Galeno-pale: OR, A CHEMICAL TRIAL OF THE GALENISTS, That their Dross in PHYSIC may be discovered.  
With the grand Abuses and Disrepute they have brought upon the whole Art of PHYSIC and CHIRURGERY, in their Method touching Phlebotomy and Purgation.  
Their vain Curiosity in Anatomy reprehended; and their false Rule of Contraries in the Cure of Diseases manifested.  
Also, a full Answer to the Objections charged by the GALENISTS against the CHEMISTS, and Chemical Medicines vindicated.  
To which is added an Appendix, De Litho-Colo: or, An History of Three large STONES excluded the Colon by Chemical Remedies.  
By GEO. THOMSON, Medicinae Doctor.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Homer. Odies. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 
London, Printed by R. Wood, for Edward Thomas, at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain, 1665.   

To the most Reverend Father in God, GILBERT, By Divine Providence, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate and Metropolitan of all England, and one of His Sacred Majesties most Honourable Privy Council.  
May it please Your Grace,  
AMong the many Moecena's of Hermetick Philosophy, I conceive none more fitting to protect the Medicinal Verities here set down, than Your Grace; who hath been pleased to express very much kindness and love for this Noble Art, to the no small encouragement of the Professors thereof. And all things duly pondered, where can Chemical Physic better shelter itself against Maligners and Opposers of it, then under the wings of Divinity, on which it ought to attend as an Handmaid? yea, there should be a Synergie, and conspiration of all Arts and Sciences to advance Theology, which makes the better Part of us happy.  
How can the Soul act aright when there is an Atonie, Ametrie, and dyscrasy in the Body? Sith as the Chyle is, such is the Chime, or rubified juice; as is the Chime, so is the Sanguis, or purest part of the Blood; and as this is, so are the Vital Spirits (the immediate instrument of the Soul) either luminous and clear, or dark and muddy; and so capable to act well or ill: How solicitous then should we be to search out those great Arcana's in Nature, which the good Creator hath ordained for the preservation and redintegration of these Bodies, (which upon slight occasions from within and without, are obnoxious to be valetudinary, and put out of frame) that the Diviner part may operate the more freely, vigorously, and orderly.  
Certainly there is no better way to attain this then by Spagyric Philosophy, which separates Tribulos & Spinas, what is Hurtful and Superfluous in every Concrete, from the profitable, pure, and sincere; bringing it to such an Entelechie and Excellency, that it is able to display that radiant Virtue which God hath implanted in it for the good both of Body and Soul. And were this course closely followed, and generally countenanced, those rebellious and enormous Vices of the Mind, too grassant at this day among us, which in great part arise from the Feral, Anomalous, unheard of Prodigious, and untractable Diseases of the Body, might in some measure be reform; and certainly if there be not some timely prevention, mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem, most of our Posterity is like to be born diseased.  
Seeing therefore no Medicine is able to mortify these Seminal Principles of Diseases, or wash off those Radical Tinctures which have been traduced to us from our Parents, but the best sort of Chemical Preparations exalted to the highest degree of perfection; some of which have been of late years brought to light by the indefatigable industry of some Ingenious men, whom the Galenists have endeavoured to eclipse, and despitefully to suppress by Calumnies and Reproaches; we humbly beg Your Grace's favour to stand up for the defence of our Art, so far as truth, sound reason and Optical Experiments shall permit; and that Your Grace would be pleased to join with some other Heroes of the Nation, either to stop the mouths of these Anti-Chymists, or to constrain them to make good by matter of Fact, and fair equal Trials here proposed, what they allege against us; that there may be a full discovery made who are the Physicians, quos creavit Altissimus, and who are they that go about ludere cum corio humano: And this present and future Age shall be bound to celebrate Your Praises;  
My Lord, Your Graces most humble and obedient Servant, Geo. Thomson.   

To the Reader.  
Courteous Reader,  
BE pleased to bestow what time you can well spare in perusual of this short Treatise, which (how contemptible soever it may seem to thee) may perhaps be a means to save thee from the jaws of untimely death, and prolong thy days. The main Scope of the Author is, to do thee, his Country, and the whole World service, in reference to that which (according to the innate law of Self-preservation) every Creature desires (that is) Life: which if not accompanied with Health, cannot but be very tedious.  
That therefore thou mayest enjoy a sound Body and Soul, next Temperance in all things, embrace an Honest and Able Physician; not one whom thou fancies, but who is really so, according to these infallible signs here described.  
The sum of this Discourse is nothing but a Touchstone depending upon matter of Fact, to try whether a Physician be as he professes himself, and aught to be, one that having a Commission from the Angel Raphael, is endued with the gift of Healing, not palliating, daubing and plastering upon an unstable foundation.  
Here thou mayest learn to keep thy Blood wherein is the Life, and not prodigally to spend it, upon every trifling occasion, which may do thee more service sometimes then the best Doctor in England, and help those Diseases he cannot.  
Here thou mayest be instructed to beware of uncorrected Purgatives, which do but colliquate and putrefy the wholesome Chime, or juice of the Body, enervating it without any considerable ease, unless accidental; and to value that Physic which carries off the occasional Morbific matter to thy benefit, without any notable Debility succeeding.  
In this Enchiridium thou wilt find the difference between a sincere and corrupt Physician; one that dares act subdio, in the face of the Sun, that men may behold him whether he doth right or wrong, and so justify him or condemn him; and between him that studies to be in the dark, and cast a mist before the Spectators eyes, that he may play legerdemain with them.  
Lastly thou wilt see whose Actions are able to bear the test of the Fire best, (by which every Work is to be tried) the Galenical or Helmontian, whose facts like Gold or Silver, leave the least Scoria or Dross behind; and whose like Lead or other base metals, leave most.  
We hope no man that desires the preservation of himself, King, and Country, but will allow these Operative Propositions to be just, equal, profitable, and laudable, to put an end to that which garrulity and multiloquacity will never determine.  
