: I began to cast about with myself; to conclude on something that might be answerable to several indications at once, and that without too much disturbance to an enfeebled Body in the applying of it. That which occurred to my thoughts upon that occasion, was a Plaster to be laid to the Region of her Stomach and Chest; yet so as to take in all those other parts adjoining, by the accession of whose heat the Stomach itself is supposed to be comforted, and digestion promoted▪ recip. Rad. Aristoloch Rotund; Gentian Bacc. lauri an cum proportione duplice Myrrhae & cum Mellis q, s. reducantur in formam Emplastri  
Upon the Trial of which Remedy I laid no little stress, could it but have been permitted to have continued on. First of all, because the Application being outward, and nature but weak, I apprehended it the more fitting, because it might be made use of with little or no trouble. Secondly I perceived her Stomach and Chest to be much oppressed with Wind; and this I looked upon to be a proper means both to dissipate and expel it.  
I have somewhere met with an Author, who in the Description he gives of the Region of the lower Belly, and the parts contained within it, makes mention of a person, who by accident had happened to be deprived of his Cawl, that common Apron as it were of the Bowels; and that he was from that time forward so seized on with a perpetual chilliness in those parts that were wont to lie over against it, that he was forced to wear a Cloth bound round about him on the one side of his Belly, in lieu of what should have been placed innermost for the space of his whole Life time afterwards.  
Whether this be so or not; I have only my Author's words to bare me out. But as for the Plaster before described, which in ma●y respects may seem to hold a proportion with it I have had frequent experience of that, and wherever reason & experience concentre in one, I love to make myself a party, and strike in with them if I can; and when I have so done, 'Tis not every budge, conceited man's opinion that shall make me quit my hold again. There is nothing but reason, or at least some show and appearance of it, that can ever seem to be a fit match to encounter reason, and he who has reason on his side in matters of this nature, and can yet sit down well satisfied, and suffer himself to be overborne by mere pertness, and confidence, and a Set of idle pretensions; which when they come to be enquired into, vanish into emptiness; and nothing deserves in my opinion no other Encomium for this his so high an instance of patience, than that of a contented Coward. As for uny own experience, that I confess is a matter carrying but little of conviction along with it in reference to another man. But Truth is Truth, by whomsoever spoken, and he who is able, either by the self-evidence of the thing, or any good, close way of arguing to make out what he has to say to be but consonant thereunto, has little cause to trouble himself about the censures of the world, but may deliver his mind freely, without either Apology or Preface: But now these Ingredients abovementioned, being in severalty such as included a potential warmth in each of them. What could be more consentaneous, then to expect that, when their Forces come to be united as it were, and congregated into one, they should be apt to impart something thereof unto those parts over against which they had been so directly placed, and were so very nearly in conjunction withal. The Stomach, though it be both the place and principle Instrument of Concoction, is not however supposed to disdain the Concurrent Aids of other Assistants in the performance of that work. But the Liver, Spleen, and Pancreas, together with all the other Neighbouring Parts, aught to be looked upon as so many Fellow-helpers together with it, if for no other reason, than as adding barely heat to heat, and so contributing something of an Auxiliary Force so oft as there should be occasion; upon which Score some have not unfitly resembled them (to use but a homely comparison) to the Fuel disposed of about the sides, and underneath the Cauldron, which being once enkindled, itself is an apt means to set the other a boiling, and then maintain it so when it has done; and therefore I was in hopes (whether groundlessly or no, let others judge) that what was of so enlivening and comforting a Nature, and withal could be so contrived as to involve them all, and communicate liberally of its virtue to each of them, might prove the most effectual Expedient above all others for the answering such an Intention; that is to say, the subduing that excess of windiness, that had been both generated and sheltered in those overchilled and empty Passages; which I apprehended, as well I might, to have been one main occasion of her so frequent Vomiting. For though I deny not but that many other Causes may, and do often concur in the producing the same Effect; Yet is it Wind especially that gives a disturbance to the Stomaches of such as have lost their Appetite beyond any of the rest, and therefore ought in reason to be principally regarded.  
Nature we all know to abominate a Vacuum; and whatever space is not replenished with something else, will, and must unavoidably, be filled up with Wind. But after a Fit of Vomiting, the Stomach is become emptied of that Sustenance which of right aught to be contained there: And if it be at a time when it is weakened with much Sickness, is unable to take more into the room of it. Whence wind succeeds of course (according to the supposition but now laid down) and from thence is conveyed by an easy passage into the Bowels, cavities of the Spleen, Liver, and Sweetbread, and divers other hollow Parts and Passages, wh●ch for the performance of several good Offices are disposed of thereabouts, and from thence is returned back again frequently to annoy the Stomach, especially that which is penned up in the Colon, is by constant experience found troublesome in this respect; for that being for Situation higher most of all the other Intestines besides, and immediately placed under the lower Region of the Stomach, by its perpetual heaving and raising up that part scarce ever suffers it to rest in quiet; but having given it a disturbance once, is as ready as before, to hasten on another Fit; and so on for a continuance, till either Nature makes head against this Domestic Enemy, and chases it forth of the Body (for the helping forward which design what is now pleaded for, seems to me to be of no small efficacy) or else suffers herself to be quite vanquished and overcome by it, and so Death steps in and puts an end to the Contest. And to speak the truth of the matter, in case of great weakness and a frequency of Vomiting succeeding thereupon; this grand Inconvenience is so very necessary to be attended to, that other Symptoms in comparison thereof, though otherwise dangerous enough, cannot in reason lay claim to near so much of the Physicians care, because, unless Vomiting cease, 'tis impossible for life to hold out long. And then because there are so many other horrid mischiefs which own their rise and original to that of Vomiting; somewhat the more of regard upon those Accounts, if not for its own sake, aught to be had unto it. Coughing up of Blood, is granted on all hands to be a grievous Symptom, and the Consequences thereof are both extreme, dangerous, and sad; but as the Case may stand, an avoidance of Blood from the Lungs, may very well be, and is oft times brought to pass by a Fit of Vomiting going before: for what more violent exercise of the Body can possibly be imagined than what is occasioned from thence. Nature seems to do the very utmost she can, so oft as put upon that act of Expulsion: and to set herself about the performance of it, with no less than her whole Might. How do the Eyes sparkle, the Sinews labour? and the Musculous Parts of the Body gather and unite their Forces to a Head? And then is it so great a wonder, if in all this commotion and struggling of the Parts, some one slender Vein or Artery of the Lungs should happen either to be opened or burst in sunder. Surely whenever it does fall out to be so, Nothing can more readily be accounted for, or more easily understood. Again, Restlessness, Convulsions, and Lightness of the Brain, are other frightful Affections; and looked upon by most, and that not undeservedly with the greatest horror and amazement. And these also we very frequently occasioned through a Fit, or more of Vomiting, as may most evidently be made appear to any one that will but seriously consider of the matter. For in that vehement agitation of the Body are have been just now dicoursing about, and which must easily be comprehended by all who do but pretend to know any thing belonging to the nature of sickness. When the Stomach becomes thus inverted, the Liver cannot otherwise choose, but in that very act, to be mightily compressed also: whence the Choler contained with in the Bladder of Gall, is with the greatest violence imaginable driven forth into the Du●denum, and thence again by a contranatural motion forced to ascend up into the hollowness of the Stomach; as is most evident by the abundance of that Excrement, which at such times, and upon such occasions is usually evacuated by the Mouth And here by the way, I cannot avoid taking notice of that wretched Fallacy divers people are wont to put upon themselves, whilst they mistake the Choler so rejected for a certain pernicious Humour that had lain lurking (as they imagined) for sometime within the Receptacles of their Stomaches.) O, cry they, this Vomiting must needs have done me a great deal of good; I see plainly it has, because of its clearing my Stomach of that which common Sense and Reason informs me must needs do a great deal better out than in, whereas that which they behold with so much of contentment was never in their Stomaches at all (at leastwise under that Form) till the Fit of Vomiting brought it thither: Nor had been there then, if the Fit of Vomiting had never been; But I must resume what I left before. I affirmed but even now those evil Affections of the Head to be likewise oftimes in a great measure brought about by an Antecedent Fit of Vomiting: And my Reason is, because the Choler was by that means forced to mount again up into the Region of the Stomach, and when it arrives there, it must be apt to spoil and embitter all that Supply of Nourishment that shall be taken in afterwards, and then commixing itself with what it finds there, enforces Nature to carry it about the Body a second time, which being an Excrement exceeding sharp and fiery above all others, and so very prone withal to be gadding up into the Head, is by this Act of Cohobation (as it were) rendered much more so than it was before; and therefore may very well be supposed to produce those many and great Alterations there, which we have before laid down in our Hypothesis.  
And thus, as I conceived myself to have had some grounds of hope for a good Effect upon the Parts already mentioned: So likewise upon the Chest and Lungs themselves, and that for the selfsame reasons before alleged; for they being likewise comprehended by this External Medicament, and the Midriff together with them. I did with as full an assurance look for a removal of all Flatulenties thence, as from the Region immediately below it. Upon which Issue I was induced to believe, that, as there would have been a far less distension of the Parts; the cause which oppressed them being by that means taken away: So likewise by consequence, that a much greater Vacancy of Place would necessarily have ensued thereupon, and so a Course come to be found out for a more full and liberal respiration.  
These, Sir, are the Ends I aimed at, and these the Medicines I made use of in order to the attainment of such Ends, which, what tendency they might have to the purposes they were designed for, whether any, or none at all; a greater, or a less than what succeeded in the room of them, though I have alleged something of reason (I am apt to think so at least wise) for the Vindication of my Proceed, and could have added much more from my own Experience in other like Cases: That's a thing however to be left to the Decision of such as are wholly unconcerned in the Matter, as being the likeliest of all others to prove the most upright and impartial in delivering their Sentiments thereupon.  
'Twas enough for me to be rounded in the Ear by one of the Female Sex; and such are commonly the great Sticklers in matters appertaining to Sick People: That let it be how it would, I might set my heart at rest for that, there being one a coming, that would cause all to be taken off again in exchange for a Lineament of Sperma C●ti and Oil of Sweet Almonds; she knew all the Ingredients perfectly well beforehand, and was very sure it must be so; because as she remembered; he had been sent for a little before upon somewhat a like occasion, to a Child of some of her Relations obstructed in the Chest; as likewise to many other where she had been, and he had always practised the same Method; insomuch that though two Doctors in one of the places had clubbed their Counsels together, and agreed upon a certain Plaster apposite every way (as they thought) for the Distemper they had advised about; yet upon the Approach of this prodigiously knowing man of it went immediately for that other of his appointment, which was to be esteemed of as much the better.  
Some of the same Sex were very importunate with me to have had a Vein opened without farther delay, because there were some few Streaks of Blood discernible in the Matter of her Salivation, what times her Spitting and Vomiting used to follow her much together; which I being dissatisfied in, considering her low and weak condition, wished them to have patience a little, till they had consulted his better Judgement, who might possibly for some wise Reasons, not at all appearing to my shallow Understanding, be much more inclinable than I could tell how to be, to concur with them in their Opinion: which Conjecture proved just according to what I had foretold; fo● before ever I could so much as set a foo● over the Threshold, or be permitted to offe● one Syllable of what I had to say, either for or against it, the Decree was irrevocably gone forth: Let seven Ounces of Blood be taken from her Arm. And when I had desired for my share; but the continuance of the Plaster before mentioned most humbly showing my reasons for that, as I thought but modest request: 'Twas held a Boon too unconscionable to be granted; but all must be ordered precisely according to his own way and method. And 'twas honour enough to me to be the Amanuensis to so learned a man. And yet for all, that, though in the height of pride and arrogance, 'twas an impossible thing to wedg insomuch as one short word, I shall take the boldness, now matters are cool again, to do somewhat more, and make a Survey of the whole Prescription: and when I have done that, and made some few Queries concerning it; refer it to yourself and all the world to judge, whether there be any thing more to be found (setting aside mere spruntness of Temper, and an excess of Self-conceit) in this Man of Renown so much talked of, than in others his Neighbours he lives amongst: or indeed, to speak in a more Debasing Style by far, than in some of us, plain, honest Country Physicians; and that's a Degradation with a Witness.  
But before I proceed one ●ot farther, It may and will be necessary to obviate an objection, which cannot I confess but be apt to arise in the minds of some; and that is, how it can be possible for me to make reflections upon the actions of a person I have formerly seemed to concur withal; and call into question the doing of that which in some sense I may truly enough be said to have had a hand in the doing of myself.  
To which I answer the matter of our immediate concernment, dividing itself into these two Branches: The One of them touching her being Let Blood; and the other the fitness of the Medicaments at that time prescribed to be made use of. The first of these being done, not only without my consent, but clearly against it: I am left at liberty to show my dislike of that, and declare my reasons; when I have so done, without giving colour to any whereon to ground any the least cause of exceptions against me for it.  
Secondly, it being possible to join with another, as well in a Passive, as an Active Sense; and to do a thing rather by constraint, than from any real impulse of ones own natural inclinations. It may be pardonable enough to protest against that at one time which one has been necessitated unto at another. And you Sir, who are a Physician, and cannot choose but be sensible what it is to have a Patient, of whose concerns you have been equally tender, as if they were your own, ravished forcebly out of your hands through the blind zeal of a Pack of (which though otherwise wise enough, yet as to such matters as these, I may truly say) ignorant Relations, who must have their wills obeyed, though to the ruin of their Friend; and then to have had odd Tricks, and wild Experiments tried upon such a one before your face, and in spite of your teeth; and after all this, to be in danger of being used much worse when out of your sight. Surely these are things which though they may possibly be apt at the first to set Choler a little a working; yet upon a better deliberation, and a more serious review may seem to have as natural an effect an other way; and that is to excite to a little compliance, though it should be somewhat against the Hair; seeing 'tis a vain thing to make resistance, and 'twere but merely to observe how a poor Patient were dealt withal, and what became of such a one at the last.  
There is a Violent, as well as a Natural Motion; and both may be allowed of, as expedient, according as the Case may be; and 'tis Excuse lawful enough sometimes for the Obliquity of a man's Actions, that he had it not in his power to have done otherwise, The very Heavenly Bodies themselves, though allowed of on all hands, to be the most Regular in their Courses, all save one of them, though they may have distinct Principles of Motion within themselves, are forced notwithstanding; to give place to one that is quite contrary, because violent from without; and the bare hope of being thereby put into a capacity of doing some future good, has even in the account of State-Policy, been looked upon as a sufficient dispensation for the commission of some faults which ought not otherwise to have been born withal,  
But the way I shall choose to take to, as touching this second particular, shall be to resolve of nothing that is at all disputable myself, but barely to make a representation of ●hat was acted, for others to pass Sentence concerning it. And being in a manner forced upon the Vindication of my own Method, endeavour to do it in such a way and manner, as to make it obvious to every vulgar Understanding, that is not bend to be cross; and possessed with too great a prejudice before hand, which had been the safest, and consequently the most eligible of the two. And so long as I hold close to these Limitations premised, can be content barely to state matters of Fact: Querie about things doubtful, and leave them still undecided as to any determination of my own: I don't see wherein I am to be looked upon as running Counter to any former engagements, but may rest secure of the least imputation that can become chargeable upon me upon that account.  
And first of all, in order to the making good what has been thus solemnly undertaken; it may be hugely well worth the while to inquire into the doughty reasons that should infer so absolute a necessity for the letting so aged a Person Blood, and that after she had lain ill for so long a time; and not only so, but why the selfsame experiment that had been tried but just before to so little purpose; all circumstances remaining in a manner much the same, should come to be put in practice a second time. 〈◊〉 is to be noted, that after she had been blooded; and observed to fail instantly upon it: and that that Account had been given to the great Oracle of Learning: He returns them back answer without the least scruple or hesitancy, that the same Action was by all means to be repeated, and which for this only reason was omitted to be performed, because what time the Messenger could be back to deliver his charge; she was in the judgement of all the Bystanders in a dying condition.  
These are all such Puzzling Questions, and such perfect Riddles to me (and so I am apt to believe they must appear to all others besides that are not utterly destitute of their thinking faculties) that I cannot choose but stand in admiration, that any who pretends to either common sense or honesty (to say nothing at all of knowledge in Physic) should ever take the freedom of letting himself lose to such Giddy-brained Extravagancies. Surely, this, if any thing may well be accounted of as downright trifling in the most important Affairs; a kind of playing at Cross and Pile with People's Lives. Unless we should rather term it a specious way of propounding Remedies much more deadly than the Disease itself.  
But those who are willing to be thought Learned Rabbis, and Wise Men, are seldom to seek of a Reason for their do, though their Reasons sometimes may fail of being true. The Cause alleged, as I well remember, for the taking away of Blood the first time; and 'twas no doubt, upon those very mistaken Grounds, that the same Method was prescribed to be used again afterwards, was, that 'twas a Pleurisy of the Lungs: and all Pleurisies making a dreadful sound, because so universally requiring Blood: This with the Adaption of a New Name, the Bystanders knew not well what to make of; but suspecting however the worst to lie at Bottom; It went down as glibly with them, as 'twas uttered gracefully by the Speaker. And yet all those, who have the least smattering in either Grammar or Logic, will tell us; That a Pleurisy of the Lungs, is no less a Solaecism in Speech, than a Podagra in the Hand, or a Cheiragra in the Foot; because if the Denomination be supposed to be taken from the Pleura, which is the Skin encompassing the innermost part of the Chest; Then nothing else besides can be properly said to be affected with that Distemper upon any account whatever in contradistinction to that Part. But all the most charitable Constructions are to be allowed to some men's Words and Actions, and little enough: and 'tis to be presumed, that those who have a vast Employment in the World, cannot be at leisure always to speak Sense; and 'twould be a great deal of pity to tie such up strictly to words, who abound with copious matter; and who can never be supposed ignorant of the true meaning of the thing, let their Expressions be never so absurd.  
