THE Quacks Academy; OR The Dunce's Directory.  
A New Art to across the Old Proverb, and make a Man FOOL and PHYSICIAN both at a time.  
Discovering the several Methods whereby s●… many Ignorant Pretenders obtain Repute and practise.  
— Cur Ludere nobis  
Non Liceat Licuit cum Jugulare tibi. Mart.  

With Allowance.   
LONDON, Printed for A B. MDCLXXVIII.   

THE Quacks Academy, OR THE DUNCE'S DIRECTORY.  
BEfore we enter upon the Subject Matter of this Sheet, we must declare that we do except out of our Design, all those Learned and Worthy Persons, whose Experience and Labour in the Art of Medicine, may any way contribute to the common good of Mankind, intending only to reflect on those illiterate Pretenders to physic, whose Practices are as well shameful as dangerous to the place they live in; of which later sort we are about to speak.  
Having observed the prodigious Success of modern Quackery and that the practise of it is lately become a last shift, more common and thriving too, than selling of Ale, or setting up 〈…〉 Coffee-House. And finding still abundance of indigent idle People, that could never make their untoward Handicrafts fadg●… to purpose, who would be glad to exchange them for so gentee and advantageous an employ, had they but the secret Knack 〈…〉 whereby other Bankrupts with small pains and less parts, hav●… in an instant raised themselves from Beggary, to competent Estates. Out of our great respect to such hearty well-willers, t●… so secure and gainful a Science; we have thought fit to unfol●… the whole mystery; as 'tis this day practised with so muc●… Profit and Applause: Draw near then with attention, all yo●… decayed Ragamuffins of the Town; you by whose dullness, n●… mechanic Mystery but scorns to be mastered, whom neither Sea nor Gibbet will accept; we'll put you in a way of Feeding yourselves and the Worms too: Honest no doubt, because common and safe, for why, your miscarriages shall never be heard for the din of Knells you shall occasion,— But to deliver our Documents in order:  
First, To pass for currant, you have no more to do but to call yourselves Doctors; Pliny hath affirmed it before: And though I neither expect nor desire you should understand Latin, yet because a Scrap may do you a kindness, one time or other to swagger with; I'll give it you in his own Language: Hac sola Artium, evenit quod cuilibet se Medicum dicenti facile credatur, Cum sit periculum in nullo Mendacio Majus. In this Art alone it comes to pass, That any one but professing himself ●… Physician, is presently believed; though in no case the belief of a lye be more dangerous. I have englished this for the benefit of those that do nor understand Latin; and I have no quarrel at all against those that do.  
However, In the Second place to support this Title; there are several things very convenient: of which some are External Accontrements, others Internal Qualifications.  
Your outward Requisites, are a decent Black svit, and( if your Credit will stretch so far in Long-lane) a Plush Jacket; not a pin the worse though threadbare as a Taylors Cloak; it shows the more reverend Antiquity.  
Secondly, Like Mercury, you must always carry a Caduceus or Conjuring Japan in your Hand, Capt with a Civet Box; with which you must walk with Spanish Gravity, as in deep Contemplation upon an arbitrement between Life and Death.  
Thirdly, A convenient Lodging, not forgetting a Hatch at ●… he Door: A Chamber hung either with Dutch Pictures, or Looking-Glasses, bee-litter'd with Urinals, or empty Galli●… ots, and Vials filled with Tap-droppings, or Fair Water, co●… our'd with Saunders: Any Sexton will furnish your Window with a Skull, in hope of your Custom; over which hang up the Skeleton of a Monkey, to proclaim your Skill in Anatomy.  
Fourthly, Let your Table be never without some old musty Greek or arabic Author, and the 4th Book of Cornelius Agrippa's Occult Philosophy, wide open, to amuse Spectators; with half a dozen of Guilt Shillings, as so many guineas received that morning for Fees.  