Wherefore, Candid Reader, all that we shall request of thee, is to stand still and see, that we may have right done us, forbearing to be prejudicated and partial; and if ever thou shouldest need us, we shall endeavour to gratify thee with that Physic which we are confident no Galenist in England possesses. Now if it fall out that our faithful and wholesome counsel herein should (through the subtle wiles and and crafty devices of our enemies) be rejected, we shall rest ourselves contented that we have done our duty, and shall shake off the dust of our feet upon them, qui valdè volunt perire, being satisfied that their perdition is from themselves.  
Geo. Tomson.   

The Contents.  

CHAP. I. A Short Description of Galen, from whom they are denominated Galenists. Pag. 1  
CHAP. II. An account of that true Chemical Philosopher, and learned Physician, Helmont, whom we Own for our Patron. pag. 4  
CHAP. III. Of the Abuses and disrepute the Galenists have brought upon Physic, and the Reformation they have of late pretended. 7  
CHAP. IV. How the Galenists have domineered in the World, and deceived it. 15  
CHAP. V. In what space of time a good Physician may resolve his Patient of the Event of his Disease. 21  
CHAP. VI How much precious time the Galenists spend in Anatomical Curiosities to little purpose. 25  
CHAP. VII. A just reproof of the Ignorance of most of them in Surgery. 30  
CHAP. VIII. What a noise our Adversaries make with their Laboratory, and how they vaunt that they use Chemical Medicines according to their Method. 35  
CHAP. IX. An Answer to some Objections laid to our charge by the Galenists. 38  
CHAP. X. An Expostulation why the Dogmatists will not come to the touchstone of true Experience. 41  
CHAP. XI. How much to seek the Galenists are in that necessary Philosophy which directs us to the Cure of Diseases. 44  
CHAP. XII. Of the two grand Supporters of the Galenical Physic, Phlebotomy and Purgation. 48  
CHAP. XIII. Of the second Supporter, fruitless Purgation. 56  
CHAP. XIV. Of that fictitious Rule of Contraries, by which the Dogmatists are guided in the cure of Diseases. 65  
CHAP. XV. A brief Examination of their Pharmacopoea. 70  
CHAP. XVI. A Cursory View of the Mineral waters, to which the Dogmatists fly, as to a Sanctuary, in Difficult Cases. 77  
CHAP. XVII. A Vindication of Chemical Medicines from that false Accusation of being Dangerous. 83  
CHAP. XVIII. Of the Galenical Method. 90  
CHAP. XIX. Of the Helmontian Method. 96  
CHAP. XX. 

Some Animadversions upon the late Attempt to procure a Patent from His Gracious Majesty, for the Erecting a College of Chemical Physicians. 103  
A History of three large Stones excluded the Colon by Chemical Medicines. 109      

Galeno-pale: OR, A Chemical Trial of the Galenists, that their Dross in Physic may be discovered.  
CHAP. I. A short Description of Galen, from whom they are denominated Galenists.  
THe great Patron, to whose Decrees and Dictates (right or wrong) the Dogmatists have obliged themselves to subscribe, is Galen of Pergamus in Asia; who lived about fifteen hundred years past, in the time of Adrian. He was a man doubtless of excellent parts, and very laborious, but took a very indirect course to make a discovery of the Truth of things, as they are in themselves, by bringing them to the touchstone of sound Experience; by making an Analysis or Resolution of Bodies, that their Principles might be laid open, and their Heterogeneities manifested; without which it is impossible for any man to be a Philosopher as he ought.  
He had a great ambition of writing much, as it plainly appears by those voluminous Tracts that are now extant, besides what are lost; for 'tis reported that he wrote four hundred Books in Physic: to what good purpose, any discreet impartial man may easily judge. His loquacity hath much affected some men, who count Learning principally to consist in variety of Languages, Polylogie, and plausible Argumentations, though deduced from false Axioms. Hypocrates his concise Aphoristical Doctrine, written according to the sincerity and candour of that age, was amplified and vainly enlarged by his fruitless and frivolous Comments, to a huge bulk, contrived on purpose to get a fame in the World, by those that are ready to subscribe to any Positions of Antiquity, for their ease, rather than to Anatomize things as they ought by the Fire, that thereby they may be reduced into the visible parts. So ignorant herein was their great Master Galen, that he never saw either Rose-water or Quicksilver. How much to seek he was in Anatomy, Vesalius hath delivered; who makes it to appear in many places, that he never dissected the Body of man. In the Botanics, or knowledge of Plants, he hath instructed the World no more than Dioscorides his predecessor, whom he hath plainly transcribed in many places word for word, concealing the Author, sticking in the mire of the four Elements, their Mixture, Qualities, and Temperaments, neglecting the Virtus Cherionia, Crafts, and specific properties of Simples. His followers have, and do even obstinately to this day, to the destruction of millions, cry up his method; a tedious way to cure Diseases, but a short one to get money. The two principal Pillars that support this rare Method, are Phlehotomy and Purgation, both of which we can demonstrate to be pernicious to Humane Nature, destroying more than ever the Sword.  
In the knowledge of the Causes, Quiddity, or Essence, immediate Subject, and radical Cure of Diseases, (an incurable Catalogue whereof he hath delivered to posterity) that he was extreme blind, we shall undertake to evince and prove è facto.  
All this duly considered, would make a man stand amazed to see how refractorily his Disciples do maintain (to this day) those rotten principles in Physic derived from him; and how wilfully they hoodwink themselves, delighting in the darkness of their own erroneous Tenants, lest they should behold the bright beams of Chemical Philosophy, to the diminution of their own sinister respects.   

CHAP. II. An account of that true Chemical Philosopher, and learned Physican, Helmont, whom we Own for our Patron.  