Wherefore to let pass such poor advantages as these; as not worthy the taking notice of. I shall choose rather to insist on another course, as both comporting much better with my own Genius; and (if I am not mistaken) much more subservient to my design, which tends not so much to the exposing a Ridiculous Expression as to the making discovery of an Enormous Deed. For the better effecting whereof I shall take leave to lay down this firm and undeniable Position: to wit, that every pain in the Side, that is accompanied with a Cough, and a mixture of a little Blood with the Spittle, is not a sufficient argument from whence to infer a Pleurisy, be it of what part of the Body it will; whether of the Lungs or Chest, it makes no great matter; and therefore all such as shall fall to Bleeding of their Patients without Restraint; upon no better a pretence than that, may chance to repent it afterwards when they come to bethink themselves better; and so may all such as have been so foolishly credulous as to trust to their rash advice. No, there are other Symptoms to be attended to of equal regard with these: And when ever they are found wanting, the Distemper is to be looked upon, and really is so, of a different nature from a Pleurisy, whatever a hasty man may be apt to conclude to the contrary. I'll ' instance only in a Concomitant Fever, which is chief to be regarded above the rest: and that was never discernible in this Lady during the time of her whole illness excepting only when an Ague-Fit was upon her; and than 'twas impossible it should be otherwise, and just the Morning before she was let Blood; what time her Pulse was observable to arise a little more than ordinary: but as for the constant Tenor and Temperament of her Body, 'twas for the most part moderately cool, (bating the inflammation in and about her Throat) and her Pulse but low and smooth: and albeit there was some small mixture of Blood to be seen in the matter of her spitting, yet withal 'tis to be remembered what has been already observed, that 'twas usually at such times when a Fit of Vomiting had gone before: and than what so great wonder is it, if a violent compression of the parts of the Chest should prove the occasion of a little issuing forth of Blood there, especially where the Vessels are weakest, and put most upon the stress: and then why might not a Medicine that had been proper for the resetling of the Stomach have been adjudged a very good step towards the removing this inconveniency also? I should have thought for my own part it might have done every whit as well: but all are not of the same mind, never were, nor never shall be: and what passes for sense with one, and really is so, may yet be decried for folly by another. And there are a proud sort of People in the world, old-excellent at beating down a good opinion, and when they have so done, setting up another, that is stark naught, in the room of it: and as they have a faculty of slighting whatever suits not with their own perverse humours, so that which does, shall be sure to be made the most of, and it be for this only reason, that 'tis a darling of their own fathering, if not begetting: and because they are pretty well assured before hand of the facile natures of the people they are to deal withal, whom they know willing to be imposed upon by every silly pretence and idle imagination.  
And yet I am fully persuaded, that all such as are not too unreasonably much biased in their judgements already, and can but be content to stay the examining a matter under all its circumstances with a little seriousness, will soon be brought to give in their Virdicts. That let what other course in nature imaginable have been looked upon as possible to have done her good. Blood-letting however must in all likelihood have been exempted from that Catalogue, and on the contrary, that all those that would have gone the right way to have continued her Breath longer in her Body, especially when reduced to so very low an Ebb; must have laid it down as one of their first Principles to have kept her Blood still running in her Veins.  
The Matter is as Transparent as Crystal, unless it be to such as are as precipitate in their Counsels, as they are posthaste in all their Journeys they undertake.  
The only Reason why Phlebotomy is so generally agreed on on all hands: In the Case of Pleurisies being no more in short but this; because there neither is, nor can be any Pleurisy in nature, but what universally implies a Fever, as that again a Fermentation and Ebullition within the Blood. And though a Fever be commonly reckoned amongst the infallible Marks whereby to judge of a Pleurisy; as if so be it were something in nature of a later date than it; or that by force of its causality had some dependence thereupon, upon which score we have been induced to give it the Apellation of Concomitant: The Learned will inform us, that these words though spoken in the Vulgar, are yet to be understood in the Sense, the Wise intended them, and then Fevers will be found to be so far from being Symptomatical, that the Original of Pleurisies will be rather owing unto them. And for the sake of this Fermentation alone it is, that Bleeding is held to be of such indispensible necessity: for were but that away, there could be no colourable pretence for Boud-letting at all; because so long as ever the Blood continues in a Mediocrity of Temper, and so long it does; whilst there is nothing of Fermentation in it; it cannot but pass along smoothly, and uniterruptedly within the Vessels, as waters when they are low move peaceably in their own Channels. But when once the Febrile Matter comes to be set a working, and the Fermentation to arise to some height; the Case is then different from what formerly it was; and the whole Mass of Blood appears to be clearly another thing; Its motions becoming now much more brisk and vigorous, and its course more rapid; and like the violent streams occasioned by a Land-floud, it neither knows how to flow quietly as it ought, nor yet to be confined within its appointed Bounds, but as 'tis apt to swell high upon every the least hindrance; so likewise to force open a wrong Passage, as opportunity shall be given, and so becomes extravasate, and breeds Annoyance to the parts it lies upon, which if we will speak to the point in hand, is the formal reason of all Pleurities: for wherever the Blood and Humours are extravasate, there will Tumefaction, for the most part, of course arise; That, and Disunion of the Vessels, if upon membranous parts, infer pain; but pain brings on inflammations; which by as necessary a consequence, attract a greater affluence of humours to the same place; which, by their coming on, produce a yet farther degree of heat, & that again affects the whole Mass of Blood, by drawing it into a consent, and so the Rupture is made wider, and all other Symptoms depending upon these, arise together in proportion with them. And now the Blood passing by way of Circulation in a full Channel through the Chest; and it being absolutely necessary for the preservation of humane Life, that a continual respiration should be maintained and kept up there which being impossible to be performed otherwise than by a frequent dilatation of the Lobes of the Lungs, it comes to pass, that it meets usually with greater opposition in the Chest, than in any other part of the Body besides; and this is the best account I know of, that can be given of the so frequent falling out of Pleurities. And when the Case stands thus, there is no other course imaginable, always a respect had to the Ability of the Patient, but to breathe a Vein immediately; and so to give check to this impetuous motion; and 'tis absolutely as clear and unquestionable a Method to slake its Fury, as the substracting Fuel from a boiling Cauldron, is a means to restrain its heat; or the deriving Waters from a Vessel almost top full already, is, to prevent its running over.  
And whenever spitting up of Blood, and a pain in the side proceeds from the Causes before recited, that Physician, who is against the letting his Patiented blood (where strength permits) may very justly be looked upon in the esteem of all, as the Destroyer of his Life; because he defers the using the Means, which in probability was the most likely to have effected the Cure; according to the known Axiom, Qui vult Finem, vult etiam Media ad Finem.  
But then on the other hand, he that will needs be taking away of Blood at mere random and rovers, without any necessity putting him upon it, nay, when there was all the reason in the world, why he should much rather have let it alone; under a pretence of I know not what imaginary Discovery no where to be found, unless it be among the wild Chimaeras of his own Fantastical Brain, deserves in my Opinion, the same severity of Censure which the other did; because such an one, by his unadvisedness, despoils his Patient of that Blood, which he had not haply to spare, and consequently could not lose: without a manifest prejudice to his Health, and so runs him upon a Mischief alike dangerous with the former; it being possible to attain the same End, not only by divers, but even contrary courses, as we know those who depart from one another directly North and South, may yet arrive both at the same Point, if they do but hold on their Journey, and keep constant to their Meridian.  
There is doubtless a Time and a Season to be observed for all things under the Sun: The Wise man hath long ago taught us that Lesson; and Common Reason and Experience seems every day to inculcate it unto us. There is a Rise, and a Stay, and Decrease in both Persons and Things, and every one of these different Circumstances stands in need of a distinct manner of consideration; so as that; what is proper at one time, may be looked upon as exceeding unfit to be done at another. And if at the beginning of a Disease, when the Blood, is rank and high, it may seem perchance to call for some moderate Correction, it follows not from thence, that the same Method is to be insisted upon afterwards, when the Body has been weakened by long Sickness. And albeit those who have Youth, and Strength, and Nature on their sides, may well enough departed with some superfluous Humours, as the Case may be; yet such as are past these Advantages, are not to be so dealt withal. An Aged person is scarcely to be let Blood upon any conditions; & if at all, surely much rather at the coming on, than the declination of a Distemper. And therefore that Physician, who upon the Bleeding such an one, shall perceive him to fall into an apparent sinking condition, and yet persevere in the repetition of the selfsame course again, discovers himself to be a man of a most perverse and obstinate Spirit; who, so he can but satisfy his own ambitious humour of being willing to be thought never to be in the wrong, cares not what Mischief he does to poor innocent Creatures, who put their Lives into his hands, and resign up themselves by an implicit Belief to the guidance of his Opinion. Methinks it should be an Argument to ingenuous Natures to be the more trusty, by how much the more they find themselves to be trusted; and to be therefore the more scrupulous of doing an Injury, by how much the more they perceive it left to the Liberty of their wills, to do an Injury if they please: But there are some in the world so highly conceited of their own dear selves, they had rather die the Death than acknowledge a Fault; and therefore no wonder they had rather others should do so, than be reduced to the same Inconvenience. And yet this being liable to Mistakes, is a Matter so very common, nay a property indeed so inseparable from humane Nature, that he whose demeanour is such, as if he believed himself exempted from that which is every one's lot, deserves, in my mind, rather to be pitied for his real folly, than envied at for that imaginary pre-eminence he is apt to fancy to himself, above all other men.  
And seeing the so much controverted Point of Phlebotomy lights so directly in our way, it may not be amiss, before we take leave of it, to inquire into the Causes, how it came to gain such footing in the world, that was so rarely practised, and with so great caution and wariness in former times. Certain it is, that men's Bodies are for substance now the very same they were heretofore: And if we peruse ancient Authors, we shall find the Definitions of Diseases to be likewise much the same. As for the Climates we live in, they are as unalterable as the Heavenly Bodies which make them; and men were every whit as ingenious, and learned, and wise then, as they are now; and yet to one that was let Blood amongst the Ancients, we may oppose Multitudes of our own experience; there being scarce a Disease incident to man's Body, for which Blood-letting is not prescribed by some or other as a principal Remedy: And those whose Opinions scarcely agree in any one thing besides, are observed however ofttimes to concur in this, the breathing of a Vein, and taking away a little blood, so that it may seem now to pass amongst us for a kind of a Catholicon; the help at a dead Lift, and being so oft made use of, for contrary Ends & Purposes, to become the only Medium that was ever yet found out for the reconciling contradictions; a thing hitherto believed impossible, and beyond the power of Omnipotency; and therefore what can in no wise be freed from the imputation of a contradiction in itself.  
Surely, there must be somewhat of Mystery in this Matter, more than what is commonly discerned, and therefore to be at a little pains about the searching into the Reasons thereof, may perchance deserve to be accounted of as something more than barely lost Labour, if it be but to give light into some men's Actions, which might be apt to pass otherwise unobserved, and to caution divers unwary people how to behave themselves when they come to be concerned in a like Case.  
I have heard one Bird chirp a different Note from all the rest of the Wood besides; and if we may believe him, the Original of that pernicious Custom was first of all derived from the French Nation; from which all the rest of our New Modes and Fashions do receive their Institution. The Physicians amongst them, had so long time entrusted the Apothecaries with the perusal of their Bills, and the making up of their Medecines; and they on the other hand, by their obsequious demeanour and diligent attendances, had so far forth gained upon the good Opinion of their Patients, that at last they even made bold to take upon them the Profession of Doctors themselves, and to administer Physic o● their own Heads, without so much, as staying for the others either Leave or good liking.  
And when the Physicians objected their want of Skill, and busying themselves about such Matters, as they had never been bred up to, and consequently had nothing to do to meddle withal; they Nicked them again, by showing the People a way how to save Fees; and few being such infidels, as not to believe what seemingly made for their profit, though otherwise attended possibly with many real and preponderating Disadvantages, which they could not be wrought upon so throughly to apprehend. A great number of wealthy persons, who had Money good store in their Purses, to have paid an able Physician for his Advice, had they so pleased, but not Brains enough in their Heads to understand wherein the Fallacy lay, that was put upon them, instead of sending for a Doctor when they came to be sick, would take a shorter Cut by half, and only apply themselves to the Apothecaries.  
How this was relished by all such, whose Interest lay at stake, and were made sufferers thereby, is no whit hard to conjecture; and yet it would have mended the Matter but little to have used many Words in disputing the Case with such as were bend upon their own ways; and to less purpose would it have been openly to have fretted and fumed at it (though there's no doubt to be made, but that in secret many did both) especially seeing the minds of men are generally so perverse as to be but the more forward for the doing of a thing, by how much they perceive others whom they delight to vex, to be offended at their Actions.  
Whereupon some of the Physicians who had more wit, and less honesty than the rest, bethought themselves of a timely Expedient to put an end to this so growing a mischief, before it was too late, to regain their reputation amongst the people they were now more than in danger of losing, & bring back their wandering Patients, that had gone astray from them, and all this without any noise, or the least suspicion of being detected in what they went about.  
They agreed amongst themselves, whenever they should be sent for, to advise concerning a Patient, to bleed him at all adventures by one joint, and common consent; and if it so fell out, that it had been done beforehand by any one singly, and of himself, than they which came afterwards were to justify the Action, by giving it an approbation.  
'Tis beyond belief how the project took effect, how it overran all Paris, and the parts adjoining immediately, and like a train of Gunpowder blew up the poor dull Apothecaries with all their little pretences and shifts, before ever they were ware, so much as who hurt them, or from whence it was that the blow came; and not only so, but the continuance of the custom has been a means to keep them in a good Decorum ever since, who had otherwise been still as they were wont to be, before they had that trick put upon them, most intolerably insolent and impatient of all control.  
For some of the Ringleaders being persons of known abilities, and they beginning the dance, and the rest generally following their example; The people all (like a Herd of Deer at a sudden noise) were surprised with admiration, brought to stand at a Gaze, and could not tell well what to think of it, they had natural Logic enough to infer, that if learned Doctor such a one, and such a one, were clearly for bleeding their Patients, and then that▪ and if such and such great persons, eminent for wisdom and authority in the nation, submitted to that way of cure, surely the thing must needs be reasonable, if not absolutely necessary; and if it were proper for one, why not for another, seeing rich and poor, gentle and Simple are all made of the same mould, and then how could they tell but that their own condition might stand in need of the same remedy, as well as others; And then how much, or how little at a time, or whether or no the action were to be repeated were all new Questions, and weighty ones too, and therefore such as required a more than ordinary skill to give a determination concerning them.  
And albeit they could formerly have been pretty well content to have trusted an Ignoramus, with the giving them a glister, or a purge, or something to sweat withal, and so after an entrance made with someone or more of these, had suffered themselves ofttimes to be wheadled in further, then ever they intended at the first; yet believe me this same taking away of blood seemed to be a business of such high concernment, that they all began to be clearly of opinion it was not to be committed hand over head, to the management of every Rash and Pragmatical Undertaker.  
There are some little things in nature, that prove ofttimes the occasion of very considerable effects; and what may be small in itself, may yet be great in its production: A little spark may be the original of a mighty fire; A little armour rightly disposed of, may do a great deal of good service, and the Rudder of a Ship (to take one instance more) though for bulk & substance it be but small, yet of how forcible an influence is it, for the turning, and winding about the most capacious Vessels, to whatsoever point of the compass, the Master thereof himself pleaseth?  
And so to speak the down right truth of the matter: the piece of artifice we have been mentioning; however slight, and dispicable, it may seem to those, who have neither leisure; nor it may be Judgement, to conceive of it as they ought: 'Tis realy one of the most sly and politic, and the most subservient to the Physician's interest in its full latitude that was ever yet devised by the wit of man, as will appear to all such as shall but take notice of these gradations following.  
First of all an opinion of the necessity of frequent Phlebotomy, passing for currant amongst the people, That brings in Physicians of course, to debate of the weightiness of the affair, and it be but merely for this reason; The astonishing horror and amazement humane nature in case of this remedy above all others, is more especially affected withal.  
Secondly, it sta●es of all such as are not constituted legal Physicians by whole sale (as it were) and keeps them either from meddling, or making, any thing to the purpose, with the administration of Medicine, and leaves them to whom it rightfully appertains in the full possession & exercise of what they desire.  
As for the first of these, the reason thereof i● founded upon a principle of Natures own laying, and therefore what ever superstructure shall come afterwards to be well reared thereon, shall be sure to remain unshaken: The Scripture itself informs us, that the blood of any thing is the life thereof▪ and provident nature may seem to have tinged it with a crimson colour, on purpose to affright, and scare, to the end that men might take the better warning, about the too hasty shedding of it: And the impression left upon their thoughts, by that mean, comes no whit short of its intended designation: There being scarcely any one thing, falling within the compass of a humane capacity, of a more formidable aspect; or that strikes with a greater terror, than this doth. Divers there are indeed (though that he be to be looked upon as no part of their commendations) who can be well enough pleased at the rehearsal of dismal stories, such as are Wars, Massacres and Murders; so long as they are acted at a distance from them, and kept far enough out of their sight: but he must be a Monster and not a Man, who can be the spectator of such real Tragedies, and yet not feel something of a remorse the mean while arising within his breast.  
The eye of man, as it virtually includes all the other senses: So is it a faculty which more nearly affects the heart, than any of the rest besides; Witness that Sympathising quality, discovering itself in most men; who though they can afford to be cruel enough, both in their revenge, and corrections, so long as they keep to the dealing of dry blows and no more, but when once they come to exceed those bounds, perceive their anger to grow cool again, in an instant; of Lions become Lambs, and have all their outrage converted into pity. And if the observation holds generally true when extended unto others, 'tis much more so when applied unto ourselves, it being usual for the charity of most to act than strongest of all, what time it comes to be brought the nearest home. And albeit there are many, out of an affectation to be thought stouthearted, care not much (in this vapouring age) for owning any such tenderness within themselves, yet such a thing really there is. And there are but few (if any) in the world (let the Climate they were born in happen to be where it will) but must have so much of the temper of the Welshman in them, as to be more then ordinarily transported at the sight of their own blood.  
And though it be most undeniably true, that there is scarce any one thing, about which Physicians are commonly called to consult, but what at one time or other, (if happening to be misapprehended) may prove of as dangerous consequence to the life of man, as this of Phlebotomy, that is neither here nor there; so long as it appears not with the same dreadful shape to the view of the parties concerned.  