Fifthly, Fail not to oblige neighbouring Ale-houses, to recommend you to Inquirers; and hold Correspondence with all the Nurses and Midwives near you, to applaud your Skill at Gossippings.  
Now to your necessary Qualifications, They are in general Two, Viz. Loquacity or Talkativeness, and Impudence.  
As for the First, 'Tis a mighty setter-off amongst the Vulgar: be sure therefore you learn to pronounce Oppilation and Obstruction of the Spleen, and Schirrhus of the Liver, with a full Mouth; at least speak hard words, though never so wretchedly misapplied, and obscure common ordinary things in Terms of Art( for all the use you are to make of such Terms, is the same jugglers do of Hictius Doctius and Presto; to amuse Peoples Brains whilst you Pick their Pockets) if you can but get so far as to call the Fit of an Ague, a Paroxysme, Fits of the Mother Hysterical Passions: Thunder out Sympathetical, and Authipetichl Cures: Prate of the Mechanisme of Nature; though you know no more on't than a ploughman does of Clockwork: Tell um of appeasing the Irritated Archeical Microcosmical Monarch; increasing the Radical Moisture; and relieving all the Powers, Vital, Natural, and Animal: The admiring Patient shall certainly cry you up for a great Schollard; provided always your Nonesense be fluent, and mixed with a disparagement of the college, Graduated Doctors, and Book-learned Physicians: against whom you must ever bring in your high and mighty word Experience.  
But since every Man is not endowed with the gift of tattling and that 'tis fit you should learn like a Dutch-man, to Sail with every Wind: If niggardly Nature, or more penurious Education, have not afforded you a Tongue well hung; make a Ver●… ue of necessity: Look Grave and Big, decline all Discourse, especially if Ingenious Men be by: Tell them Diseases are not ●… o be frighted away with words; that you do not come to Talk ●… ut to Cure, &c. This will at once conceal your Ignorance ●… rom the Judicious, and increase your esteem for a notable re●… erv'd paty Fellow with others: If any ask the cause of their Distempers, or reason of your Prescriptions, satisfy them both by producing a List-of your mighty Cures; wherein if one half be false and the other hired; there is no geeat danger: For he must be a strange inquisitive Infidel, that will not rather believe ●… hem, than give himself the trouble of disproving them— Which brings me to the second property, Viz.  
A convenient Audacity, There is nothing more necessary, ●… othing more advantageous. Make People believe that no Pitcht●… ield ever slay or wounded half so many as you have recover●… d: That you have made Death retreat, where Nature was ●… ore fiercely beleaguered than ever Stetin was, and disap●… ointed him of more Bits than Civil or Foreign Wars have ●… urnisht him with these Forty years: That you have even Bec●… on'd Souls back again, that have been some Leagues onwards their Journey from their Bodies: Boast the wonders you have ●… one at Leiden and Hamburgh, the Lazzaretto, at Venice, and the Maison de Dieu at Paris: That your closerts are ●… mmortality-Offices, and that you can let Leases of Lives of ●… larger Date than Popish Indulgences: Pretend to the Cure of ●… ll Diseases, especially such as are Incurable; and to know which are most in Season, consult the Bills of Mortality; and ●… exit Week vary your Bill accordingly.  