HElmont a German, was without all question, ordained in these last times by especial providence of God, for the comfort and relief of distressed Man; to be an instrument to discover those gross Errors and notorious abuses in Physic, that have relation to the Life and Soul of Man, committed by those that rested themselves contented to be ignorant with Antiquity, and enjoy profit, honour, and ease, rather than question any thing delivered to them (how false soever) by making a severe scrutiny into the bottom of Nature, by difficult labours with their own hands, and great expense of their purses. This Worthy Man who (we confess) hath instructed us in the Principles of Philosophy, was omnifariam doctus; one that was very knowing in the Doctrine of the Ancients, having made a wonderful speedy progress in the Learning of the Schools, as well versed in the Languages as the best Galenist; who, after that he had rolled every stone in the old Philosophy, and ran through that Cyclopeodie, or universal Learning, yet could find no solid satisfaction in the natural Causes of things, till he came to Pyrotechnie, wherein he laboured fifty years complete, leaving those lying Sophisms that he had imbibed, contemplating things as they were in themselves. Hereby he learned the genuine beginnings of all Concretes, making separation of them into their fundamental parts; dissolving and coagulating, fixing and volatilizing Bodies; looking narrowly into the defects, alteration, life, and death of things; extracting, dividing, conjoining several bodies, bringing what was crude to maturation; and promoting natural Causes, by removing those impediments that they could not arrive at their just ends. Hence he dived into the Seminal virtues and properties of things, and was able to give an account of their true, efficient, and natural Causes; bringing to light the Doctrine of Fermentation, the Original and activity of Spirits, with the rare Effects of Tinctures; and this by Mechanical demonstration of the Fire. This is he that hath plainly detected the most absurd perilous Doctrine of the Galenists, proving their palpable ignorance of the Causes of Diseases, and their proper Cures; setting down infallible Arguments to evince how destructive their Bleeding and Purgations are to mankind; challenging them to make good what he had delivered by visible instances and examples of fact; which they would never come to, nor ever dared to answer him by way of confutation, but by denying all that he had proposed, giving him scurrilous and opprobrious language, (as it is their common custom when they have nothing to say for themselves) calling him Fanatic, Innovator, Dreamer, carping at any lapse or Peccadillo in his Writings with aggravations to the height: hating and abhorring to the death all those that stood up in his behalf, naming them Heretics in Physic; and all this gratis dictum, without the least tittle of truth.  
Thus hath this worthy man been slighted, vilified, and reproached, for not still conniving at those capital Errors in Physic, which they have greedily swallowed down without any scruple, to the ruin of millions. However, let these pitiful Physicians rail at, and calumniate this Hero, 'tis our duty, who have received so much benefit from him, to acknowledge him our Master, and to maintain his true Positions, to the utmost of our power against all gainsayers.   

CHAP. III. Of the Abuses and disrepute the Galenists have brought upon Physic, and the Reformation they have of late pretended.  
YE have of late made a great stir, though to little purpose and credit, to procure a Power from the Supreme Authority of the Nation, that ye might make a Reformation in this Noble Profession of Physic, there being (as ye say) no visible means left but yourselves to compass it. But what was your drift in this? Truly, we believe the first thing, next the enslaving the poor Apothecaries, would have been a total Suppression of those that had opposed your fictitious Principles, false Axioms, and indirect practices in Physic, that then ye might have domineered as ye pleased. But stay a while, we hope the Sage Magistrate will take it into consideration, that ye are the chiefest persons that need reformation; and that your Purgations need purgation, they being (as we can prove by matter of fact) not fitting, so uncorrected, to be taken into the Body. We hope moreover they will take notice, that your Bloody course ought to be voted cruel and unchristian, the Life or Soul being seated in the Blood: God having created the Medicines of the Earth, not Bleeding, cutting holes in the Skin, Blisterings, and such like butchering Tortures, to cure miserable man. 'Tis true, there are sad exorbitancies, irregularities, and abuses in Physic, but who we pray have been the principal occasions of them but yourselves? who have conjured up such Swarms of Quacks in every place, (who like Locusts eat the bread out of honest Physicians mouths) by your Profane Prescripts? and now you would fain lay them down, but ye cannot; for they are become too potent for you, some of them having so well improved their time, that they are like for aught we can see to cast you out of the saddle, and to ride with Footcloths themselves, dealing but deservedly with you. If ye had better practised the Pythagorical Doctrine, these things had never been; or had ye delivered yourselves, as ye find fault Paracelsus, Helmont, and other sons of Art did, more obscurely, and Enigmatically, who foresaw these mischiefs, and endeavoured to prevent them, Physic had flourished to this day in its splendour and beauty: But as ye have handled the matter, every Goodwife, any silly fellow may read your Dispensatory, use some of those Medicines without your method, and sometimes no less success; yea, and may laugh at some of those ridiculous Compositions discovered to them by your trusty servant Culpepper. But all this is no hindrance but a furtherance to increase your Practice, (as we have heard some of you say) sith these illiterate Idiots do but make work for you. Is it so, but we much doubt it; surely if ye aimed at this at first, to multiply these men to augment Mortality's for your advantage, it was a very wicked Design, not to be endured by a Nation: but if this be fallen out through your incogitance accidentally, that these men have brought in the more gain to you, to the detriment and ruin of the people, and simply for this reason, ye desire to be Arnautists, or self-deniers, why do ye (pretending to the Higher Powers a Public Good) not likewise instruct them in some way, how the indigent Commonalty may be cured better and cheaper; giving us infallible testimonies of some rare Cures above others, and your zealous charity for your Neighbours, by abating your excessive Fees, and by curing him gratis that hath fallen into Thiefs, like the good Samaritan. And we think it were but just, that they who have gotten such Riches in Physic, as some of you undoubtedly, by the destruction of those that might have been preserved, should Zaccheus-like, impart a portion to those that are distressed. And certainly there is now great need of this retribution, and as the state of things stands, another course must be taken (without this costly Physic) to cure the Poor of the Nation; which if our prudent Senators shall please to listen to, we shall in all humility propose to their wise considerations; beseeching them to consider what sad consequences must of necessity have come upon a Concession to the presumptuous Desires of these men: How thousands of poor People must have neglected the means, and so have run the hazard of perishing, having not wherewithal to seek to these chargeable Doctors for recovery, the Apothecary not daring to sell them a little London Treacle Mithridate, etc. unless authorised by them; as if their Prescripts were able to infuse new Virtues into Medicines. Neither should any have stretched forth his hand to have pulled his languishing Brother out of the ditch, unless licenced by them.  