There is a thing called Argumentum ad hominem, which is to be made use of in case it shall be found effectual to do the business; when divers that are much better, and more convincing in their nature, are to be set aside; & therefore Physicians in this respect; thought good to transcribe the copy they found set them by the Carpenters; which is to drive that nail, not which stands the fairest in their way, or which they have the greatest mind to, above all the rest, but that which they perceive upon many little essays made, the most inclinable to enter; so that if the letting patients see their own blood, carries so much of terror along with it, above all other Remedies besides; who should be entertained when a matter of that consequence comes to be debated about; but those who are supposed the most knowing in the mystery; And who they are, if men's perverseness will not, their own fears quickly will inform them. And then as for the second; that follows on closely and unavoidably upon the concession of the former; not only because it is an easy thing to hold a Possession, where 'tis once obtained, but by reason of the constant assistances that are afforded by the forementioned principle; for, and if so be it be to be looked upon as dangerous, to acquiesce in the opinion of illiterate persons, in the important matter of Phlebotomy, at one time, it will be so at another; and then rather than not have them finaly excluded, the same remedy shall evermore be pretended necessary, by some madheaded Physician or other, & it be but on purpose to amuse the Patient, and fill his head with jealousies, and cross the Empirics & Quacksalvers, in their little designs. Else what could ever be the reason why so many ancient, and in a manner bloodless people, should have their veins pierced with so much eagerness upon every slight & trivial pretence; as we usually see they are? whence should it come to pass? that so many in the very lowest declination of their distemper, when the whole mass has been depauperated and spoiled? so many of weak and windy stomaches, such as have scarce heat enough within them, so much as to digest a potched egg, or a little chicken broth, should yet have their languishing bodies ransancked and searched into, for that blood and spirits, which alas they have not to spare, and there were ten times more than what there is? and all this by the prescriptions, and at the command of such as can quote you a Greek, or a Latin Author, and need be, and derive you a misapplyed text from the sage writings, of either Galen, or Hipocrates▪ Either this must be the reason we have been but now alleging; or which is a great deal worse, none at all; unless we will take this for one; that proud and self conceited men, have hereby an opportunity put into their hands, of gratifieing their own ambitious (not to say Fantastical) humours; as being consttuted by that means, the sole Arbitrators of, what is believed to be one of the weightiest matters in the whole world; and to have it put into their sole power, to determine thereof, as they think fit.  
And so many of them are wont to do indeed with as much carelessness and indifferency of spirit as we find SUBTLE in the Comedian dealing out old MAMMON'S money and coals; take fifteen or twenty ounces, you may take thirty. And then to have a company of shallow witted and impertinent people to look ruefully, and be gazing and stairing in their faces the mean while, & awaiting the grave sentence from their lips, with as much reverence, and solemnity of behaviour, as those who came for an answer to DELPHOS were wont to attend upon the Oracle of Apollo there, o● others of late times, to listen for a wise word from Friar Bacon's brazen head, before it burst to pieces; Are all such tickling and transporting considerations (especially if meeting with a base and wretched fancy) that 'tis not impossible, but that many, who have not a head-piece capable of higher antainments, may be apt to rest pretty well satisfied with such empty trifles as these: And to accuse such of Plots, and contrivances, they were never in the least danger of being guilty of, would be a great deal of pity as well as injustice, and therefore I shall make bold to rank such amongst the common herd of Practitioners, who serve only to make up the number of a party, and to write as near as they can, after the copy that has been set them by their Leaders; that so; what they are not able to make good by their own Slender pretences may be backed with the authority of much abler men. Whence it comes to pass, that what some take upon them to do through an excess, The others are allowed to imitate thm in. through a want of wit; and so knavery is used to justify folly: and that a while after fetched back as an argument for the maintenance of Knavery again, because ●is general practice is only sufficient to constitute a custom; which is so far from standing in need of any abetters and friends; that it both supports itself, & gives countenance and protection to all that are the Siders with it: but as for such who are so scrupulous to make matter of doubting, at what is generally believed, they are in common esteem to be looked upon as Pragmatical, and Busy-bodies, and so not at all to be endured.  
But then over and above the two foregoing advantages, there is yet a third of very great concernment, in point of interest to the whole community of Physicians; and that also arising from the before mentioned Unlimited principle, which is not to be passed over in silence, it is so very remarkable, and that is the divers acceptation, the doing of the same thing, is wont to meet withal whilst considered as proceeding from different persons▪ through the working of fancy, and the mere force of imagination▪ My meaning is that what is allowable in one should be made culpable in another: and as 'tis reported of the pillar of the Cloud which came behind the Israelites Camp; That it gave Light and Encouragement to their party, but was an occasion of confusion and disorder to the Egyptians, which followed after: so may it truly be affirmed of this politic fetch so much in request of late amongst some, that there is not any one, nay all the other witty and wily ways of contrivance put together, that could possibly have been thought on, from the beginning of time to this day, that could ever have stood them in so much stead, nor yet given a more mortal blow to the wounding of their adversaries, and weakening of their cause, than this has done; Nay at that very same instant, when 'tis supposed to be made use of by the others, and that upon the self same occasion as it would have been by their own selves. This is somewhat strange, may some one say, & so no doubt it will seem to all such as shall peruse these lines, at the first appearance: but the reason of the thing will instantly prove itself, if a little reflected upon, without the trouble of much straining or far fetched deduction.  
As for Example:  
Let one, who is a Physician, take away any determinate quantity of blood, from his Patient, whether it be right, or whether it be wrong, 'tis not to be questioned, but that some arguments or other, may be produced in order to the justification of such a way of proceeding. Now, and if so be the same Party (either sooner or later it makes no great matter) comes to gather so much strength as to be seen abroad again; who would offer to be so uncivil as to deny the working of a great cure; though perchance he might have done every whit as well, if not much better without it: nay 'tis not impossible but that this loss of blood may have set the man into a languishing condition for many years to come, notwithstanding this present show of amendment, or else disposed his body for some second fit of sickness at another time; or which is yet worse, be the occasion, in the long run, of the taking away something from the number of his days: & yet none of all these things, because either at a distance, or out of the reach of the observation of the parties concerned, shall ever come to be taken notice of, to the Physician's prejudice, yea, if he should chance to die that present Fit; there could be no more said, because 'tis supposed no more could have been done; the mean● having been used, and a legal Physician consulted withal, who was in his way, and acting within hi● own Sphere, and therefore, what has any body to do to meddle or make about the calling him to a●● account, for his prescriptions, and so the business is left as it was found, without any further enquiry.  
Whereas on the other hand, let the paltry Empiric, but Ape the Physician herein, as he is won● to do in other matters, it proves no less than the very bane and downfall to all his projectons, and the first time he fails of success, as 'tis impossible he should hold out long; what ever he has been spending his cares about with such unwearied diligence from first to last, flies all away in fumo immediately▪ The bubbles he has been raising, resolve all into nothing, and the castles he has been building in th● air, are all demolished while you wink; and then, though it may be not till then, all the form passages of his life, that are liable to any, the leas● cause of exception, come all to be surveyed & looked into; then 'tis who made him a Physician? and whence came he by his skill? his Extraction and Education, the way & manner of his life are all laid open to public view, and severely descanted upon which might have passed unobserved still as hitherto they had done, had it not been for this unlucky accident falling out, that such a one, as he is forsooth▪ must be blooding sick people of his own head, & with out any further advice; it is only the remembrance of that which stirs their spleens, and awakens thei● indignation, so that though the man might have bee● realy bad enough; yet his so bold meddling in thi● one dangerous concern, occasionally renders hi● much more odious in all the other actions of his life, then happily he might otherwise have seemed to have deserved.  
And thus have I endeavoured, to show upon these several accounts, how serviceable a device this unlimited bleeding of sick people, is apt to prove to the Commonwealth of Physicians in general, & could the matter have rested here, and might it have been but permitted for as many of the profession to have dissented from this way, as had had a mind to it, and to have used their own liberty as they saw occasion; it might for aught I know have been never a whit prejudicial to the Commonwealth of men neither, but have passed for a question not very easy to be resolved, whether the entire body of the Nation, upon the whole of the matter, would have been a saver, or loser thereby: because that albeit it can in no wise be denied, but that divers particular members, may have already, & do daily receive a very considerable detriment upon that score. 'Tis a matter of no small importance however to be freed from those swarms of seducing Empirics, that would have been every where up & down, buzzing the people's heads to their exceeding much greater inconvenience, had this expedient never been found out. True it is there are too too many of them at present, and so no question there will always be in spite of all the contrivances, that can possibly be invented, or honest & industrious Care that can any ways be used to the contrary; but for aught I know there might have been ten times more than there are, and sure I am, they would have been much more pernicious, because much bolder in their attempts, were it not for so witty (though I must needs say withal overpolitick) a piece of subtlety to give check to their exorbitances. And therefore though we neither aught to do evil ourselves, that good may come of it, nor yet abett or justify the doing of it in others; 'tis a thing however possible to be done: And when it does so fall out, they only, who have had a hand in the encouragement or practice thereof, are to be made accountable for it.  
But matters, as to the present constitution of affairs, are so much altered, and the Scene so exceedingly shifted, and changed, from what it was formerly; that what through the prevalency of a Tyrannical custom, on the one hand, and the Pride and Ambition of some few Physicians on the other (who by their good Wills would have none live by their professions besides themselves) The Controversy now lies not so much between Physicians and Apothecaries, or Physicians and any other sort of Empirics besides: as between one Physician and another. And as 'twas said of the Spanish Inquisition of old: though it was invented at first, as a Trap only to catch Moors; yet that it proved afterwards a snare to the most upright & conscientious amongst the Christians: so here the self same principle, which has served all along, for the suppression of deluding Quacksalvers & the discountenancing public enemies of all sorts, is at length turned with an equal force against the honest Physicians, as ever it was against the wors● of them. And to such a height is the Tide now swollen, & with such a mighty swiftness does the Channel flow, there is no stretching out so much as a hand against it, & it is no less than present drowning, not to be carried along with the stream. To presume to controvert what is generally taken upon trust, or warranted by interest, and prejudice, and folly to boo● (as has been shown at large) is become a crime unpardonable: all one indeed as to confess one's self a cross-grained and illiterate Dunce, and to know nothing what belongs to the art of Physic▪ and a Physician (as the case now stands) is driven either to forego his reason, and refuse to be any longer subject to the dictates of his own conscience; or else to leave of meddling in his calling, and to put himself qui●e out of all; one of the two, unless he can be content to live a life exercised with perpetual Janglings, and Discord; and to be pointed at, as a mere antic for offering to stick to a fashion almost utterly deserted, and which very few or none at all care for appearing in, besides himself; which tho' Superannuated of late, is not so old neither, but that some now living, can very well remember, to have been held in good esteem, when there were a majority of Votes, and those of the best and wisest men here in England for it; but than it was before the French Modes had in this, (as in all other things) so generally prevailed amongst us.  
I have not forgot myself; what I affirmed e'er while, how that the notion amongst them took almost with the same hasty speed that it was at first propounded. And so it did, for they being an active, and nimble sort of people, were both the more capable of receiving such an impression, and then over and above being addicted to the drinking of much Wine for their ordinary Beverage, whatever loss they happened to sustain upon the account of bleeding, it was so much the better repaired, and made up again that way.  
But in England, is was entertained far otherwise. and stoutly resisted both by Practitioner and Patient for many years together. And unless it were now & then by a whimsycal-pated man, who affected singularity, and to be seen to tread in a pathway different from all others, it was seldom or never put in practice, till here of ●ate; but upon very solemn occasions. And if ever the nation do chance to turn wise again, and the ridiculousness of these modes come once to be manifested to public view: 'tis not impossible, but that this fantastical custom of bleeding upon all occasions, may come to be rejected together with them; but whether they shall or not▪ it follows not by any necessary consequence, that i● we should allow them to be our Governors in the Regulation of our Garments, that they should therefore be permitted the same power in matters appertaining to our lives. And though we should suffer ourselves to be swayed altogether by fancy, in affairs of smaller moment, It may however be hoped, that in time we may be wrought upon in those of a much higher importance (especially after we shall have smarted sufficiently for our folly) to take reason for our guide.  
There are divers grounds might be shown, for the probability of such an expectation as this, some whereof have been a little hinted at, in the former part of this discourse. But that which shall be made choice of now in the close of all (setting all others aside) shall be taken from no other Topick, than the nature of the thing itself, which if but throughly understood, and duly attended to, as it ought to be, will stand in little need of any farther enforcements to persuade to a steady belief thereof: which to the end it may the more effectually be done, let us a little take notice of the structure, and constitution of man's body. I name only the body, because that notwithstanding the soul be to be reckoned as a part of the Man, as well as the body, and that the most noble one of the two; yet that being for substance immaterial, and so not in the least liable to alteration of itself, belongs not at all to our enquiry, but the body only which is the Organ thereof and Subject to so frequent changes and alterations does.  
Now Philosophers, and Physicians both; who have been at a great deal of pains to search into the Nature and Original thereof, tell us, and that truly enough, that this Body of ours is at first constituted of the Seed of the Parents, and the Mother's Blood; how that there being a perfect mixture, and joining together of the two first within the Womb; and from thence the more noble parts having received their delineation, the blood of the Mother is at length derived to them, which gives Being to the rest, and augmentation to the whole; and to this latter it is that the Embryo owes its farther growth, & accomplishment till it becomes born into the world.  
After which time the Infant is still supported by a continual accession of blood, as it was formerly; with this only difference; that whereas before it had it from the Mother in specie, ready prepared to its hand, it now receives it under the form of nutriment, and is itself put to the trouble of some farther alterations to bring it to that pass, as being fitted with Organs and Faculties of its own, subservient to that end; which being an opinion not only founded upon reason, but apparent even to common sense, and Anatomical observation. The truth hereof since first taken up, has never been so much as scrupled at, or entertained with the least hesitancy, (as there was no reason wherefore it should) but passed for currant, and unquestionable Doctrine, even to this very day. And this brief account, though it might have been enough to have satisfied an inquisitive man in very many things, yet as to all it was not; because substances being but unactive of themselves, could not be judged capable of the Alterations observed to be in them, without some superadded qualities to make them so: and therefore 'twas no more than was necessary to fetch one step more, and search out what they were; which having done, they fixed upon these two as previous to the rest, to wit, the natural heat, and radical moisture; and thereupon builded their conclusions, and from thence deduced their inferences; and the reason of this, their proceeding was not altogether without probability: for taking notice of the actual warmth they found to be in most living Creatures, and a principle of life to lie concealed in Vegetables; even in the very dead of winter, which came afterwards actually to exert and show forth itself at the beginning of the Spring: they were brought to this resolution to conclude upon a certain, innate heat, to be contained in every Particle of the Body of Man, (which they say first lives the life of a Plant and Beast, before it comes to be advanced to the perfection of a reasonable Creature, and for ever after to retain the same qualities and affections incident to them both) and this to be always founded in a radical moisture, which it lives and preys upon continually; and which in the conclusion, when that comes to be wasted and spent, dies together with it for company. These two qualities they supposed never long to continue in the self same plight and condition; but however to be much more exuberant and vigorous in the beginning, than in the latter end of the life of man, but in the middle to seem to stand at a stay, as being set at an equal distance between either of the extremes; so that distinguishing his years into these set-periods of time, Childhood or Youth, middle Age, and old Age; there were scarce any considerable changes incident to humane Bodies which they were not able to salve by virtue of this Hypothesis; and which might not some way or other be reducible to the blending together of these two qualities diversely considered, as the principal occasion thereof.  
Was the Party but now in his blooming years, fresh, and lively, vigorous, and active; as apt to burnish in bigth, as to increase in stature; 'twas because the constitutive principles, out of which he was at first made, were as yet near their Original, which being fabricated out of the purest Blood, and most refined Spirits in Nature's choicest Laboratory, had not as yet fully attained to the utmost of their force; but were still in a capacity of exerting their activity more and more, according as the Nutritive Faculty should be disposed to make use of them.  
Did the same Party stand at a stay; 'twas because this innate heat had arrived to the utmost of its power, beyond which it could not pass, and was able to do no more than keep up those parts in sufficient repair it had already under its jurisdiction: and that the moisture with which it was in conjunction, had arrived to its vertical point also. But then, as is usual in the winter of our years, was there an universal decay upon the parts of the whole Man? were the Sinews stiff, the Senses dull, the Muscles dry and sapless; and did every other Instrument and Organ of the Body in proportion unto these begin to falter in the execution of the office, for which nature had appointed them? Why there could be no other expected, when the heat and moisture, that should give vigour, and preservation to every particular member, had been so far wasted and spent; and an answer taken from that general Topick was looked upon by all as satisfactory enough in these, and a hundred other the like cases.  
What was the Opinion of the Ancients, and the Men of his time concerning this Point: Ovid, who was known to be as good a Philosopher as Poet gives us clearly to understand in the first Book of his Metamorphosis, where he has occasion to describe the replenishing of the Earth with those various sorts of living Creatures, that had been swept away with the Flood. 
Quip ubi temperiem sumpsere, humour que, calorque  
Concipiunt; & ab his oriuntur cuncta duobus:  
Cumque sit ignis aquae pugnax, vapour humidus omnes  
Res create, & discors concordia foetibus apta est.   
As if so be the Productions of Nature, considered in her full Latitude, depended principally upon these two.  
And Sennertus a late Writer, to name no more but them, (as supposing all others of intermediate Ages, who understood themselves as they ought, to have been of their judgement) Treating upon the same Head, seems to illustrate the matter exceeding fully by a homely comparison or two, tending to the same purpose; which if minded with a little attention, may render the conception thereof somewhat the more easy to be apprehended. Suppose says he a Vessel of Wine should be continually drawing out, (or to that effect) and have the empty space filled up again either with water, or a more thin Wine than itself, although the change be not at all perceptible at the beginning of the operation, because of the great disproportion, that is as then betwixt them; yet in tract of time, when the loss is more on the one side, and the accession far greater on the other, It will be made visible enough. And the Wine after a long time of mixture, will cease to have any predominance at all over such water, as being rendered much more thin and heartless by it. Etsi enim in locum humidi radicalis aliquid semper reponatur, deterius tamen id est, habetque se sicut aqua ad vinum, quae vino per mixta id debilius reddit; Jnstit. lib. 1. cap. 6. And then a while after in the same Chapter he compares the natural heat and radical moisture whilst in conjunction together, to the Flame of a Burning Torch, which both wastes, and yet is preserved by the combustible matter thereof at the same time; Perinde enim ut flamma in lychno oleum aut sebum depascitur, & tandem absumpta materia, ex pabuli inopia extinguitur: ita etiam calor nativus noster, instar flammae, humidum primigenium depas●itur, tandemque humido deficiente, ipse etiam extinguitur. This was the account, or much to this purpose, given by those of former times, and since: and according to these suppositions and principles, in every thing almost they did, were the Physicians wo●t to bend their course; and if it shall be said that comparisons are not to be taken for proofs; and that such Notions as these could not but be liable to much uncertainty, because apt to be mistaken; as many of those, who yet contradicted them not, were wont to acknowledge themselves: It must however surely be granted, that in Matters of this abstruse nature, a dimn Light ought to be esteemed of as much better than none at all. And to act according to such Positions as might both have a proportion to the things they related to, as also to one another; and were capable in some measure of obtaining the end for which they were propounded, to be much more allowable, then to leave all to the determination of blind chance; or what is full out as bad, to the capricious humours of a fickle man.  
There is neither Circle nor Degree to be found in the Concavous Parts of the Heavenly Bodies, to which they are commonly assigned: nor yet on the Surface of the Earth neither, other than what is placed there by men's fancies▪ and yet what a huge loss would Astronomers and Geographers be a●▪ had they no such helps as these are to be guided by, to say nothing of Navigators, Architects, Diallers, and several other most ingenious Artists, who find themselves exceedingly helped by Rules and Directions taken from Positions merely imaginary in the matters relating to their different employments; and by which they are set in as sure and unerring a Method to order their affairs by, as Demonstration itself is able to chalk out to them.  