In particular, since the whole Art of physic consist●● the ●… iagnosticks, prognostics, and Therapeuticks; For the first Two you must either pretend to be Waterologers, 〈◇〉 which is more abstruse and modish) Ass-trologers, Piss-prophets, or Starr-Wizards; either way will do well enough, and to speak truth, are much of a Certainty: In both there is necessary a Previous pumping, by apt and wary Questions, and their Answers handsomely turned into other words, will extremely gratify the Patient or Querent. If you practise by the Urinal, though 'tis as like to discover the Colour of a Sick-mans clothes as his Infirmities; yet a thousand to one but with discreet handling, you may shake it into the scurvy, the Pox, or the Consumption: Nay you may venture to tell what Trade your Patient is of, by his Working-days Water, and if you see his Sundays-Water, what Religion he is of: But if you proceed by the Scheme, there is nothing so probable as to say, He is bewitched, under an Ill-Tongue: That he has a Take upon him, or is Planet-struck, and the Lord of the Seventh shows you to be the only Doctor in the World that can help him: Onely here beware that you never pronounce a Common-Council-man with-child, or a Constable sick of the Mother; and in other Cases, if your judgement chance not to hit the Nail on the head, 'tis but having recourse to necessary Prudence, called by the Superstitious, the Art of Lying, As to tell um their stomach is fallen out of the place, but you doubt not but to fetch it up again: That they have Straws in their Lungs, as big as Beams, and their Livers are wasted with Venery and Drinking. Then as for Therapeuticks, if your Medicines be Galenical, though never so Common, disguise them with strange names; Call Sena a specific, Mithridate an Elixir, Extractum Rudii an Arcanum, and add a Nostrum to Album Graecum. But if you would rather betake yourself to chemical Devices, and want Nonsense to cant their virtues; there are Phamphlets enough abroad to furnish you. The Tincture of the Suns Beard; the Powder of the Moons-horns: or a Quintessence extracted from the Souls of the Heathen Gods; will go off rarely for an Universal Medicine; and bubble the simplo out of their Money first, and their Lives afterwards.  
But to deal ingenously, I will teach you a far more ready and curious way, both of Finding out and Curing all Diseases, than has yet been discovered; which is thus: Take two large Sheets of Paper, on the one writ down( or get the Book-learn'd Scribe that writes your Bills, to do it for you) the Names of all ordinary Distempers; on the other all celebrated Medicines; whether cathartics, diuretics, diaphoretics, emetics. Then when any Patient comes or sends, and you have heard the story; retire a while, telling them a True Physician must first Study and then Prescribe: In the mean time, by yourself, on the Roll of Infirmities, fling a die, and as many as the Chance as, so many Diseases, you may assure them the party has; but principally that whereon the die falls: Then do the same on the Paper of Remedies, and Prescrib or Administer that which the die lights on, to be taken so many times as there are Spots on the Chance. And if the Sick be pained in the Head, you may easily discourse them into a persuasion that the Disease( or at least the Cause) is in their Hand or to: By which safe and ingenious course, you shall honestly refer it to Fortune; to discover both the Disease and Medicine; whereas others through a conceited Knowledge, or unhappy Ignorance, render themselves more than accessary to the Death of many.  
There are several other Directions fit to acquaint you with, which we shall reserve for the second part of this most useful Directory. In the mean time( as your Predessors have done before you) practise these and give thanks  
To your Old Friend Miso-Agyrtes.  
FINIS.   

CVJVS SAL ERVDITIONIS DIGESTIONE DECENTI T●● SAPIDVM PALATOQVE APTISSIMVM EVASIT VT ET AD INSTAR AVRI IGNE PROBATI ILLIBATVM PERSTITERIT IS MERITO E FECE POPVLI AD CVLMEN HONORIS EVEHITVR DOCTORISQVE TIARA DECORATVR IS VERO EST VIR JWENIS NOBILISSIMVS ERVDITISSIMVS ACCVRATISSIMVS DN. JOH. HVLDRICVS HANHARDVS HELVETIO-VITODVRANVS ACCIPIENS E MANV VIRI AMPLISSIMI EXCELLENTISSIMI D. D. JACOBI ROTHII ANAT. ET BOTAN. PROFESS. MERITISSIMI MEDICORUM DECVRIONIS SPECTABILIS LAVRVM APOLLINEAM OB STVDIVM SINGVLARE ITINERA LITERARIA sum PROMERITAM SOLENNITER IN RAVRACORVM PARNASSO D. VII. JV LII and. MDCLXXXV. been PRECANTIBVS VIRTVTVM ET ERVDITIONIS AESTIMATORIBVS.  
BASILEAE  
TYPIS REGIIS.