What we pray should our City have done, if some Epidemical contageous Disease, as the Plague, had reigned amongst us, sith they (according to their Masters Dictates) would all have run out of it: We plainly see the greatest Clarks are not always the best Politicians, for we stand amazed to see such learned Physicians, men so highly reputed for their parts, to carry on such an unreasonable Project, merely for their own sinister interest, (the Public good therein being altogether neglected) as to solicit the highest Court of judicature, to confirm such a Patent to them, that they might be sole Masters of their Lives, Souls, and Fortunes, without controlment: That they might Browbeat, Insult, and Tyrannize over those that are no whit inferior to them in worth. Did Ambition, Covetousness, and Revenge so blind them, that they should think that such wise Senators would ever condescend to make themselves and People Slaves and Vassals to the insolent lusts of those, who never gave us any proof, pledge, or earnest of their Cures in Physic above many Apothecaries; who have protested to us, that there were some of these stately Doctors so extreme ignorant in materia medica, that they did not know the Ingredients of certain trivial Compositions presented to their eyes: yea, and that some of their Prescripts have been so notoriously extravagant and pernicious, that the Apothecary hath been forced to correct them, unless he would have suffered the Patient to run the hazard of perishing.  
We confess, the Apothecary in many defects and obliquities is not to be excused, however (as Diogenes struck the Father when the Son offended) so we think the Doctor deserves the lash for not rightly educating and instructing his poor obsequious servant; for we are verily persuaded had they been more discreetly tutored, they would have proved better. But hinc illae lacrhymae, this is that which wrings the Doctor, and galls him to the heart, that he should bring up birds to pick out his own eyes; that after so many years sweet congress, and mutual correspondence, his Labourer, Drudge, or Excrement (as a Doctor was heard to call him) should now stand in defiance against him, and take upon him to cure Diseases equally with him. And to say truth, a man cannot tell which of the two exceeds; for we are of that opinion, one may pick and choose, but find never a barrel better Herring. The Servant is now become a Doctor, the Dispenser a Prescriber: Both use the same Method, the same Indications, the like Medicines, and with equal success for aught we can see. Of the two we confess, the Apothecary hath for the most part the start of his Doctor, for as much as he not only knoweth the Composition exactly, and at his pleasure can frustrate both Physicians and Patient's expectation; but also being more conversant with the Sick man, can advantage himself more than the other by frequent observations, which opportunity the Doctor, partly through pride, and partly through covetousness and idleness, loses. Now good Master Doctor Galen, let us reason a little soberly; have ye not brought your Hogs to a fair market; whether of us (we beseech you) have been most prudent and provident? ye that have made this noble Science (the Professors whereof Divine Writ hath charged to be honoured) to become a mere mercenary or a meretricious business; a very Trade to get money, an Imposture to serve your own ends, setting up an Apothecary your Emissary and Decoy, to fetch in gainful Practice; or we that have always been tender of the reputation of Physic, and the Lives of the infirm; and for that end have not only studied hard for many years, beating our brains to do that which is fitting according to Art; but also laboured with our own hands night and day, not without hazard of our lives, and great expenses, that we might understand what we do, and do what we ought for the Lives of our poor miserable Patients; that we might always have in readiness those Arcana's, of which the vulgus hominum is, and ever will be ignorant. Had we prostituted ourselves and the Art, or taken those indirect courses which ye have done, we are certain we might have been possessors of Riches and Honours equal with you.   

CHAP. IU. How the Galenists have domineered in the World, and deceived it.  
'TIs unspeakable how these Galenists have imposed upon credulous men, how by their plausible Rhetoric they have alured them, and made the people willingly to resign their Lives up to their Judgements, notwithstanding all those sad precedents lively represented to their eyes. What fair pretences have they made use of to gull them into their Physic? What a supercilious command have they had over their obsequious Apothecary, to speak for them, to lie for them; yea, and to do some things for them, to the hazard of his Soul; being forced to maintain, and sometimes to own all their miscarriages, misdemeanours, and gross aberrations in Physic, or else he, his wife and children must bite on the bridle. These are they that have infused into the people abominable vulgar Errors in Physic, which neither Doctor Primrose, Doctor Browne, nor a thousand like them, are able by the best of Rhetoric or Logic to eradicate, till some notable and eminent Cures relating to their Lives, by degrees, shall convince them of the contrary; which is a hard thing to do, because these Mysochymists and haters of truth, have prejudiced them against the Assertors of it.  
Great men are not a little entangled in their snares, being lured and caught by their bewitching tongues, by their fame of being great Scholars, well versed in all the Languages, excellent Mathematicians, Historians, Geographers, which are qualifications very laudable, and which we very much respect; but what is all this to a Sick Man that lies groaning upon his bed in a violent Fever, tortured with the Gout, the Stone, the Colic, the Iliack, haling for breath as for life? What is this man's Learning to him, if he cannot ease him and give him Relief, quatenus a Physician? If after all learned Argumentation, and Eloquence of the Galenist, some trivial Chemist that hath learned something by blowing the coals for his Master, shall cure him, without any long preamble; be serious and tell me (as we are all Philautists, and desire self-preservation) whether this man (though otherwise not to be justified in his ignorance) be not to be encouraged and to be had in some estimation in any well-governed Land? Consider this therefore Worthy Magistrates, that as ye are the Sons of Adam, ye will always be prone to Diseases; and doubtless none of you in such a case but will highly prise a man that shall offer, promise, and perform a Cure for you, above another that tires you out either with none, or false promises.  