And though Physicians never were, nor never shall be able to give a through resolution about those various and nice questions, they are necessitated sometimes to be concerned in, with half that positive clearness, that those of many other Professions: are by reason of the nature of many things so treated about by them, admitting of no such evidence; yet without doubt it must needs be a strange piece of indiscretion therefore to reject such common notions, as the wisest, the most sober, and the most inquisitive amongst the Ancients have thought good to deliver down to their Successors; and those again such as have been confirmed by the experience, approbation, and authority of several others, every way as knowing and judicious as themselves; which for several Ages together have in a direct Series and Orders of time still followed one another; because they have not been so full of discovery as might have been wished; or more convincing (as has been said) than the matter would bear. And 'twill be yet a greater degree of madness, when we have so done, to leave ourselves nothing of a Rule to walk by; or if we do leave any, such as is obnoxious to the same, if not far greater exceptions, than those which have been so cast off, and rejected by us. Stick we then but to the principles delivered us by our Forefathers: and this licentious way of Blood-letting will quickly be at an end, as done out of a contempt of, & a direct opposition against them, as may be shown clearly from what has been already laid down; and is easy in any case that can be instanced in, almost universally to be made out; for either it must be done in the time of youth, and then in all probability it cuts that estate so much the shorter, and so becomes a hastener on of middle age; or if it so falls out, that the party have arrived to his middle age already; than it bushes him on a little farther to the state that is next behind that: but if he be passed his best, & in a declining condition, what time the experiment comes to be practised, it gives him a lift forward 〈…〉, still however, by causing him to mend his pace; and advances him some few degrees nearer the last stage he is to conclude his course in; and that fits him for the hand of death. And so indeed it does in every one of the cases before put: but because but remotely in the two former, I have only expressed that in the last of the three estates, which was plainly enough implied in every one of them. For if old age be the immediate harbinger to death, & middle age the forerunner of that; than whatever thrusts forward youth towards a state of middle age; and which yet again hastens on middle age so as to cause it to approach to the conditon of old age sooner than otherwise it would, may truly enough be said to be the procurer of death to all alike: and so by consequence, whenever Phlebotomy shall be made use of; unless it be overbalanced with the consideration of a greater evil, which can be no other than an apprehension of the same thing upon some other account to threaten us at a nearer distance: it ought to be looked upon as such; and to have a natural source and tendency to the producing of the same effect.  
The force of all, which deductions before supposed, depends solely and entirely upon the making out of these two following Propositions. First▪ that the depriving of the Body of any determinate quantity of blood whatever, is a neverfailing means of shortening man's life. And Secondly, that all those several Ages, into which man's life is capable of being divided, are either shorter or longer in proportion to the time of his continuance here in this world.  
The latter of which is a Postulatum, as reasonable to be granted; as that all the parts of the same thing collectively taken, should be neither greater nor lesser than the whole which ariseth out of them; and that whenever the whole comes to be shrunk into a lesler Volumn than before, the parts should be imagined to abate of their dimensions in a just proportion thereunto. And that whatever it be that occasions a contraction in the one, should be deemed to have an influence in producing a like effect upon the other at the same time, unto each of which assertions the more ready assent ought to be yielded, because that albeit the whole, and the parts may be called by several Appellations; yet are they in truth and reality but one and the selfsame thing. To bring, all which, a little nearer home by a more full and thorough application, It may not be amiss to cast our eyes backwards, and observe; that in those first and primitive times, when Men lived longer upon the Earth, they had each of them their Seasons of Youth, middle age, and old age as well as we; but they were much more long and comprehensive than now they are. And the parties who had their Lives measured by them, were necessitated upon that account to make so much the longer pause before ever they stepped over from one estate to another. Whereas upon the cutting short of humane Life in general; These several Periods were reduced to a much narrower compass: and men as they become sooner ripe, so were they the sooner rotten. And if we shall put all this together, 'twill be no Parodox to affirm, that whatever shall be the cause of substracting from the number of men's years, if derivable from their first Principles, aught to be looked upon as the forwarder of them in their whole passage between the Cradle and the Grave; but if accidentally befalling them after their Conception, or Birth, then to be judged of, as having the same efficacy upon their Lives for the remaining part, as then behind.  
But then as for the former, though it may be equally true with this, yet is it not altogether so perspicuous in every respect, that may deserve consideration for the Proof of that Particular. I say in every respect, there being two reasons to be rendered above all others that may seem to infer a necessity for the abbreviating men's Lives upon the taking away of Blood universally, and in all cases. The one whereof, though it may haply lie plain enough to the understanding of every man; and that at the very first Proposal; yet the other does not, but requires something more of deliberation, and heedful attendance thereto, to make it appear to be so.  
That which is so very plain and obvious, is taken from the enfeebling and impoverishing the whole Mass, which is observed to ensue upon the losing of Blood in any wise: it being held for a Rule, that the Blood of such Creatures as receive their growth and nourishment thereby, aught to be accounted of as so much the more pure and sprightly, by how much it stands placed nearer its Original; but to become, less & less such in a proportionable manner, according to its greater or less departure therefrom. Whence Aged People are said to be, exucci & exangues, both Bloudless & Sapless: not absolutely & simply so, but such if compared with others, or with themselves formerly in the heat & vigour of their Youth; and upon this Supposition alone, it is, that the Succession of People came ever to take place amongst us; & one Generation to make room for another, as has been held forth to us by the comparison of Wine & Water mixed together, & shall be shown more fully hereafter by the farther Prosecution of an Argument somewhat Analogous unto this.  
The other, from the interruption given thereby, to the act of nourishing the Body, which in its regular and due Oeconomy ought always to be continued, as being the only possible means for the maintaining the heat and moisture thereof, which are evermore liable to decay, and which according to the Principles of the Ancients, are held to be the two main Supporters of humane Life, as we likewise have supposed; but the way and manner by which this comes to be brought about, being of a consideration somewhat more remote, and likewise more intricate to be conceived of. I shall for that reason take the Liberty of steering so much the larger a compass in order to the explication of it.  
As for example, if the Parents be both healthful, and their Blood sound, than the most refined part thereof which is separated from the rest, deposited first of all in the Seminal Vessels, and afterwards in the Womb, for the Production of the Body of the Infant, cannot possibly miss of a most exquisite constitution when coming actually to be made that, which Originally it was designed for; and if happening to meet with such a supply of nourishment as is every way convenient for it, first and last; and a concurrence of such other circumstances as are duduly required over and above thereunto, there is little doubt to be made but that it will have a duration proportionable to the exactness of its composition, and the successfulness it has been attended withal in and through its whole course; that is to say, that that Party to whom such a Body belongs, and such other additional advantages have together fallen in with it, as have hitherto been supposed, shall have a Life produced even to the extremity of old Age.  
Whereas let the Constitutive Principles be never so well prepared; if the nutriment the Body is to be fed withal, be defective, as to the doing its part; or be the Nutriment never so proper; if yet some other conditions material to be performed, happen to be omitted, or circumstances misapplied, or any external violence to be offered to it; a failure in any one, or more of these points, renders all hopes that might have been conceived upon any, or all the other former accounts taken together, utterly void on the other hand, should all other desirable occurrences have fallen out; and the Seed of the Parents barely to have been faulty, that one deficiency had been enough to have proved a hindrance to all the rest, and the same Person, who might otherwise have lived long and happily, and enjoyed his health without any interruption for many years together; is for that only reason put quite and clean beside his Bias; and either cut off suddenly, or cast into a languishing condition (it may be) beyond all possibility of recovery. Multitudes of Instances might be reckonded up for the making good either of these Allegations; but that I am neither left to the liberty of giving myself that Scope, (nor should desire to take it if I were) as being under the choice, as well as obligation of keeping to that one particular inconvenience that is occasioned almost in all places, by too immoderate Phlebotomy.  
To prosecute which matter a little further; and yet withal to bottom our discourse upon no other foundation than what we have been laying hitherto; or rather which indeed has been laid ready to our hands by the observations of our Progenitors, in case of the good disposition and natural healthfulness of the Parents: The Principles derived from them, (being as is to be supposed) well-furnished with a Supply of natural warmth and moisture; and they again kept in repair by a continual accession of the same qualities afforded by the nourishment, and influenced by as constant an additional heat, generated at first formation of the Infant in the Mother's Heart, as afterwards in its own, upon the removal of the afterbirth, and breaking off of the Umbilical Vessels. The Body upon these considerations cannot choose but be looked upon as a Mansion-House exceeding proper for the Soul to reside in; and it be but because the several actions necessary to the being and support of humane life, are so readily performed there, over what they would have been in an Organ that had been otherwise disposed; that is to say destitute of the qualifications before remembered by us; to instance in particulars. Alteration and concoction, (I mean not that of the Stomach only, but those more excellent and refined ones which succeed it) and so nutrition and augmentation are all effected and brought to pass by the interposition of heat and moisture; and then the nature of Temperament in general; as also of the several Species that are contained under it, depend very much upon the combination of these two qualities one with another. And as Health presupposeth a dueness of Temperament, so is it, its self, for the most part presupposed as a condition unto long life.  
On the contrary, let the Parents happen to be crazy to some certain degree (to keep close to our former Supposition) and than whatever proceeds from them will be apt to participate of the Infirmities of their Nature. According to the intent of that known Axiom. Nothing can bestow that upon another, which it first contained not ●●thin it s●lf. And then by consequence if the Blood of the Parents be contaminated and spoiled (as w● see in divers Heredirary Diseases) the Offspring will fall out to be for temper much the same with them, and then 'twill either become Abortive and Perish before the Birth; or if living to see the Light, be evermore Feeble and Consumptive, and so put into a constant disposedness towards a final Dissolution.  
So that notwithstanding to be healthfully descended be a matter of very high importance, and to be adjudged deservedly as one of the first and main steps towards the attainment of Long Life, yet it is not all that is required thereto; but as we come into the World one way, and go out again divers, so it is possible for the best Constitution that is to miss of its Ends upon several accidental accounts (as have been shown before) and miscarry as undoubtedly as if it were inclined thereto from a Principle within itself. To which heads may be referred all those outward acts of violence, which may and too often do prove to be of Force enough for the destroying the best form Infants in Nature, whilst included in the Mother's Womb. As also the most vigorous and athletic Persons living after they arrive to maturity of Years. To these Heads are reducible all those Omissions, and overact●ngs, those many Mistakes, Presumptions and Misapplications, those Debaucheries and other Ways of Intemperance, which many are too fatally guilty of in the unhappy Lives we live in, both in respect of themselves and others. In a word, to this Catalogue doth belong all those Legions of Mortal Enemies that do so constantly surround us in the whole Pilgrimage of our Lives. Which though numerous enough, I have nothing at all to do to meddle withal, more than barely to point at them; as being only concarned in the particular Discovery of one alone; not therefore ever a whit the less dangerous because but little taken notice of. And that is, as has been mentioned oft and again, the ridiculous and nonsensical Custom of Blood letting so much in use amongst us, which I have constantly hithereto and do still affirm to be prejudicial to every State and Condition of man, some few cases only excepted, and shall thus endeavour more fully to evince.  
Suppose we a Person of the most exact and well framed Temperament of Body that was ever yet produced, and such a one to have been attended on with an Affluence of all other desirable Circumstances whatever, there both must and will be a perpetual wasting and falling away of the several parts thereof. Such a mutability are we always subject unto (even the very best of us) from this common State of our Mortality: which loss is evermore to be repaired and made up again in true measure, by as constant a supply of Aliment assumed unto that purpose; which Aliment could never be in any Capacity of producing such an Effect, were it not for the Agreement the several Parts of it have with those of the Body, to which they are to be united; and that not only in that common Principle of first matter; which is one and the same to all Bodies in general, but also in respect of those two necessary Qualities so often times before mentioned of Heat and Moisture. For it is upon the account of that additional and superadded Moisture that is conveyed unto it by the Nourishment, that the Radical is maintained and kept up, which is the same for kind with it. And the Primogenial Heat again is as necessarily upheld after the self same way and manner, according to what has been so often repeated heretofore.  
For whether this Aliment so assumed be to be taken from Bruit Creatures, such as is the Flesh of Birds, or Beasts, or Fishes; or whether it be to be derived from Vegetables, such as have their Rise immediately from the Bowels of the Earth. There are both this innate heat and radical moisture still to be found in the one as well as the other, and they are both evermore carefully preserved by Nature, under all those preivous Changes and Alterations the Aliment successively passes through; till such time as the last Act of Nutrition comes to be performed, and the Nourishment to be converted into, and made one with the Substance of the Body itself.  
And first of all as for that Concoction, that is laboured within the stomach, which was a little glan●d at before, after the Aliment has been manducated and ground small, lain for a convenient space fermenting and di●gesting within the Cavities of the same, the more feculent drossy and impure parts thereof; are separated and cast into the draught, but the refined still left behind to be promoted to a yet further degree of Exaltation, where still the two Qualities, before named, are sure evermore to be detained and kept back together with them.  
And then again in like manner in the Liver or elsewhere, wherever the Second Concoction comes to be performed, and the work of Sanguification wrought, the same care is again taken for the Preservation of them both, as there was before in the Stomach. For so we find them in an Eminent Manner to be contained there, and that from the Observation of our very senses themselves; that the Blood is always warm so long as Life remains within the Body; the Sense of Feeling is sufficient to inform us, and that it is moist as well as hot, is over and above made clear to us by the discerning of the Sight.  
And so in the third and last place, when that great and Substantial Exchange comes to be made, there is not the lest doubt but that the same Qualities are withheld still. It being very improbable that Nature should preserve them thus charily all this while, to part with them at a Season when they were likely to be of the greatest usefulness of all to her: and if we inquire into the Nature of this Cambium the immediate matter (say some) out of which the Restauration of the Body is to be made, we shall always observe it held forth and expressed by such Names and Appellations as do plainly enough intimate the same things unto us.  
And thus by this means are we arrived to an easy way of expounding what is meant by that so perpetual wasting of the radical moisture in the Body of Man, (so much talked of) and the repairing it again by an Additional Supply that was with the same Constancy afforded it; as likewise to a clear Understanding of the great Prejudice that is done to humane Bodies by deprieving them of the Matter out of which this Supplement is only to be made. 'Tis the Humidity of the Aliment received, that makes amends for the Loss sustained upon the other Account; and put but a stop to that, and the first Stock wastes amain; as we see evidently in a little bodily Sickness, (where for want of this wont Supply of Nourishment, Nature not being then at leisure to attend unto it, as being called upon to a far more necessary work of fight with the Distemper) how strangely will the Members become emaci●ated all on the sudden And so in many other Cases, where though the the things are not, yet the Proportion held in them may be said to be one▪ and the same.  
That Person who has a standing Revenue and other Additional Helps, amounting to almost an equal value with that, for the defraying of his necessary Charge, may yet haply be put upon such Expenses as shall exceed them both together, and so be left unavoidably liable to a declining in his Estate. But now if this Superadded Income happen totally to be Suspended, then that wasting which was but slow, and as it were insensible, though sure enough before, will now become quick and manifest; because the one main means that gave check to its Progress is supposed to be taken away.  
Which very same thing is yet further illustrated by that common Instance given of the burning Lamp, which from the time of its first setting up, to that of its final exstinguishment, may well be said to have a continual Tendency and Motion to its last End. But then if other supplimental Oil of a much more gross and impure Substance, such as is indeed through the greatness of its Allay, unable to gender any Flame of its self at all, shall happen constantly to be poured in, as the other is supposed to be drawn off, though it can never maintain a burning to perpetuity, yet will it however by Contributing something of an oily Substance to be joined ●o that which was upon the Wast before, be a means to prolong the time of the Lamps duration; and cause it to hold out much longer than otherwise it would have done. And then if it should so come to pass, that there should be an utter Suspension, and withdrawing of this wont Contribution, though but for a while, the pure Oil will most undoubtedly blaze out the faster for lack thereof, and there ought to be a proportianoble abatement made upon the Account of the whole duration, for the Interruption that has been given by that Occasional Intermission let it happen to have fallen out when ere it will.  
There is a certain Stock of Radical Moisture to be observed within the Body of every man, which defuses itself throughout each minute particle thereof, and without which 'tis impossible for any due Temperament long to be preserved; or for the Soul and Body to be held in a State of Conjunction one with another: This Moisture is supposed to be perpetually subject to decay, and that upon a double account; First as being preyed upon by the Heat it is contempered withal; and Secondly, because the Substantial Parts in which it is founded as an Accident in its Subject, are liable to be consumed also; but the Blood of Man is either the Immediate Matter, or at least wise the Matter but once removed, out of which the Parts so decaying, are all to be framed a new, and the Heat and Moisture which we have proved to be the inseparable Concomitants of the Blood, are the same for kind, though not for Purity, with the Innate and Radical, that are Seated in the several Parts of the Body. And 'tis only from the Addition of them, as we have been still supposing, and in a manner enforced so very long to insist upon the Proof of, because a Point so exceeding necessary to be thoroughly understood that the Primogenial are upheld. And therefore when ever it so falls out, that any stop shall be put to the Continuation of the Act of Nutrition (as 'tis very improbable but that there should be some, when ere the Blood out of which this Aid is only to be afforded, comes, though but in Part, to be Subtracted and taken away) those Parts of the Body, which both might and ought to have been recruted thereby, will most certainly be deprived for some time, at leastwise, of such a Proportion of Heat and Moisture as had been realy communicated unto them, had this hindrance never been; because, as goes the Substance, so in like manner goes the Accident; they live and die, rise and fall together: and when ever the one is withheld the other of Course will unavoidably be kept back also; and though it should haply be but for a time, that very Concession alone is sufficient for our purpose; because, according to the Instances alleged, the two Original Qualities before mentioned, must, for lack of such wont Accessions, be left under a necessity of so much the greater wasting and decay; and as a consequent of that their final Extirpation, be so much the nearer its Accomplishment.  