Great Patriots, be pleased to take notice how they have vilified and slandered true Artists, persuading the World falsely, that Chemical Medicines (which we frequently use without strict weighing them) were dangerous, received an Empyreuma, or hurtful impression from the Fire; that they did either Kill or Cure in a short time: yea, some of them have been so impudently audacious to assert, That whosoever took Chemical Medicines, although he were cured for the present, yet in the revolution of a year it would cost him his life. So that in their fury they have cast into the Kennel out of a very honest and able Apothecary's Shop, a most safe, innocent, and effectual Chemical Medicine, and afterward have endeavoured the ruin of the poor man.  
A quondam noted Galenist, in greatest part reclaimed from their fopperies, and almost got out of that dirty practice, protested that he knew a most eminent Doctor of the College, that passes for one of the most learned amongst them, that did not dare to venture to give five or six grains of Antimonium Diaphoreticum, which we can give with confidence, security, and good effect, often to thirty or forty grains.  
They formerly cried down Oil of Vitriol by no means fitting to be taken into the body, because it did corrode a Glove, supposing it would act the same in the Stomach. As for Mercurius dulcis, and other Preparations of Mercury, they concluded them all to be little better than poison; which now they frequently make use of, not scrupling to give it to Children, but we fear to their destruction sometimes, as they order the matter by their method, and a careless preparation of it, which they always refer to another.  
Yet it is not long since that a Galenist of great fame did upon some Discourse of Mercury confidently affirm, that he knew he could do as much with crude Mercury, as any with it never so well prepared: which he dares not (we are sure) maintain to be true by any visible instance, but spoke it merely out of a Vatinian hatred to Chemical Preparations; which notwithstanding he and his Fraternity are forced to make use of closely, labouring to pump and fish them out of others.  
Now at length finding that they have strived in vain against truth, by their obloquys and false suggestions still kicking against a prick; and finding they cannot obscure the bright beams of Pyrotechnical Philosophy, they take now another supplanting course, and of a sudden will all become Chemists; but Galeno-Chymists, as monstrous and Anomalous as a Centaur or Siren: and hereby they think to blear the eyes of the world, to make them believe, that their Method sweetens all our sharp Vitriolate Medicines, allays all our Corrosives, fixes all our Mercurial Preparations; and in short, makes all safe and sound, which otherwise would be destructive in our fingers. Thus they still juggle with, and delude the world, still protracting and spinning out the time, very unwilling to part with ease, gain, and honour, notwithstanding thousands suffer by their indirect practice, ere they will come in quietly, and sincerely submit to the truth, for the good of the Nation; although they know at last they must be forced to yield, time bringing that to light which is their principal study to involve in obscurity. For we make no question but that posterity will admire their obstinacy herein, and abhor them for it.  
Well, come what will come, for aught we can see they are still resolved to maintain their State and Grandeur as long as they can, for their present life, and then let the world hereafter censure them, what care they: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Greek Poet hath it. Yet it happened that one of their greatest Donns, being questioned by a Perspicacious Gentleman, what the reason was, that he ordered something very incongruous in reference to his Patient; and being charged home by him, whom he knew would not be baffled, made this express answer; Hang it (quoth he) we are but a Company of Cheats. This was reported to us by a person of Quality, that dares testify the truth of it to the face of him that spoke it.   

CHAP. V. In what space of time a good Physician may resolve his Patient of the Event of his Disease.  
HE is unworthy the name of a Physician, that in Acute Diseases doth not on the fifth or sixth day after his admission, either make Nature master of the Disease, or else on the sixth or seventh give a positive prediction what will be the conclusion thereof; and that with so much certainty, that he should seldom be mistaken but as a man: For it is a grand ignominy, and an intolerable disgrace, to see a Mechanic to engage himself to bring to pass what he undertakes, and a learned Physician, either not to dare to promise you any thing of a Cure, or wholly to frustrate your expectation. It is no wonder if some men taking advantage of your weakness in this particular, have cast it in our teeth, that our Art is altogether conjectural; and that we do all things therein by hab nab, happy be lucky; hitting the mark with as much uncertainty as those people called Andabatae, that fought with one another winking; we wish these Scoffs and Taunts might lie at the doors of those that have justly deserved them.  
In Chronic Infirmities a longer time must needs be required to give satisfaction to the Patient concerning his Recovery, the matter of the Disease being many times fixed in the Body, and as it were settled on the lees, the ferment of the parts being either vitiated, or in great part abolished; and the Archaeus or vital Spirit being much diminished, the immediate instrument of the Soul, by which it acts for our health or sickness, in which every Disease nestles, and is primarily seated and characterized, without the power of which none can be cured; (of which the Galenists have been too ignorant, until such time most Acute Helmont (like a bright star of truth) made it appear) As the matter stands thus, a Physician may very well assume a fortnight or three weeks at most, finally to conclude what he is able to do for his Patient; whether he be capable (as he conceives) to be restored to health, if not, then to resign him up to another that may be able to do more: for this wier-drawing course in Physic, to keep a Patient long in suspense, without any relief, (peradventure for some private ends) is to be abominated.  
'Tis a strong Argument of great Weakness or Deceit in a Physician, when in some reasonable time he cannot or will not give an account what is like to be the Issue of his labours: such an one is to be avoided as the Plague, that is blind and cannot discover the Mark he is to shoot at; or aims at the Purse of his Patient, rather than the Recovery of his Health. Be advised whosoever thou art, not to suffer him that waits for a Crisis, and cannot give thee in a short time a sufficient Testimony of an effectual Cure, to proceed any further; for be assured that a good Physician never looks after a Crisis, (standing still as a mere spectator while Nature is oftentimes worsted upon unequal terms by its enemy) but with all expedition unroosteth that unwelcome Guest, that hath taken up its lodging in the vital Spirits, wherein the longer it lurks, the more difficult it is to eject; for cunctando crescit, and so at length confounds the Oeconomy of the whole Body: wherefore an Honest and Prudent Chemist, Principiis obstat, falls forthwith upon the extirpation of any malady, whereas the Galenist labours to circumcise and lop off here and there the Branches or Symptoms, lulling his Patient asleep with some incorrected Opiate, mitigating sleight pains by anodynes, quenching his Thirst by cooling juleps, bedaubing his Feet, Wrists, and Front, with Cataplasms, and the like, to the wearisomeness and vexation of the sick Man, without any real casement of his Grief. Hence it falls out that some of our learned Galenists have protracted an Acute Fever, to the one and twentieth day, and that in hope of a Crisis, which we are confident might have been taken down before the seventh. Hereby they hatch up some Chronic tedious languor, which usually follows at the heels of most Malignant Fevers they take in hand, because they never searched the Soar to the bottom, but only skinned it over. Oftentimes do these Botching Galenists bring to light a viperous Generation of Long Infirmities, that might easily have been destroyed at first in Ovo the Embryon, which afterward growing too headstrong for them, elude and slight all their trivial Applications.  
And all this they can still do under the notion of safe Medicines; when indeed a generous man had better have died Caesar's death, and nimbly to have been sent into the other world by some precipitate Quack, or venturous Pseudochymist, where he might be at rest, then to crumble and moulder away in a languishing feeble manner; and withal to sustain those torturing and racking Carnifications, by their Blistering, Cupping, Scarifications, Cauteries, and Seton's, with their loathsome Potions, Consuming Purgatives, their severe Cookeries, and rigid Diet-drinks, and at length to drop into the pit. Let any discreet man judge whether such Doctors as these deserve a Patent, who have nothing wherewithal to excuse their Homicide, but that they perform it with the fairest Method in the world.   

CHAP. VI How much precious time the Galenists spend in Anatomical Curiosities to little purpose.  
OUr Antagonists raise no small dust, and make no little noise with their Dissection of Bodies, which were much to be commended, if they did not spend more time than needeth, rather for ostentation, and to get a fame abroad, then for any notable improvement in the Cure of poor miserable Man. For if it savoured not too much of vainglory, they would rather exercise these operations more privately amongst themselves, and instruct any ingenious Gentleman, that desires to be informed therein, so far as might conduce for his particular satisfaction; and not make a public Theatrical business of it, for the entertainment of any rude fellows: but enough of that. As exact Anatomists as these men are, we know this for a truth, that the lodging place of Diseases is seldom to be discovered by the Knife; which indeed was boldly attempted (though in vain) by an industrious Galenist of late years, who cut up a Pestilent Body, to find out in what part the Plague did principally reside, to the loss of his own life, perhaps for want of some Arcanum which an Helmontist could have given him.  
Anatomy we stand up for, as much as any, without which we are certain a Physician must necessarily be much defective in Physic; in which (we dare say) some of us have bestowed as much pains as most of our Opponents: and something we can say without vainglory, that we were the first that in these parts of Europe have made the Experiment effectually of taking out the Spleen of a Dog, without which he lived perfectly well two years and a quarter; the same being often repeated by others who stiffly opposed it at first. But what is all this to the grand matter in hand, which crowns and gives life to all the rest, that is, to be master of those Remedies which (proportionable to Diseases) are able to tame and subjugate them to the law of Nature? What would it profit to tell our Patients that we had taken the Spleen out of a Dog, if they (afflicted in that part) could receive no benefit from us? what pitiful comforters should we be in such a case?  
'Tis true, the Invention of the Circulation of the Blood by industrious Doctor Harvey, is highly to be commended, and gives some satisfaction in the solving certain Phaenomena in Physiologie and aetiology; yet we can see the Therapeutic part little advanced thereby, so that many stubborn Diseases are equally as hard to conquer (caeteris paribus) as they were before its discovery. Are your Officinal Medicines, on which ye solely depend, any whit more sufficient and powerful to cure now, then before the Venae Lacteae of Asellius, and the Vasa Lymphatica of 〈◊〉 were brought to light? Or ye (for this reason) better Physicians then formerly, notwithstanding all your raking and groping in these uncomfortable dark cadaverous Subjects? surely not at all: if the Spagyrist had not somewhat supplied your want in that which is most necessary; affording you a few more prevailing Helps for your Patient's Sanity, than ye ever possessed heretofore. What would it avail if ye knew the exact site of the smallest string or fiber in the Microcosm, and yet were not able to reduce it, dislocated, into its right place? How uncomfortable to one afflicted with some grievous malady, is that Physicians Anatomical Lecture of Man's Body, if he be ignorant in the Anatomy of some Active, Spriteful, Enlivening Medicine, that may give him ease. Whatsoever therefore is introductive, subservient, and of far less moment comparatively, aught to be set behind, and have less pains bestowed upon it, than what is absolutely necessary, and doth primarily and immediately conduce to the attaining that End, which both Physician and Patient desire above all things; and such is the Knowledge of Generous Remedies, which can never be acquired without Herculean labour: for the hammering out of which, our whole 〈◊〉 if we should live an hundred years) is too scanty.  