Forces, when united into one, as they are allowed to be the stronger, so are they upon that Account the better enabled to withstand any foreign Violence that shall at any time be attempted against them; and not only so, but to hold out so much the longer against their own natural Principles, inclining them to a Dissolution. And therefore if those Qualities, which from time to time have been constantly relieved (if not intended) by an Additional Supply of others of like Virtues with themselves, come once to fail of the Supporters they have hitherto been helped withal; What other can be expected, but that immediately from that Instant, they should not only begin to flag and bate something of their Pristine Vigour, but also be much more hasty and precipitate in the manner of their so doing; because now reduced to a necessity of spending altogether upon their own private Stock, which they were not before put upon; and though possibly so soon as ever Nature is able to reinforce herself, the very same, or near as good Supplies as any afforded in times past, are sure again to be sent in; and all things, so far forth as is possible, to be restored to their wont Condition. 'Tis questionable however whether or no that Relief may not come too late to make amends for the loss sustained in that interval; nay 'tis utterly impossible but that it should▪ because th●se superadded Qualities, if considered in their own Nature, are suited to no other end, than barely to keep the Primogenial from sinking, so fast as without them they would have done; not simply from fading at all: For were it so, men would never die, but live till they were Immortal. And therefore much less can they be ordained to have the least respect backwards for the reparation of any Antecedent Damage that may be supposed to have happened before their coming.  
And if any shall be so perverse, as obstinately to maintain, that they can discern little reason, wherefore to conclude a Suspension of the act of Nutrition, because some few ounces of Blood have been drained from the whole Mass; the abatement of so small a Quantity being very inconsiderable, if compared with the total sum, perchance not amounting, upon a due Estimate, in the departure of nine or ten Ounces thereof, to the proportion of above one, to one and thirty.  
And therefore that though it should so fall out, that Phlebotomy should at Distant Seasons be oft and again celebrated, it could never follow from thence, but that enough and to spare might still be left behind for the carrying on the so necessary work of Nourishing the Body, and that without the least hindrance and Interruption thereof at all.  
And should they proceed further to urge, as an enforcement of the Belief of this their Opinion, the different Quantities of Blood, and extreme latitude, as to that one particular, that is to be discerned amongst several Persons, as extending, according to the Calculations of some, who pretend to be curious about that enquiry, to upwards of a hundred and forty Ounces; And so upon that account hold it but reasonable to infer, that what ever Quantity shall be supposed to surmount the just standard of such a Proportion, as aught to suffice for the competent Support of men's Bodies, and a convenient transmitting the humours thereof from one Part to another, deserves to be looked upon under no other Notion, than as a timely Provision, laid up in Store by Nature, against all such accidental losses of the same, as, by some Casualties or other, might happen for the future to fall out.  
I Answer, that neither of these Considerations, how plausible soever they may appear to be, can ever be of force to weaken the Validity of any Assertion formerly laid down by ●s; if we do but call to mind, that humane Bodies, as they are observed to vary from one another exceedingly, in respect of the unequal Quantities of Blood that are wont to be contained in each of them; So neither will they be found to be at a much greater Agreement amongst themselves, in point of Bulk and Stature. And consequently, all such of them as ●re of any thing a greater magnitude than those others they are compared with, as they will require such an amplitude of Vessels as may best comport with such their Dimensions; so likewise for the same reason will they stand in need of such convenient measures of Blood, as may in some sort contribute to the satisfying these their different Capacities, and be every way correspondent to the more than ordinary Largeness of them.  
And then, look what excess of greatness shall be allotted to any one man's Body above another; the same in a like Proportion ought to be allowed to each Particular Member, and Integral Part, into which the whole ●b, supposed to be divided, if compared with other Parts and Members which are Constructive of some lesser Body, unto which their own Total had been referred. According to which way of procedure, by a deduction as evident as Demonstration itself. That Blood that shall be adjudged convenient for the repair and maintenance of those larger parts, aught to be exhibited in somewhat a more plentiful and free manner than to those others that are less, and then what becomes of all those Redundances and Superfluities that according to this Opinion are so much relied on?  
Besides, humane Bodies are known to differ as well in point of Temperament, as they do in bigth and tallness: upon which account there are incommunicable Degrees of Heat and Cold, ascribed by the Learned to either Sex. Men, they affirm to be of a Constitution much more hot, Vigorous and Active than Females usually are, whence it comes to pass, that they stand not in want of those periodical Evacuations that the others cannot be so well without, the Superfluous excesses of their Blood being otherwise corrected, and that as either preyed upon and consumed by their own natural ●eat, or driven forth of the Body again in Sweat and Vapour by the protrusion of the same cause: and if so be one Sex may be set at so wide a distance from the other, in respect of these two Opposite Qualities, as we see they are, and as is commonly believed by all. What hinders but that the several individuals, comprehended under either kind, may in a due measure and in some less Proportion be removed from one another likewise, and then the as different Circumstances that unadvoidably fall in with, and are appendent to the supposal of these various Qualities, that is to say, as considered in a more remiss or intense Degree, are neither hard to conceive, nor yet difficult to be accounted for. Because there is nothing either more or less to be found in them, than what is occasioned by Principles apt enough to produce such Effects by way of Natural Causality. And so according to the Rules of common Discourse, and ordinary Reasoning, what can be more necessarily concluded, than that all such as are of a Blithe and Sprightly humour, should require of Course a great deal more of Blood, and Spirits for the supporting it, than others which are dull, and lazy, and Phlegmatic, for the maintenance of theirs; in regard they are put to a much greater Expense thereof every moment of their Lives than the others are. It faring with the one as with the Earth in Summer. At what time let the Clouds gather together never so fast, and the Water descend upon it, in almost never so great abundance, 'tis forthwith returned back again in Vapour and Exhalation; and unless it may for a Constancy have its wants supplied, with fresh and repeated Showers, will unadvoidably in a very little while become scorched and burnt up.  
But with the others as with the same Element in the depth and dead of Winter, when there neither is, nor can be the same avoidance of its moisture, because, that heat, which should alone work its removal, is so exceedingly abated, over what it was wont to be at the other Season of the Year, all things are not the same to all men; and if that Assertion shall seem overstrange to any, it will be less so, if we do but consider, that all men are not the same neither to themselves, but vary and change Conditions almost as often as the Moon does Shapes, to day appearing in one Humour, and to morrow in another; and as Rivers are called by the same Names, by way of Analogy only, when the Waters out of which they are constituted are hourly fresh and new, so may the same thing in some qualified Sense be verified of men's Bodies too.  
So that to resume our former Debate, there is no great Question to be made, but that as every Body is fitted with particular Instruments and Organs, such as may be convenient for its use, and composed of such Members as may bare a Proportion to the whole; so likewise, with such Supplies of Blood and Nourishment, as are every way agreeable to its Temper. And the Sanguine and the Choleric, the Melancholic and the Phlegmatic, have each of them such allowances as suit best with their several Constitutions; and than if the Quantities of Blood that are observed to be in each of them be not alike, so (if the matter were well enquired into) perchance neither is there Temperament; and to the Dissimilitude of the one, may very well be ascribed the Inequality of the other. And then upon either or both these Accounts, taken jointly or severally (as the matter may seem to require) there may be grounds sufficient shown for the producing a Reason, for whatever common Experience informs us of as touching the present enquiry; without flying to mere Possibilities, Contig●●ties, things which indeed may, but perhaps never will fall out, of which more anon: But suppose they should both fail and be rejected as unsatisfactory, and that nothing of a direct proof could be made out from either of them, that is to say, that neither the Inequalities of men's Bodies, nor yet the Disagreeableness of their Tempers ought to be allowed of as any Cause at all, for the furnishing them with such various Supplies of Blood as we usually find they have; which yet to me appears plain and reasonable enough; and so 'tis like it may do to many others besides▪ I do not see however, upon what Imaginary grounds, or colourable pretence, this laying up Provisions against future Casualties, can possible be made use of as an Argument of any Force at all to evince it; that being neither consistent with the usual Methods of Nature in other like Cases, not yet with those commonly received Notions that are vulgarly delivered concerning her; such as are acting Necessarily and Perfectly; her intending but one thing at a time, and nothing at all in vain.  
Whereas according to this Hypothesis, she would be taken up about the Continuance of Matters purely contingent, as depening upon the Will of a mere voluntary Agent; and that ofttimes, such a one as is determined in his Resolutions, not by the Dictates of right Reason as he ought, but it may be by chance or Fancy, or something worse than either.  
And can any be so vain as to think, that so perfect an Agent should ever busy herself in doing things at all adventures; as when She makes such solemn Preparations for humane Bodies in general in all Ages past, that were to be made use of but in ours, or in times not long preceding them, or but in some parts of the World only; and those so very inconsiderable in Comparison of the whole; for as for such wounds and effusion of Blood, as are occasioned by popular Tumults and public Calamities of War; those though too too frequent, are yet nothing at all, if compared with those premeditated ones, which happen in time of Peace, and besides they likewise depend upon Principles altogether as uncertain.  
Much less can she be supposed to act, in a Contradiction to her own purposes, at the same time, as she must unavoidably do, in case this Method were to be admitted; her common intendment being believed, and that with reason enough, to be the Welfare and Preservation of humane Bodies in the gross, and yet this would be the ready way to ruin and destroy them; for nothing else can be the true meaning of this hoarding up of such Superfluities of Blood, as the Abetters of this Opinion must necessarily suppose; which let be in what Quantity it will, if more than is at present sufficient, cannot well be imagined but by its rankness and turgescenty, to breed something of annoyance to those Bodies, it shall be bestowed upon; there being commonly as many Mischiefs fall out, arising from the Excesses, as the Deficiencies of things, in almost all Cases that can be instanced in; but however most undoubtedly in this, as might be made appear evidently enough, by multitudes of Examples that might be collected to that purpose; and which every ones Capacity, though never so mean, may be able sufficiently to furnish him withal.  
No● the direct Course, Nature Steers in the Provisions she is wont to make about Matters of this kind, is such as may comport with her Designations as she is a universal Agent, and whatever reaches not up to that one Standard of being universal, falls as much Short of being Natural: and that may serve as a Direction to Judge by, what ought to be accounted of, as Natural, and what not. The whole World as considered in its universal Extent, is the adequate Object of Nature's Care, and the Preservation, and Ornament thereof, is chief and in the first place intended by her, as is attested among other Experiments, more especially by that common one, so much taken notice of by Philosophers; to wit, her great Solicitousness about the recording a Vanity, which, rather than it shall be permitted, what ever particular beings happen to be near hand, where such outrage is attempted; they are all to be summoned in to give their attendance, upon that one common Cause; and if need require, put upon it, to suffer in its Rescue.  
But the World, as taken in that Sense, is too complicated a thing, not to call for a more particular Regard, made up of the several sorts of Creatures contained in it; as they again of Individuals comprehended under them: and 'tis the good of those divers Species, Nature, in the Second place, is wont to be concerned for: and below that Degree of Universality, never vouchsafes to Condescend: 'tis true indeed, Universals are all founded in Particulars, and can have no Subsistance, not so much as that which is imaginary, but by their means; and that common Influence bestowed upon the World in general, could never reach the affect it was designed for, did it not first light in a very particular manner upon them; but that being not intended at all for their Sakes, under the Strict Formality of their being Singular; but upon the Account of that one common Agreement, in which they all meet and concentre; what is one way applied, ought always to be looked upon as otherwise intended; to wit, for the Benefit and Advantage of the whole Community, without any respect at all had, to this or that individual Person or thing; and that it is, to which way soever we cast our Eyes upon the works of the whole Creation; there may be, and are, from each Degree amongst them, Pregnant Instances afforded us; let us take a view of inanimate Bodies, Vegetables, and bruit Creatures, as they stand divided into their several Ranks and Orders, and they will be found to have one common Nature, in which they all concur, and upon the account of which, the Individuals belonging to each of them, are at an exact Harmony and Agreement one with another. From thence it is, that they all of them partake of the same outward Form and Portraiture, so that it is an easy matter at the very first appearance to distinguish one kind from another, and to refer each of them in particular to their own proper Class: from thence it is, that their whole Structure, Make and Composition, when ever searched into, admits of so true a Proportion, and that the Actions and Operations proceeding from their Inward Principles, come so Universally to agree; how else could it ever be possible for the Trees of the same kind to bud, blossom and bring forth their Fruits together, and all after the same likeness, and similitude, were it not for this universal Concourse of Nature; and how else could they be Imagined to keep Time, and Pace, and Proportion so exactly in every thing they do, but that there is a secret and common Influence imparted unto each of them; and the like may be said of each and every particular thing, that can be pitched upon in the whole Creation; 'tis but reducing it to its own Species, and then it will be found to agree with all other particulars of that kind, besides itself in its Shape, Tendency and Operations. And 'tis the Preservation of that Consent; and the maintenance of that common Agreement, that Nature always aims at in what she propounds to herself; and so that may but be kept up, no matter what becomes of the several Individuals contributing thereunto, they may all perish and moulder away successively, as we see they do; and yet the other, for all that be upheld to perpetuity.  
And look what may be affirmed of other sorts of Creatures up and down in the World, the same doubtless holds proportionably true in Mankind as well as the rest. And so all Persons that partake of the same common Principles, will not fail to share in the production of the same common Effects; the Faculties of their Souls, and the Affections of their Bodies will be universally the same, and the several Parts and Members which concur to the making up of the Outward Man, will be sure to have all the same Habitudes and mutual Respects one towards another: and wherever this Order ceases to be found, such Productions are to be accounted of, no longer Natural, but Monstrous. The Geometrician, having once gained the Dimensions of Herculus his Foot, was at no loss at all to find out the Compliment of his whole Body; because of the Natural symmetry of Parts that was to be supposed in them, even from the greatest to the least: so that if he know but how to calculate truly, there was no possible danger of being mistaken in raising any false Conclusions.  
But if an exact Harmony be to be observed in matters of less Moment, then why not in so material a thing, as that a due Proportion of Blood should be allowed to every individual Person; and if nothing can be natural but what implies a Universality, to wit, one common Consent and Agreement amongst the Individuals belonging to the same kind; and if there be no greater Reason for an Excess of Blood to be provided for all humane Bodies in General, than a Deficiency, as in Truth there is none, than the meanest Skill in Logic that is, will teach us to infer a Mediocrity; and what may most conveniently suit with each Man's particular Exigency, State and Disposition: for an Agreement they must of necessity concur in; and it being once granted, that there was no more than what was sufficient, before such Act of Phlebotomy, it follows by a direct and clear Consequence, that there must be less, so soon as ever that comes to be performed; and so must needs continue to be, till such time that loss shall some way or other be recruited; which before it can be done, how many and great Inconveniences, may be apt upon several Occasions to happen out, I leave to each Man's particular Judgement to determine; and that serves fully enough to evince what has been so long contended for; to wit, that the taking away any determinate Quantity of Blood whatever, must unavoidably infer some Prejudice to be done to the Party so deprived of it; some very few Cases excepted; because, he has it not now in the exact Quantity allotted him by Nature, which is seldom, or never out in the measures she takes, and as she rarely fails in the shaping a Hand, or a Foot, so as to make it either too big, or too little, for the Body to which it belongs; so no doubt is she as little to seek in the apportioning other matters of an equal Concernment with them, when ever left to be disposed of by her. 'Twere endless to waste time in the enumeration of Particulars, there being very few Diseases, which may not be said to afford us Instances of this kind, and which may not be proved to take their Rise, or Augmentation, or both, from the Indiscreet Application of this Universal Remedy, as 'tis now vulgarly believed, but there is no prosecuting several Arguments at one and the same time: and 'tis the Act of Nutrition alone that I have pitched upon as my choice, and that I am engaged to keep to, which will most undoubtedly come to be suspended or abated, or some way or other hindered thereby, and then what the Consequence is, of necessity falling out thereupon, hath been already shown.  
For, what else is Nature, but the directive Power of Almighty God in his Government of the World, which therefore may be said to act regularly, because rationally; but in all rational purposes, matters of Conveniency are to yield and give way to those of necessity, the chiefest Good, in case of Competion, and where both cannot be attained at the same time, is evermore to be preferred; and the greatest evil as constantly to be avoided, there must one be submitted to; but if we shall diligently compare these two Offices of Nourishing the Body, and Circulation of the Blood one with another, we shall find upon due Examination had, the latter to be much the more necessary of the two, and consequently the other to be suspended for some time, when ever they happen to be inconsistent together, which will be in a manner as often as Phlebotomy shall be made use of: because a convenient Quantity, and no more, as has been sufficiently proved, being to be allowed to every man in that Estate Nature has assigned him, when ever that Proportion comes to be abated of, she is engaged to use her utmost endeavours, for the reproducing it with what possible Speed she can, and then for her to augment and waste it at the same time, to part with as great a Quantity thereof, about the repairs of the Body, as she was wont formerly, and yet forthwith to make an amends for this other accidental Loss, that is supposed to happen over and above, especially when the other might very well be looked upon as a task sufficient (in Persons already past their best, and now in a waning Condition, to be sure it is) is a matter somewhat difficult to comprehend.  
At other times, and upon other Occasions not altogether unlike to this, when the contest has been between this very Act of Nutrition, and a Good, confessedly greater than itself, that it has been respited for a while, appears evidently enough in the Instance of Sickness before observed; where the Life of Man is supposed to be brought in Jeopardy, but that the Life of man is no less concerned, upon a Stoppage put to the Circulation of the Blood, is every whit as clear, for what matter of greater Importance to the very Being and Sustentation of Humane Life, can there possibly be assigned, than is the free Motion and Transportation of the Blood and Spirits from one part of the Body to the other: 'tis equivalent to the very Action of breathing itself, which all agree upon to be a thing of exceeding great moment; nay in some Sense to be esteemed of before it: it being possible for Life to be supported without the one, as we see it is in all Children before their Births, and in some Divers, beyond the Seas, if the Testimony of Travellers concerning that point, be any thing to be heeded, but never in any wise without the other; insomuch that at what time soever the Heart and Arteries forbear to beat, the Body is supposed, from that very moment, to forbear any longer to live, but even to expire and die away together with their Motion.  
A further Illustration of the truth of the same matter, discovers itself to our almost every Day's Experience, were we but at leisure to give heed thereto as we ought; in each common Diarrhea, or Looseness of the Body, in which the Strength fails, and the Flesh abates immediately, upon the breaking out of that Distemper, which surely can be for no other reason but this, the Nourishment now becoming slippery, and not making a stay long enough either in the Stomach or Bowels, so as to be able to impart of its alible Juice to the whole mass of Blood as formerly, the Blood thereupon forbears sending any further Supplies to the several Parts of the Body, till such time as the wont order comes again to be observed; not that the Blood can ever be supposed to be endued with a Faculty of Discerning between good and evil, or made to be any way capable of the foresight of an Inconvenience to ensue upon the parting with its own Stock, without good Security taken for having more laid in the room of it; But what though it should not? Nature takes care of all beings alike, and bestows Instincts and Directions where higher Faculties are wanting, for the attaining several good and useful purposes; and then 'tis all one upon the matter, as if itself were; upon whose account it is, that the very Lilies of the Field, though they neither Wove nor Spin, come to be decked as Gorgeously, and arrayed in as goodly a Sort as any of those Creatures that have Wit and Contrivance allowed them for the procuring of their own Apparel; In allusion to which Oeconomy and overruling Power of Providence, are we accustomed to say, in common Discourse, upon our taking Cold at any time, after the leaving off a Garment, or being more thinly clad than usual, that the parts so deprieved of their wont Covering still looked for, and expected a Continuance of what they had had before; whereas in strict propriety of Speech, to expect and look for, are Acts too high and noble to be performed, by such inferior Instruments, as are the Limbs and Outparts of the Body. But inasmuch as Nature is supposed to bear so great a Hand and Sway over them, so as to furnish them with Dispositions, Habitudes, and Inclinations, in a word to have the Guidance of them in many respects, much after the same manner that an Arrow is directed to the Mark, or a Ship Steered towards the Harbour: such Expressions are aptly enough suited to the Nature of the things they are designed for, and apprehended by such as either use or have them without any Difficulty at all.  