'Tis certain, every Mechanic ought to have a competent insight of that Machine, as Watch or Clock, etc. which he goeth about to mend; but if he want Instruments and fitting Tools, how is it possible he should rectify any great Defect in it: In like manner it behoves a Physician to be acquainted with the Structure and Conformation of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, admirable Engine, Man's Body, so far as is needful and expedient, to instruct him in the Reparation and Restitution of it, when at any time it is cast off the Hinges of its Sanity, through any occasion from within or without: But above all it concerns him, to spend the greatest part of his precious time, to bend all his sinews, and to put forth his whole strength, to find out those powerful Remedies, which are indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, able to reduce and compose any Ataxy, Exarthresie, or Exorbitance in this lovely frame. Desist than ye vainglorious Galenists from spending your days about impertinent and superfluous Searches in stinking Carcases, which are never able to teach you how to destroy the Rampant Diseases daily breaking violently into these living Houses, without Pyrotechnical Anatomy, which alone can reclude the Secrets of Nature, and show us where every Disease is seated, and by what effectual ways it may be disturbed, and thrown out of that Vital Light in which it lives and dies.   

CHAP. VII. A just reproof of the Ignorance of most of them in Surgery.  
CErtainly it was an evil Design at first, and a plain demonstration of idleness and pride in Physicians, when they broke into parts those Faculties, which did formerly, and should always indivisibly reside in one man. We confess Fractures and Dislocations require the hand of a professed Artist, that is throughly versed in Anatomy and accurate Experience in this kind; but when Medicines taken inwardly are principally to perform the Cure, outward as well as inward Diseases belong to the Physician, so it may be done to the encouragement of the Professors of Surgery; sigh honos alit arts: as the matter stands now, it is not amiss for the Surgeon to have a share in the profit, although the Physician hath the greatest hand in the Cure.  
We have oftentimes admired the Ignorance of some Galenists, that have not been able to undertake a Whitlow, a Scald, a green wound, a trivial Soar, but have been forced to send them to a Surgeon living remote, as if it no whit concerned them; and as if any one could be a true Physician, and be destitute of that which essentially belongs to his Art. Needs must that Physician be extremely mutilated in his knowledge, that is to seek to cure a Phlegmon, an Erysipelas, Fistula, or malignant Ulcer: For we can confidently aver, and make it evident, that 'tis the inward Medicament that must principally cure most outward Discases, if they be ever radically and to a purpose healed, outward Applications being oftentimes of no effect. Yet we will not deny some virulent Ulcers may to a wonder receive sanation by virtue of Chemical Preparations outwardly applied; as, Balsamum Fuliginis, Balsamum Sameck, the pure Sulphur of Venus, Antimony, and other Minerals, of which none but a true Son of Art can be possessor. But above all is to be extolled, that admirable Magnetical way of curing, which doubtless if rightly improved would work stupendious things; so that some Galenist would presently conclude that there is Witchery, or some supernatural means made use of: So blind and stupid they are in the most needful Philosophy, that what their Brains cannot conceive, they presently reject as Diabolical or impossible. Tell them of the Alkahest, or universal Menstruum, of Lapis Chrysopeius, Lapis Butleri, of a Panacaea, they will but deride and flout at it, boldly and presumptuously denying any such thing to be in rerum natura, because their shallow wits being altogether soused and steeped in dirty Humours, Qualities, Temperaments, Mixtures, and Contrarieties, never had the happiness to have the least glimpse of the admirable perfections of such things. This we can set down positively as a truth, that that Physician that knows not something of the Cure of Diseases both inward and outward this way, is but a mere novice, always learning, and never like to come to any perfection in his Art: Let him be never so much applauded for his excellent parts, and great Learning, he shall always be esteemed by the wisest, an Idiot in Philosophy, altogether ignorant of the radical and intrinsical causes of things.  
We doubt not but there is excellent use of Manual operation, where the Knife is to perform the Cure, as in Amputations of parts, Lithotomie, and the like. But we know this experimentally, that both Physician and Surgeon are too forward to lop off parts, and butcherly to cut holes in the skin; whereas many times this bloody course might be omitted, and the sick person restored in great part, if not altogether, to his pristine health, without mutilation or sauciation; as we could instance of late in a Gentleman, belonging to a Noble man, whose Leg after all their tedious torturing, and frivolous attempts, as, Blood-letting, Purgation, Salivation, Sudorificks, Diet-drinks, Mercurial Applications, and Cauteries, they at length despairing of his Recovery, advised to be cut off: which God (by means of his poor servant a Chemical Physician) prevented, the Gentleman being restored to his perfect health, and his Limb saved.  
It were to be wished, that ye would study to dissolve and reduce into their first matter, those Coagulations frequently happening; as, Scrofulous Tumours, Nodes, Scirrosities, Ganglions, Wens, etc. without Scarifications and Incisions: but especially to bend your whole strength, to find out some potent Arcanum (which God no doubt hath created) for the untying and colliquating that monstrous Product, in man's Body, the Stone, without cruel Lithotomie by a frightful Knife. Did you not despond to find, and supinely slight the pursuit of something in this kind, yea, if ye did not maliciously discourage others, without controversy such an Arcanum might have probably been brought to light, able to dissolve the Stone even in the Bladder. But it is enough for you to rest yourselves contented with the old profitable way of Perforating and broaching the Body, which if it fail, ye presently protest ye have done as much as Art can; which narrowly examined by a judicious Physician, would perhaps prove very impotent.  
How often have ye received credit and applause from the world, when in the Dissection of dead Bodies, ye have found any of the Viscera corrupted, or hard congealed substance; as, stones in the Kidney, Gall, or other parts, justifying and magnifying yourselves, that more could not have been done by Art; whereas peradventure at that time ye were first admitted, the Corruption might have been hindered, and Coagulations dissolved.  
Some few years since a Chemical Physician expelled three large Stones nestling about the region of the Spleen, the least as big as a large Turky's egg, out of a Maidservants Body, by virtue of some Paracelsian Medicines, perfectly restoring her to health, which she enjoys to this day; whom we are confident if a Galenist had undertaken, he would by his Blood-letting, pernicious Purgation, Blisterings, etc. have destroyed, and the cause of her Disease should never have been discovered, unless by accident the Knife had made it appear; which would have sufficiently excused the Galenist, and cleared him as one that did what possibly could be done by Art.   