So that the Circulation of the Blood being known to be much more useful than the Act of Nourishing the Body, and that the same Act of Nourishing the Body, has been at some times, and is usually forborn to be exercised, whether it be in case of Nature her being better employed elsewhere, or whether it be for lack of a Supply of such Contribution as the Body was wont formerly to be furnished withal; what hinders but that it should as well give place here (that is to say, wherever Phlebotomy shall be made use of, seeing 'tis all one in some Sense to be disfurnished of what we actually had, and not to be supplied with what we should have had, and be suspended for some little time, so long at leastwise till the present harms may admit of a Reparation, which be it more, or be it less, if any at all, will be found sufficient for our purpose; because, as has been already shown, the Act of Nutrition, if suspended at any time, must unavoidably infer an Abatement to be made upon the whole Duration of Man's Life; I say, the Duration of Man's Life, in regard the two primitive Qualities, so often before mentioned, and which are held to be the Maintainers of it, are so inevitably cut short thereby; and then the whole duration, not only because 'tis impossible to Subtract any one single Unite from the vastest Number that can be named, without an impairing to the total Sum, or take away the smallest Particle imaginably from any Species of continued quantity, without making it less than it was before; but as being willing to comprehend thereby any possible Alterations, greater or less, whether present or future, that may possibly be occasioned thereby; nay, though they should be of so slow and gradual a Production, as could not well be taken notice of all on the sudden, by one transient and single view.  
There being very many things in Nature, which, though falling directly under the cognizance of humane sense, when considered of altogether, may yet be far enough from being accounted of as such, if divided into Particles, and small Tractions, and a respect be to be had to the precise manner of their being brought forth. The Grass of the Field increaseth daily at almost every season of the Year, and the bodies of Vegetables and Living creatures, till such time they arrive at their perfect growth, are incessantly passing from a less Estate unto a greater, and yet who the most sharp sighted amongst you, can pretend to an Infallibility of Judging the Sensible Alterations wrought either in the one or the other; and the very same Proportion holds in the Determination of most things that is observable in their Increase; 'tis to be confessed indeed, that after some Pause made, and Competenty of time taken, to make a comparison between the things themselves, 'tis very possible to make a due Estimate of what may have happened, but that is not so much the Question in debate; 'tis the shortness of time, and the smallness of the Change wrought in it, which alone creates the Difficulty; and so again, there are many things which as to common Appearance have not their Affects at present, and which seemingly act at a very great Distance of time in the producing them, which yet are so far from diserving to be slighted, upon the score of the insensibleness of their approach; that on the contrary, they may seem rather to exact so much the greater Portion of our care to be taken, in the better providing and cautioning ourselves against them: the Venom of some Beasts, how slowly, and as it were with deliberation does it steal, and insinuate itself into the Bodies of such Creatures, as have at any time been wounded by them; till at last, it comes to take a full Possession of the whole Mass of Blood, and Vital Spirits, and broke forth to open Acts of Violence: and yet all the while it hath lain thus dormant, may truly be said to have as great an Aptitude to destroy, as any the most deadly Draught of Arsenic, or Ratsbane: and the neglect of some inconsiderable Breach, when it should have been Repaired; how does it in time, occasion Ruin and Destruction to the whole Building.  
Herein lies the great Fallacy, which simple People are wont to put upon themselves; they live a Life of Sense, rather than Reason, or indeed, Fancy rather than Sense; and because they don't take notice of any present Alterations, that may have happened; are the more inclinable to think, that therefore there have been none at all; and because they believe, there have been none for the present; are ready to conclude, that therefore there will be none for time to come; and all this proceeds from no other grounds, than want of Judgement, and Foresight; and so being unable, to determine their own Thoughts, by any Solidity of Argument, they are able to make out themselves; are the sooner prevailed upon, by Custom and Example, to do as others would have them; and willingly suffer themselves, to be gulled and cheated out of their Lives and Healths, only to gratify the humour of the next impertinent Talker, that either comes in their way, or they send for to advise withal; who, so he can but enjoy the delicious Sweets, of having things done after his own way; cares not (it may be) what Mischiefs betides those Persons, upon whose Bodies the Experiment comes to be made trial of; which is a matter, I could wish every one that shall have Occasion at any time to be concerned therein, would a little seriously consider of.  
I did say before, that in case of the apprehension of some great danger, nigh or afar off; which yet could be no other, than that of Death itself, or some painful, or grievous Disease, that might be the Harbinger thereto; this was a way, that both might, and aught to be submitted unto; as upon the Comparison between two evils, the less is always to be chosen, because in that comparative Sense, it ought to be conceived of, under the Notion of a good: and so may this also, though in itself, it be no other than a direct means, to abreviate the Number of men's Days, and abridge the Period of their Lives, by Nature's Bounty appointed them; as has been manifested at large.  
And though divers are of Opinion, that many after Bleeding, have been much more lively, and vigorous; as also far more fat and corpulent, than ever they were before; which may seem, to be an Argument of force, to render Invalid, what has hitherto been contended for: let it be but taken into consideration, that all Opinions, that have the good hap to be credited, have not always Truth on their side; and if it were so, there would not be so many vulgar Mistakes, as usually we find there are; and though it should fall out, for some interval of time, to be as is pretended; yet that would evince but little, it being observable, for some lucid Interval to happen, even in the most cloudy Days, and some little Lightning (as they call it) that may be taken notice of, before the approach of Death itself; which as it can be no sure mark, to judge the State of the Sick Party by; so neither is it so much to be attended to, how Patients find themselves for a little Space after they have been let Blood; as what the constant Tenor and Condition of their Health, in its full latitude, from that time forward, is commonly taken to be.  
The Ram may give ground, but it is with no other purpose, than to make head again with so much the greater Fury. And Bodily pains, as we find by daily Experience, upon the taking of some Medicines, have appeared to be pretty well appeased; which yet afterwards, have broken out again, more violently than ever. The Sprigs that are pared from off the Body of the Tree, at some Seasons of the Year, if but pricked into the Earth, will make a show to bud and blossom, as fairly to the Eye, if not fairer, than those Boughs that have been let alone; but every one is able to give a guess, at the different event, the one is like to have from the other; who has but Reason to consider, from whence it is, that the cause of this their Flourishing proceedeth: what is deferred, is not for that reason, to be looked upon, as quite taken away; and an account may be balanced by sums brought in as well at the Rear, as the Beginning: and further, as touching that subsequent Fatness, which appears to some, to have been occasioned upon the score of Phlebotomy: 'tis to be noted, that there is a puffing, and swelling up of the Body, exceeding much different from a solid, and substantial Nutriment; and though it should realy prove to be such as is supposed, there is no Question at all to be made, but that upon a strict Examination of the Matter, a Cause might very well have been discovered, from the Rules and Principles of Physic, wherefore to have warranted, a just taking away of Blood in such a Case as that was; which has constantly been alleged of by us. And therefore nothing can ever be inferred, from what has hitherto been allayed, as spoken in Opposition against any such manner of Proceed, but what tends much rather to the just Vindication of them: it being the rash, heady, and precipitate manner of doing the thing, that we have been endeavouring all this while to expose, not Blood letting in General, but letting Blood without a Cause, and without taking time to consider, whether it were fitting to be done or not.  
'Tis neither Absurdity, nor Contradiction, to condemn the use of the same Remedies in some, and approve of them in others, because the most general Rules that are, are by no means to pass unlimited; and Circumstances, when different, stand evermore in need of as different a manner of Application. So that what is hurtful in one case, may be profitable in another; as we find Opium and strong Waters, to be of a singular use, when applied seasonably, and with care; and yet the one is known, to be no other than a rank Poison, is considered in its own Nature; and the other the worst of Enemies, to the digesting Faculty of the Stomach: and so though the lopping off of a Limb, from the Body of a man, be a most pernicious thing, and tends apparently to the bane and ruin of that Party, upon whom such Cruelty shall be exercised; no one ever doubted it. Yet, when a Part shall become mortified, and seizsed on by a Gangrene, then 'tis so far from being accounted so; that the dismembering the man, is one of the highest Acts of Charity, that can possibly be shown him; because the greatness of the Danger, legitimates the desperateness of the Cure: and indeed, unless it be in case of Apparent danger, a hazardous Medicine, ought never to be put in practice, lest the Mischiefs that accrue thereby, should prove greater than the Advantage. There is a Rule of Proportion evermore to be observed in such things: and 'tis not the least part of the Physician's Office, to show himself well skilled therein: and I see no reason, but that a Chirurgeon, may as well cut a man for the Stone, when he has never an one in his Bladder; or when he is sent to dress a cut Finger, or heal a broken Shin, whip off People's Arms, or Legs, without further Deliberation: as a Physician in many Cases, that might be named (I don't say, in all) be dabbling with their Blood: the latter being as probable a way, for the doing of their Business, as the former, though ('tis to be confessed) not altogether so course, and painful; as 'tis the same thing in some Sense; whether one be smothered to death between Down Pillows, or tortured upon the Wrack; 'tis but a being done to death, either way. And yet there are too many in the World, who are as brisk and flippant at it, as if it were a matter of pure Indifferency in itself, and left to their sole Power, to institute how far forth it might be conveniently made use of, that is to say, that it might be lawful only for them to have recourse thereto; so oft as the freak took them on the Head, or they had a Mind to have their own turns served by it.  
And now Sir, having thus liberally paraphased upon the Presumptions of my own moddling. I am in the next place to render an account, what the Opinions of others may have been upon the very same Case; which when I have faithfully given in, and made some brief Inquiries thereupon, it must be left to the Decision of such as are unconcerned to pass Sentence upon the Criminate; and declare at whose Door especially, the ill Management of the affair ought to be laid; for that there was an Error committed by some body, is not in the least to be scrupled at: that being a Consequence, plainly enough deducible from the acknowledgement of us both; and want of Discretion, is a term of the smallest Denomination, it can possibly be reduced to; because upon a full hearing of the matter, as what had been administered before his coming; examination of of the Pulse, Urine, and such other like Testimonies, necessary to be known; we both returned our Opinions freely, and without hesitancy, that we saw no reason at all, wherefore to make doubt of her Recovery: whereas, the Event falling out quite contrary, upon the immediate change of her Medicines, the Fault (I say) must be rather his, than mine; because altered by his own appointment, and some of them, against my liking; so that, if there were so good hopes, of her Recovery before his coming, to meddle with her: 'tis strongly to be presumed, she might have continued in the same probable way still, had he but kept away; and this, I take to be, a fair and a honest Plea, in order to my own Acquittal; let others, clear themselves as they can: I know but one thing, possible to be objected against it; which has I confess been urged by some, in a neighbourly way, who have been pleased, to concern themselves, in the Controversy: That it is a Quality, not at all to be disliked of, in a Physician, to be making the best of another Man's Practice; neither do I say, it is; only I must crave leave, to start a new Query: Whence it should come to pass, that he, whose Life was never at any time remarkable, for either the least ray of Grace, or good Nature, should become thus transcendently charitable, all upon the push; so as to be careful, to remove a Thorn, out of another man's Finger, and place it in his own? I should think an Action of that Nature, to have proceeded much rather from Incogitancy, and want of Foresight; (either of which are unpardonable Blemishes in so great a Physician) in regard, when he perceived it begin to prick, and fester, he was so very industrous, to have restored it back again; but than 'twas a little too late, I thank him: And though it might have been seasonable enough for his purpose, was never a whit for mine; and therefore, I am not at all engaged, to give my assent to it: he, who absolves at one time, can never condemn at another, for the same thing, though he has never so great a mind to do it, without running himself upon a Contradiction. Poor Dr. Willis could not, he knew it well enough, when it suited with his own Interest; else he had never taken the Liberty he did, in playing upon him; though with shame enough, considering what a Friend he had been to him, he knows where and when, and so do others too: and that may be sufficient, to stop the mouth of one, that is not utterly forsaken of all modest Principles; but if it should not, and that he should still believe himself, to have the Freedom indulged him, of saying and unsaying what ever he judges convenient for his own Designs, purely, because he has to do with a Physician, who has his dwelling in the Country. I could put him in mind of a true Story, by which it might be made to appear, that there has been a time before now, when he and I have been of different Opinions, and that when the truth happened to be of my side too; and if it were so then, why not as well now; but that I am upon my own Justification; and 'tis a Passage so full of Conviction, so pertinent to the Occasion, and so exactly fitted to the taking down of a proud Stomach; I should be ashamed to mention it. It happened some Years since, that he was sent into Cambridgeshire, to visit a Gentleman of a good Family, who lay sick there; and such a repute had he gained, from Willis his Commendations, that as full a Belief, was resigned up to his unerring Judgement (as they thought) as some are wont to allow in Spirituals, to the determinations of the most Ghostly Father; nor was he less willing to assume, than they to be imposed upon; insomuch, that after a very short summing up of the Evidence, and there upon perceiving his Case to be wholly desperate, he bids them neither to flatter, nor deceive themselves with a vain Expectation of what could never be; for that 'twas as impossible for him, to escape the fatal stroke of approaching Death, as for one upon whom the Plague Tokens had already broke forth; and that what he had foretold them, would as undoubtedly come to pass, as the setting of the Sun that night, or the rising of it the next morning, or in words to that effect. And as if this had not been, to have made himself ridiculous enough, with the same false confidence he returns home (and as I have been credibly informed) makes Affidavit of the same things, in one of the Courts of Judicature in Westminister Hall; though the chief grounds he had for his so doing, to the best of my Remembrance, was taken from the spitting up of some small Quantity of Blood, I imagine that might be a Pleurity of the Lungs too: and for aught I know, make something the more on my side; for being so shamefully Wide of the Mark then, as will appear anon; 'tis not unlike, but that the Remembrance of so good a Token upon that occasion, might make him somewhat the more positive, in presaging this Lady her Recovery now. There are a sort of men in the World, that when ever they have been convinced of an Error on the one hand; think they can never make any tolerable amends for it, but by diametrically crossing over to the other Extreme. If any shall ask me, how I came to be so well acquainted with the matter? I have only this Answer to return them; That the Gentleman his Father and Mother being both my Patients, living at a great Distance from their Son, and very much afflicted at the news they had received of his sad and deplorable Condition, ordered me to make a Journey over to see him, and to bring them back word how the case stood with him; whether when I came, I found him much in the same Condition he had observed my Patient to be at Richmond, that is to say, likely to do very well again; and so I informed them at my return from him; who were glad with all their Hearts, to find they had been so happily cheated in their Expectations, as the Gentleman himself was (you may easily believe) who is since that time, so perfectly well recovered, as that he may in probability live to see many wiser, honester, and more healthful men than his Doctor, go before him: and so might this Lady too, for aught I know, had she been so fortunate, as to fall into the hands of one, who had either understood her Distemper better, and so known what to have given her, or could have been content at least wise, to have let her alone with those who did, but this by way of Parenthesis only. The whole of the Prescription next, to the taking away of seven Ounces of Blood from her Arm, which has been the matter of so long a Debate, was in the Order immediately following.  
℞. Oil of Sweet Almonds, newly dispensed, ℥ iij. White Sugar-Candyʒ j Let them be mixed well together in a Mortar; and let her lick a spoonful thereof every third hour.  
℞. the common Pectoral Decoction without Hyssop and Scabios lb ij. Let the Liquors strained out, be clarified by Seteling, then strain out for good and all; and of that let her take Draught ever now and then.  
℞. Oil of Sweet Almonds ℥ iiij. Sperma Cetʒ ij. Mingle them together, and make up a● Ointment; with which let her Side be anointed Morning and Evening, putting upon it a Linen Cloth dipped in the same, made prett● hot.  
℞. Lynseed Oil, newly drawn, ℥ iiij. Syrup of Maidenhair ℥ ij. Let them be mixed together▪ and let her take half this Night, at the time of her rest, and the residue, either to morrow Night or sooner if there be Occasion.  
℞. Black Cherry Water, Balm Water, An● ℥ iiij. Epidemic Water, ℥ iij. Pearled Sugar, a sufficient Quantity, so as to make it moderately sweet; let her take four, or five spoonfuls of it in her fainting Fits.  
I have but one Particular more, amongst all these, to bring my Exceptions against directly; which is, that of the Lynseed Oil, and that would be too late to offer now; but that they were likewise made before his arrival, for a Gentlewoman having moved for it, as a Medicine of singular use, and now a Days grown into great request, amongst the Physicians of the Town; I made bold to reject it then, as unlikely to prove beneficial to her, because, admitting it to have been administered to such as were of stronger Stomaches, and more able Constitutions, such as might be supposed, upon those Accounts, the better fitted for enduring a nauseous draught; it could not otherwise choose, but be a little too nasty, and fulsome for a nice and delicate Lady, especially at such a time, when she had been brought to so low an Ebb, as scarcely to be able to taste the most pleasant Cordial Drinks, without vomiting them up again, but two to one is too great Odds to be resisted with Modesty, and the Dr. his Opinion jumping so exactly with hers, I conceived myself overcome by a Majority of Votes, and thereupon submitted to the Ruggedness of the Medicament, though with the same reluctancy of Mind, as to some other Directions formerly mentioned.  
So that you see Sir, those great Perfectionists, as lofty as their Speculations are, and as much as they would make themselves our Superiors, in the abstrusest and most mysterious part of all useful Learning, are not so deep read neither, but they may have Opinions sometimes, co-incident with those of the weaker Sex; and surely when ever it falls out to be so, the Excellency of their Attainments, upon the Account of which they are so highly valuable, is not to be sought for amongst them, but we are to turn our Eyes to the remaining part of the Prescriptions, and examine well the other Particulars, not yet so fully descanted upon, if we expect to find it any where.  
And therefore, Dear Sir, do you, whose Experience is greater, and Judgement more deep, be but pleased to put on your clearest Spectacles, and try what Success you can have in the Attempt, and if you are able to discern what may haply lie concealed from greener Heads; be so courteous as to oblige Mankind with a more full Discovery thereof: If there be any Mines worth digging into, and Depths worth the fathoming, let the World be made acquainted, with what otherwise it is like, for ever to remain Ignorant of; and suffer not I beseech you so advantageous a Piece of Doctrine as this may haply prove to succeeding Generations (especially, in case of desperate Pleurities of the Lungs) to perish together with its Renowned Author, only for want of a Commentator, learned enough, to have explained the true meaning thereof.  
I am somewhat the more impertinent in this my Request I confess, because after the strictest Search, and most narrow Disquisition I was able to make into the matter; nothing of that nature appeared ever visible to my shallow Understanding, nor could I ever yet be convinced, from what I was able to gather from the best of my own Observations; but that an Apothecary's Apprentice, or Barber's Boy, if ere a whit towardly, and who had made but so considerable a Progress in Learning, as to be able to read over Culpeper in English, or turn to the Chapter and Section of any ordinary Receipt Book, might have played the Doctor to every whit as good purpose; I writ what my own Thoughts are, possibly to men of a more refined Intellect, and Solider Judgements, the thing may be apprehended otherwise; but I have ever been of the Mind, that the best way of giving Approbation in what one does, is by endeavouring to act, so as to be the most clearly understood; and there are no doubt, abundance of People, up and down the World, that are much of the same Persuasion; and therefore to me 'tis no wonder at all, that so many when they come to be cast upon their Sick Beds, choose rather to commit themselves to the Care of a doting old Woman, or pitiful Empiric, who are known to speak Nonsense at every word, than such as are learnedly impertinent, and pretend to give a wise reason for such things, as scarce any man living can tell what to make of besides themselves, because they being convinced of their own wants, and conscious to themselves, of engaging in a Province, that does not at all belong unto them, and which others, how ever they are pleased to employ them, are privy to as well as themselves, may reasonably ('tis believed) be looked upon, as cautious and timorous men, though they can haply pretend to never another good Quality besides: whereas such as are puffed up with an high Opinion of their own Excellencies, and the greatness of their Parts, are apt to be intolerable peevish, and humoursome, and conceited in what they undertake, venturous at every thing, but scrupelous about nothing; and if they do happen upon a right course at first, 'tis so much the better for those that are to be governed by them; if not, they are to content themselves with Patience, seeing 'tis to no purpose to argue and dispute the matter, with such as are resolved to go on in their own way; I am not ignorant what the common Proverb is, Who so bold as blind Bay-yard; and yet a sober man would choose much rather to be carried on the back of a blind Horse, than a mad one, in case no better choice could be had, and he that should do so, of the two, would be in less danger of breaking his neck; and though it may be a frequent saying, and what is true enough, if taken in a sound Sense, that if a man be appointed to die, he were best however end his Days in following the directions of the Learned, it cannot be denied withal, but that if a man be supposed to have Learning, which either a Knave, or a Fool has the keeping of (which is a case, happening out oftener than many are ware of) it may be as convenient every jot to die under the hands of the unlearned, as with him; and upon Supposition, there be any hopes of Life, 'tis not impossible, but that he may as soon recover too, and perchance with running a far less hazard of so seeing it; the goodness of every thing consists purely in, its aptitude to the acquiring such an end, and if that fail once, the Denomination loses its Force, and becomes utterly insignificant. A man may be said, and that truly enough, to have Learning, which yet may lie so far out of the Road he is to travel in, as to do him but little good for all that, and then he were e'en as good have none at at all, because 'tis no great matter, how little a man's Knowledge speeds, so it runs but deep in the right Channel, and he be but skilful in the Art he makes Profession of: we read of one, who confessed himself, a mere Bungler at fiddling, to whom none ever denied the reputation of a very good Governor notwithstanding, because he knew how to make a little City a great one, which was the only thing he ought to have been well versed in; whereas Nero, though an Excellent Musician, was but a bad Emperor, for his Deficiency in that other Point, so indispensibly necessary to have been understood by him. Put case, my Physician can make his brags of a singular dexterity he has, of transferring the Blood of one Mastiff dog into the Body of another: if this be the means to harden him in the taking away one Drop more than is convenient from mine, wherein am I advantaged by that Bloody Experiment, though he should vaunt himself of his having been frequently conversant in the riping up such poor creatures alone. Recount the pleasant Histories of his grasping their Entails with his hands, and thrusting his Fingers into their Hearts, whilst they lay groaning, and panting, and struggling under his knife, (though by the way, I know no Authority, that either he, or any else have, to exercise any such Cruelties over them; nay, though they should be the whole College of the Virtuosos themselves that stood by, and encouraged him in what he did) but however, whether they have or not, this I am very sure of, that it is like to prove small matter of Comfort to any who shall be the Patients of such a one, to be ere a whit the more ruggedly dealt withal, when they happen to fall under his hands.  
Nay though he should advance a step higher, and proceed to Pride himself, in his 
* vide Pag. Tractat. de Cord. Fol. 176.  having been the Ringleader of the Dance, for the putting Foreigners upon the attempting that upon humane Bodies, which he (only because he durst not) had begun to practice upon Bruit Creatures at home; admitting all he says to to be true, as we have no great reason to disbelieve him in his Narrative; 'tis a thousand, Pities I say, but that when it came first of all to be made trial of, he himself like another Phalaris should have given handsel to the Experiment; so far am I from enveying him, the honour of so worthy an Achievement, as some it seems (the more malicious they) would have endeavoured to have done; but, though they had (to deal impartially on all hands) methinks, our modern, Menecrates might have contented himself with something less than the Assumption of Divine Honours, as the Recompense of his matchless and indefatigable Industry, have brought in the Indictment against the Malefactor, under some other Title than that of Sacrilege, and not have presumed to have compared himself to either Jupiter or Aesculapius for the matter; all which the Allusion must necessarily imply, especially, when a Resemblance nearer home, because taken from Creatures, and those of his own Rank and Quality, might have become him far better; my meaning is somewhat of an intermediate Degree between the Butcher and the Cannibal; but if nothing on Earth could have been found bad enough for the purpose, rather than so vile a Miscreant should have ascended up into Heaven upon such an Errand as that, he might with more probablity of speeding, have directed his Course towards the Infernal Region, to have taken one from thence, which if he had done, and no other could have served his turn, what thinks he of the Prince of Darkness himself, who is styled the Enemy of Mankind, and an Accuser of the Brethren; and than if we do but consult our Lexicons, we shall find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be terms of no such distant Signification, but that they may very well be compatible to one and the self same Person. And he who through his Savage Disposition and snarling Behaviour towards all men, has most deservedly been entitled to the one, may well be supposed without either Breach of Charity, or stress of Invention to have the other Appellation cast him freely into the Bargain.  
But when all this is done, and so great a Freedom has been indulged to, unless it could be made evidently appear, which way this happy Invention conduces to the Promotion of the Practical part of Physic; 'twill be hard to render a Reason, why such a remorseless Wretch should take upon him to abuse, and undervalue all sorts of men he meets withal, only for being less cruel and barbarous than himself. As for what concerns the motion of the Blood, in and about the Body of Man, so far forth as it conduces any thing to the Advancement of the Physician's Art; the Discovery of that was made, and understood sufficiently by all such as had any the least Pretensions that way, long before, and if it should not, this emptying it from the Body of one particular Creature to another, contributes so little towards it, and is of so small avail to that purpose, that there is not one in an hundred would have been so sanguinary, as to have fouled their fingers about it, had they been sure to have gained the utmost of Skill was ever yet pretended to; I do not say, but that Thousands could have been contented to have stood by as Spectators when the thing was experimented by another hand; as we see all sorts of People, forward enough to be flocking about the most butcherly Executioner, what time he is most busy about his Employment; when yet it may be, there is scarce one of all that Number, but would abhor the thoughts of being a chief Actor in the Tragedy; insomuch, that the same Answer, which Helena returned to Paris, when he pretended an Excess of Affection to her Person, above all other men in the World besides, though in somewhat a different Sense, may not unfitly be made use of, upon this Occasion. 
Tu non plus sentis, sed plus temerarius audes.  
Non tibi plus Cordis, sed minus Oris inest.  
'Tis not thy Store of Wit, but want of Grace,  
Which makes thee proud o'th' Commoned Place.   
When a Sick Person comes to stand in need of the Physicians help, those surely of all others are the most likely to do him good, who may be presumed to sympathise with him the most feelingly in his Afflictions; which how shall they ever be able to do as they ought, who by an unnecessary addicting themselves to so many base Butcheries, and repeated Acts of Cruelty, may seem not only to have divested themselves of all Bowels of Compassion, and tender-heartedness one towards another, but as much as in them lies, even of humane Nature itself, that common Basis, upon which (if any thing) all subsequent Acts of Charity are to be Founded.  
And here it may be very well worth the taking notice of, that only that sort of Tradesmen and no other of the whole Nation, are discharged by the Custom, if not common Law of England, from giving their Attendances upon Juries, whose Profession clearly consists in Bloodshed, though the Calling be otherwise honest, and the Men serviceable enough to the public Societies they live amongst; which was done no doubt merely out of a Principle of Prudence, and for fear, lest by being accustomed to imbrue their hands in Blood, when they had only to do with Beasts, and had a just occasion for their doing so, they might be too inclinable to the like Exercise, after they came to debate about the Lives of Men, and had none at all; and for my part, I cannot choose but approve of the laudableness of the Institution, as believing it to have been founded on the highest reason, and am strongly persuaded, that those who shall succeed in the Power of making Laws, will never be able to see cause, wherefore to alter, or abolish it, there being no such way of curing an Inconvenience, as by a timely preventing it in its first Courses, and a removal of all such occasions, as may seem to have the least Tendency thereunto.  
As there is a Gradation in evil, so is there a transition and passing over as it were, from one kind thereof unto another; we find it is the Character that is given of the good man, to be merciful to his very Beast: and the Proverb assures us, he that has an unfeigned Love for the Master, must have some degree of kindness for the Dog: and therefore by the reverse of the same Rule, who ever has arrived to that Pitch of hardheartedness, as not to know how to pity a poor dumb thing, whom he has lying at his Mercy; yea, is so far from it, as seemingly to take pleasure in finding out ways of tormenting it, when he needed not, will surely be so much less compassionate to a man, when ever he gets him within his clutches. And therefore, when I am weary of my Life, I'd send for such a one to choose, to consult withal about the surest and most likely means to be used in order to my Recovery, but not till then. No more would others neither, if they understood what it was they went about: 'tis ttue, when a man comes to die by the hand of the common Executioner, and there is no other Expedient to be found out, for the revoking a Sentence, that has been already past, then indeed to be backward, in giving a good round Gratuity, for the facilitating ones Passage in the way one is appointed to go, aught to be accounted of, neither as a Part of Policy or good Husbandry; but to make Presents to one, who under a pretence of saving my Life, shall in all Probability go the ready way to take it from me, is an Error on the other Extreme, which though many are too apt to run into, yet, few or none wiling to be convinced thereof (its like) by such as would be so much their Friends, as to be at the pains to undeceive them; and therefore, when ever such shall come to suffer upon that Account, as a great many have already done, as they have none to thank for it besides themselves; so is it no great matter, whether or no they shall ever meet with any, that shall be so charitable, as to afford them any great store of their Pities. I must confess, 'twould seem a pretty thing at first glimpse, and does I believe to many, such especially, as are apt to take what ever they hear upon trust, and never make any further enquiry about it. To have a man dogmatical and pert at maintaining every Position he lays down at any time by way of Scheam, and Diagram and fetch all the Proofs he makes use of, from no other Topics, than those of his own Solitary Experiments, Observations, and Ocular Inspections, which is a course, some have taken of late Year, to purchase to themselves a Reputation for Knowing Men, and very successful they have been in it, whereby, others who have taken notice of the good luck they have had in such their Endeavours, have been animated to do the like; and thereupon encouraged not only to obtrude their own wild Fancies, and groundless Chimeres upon the World, singly by themselves, but to confute one whimsical Opinion with another full out as vain, and then to be as grave and serious, when they have been doing so, as if so be they were all the while in earnest, and upon the prosecution of some real and worthy Design. Whereas indeed and in truth, were the matter but duly weighed, and looked into as it ought, amongst all the several sorts of shameless and fantastic nonsense, we shall meet withal any where, there is none would appear to have been at any time more abusively such, nor yet vaunted after a more absurd, and ridiculous manner. There is a little Book entitled, Tractatus de Cord, stuffed from the Beginning to the end, with little else besides Arguments of that kind; 'twould be an Infinite Labour to enumerate them all: I'll only give Instance in one of the first, as a Specimen of those which follow, and according to the Estimation taken from thence, may the others reasonably be guessed at.  
In Men and such Creatures, as receive their Nourishment from Flesh (says that renowned Author) Itaque homini, & Carnivoris fere quibusque Animalibus, Cordis sedes non in Centro, sed in superiore Corporis parte constituta est, etc. vide Pag. Tractat. de Cord, Fol. 2. The Position of the Heart is never found exactly seated in the very Centre of the Body, but rather somewhat above it, to the intent, it might dispose of what Blood should be convenient to be sent up to the Head, so much the more easily; for seeing that the forcing up, and Distribution of the Blood, depends altogether upon the Contraction of the heart and the Liquid Substance thereof, is not of its own Nature so freely carried upwards, as to the Parts directly Opposite, or which are placed beneath it. In case the Situation of the Heart, had been further from the Head, it could not have been possible, but that that must have been more compactly framed, so as to have sent it up thither with a greater Force, or else the Head would sometime or other have wanted Blood for its own Support. Fieri non posset quin aut ipsum robustius formatum, etc. must have been just so. Bold audacious man, as if so be the Almighty could possibly have contrived no other ways for the bringing his own Works to perfection, but what were exactly understood by him; or that by his dissecting of Hearts, and the Observations made thereupon, he had arrived to such a Degree of anatomical Experience, as to be able to view Knowledge in that particular, with the very Searcher of Hearts himself: 'tis such a proud kind of Expression, as one shall seldom, or never hear from a Christian man, had the thing been never so certain, much less in a matter absolutely false and ridiculous, as will appear in the further Examination of it; as I do not see wherein Menocrates his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, though a Heathen, and for which he was accounted bereft of his wits, can stand chargeable of greater Arrogance. But to proceed; In Animalibus autem qua longiori Collo, & quasi ad victum porrecto donantur, etc. But as for such Creatures as have longer Necks than usual, which are the Instruments with which they ●●●d their Hearts are as far distant from their Heads, as any of the rest of the Parts of their Body besides, and that without any thing of Damage to them at all, because, for the most part, they suck their Food with their Heads hanging downwards, so that though the Blood may have farther to pass in them, than in some other Creatures; yet it is a convenience of a much plainer, and far more easy descent.  
Whether this conceit be his own or not, is foreign to my enquiry, and but the same thing to him neither, because if it be not his own, he thereby discovers the wretchedness of his Judgement in espousing it, as not having wit enough to discern where to pilfer with the greatest safety, in collecting matter, for his little Treatise: if it be the wretchedness of his Fancy, for lighting on no better; however, I for my part have no reason, but to suppose it to be his, because he is so willing to have it thought so, and therefore, I shall crave leave to demand of him, after what other way and manner, he would have either them, or any other Creature else, to feed themselves (some very few only excepted) then by hanging down of their heads, though not for the simple reason alleged by him, to wit, that the Blood might by that means, so much the more freely pass into their heads; but because their Eyes, which were their Instruments of seeing, were placed there, which surely is somewhat more than his were, when he treated upon that Argument, he would never else have blundered so egregiously at his first setting out if he had.  
And that may pass very well for one final Cause, and another somewhat like to that may be, because their Mouths, which are their Instruments of Eating, are placed somewhat thereabouts to: And there being a necessity for the Nourishment first to be taken in at the Mouth, before it can come at the Neck or Stomach, to be dispersed up and down the Body, for the Sustentation of each Member: 'Tis pretty clear, that all Creatures almost, that are debarred from feeding on Flesh, will be constrained, either to reach it from the Surface of the Earth, or fish for it in the Waters, because they must seek for it some where or other, where it is to be found; and than if they cannot bring their Food to their Mouths, must be glad to bend their Mouths and their Necks too, whether they be long or short, down to their Food, unless they can be content to be famished to death for want of it.  
Besides, the reason thereof can never possibly be that alleged by him here, upon other far different Accounts, because if he be well Remembered, he teaches us else where, Pag. 133 (or if he had not, it would have been no very hard matter, to have informed ourselves) that the motion of the Blood in ' its full latitude, depends originally upon the Arteries, and is driven by their pulsation even from first to last. Cum enim certissimum sit, Sanguinis Venosi refluxum, non ab attractione Cordis ulla, sed a propulsu arteriosi Sanguinis provenire, facile est concipere, quantum partium quoque situs ad facilit andum, aut retardandum hunc motum conferat. Veluti enim in homine, cum in Pedes erigitur, Sanguis a Venice Jugularibus, & Vena Cava descendente, citius & facilius suo quasi pondere in Cordis Sinus delabitur (simili modo atque Venae in Manu elevata moxvacuae, in demissa vero turgidae & plenae cernuntur) qui vero est in Partibus inferioribus, & Vena Cava ascendente difficilius, & contra Naturam suam, solum abarterioso Sanguine versus Cor propellitur, & Vi quadam urgetur, in planum autem jacente Corpore Sanguis aeque facile ab utrisque redit.  
For seeing it is most certain, that the flowing back of the Venal Blood, does not at all depend upon the Artraction of the Heart, but rather upon the Succession and coming on of the Arterial blood; 'tis easy to apprehend how much the situation of the parts conduces either to the facilitating or retarding of that Motion; as in case of a Man's standing upright upon his feet, the Blood tumbles down with a much freer Course, and more natural propensity from the Jugular, and hollow Vein descending into the Ventricles of the Heart, as we may see by a hand lifted up, the Veins art soon emptied, but in the same let down again, as soon swollen and full; whereas that which is beneath the Heart, and returns by the Way of the hollow Vein ascending, is wrought up with much greater Difficulty, as being against Nature, and only by the forcing on of the Arterial Blood, but when the Body lies stretched upon a Level, the Blood than is reconveyed from either part alike.  
By which words, it plainly enough appears, that nothing with a long Neck, can ever be put in any great danger of having a Bloodless Head, any more than a body set upon a long pair of Legs (a witless one indeed, some with a short one may, especially, whilst they argue no better to the purpose about that Subject) because if there were need of so strong a Spring to jerk it up to the Head that stood perched upon the long Neck, by the very same reason, there would no less ●orce be required for the sending it up the lower Limbs of that Body which had the long Legs belonging to it. And therefore as some in raillery are wont to set the Hairs Head against the Goose Giblets, so may we upon very good grounds, oppose the long Legs to the long Neck, because, there is the same reason for the one, that there is for the other, neither greater nor less; for as the Blood mounts the Head with Difficulty, so it slides down again with ease, and on the contrary, as it falls into the Feet of its own accord, it must be forced back again to the Heart with so much the greater Labour, it will never arrive thither else, because conveyed back not at all by the atraction of the Heart, but by the forcing on of the Arterial Blood, Cum certissimum sit Sanguinis Venosi refluxum non ab attractione Cordis ulla, sed a propulsu Arteriosi Sanguinis provenire. And then if there be such a necessity for the making the heart more compact for the sake of the long Neck, why not as well upon the account of the long Legs, in regard the Arteria magna ascendens & descendens, both receive their Original from the same Stock, and consequently stand in need of equal Assistance for the performance of the Offices unto which they have been each of them appointed? And as that Party, who is to travel a Hill just backward and forward, and no more, is at an Indifferency as to the whole of the journey he undertakes, whether he be to begin at the bottom or the top first. So 'tis all one, whether the Blood, when it be to leave the Heart caeteris Paribus, fall downwards into the Feet, or ascend upwards inro the Head, Provided its Passage be looked upon as not completed, till it return to the same part again; unless we will say, that he who commences his Journey at the bottom of the Hill, is constrained to encounter with the greatest hardship of all at the first part of his way, which is to be recompensed by a proportionable Alleviation at his coming down again, whereas he that takes the contrary Course, has only the advantage of the most pleasant part of his Journey at his first setting out, and the worst at last; which amounts upon a true casting up, to just nothing at all.  
'Tis not to be denied, but the Blood does pass with a great deal more difficulty from the Heart to the Head, than from the same place to the capillary Arteries of the Feet, but than if it be considered, how steep the ascent from the Feet to the Heart is back again, and contrarily, how natural the retreat from the Head is to the same Region of the Heart, after it has once gained the vertical Point; there will be no better way, of adjusting the Calculation than by setting one against tother: and then this seemingly learned Discourse will be resolved into a Parcel of pureself-Contradiction, and the great Anatomist convicted to have written he knew not what, in the matters appertaining to his own Art. I have heard indeed of long billed Brids, that would be apt sometimes to bewray their own Nests; but never before, of any with long Necks, that unless they stooped oftentimes would be endanger of the Staggers.  
Besides the Assertion is manifestly untrue in Practice; there is no such thing in Nature, as that long necked Creatures should be any more obliged to stoop down with their Heads and Necks, than others are; and those that will but take notice, shall observe the Swans, to swim along with as erected Necks, as either the Teal or the Dabchick; and if I mistake not, to be diving with them as seldom, and though a Horse has a much longer Neck than a Bull, I don't see he carries his Head ere a whit the less stately for all that, but rather the contrary, and if he can but be allowed an able Rider to manage him, may be prevailed withal to hold it so from Morning till Night; which had the other Posture been altogether so necessary as is pretended, would scarcely have been possible; besides one would much wonder, that the great Horse-Masters, who have spent so much of their time, and hard study about such niceties; should none of them have been Anatomists enough to have understood so much before; and that the Grooms and Ostlers, who have evermore professed such great kindness to Horses, should be such wicked Knaves, as to delight in tormenting them thus cruelly, when they needed not, by causeing their Racks and Mangers to be set at such an unreasonable Height, and forcing them to do Penance in a manner for every morsel of Hay they eat. And yet the greatest wonder of all is still behind, whence it should come to pass, that the Horses that are kept at home, and have all this Injury done them, should look so much fatter and fairer, and be so much fit for Service, than those that are turned to grass all the Year about, and permitted to feed themselves after their own way with their Heads hanging down, and their Blood by that means, freely taking that Course which Nature had appointed it. But to be serious, though they should hold down their Heads longer than others, to make the utmost concession Imaginable, that could never do neither; And unless they were supposed to keep them in that Position for a Constancy, there must be some wiser reason sought out for, than what is taken from the more easy conveyance of the Blood thither; because otherwise their poor Heads would be in a Bloodless Condition; however, there needs no other Argument to prove the Consequence, than what shall be taken from the same Author his own words in another place of the same learned Treatise, for if we look forward to the 156. Page. and so on, we are informed that a Quantity of Blood equal to the whole Mass, passes through the Ventricles of every Man's Heart, at least six times in an Hour; and how that the same Proportion is likewise to be observed in all other Creatures. Atque ita se habet in omnibus Animalibus, etc. So that if one half of the Blood, or but near so much, be to be disposed of by the upper Branch of the Aorta, as there is no question to be made, but that it is; if these long Necked Creatures he mentions, should chance to forget themselves never so little, and forbear holding down their Heads but one Minute of an hour; what an unequal Distribution thereof, must necessarily ensue upon it, and how would all the faculties of the superior Region of the Body be at a loss for want of Spirits to act withal, by reason of the Head its being in so great a measure disfurnished of them, according to this Hypothesis? And yet we see they do forbear for a great deal longer time, and that frequently too, without any the least show of Prejudice or Inconvenience to them at all; which is a manifest Indication of the Author his being mistaken, in the Doctrine he delivers, as he is indeed in almost every thing he any where treats about; insomuch, that setting aside the Deal totum at the Beginning, which he is pleased to place amongst the Erratas, (though others, full as knowing as himself, are of opinion they deserve much better, and to be reputed of as the only piece of wholesome Advice, that is to be found in the whole Book) there are scarce two words coming together, that may not upon very good reasons be found fault withal; but what is that to me, if it should be so; who am only concerned to look to myself, and make good my own Station? 'Tis no such delightful Recreation to me to be busying myself about other men's matters, and calling them to an account for what they have done; could I have been permitted to have enjoyed my own quiet, and lived free from Molestation at home, I should have been sparing enough of giving them the least Disturbance in any of their Fooleries, let them have been never so many, or never so egregious. And now I have been put upon it contrary to mine own Inclinations; so little desirous am I of seeking after advantages of that kind, that I am herrtily sorry for the Occasion offered me of saying so much as I have; though in the greatest plenty of argument. As I have been all along hitherto upon the defensive part, so I desire to hold on still. And if I can but ward off my Adversaries Blow, and hinder him from doing me the Mischif he designs, shall never be at all solicitous about the following of my own, to the incommoding of him though I had it never so much in my power to do so; because 'tis the clearing up of my own Reputation, as it falls in with the General Design so often intimated; and not the disparagement of his that I have a respect unto; and if that might have been effected by a direct Course; as there would have been little need of casting Personal reflections upon any man, so should it never have been offered at by me. 'Tis true, I could have deciphered some Body plainly enough to be understood, who has been exceeding fortunate at setting up with a borrowed ingenuity, when he has had but a very inconsiderable Stock to have made a Beginning withal of his own, made vast improvements of the precarious commendations bestowed on him by some great ones who have been charitably disposed, 
* See Mr. Fr. Potter his Letter to I. A. Esquire, of the Middle Temple, written in the Year 52. By which is made to appear, who was the first In●enter of the transfusion of the Blood He used to say, it came into his Mind by reflecting on the Story ●f Medea and Jason.  and having been related to a numerous society of Men evermore good at crying up a few of their own Members for transcendent in each particular Faculty, whither happening to deserve it or not. And though I am pretty well assured, there is not any thing can be more taking with the Vulgar, than to be showed a Master Wit in his own conceit, turning Master Fool at last, in the Opinion of all others besides himself: and that Multitudes of simple People, who have suffered themselves to be deluded, by the false Appearances, and idle Pretences of the same Person's imaginary clerkship, could like it well enough to be rectified in their Judgements, by receiving some better Information concerning him; yet for me he is like to stand in the same fair Opinion with them he always did; not only because it looks so unhandsomely, and makes so harsh a Discord, to be saying all the Ill one can of a Person, from whom one has sometimes heard Ill, but because of the Advantage that is given against the Truth thereby: to such whose Assent is more truly valuable: by sideing with it so unseasonably. Recriminations we all know to be none of the best means of defending a Cause by, so far indeed from gaining the party who makes use of them, any acquittal from the Fault he stands charged with, that they rather make one, where there was none before; at leastwise, bring such an one under a strong Presumption of being thought guilty, who otherwise might have passed for Innocent. But yet as Commendations, violently extorted from a man's own Mouth, when wrongfully accused, are wont, amongst equal Judges, to meet with somewhat a more favourable censure, then to be looked upon under the strict Formality of self praising; so on the other hand, it may well be hoped, that they who have desired to live in Peace, and could not obtain it: when they come to be injuriously dealt withal, and hardly spoken against without Cause, may be allowed the Previledge of making their Apology after the best (not to say only) manner they can; and than if they do now and then reflect upon their Adversaries Infirmities, when it could not be otherwise avoided (provided it be done with Truth and Soberness, not so much out of Anger and by way of Retaliation; as in order to the Invalidating the malicious Suggestions they find have been whispered against themselves; or for the prevention of public Wrongs and Inconveniences, that in all Probability, without some such Course taken, might have been offered to others) deserve something of a conivance, at leastwise, if not to be held absolutely excused; as for my own part, it cannot be denied, but that I have now and then let fall some sharpish expressions against a Person of Eminency enough in his own profession; for if no Body had been intended thereby, it had been a pouring out wotds to no purpose, and an aiming them at Random; but then I considered with myself, before I did so, how he came by it first of all, and what excellent good uses, he has made of it ever since, and does daily; what sort of People his chief admirers are and have been, and how they likewise came to be so, and by what means and artifices they have been continued in their Belief: and the thorough Apprehension of these things, made me I confess, somewhat the more bold, than otherwise I should have been.  
I abhor the thoughts of designing any thing of prejudice either to a good Man, or a good Man's Friend; and as I am not under any obligation of saying all the ill I can of such as are neither, so am I not wholly to keep silence upon a just Provocation offered. There may very well be a distinction made between the Man and his Baseness, and a Charity preserved for the one, and yet none at all for the other. Not that I am forgetful where I have declared the chief Motives prevailing with me to engage in what I have done, to be taken from the consideration of more Public concerns than any thing relating to myself, and so they were And yet that aught to be no hindrance to me in the asserting of my own Just Rights; Or treating about other Particular Matters in time and place convenient. Because these are things implying nothing at all of contrariety but oft time, a great deal of Agreement with, and sometimes Subordination to one another. And 'tis not impossible but that an Example may be single and multiplied at the same time, only by a different manner of apprehending it. So that what's Acted by one Man, may be approved of by one hundred; and the others wanted but an Opportunity for the doing of the same things. And therefore I could wish with all my heart, as it has been the drift of what I have propounded to myself from first to last, that when ever the Description of any Man's actions or Demeanour shall have occurred in any former Passages of mine, including any thing of ingratefulness in them; as 'tis impossible but that if an ill thing be Acted, it must be Acted by some body, it may however be understood in an abstracted sense; and by the help of the Intellect still reduced to some such Order of Men whose either Folly or Naughtiness may best Entitle them to such a Character; and that will save me the trouble of heaping together multitudes of Examples for the Confirmation of what I have been all this while endeavouring to make good. Only one Instance more of my one knowledge, since the acting of what has been so largely related, comes in so patly to my purpose, that it must and will, whether I will or no, be a little taken notice of. I'll sum it up in a word or two, and then conclude.  
A most Ingenious, and learned Gentleman (and if such can be imposed upon, what are we to believe of others) and one that I have had several times under my hands upon the account of the self same sort of Distemper, was taken suddenly ill of a Flatulency in his Hypocondria and Bowels; the Illness was apparently subdued, as it had been ofttimes before and that with much the same kinds of Remedies; and all the Assurances given so far forth as humane foresight would extend to, of a Speedy Recovery, without the least grounds or fear of any possible Danger. And yet upon the arrival of a London Physician, blooded he must needs be, nothing would serve his turn without it, which before he could obtain, he was forced to beg and entreat hard for: I am ashamed to say how long time together, & rather than have none at all, he would be contented with a very little Quantity, some two Ounces, or thereabouts; and lest he should miss of that small Pittance too, was glad to take it away with his own hands.  
Many silly reasons were pretended upon the score of the Scurvy, Jaundice, and Sharpness of Humours, and the like; but the Principle, and the only true one, never so much as mentioned at all. To wit that no other, after that had been done, might be capable of putting in for a share of the Cure besides himself: all little and inferior Remedies, being as it were lost, and swallowed up in the great one; and being once able to say, he had fetched Blood of his Patient, away he went immediately with a great deal of Complacency and Satisfaction.  
Sir. I beg your Pardon for the tediousness of this Address, and making use of a Case you have been so nearly concerned in; as likewise for the publishing of both, without either your Knowledge or Order. As to what relates to others, I have made my Apology else where, and therefore, there will be the less need of saying much now in this place. The Office of an Informer was a thing I never much delighted in, and all such as know me aright, will I believe bear me witness as to the truth of that Particular; I am Conscious of too many failings of my own to be over censorious of other men's; and as for Peaceableness of Demeanour, I don't know that ever I begun a Quarrel with any Man in my whole Life; of all the Physicians that ever lived in England; I dare say, few ever were worse used by Empirics, and Quaksalvers, and those of the vilest, and most despicable sort if any of them can be said to be more such than others, than I have been: and yet I cannot call to remembrance, that I have had my Passions at any time very much transported beyond the Bounds of Moderation; and therefore surely, I have little reason to countenance such men, to the depressing of honest and able Physicians; neither have I at any time, if my words may be construed in their true Grammatical Sense; and those who Judge of them otherwise, may pervert any man's honest Intentions as well as mine, and so are little to be regarded.  
Such as pretend to be of a Profession, they know nothing of, and were never in the least fitted for, may be, and doubtless are exceeding bad men; but those that degenerate from the honest Principles belonging to their own are a great deal worse. And that's the utmost my words can amount to, taken in the most rigorous Acceptation imaginable. There are Conciones ad clerum as well as ad Populum; and if Divines may be allowed to speak against Divines, and tell them of their Faults when they do amiss out of the Pulpit, why may not the Members of other Faculties be allowed to imitate them upon a like Occasion? I confess, the gravest and wisest Persons are the best qualified for the performance of such an Office. But if they out of prudential considerations, best known to themselves, shall think good not to be seen therein, rather, than to have it wholly omitted; I for my part see no reason to the contrary, but why it may be done by others.  
Not that I am altogether ignorant what are the usual consequences attending upon public Reproofs. And how ticklish a thing it is to be dabbling in a sore place, not inferior for tenderness to the Apple of an Eye. I expect no other than to be called to a severe account for what I have written, and am as ready to give it, provided my Auditor prove to be sober and ingenuous. But if a Sot or a Buffoon shall take upon him to be Pragmatical, though I think I may be bound in conscience to pity such a one for his folly, or rudeness, and it be for no other reason than out of a consideration of humane Infirmity, yet do not look upon myself to stand obliged, by that, or any other tie whatever, to make any Reply to him in either, be his Language never so mouthy or never so provoking.  
Sir, I am, 
 Your very humble Servant, R. G.   

ADVERTISEMENT.  
The Author not being at leisure to wait in Town dureing the time of this Impression, several gross Mistakes have arisen through the Printers Inadvertency, which the Reader is desired to correct, according to the Amendments following.  
Epistle. for man● lye● ma●e liable for ●nsureing, injuring for formable, favourable. f●r whistle, ●ish it. for that so great, what so great▪ for good would, good will would. for the compensation, a compensation▪ for was for aught, may for aught. for they'd ne'er, they'll n●'re. for offered ●s admitting, offered admitting.  
Page 3 lin. 26 deal was. p. 4 l. 5 read sane memory. p. 4 l. 11 undermining. p. 6 l. 29 pack. p. 9 l. 5 his wise. p. 9 l. 29 or is willing upon reasons. p. 11 l. 13 if he be bend. p. 11 l. 23 that ●ools. p. 15 l. 7 smatched. 15 when. p. 17 l. 12 thwarting. p. 19 l. 21 Dilemma. p. 21 l. 17 shall we. p. 27. of the issuing. p. 31 l. 18 of all others. p. 32 l. 2 thing. l. 4 deal in. l. 23 e'en just. p. 36 l. 8 determine. p. 38 l. 16 reserate. p. 39 l. 13 or alike. p. 40 l. 10 possibly. p. 41 l. 28 to our. p. 44 l. 8 less. l▪ 25 from them. p. 45. l. 19 chose. p. 46 l. 28 cause or. p. 64. l. 25 duodenum. p. 67. l. 23 ceti p. 85 l. 22 staff's of. p. 94. l. 3 'tis general. p. 107 l. 13 deal no sooner. p. 130 l. 12 times. p. 131 some measure. p. 132 l. 23 digesting. p. 133 l. 24 Cambium. p. 134 l. 31 emaciated. p. 138 l. 16. Supports. p. 140 l. 16 hold. p. 141 l. 25 whole can be supposed. l. 27 Constitutive. p. 142 l. 22 Heat. p. 145 l. 14 Reason. l. 17 Contingencies. p. 146 l. 4 possibly. l. 14. Contrivance. p. 147 l. 2 Effusions. l. 27 full out. p. 148 l. 6 no, the direct. l. 25 avoiding a Vacuity. p. 154 l. 19 where one must be. p. 249 l. 14 Effect. l. 26 that it is so. p. 152 l. 6 knew. p. 153 l. 23 enumeration. p. 158 l. 17 hear. p. 159 l. 21 imaginable. p. 160 l. 6 Fractions. l. 14 amongst us. l. 18 diminution. l. 30 Effects. p. 161 l. 15 into. p. 165 l. 15 Allowed l. 17 alleged. p. 167 l. 6 sent for. p. 167 l. 3 Prescriptions. p. 168 l. 7 Criminal. p. 169 l. 4 An. p. 176 l. 30 importunate. p. 177 l. 10 Gaining. p. 179 l. 16 losing it. l 27 spreads. p. 180 l. 18 alive. p. 181 l. 11 deal fol. p. 182 l. 24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 183 l. 2 strain. p. 184. l. 18 a— after common. p. 186 l. 6. causes. p. 188 l. 8 Years. 16 Chimeras. l. 29 vented. p. 189 l. 14 deal fol. p. 190 l. 20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 24 quae. 28 seed. p. 191 l. 7 conveyance. p. 201 l. 30 See Fr. Potter his Letter to I. A. 〈◊〉 kept by the R. Society.   

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REliquiae Raleighanae, being Discourses and Sermons on Several Subjects. By the Reverend Dr. Walter Releigh, Dean of Wells, and Chaplain in Ordinary to his late Majesty King Charles the First.  
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An impartial Account of the Arraignment, Trial and Condemnation of Thomas late Earl of Strafford, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, before the Parliament at Westminster, Anno Dom. 1641.  
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