CHAP. VIII. What a noise our Adversaries make with their Laboratory, and how they vaunt that they use Chemical Medicines according to their Method.  
YE make your boast that ye possess (as well as we) your Laboratory, and variety of Furnaces: That ye use Chemical Preparations, according to your Method, not as we do, at random. That ye knowing the ill qualities and properties of them, and how hazardous they are, do upon a pinch fly to them, having made use of first other safe Medicines.  
These are fair pretences of truth we confess, but if we search narrowly to the bottom, we shall easily discover them to be mere delusions. As to the first which ye glory in, your Laboratory, we answer, 'Tis not the Laboratory or specious Furnaces that simply makes the Spagyrical Physician, no more than a vast Library of itself will make a learned Scholar. Is there any more in this then a mere pomp and vanity, to have multiplicity of Instruments, and not be able to make use of them according to the true principles of Art. For we dare aver it, that that man that is an enemy to the Doctrine of Helmont, cannot possibly arrive to be a true Chemical Philosopher. He may indeed be like one, as the Ape is said to be like a man, and therefore most deformed; Simia quòd similis turpissima bestia nobis, etc. Do ye think ever to attain to this difficult Knowledge by virtue of your Master Galens Rules, who never saw Quicksilver or Rose water? whom incomparable Helmont hath made appear altogether blind in the true Fundamentals of Nature, not knowing aright the Quiddity or Essence of a Disease, the Cause, the immediate Subject, or place thereof, nor the direct and perfect Cure of it.  
Be not deceived, for it is no such easy matter, as ye would make the world believe, to become a Philosopher by the Fire: lay aside therefore your dearly beloved Galen, who hath made you so rich by the ruin of others, and study Helmont night and day; and when ye have attained some of his Theory, then buy (as he advises) Coals and Glasses. By this means we doubt not but ye will become sound Physicians, if otherwise never.  
To what you allege concerning your use of Chemical Medicines, we may safely, say, it had been happy for the credit of this Art, if none had ever come into your fingers, or been prescribed by you; having so perverted the use of them, partly through adulterate and sophisticate Preparations, proceeding from ignorance, supine negligence, or covetousness; partly through your dogmatical Method, prescribing them unseasonably, when ye have suffered Nature to be worried by a Disease, and thrown flat on its back; and exhausted it by cruel Phlebotomy, poisonous Purgations, Blistering, Scarifications, etc. upon this ye take occasion to malign, slight, and vilify those Chemical Medicines, which ye either never had good, or never knew how to use. Yet thus much we have observed, when a Patient finds any benefit, 'tis for the most part by virtue of some Chemical Medicine which ye mix (as ye usually do) with your trumpery, merely to disguise the matter, lest too much respect should be attributed to a Medicament which ye have borrowed from your Adversaries.  
Moreover, let any indifferent man judge, whether it be not a part of the most odious Ingratitude that can possible be devised, for these men to scoff at, to rail against, to calumniate and backbite them, from whom they have received the best means they enjoy to cure their Patients; without which they had been before now exploded and thrust off the stage of the World with disgrace.   

CHAP. IX. An Answer to some Objections laid to our charge by the Galenists.  
OUr Adversaries object to us, that many ignorant Empirics make use of Chemical Preparations, to the destruction of many credulous persons: posting themselves up in every corner of the Street, proclaiming themselves to be possessors of great Arcana's, even to Panacaea's, whereby they profess they can work wonders, and cure a Catalogue of Diseases which the Galenists count incurable; but being brought to the touchstone of sound experience, they are found to be mere Impostors, empty of all sound knowledge, no whit able to perform any thing proportionable to their promises.  
Moreover, they urge that our Chemical Authors are Hyperbolical, or excessive in the praises of their Medicamen, extolling them beyond the activity of the things themselves; and that they frequently set down false Processes, which when a young beginner first puts to a trial, according to his Author's description, he is disappointed and discouraged in limine, even in the first essay or onset, which is enough to make us censure you Stentors and vain boasters. This we confess ingeniously is not to be denied in part, and we could wish it otherwise; but 'tis the fate of the best things to be corrupted, and 'tis an ill Argumentation to conclude any thing to be evil, because some have abused it. For our parts, we utterly disown and renounce these men's actions, condemning their ignorance as severely as ye can, desiring they might be suppressed, and chastised according to their demerits. Yet thus much we can say for some of them, that having got some trivial Chemical Medicines perchance from your Apothecary, neglecting your Method, (which many times ties you up so fast, that ye want liberty to use some laudable Medicines for your Patient's recovery) they have performed some eminent cures to your disgrace and their own applause; which hath made some admire your great imbecility herein, to the dishonour of Learning. We know a Chemist that desires no more Practice in Physic to get a competent living by, than those Patients to whom ye cannot make a promise of a Cure after two or three month's time, whom he would undertake to resolve in less than a month. And assuredly to any discreet man this is proof enough, how erroneous ye are in that which chiefly concerns the life of man. For our parts we should think it very strange, and be infinitely ashamed, if any Patient should be cured by the Galenists, whom we have given over, which (we are sure) ye on the contrary part cannot make good.  
As touching Chemical Authors, that set you not in express terms the right way to make some Medicines, and likewise prise some more than they deserve, for these we Apologise not: But by your favour, we conceive that many times the error lieth in you, who want true Chemical Rudiments, and not in them who think it not wisdom (seeing the unhappy success thereof) to set down all things so plain, that an Apothecary's boy may understand them. For believe it, if ye had those Philosophical Principles which Helmont hath delivered to the world, these trivial Authors could not so easily deceive you: In him we are sure ye will find sound Doctrine, and demonstrable, by which we doubt not to confute your false Theorems and Axioms in Philosophy. We plead not for any that magnify any Preparations beyond what they deserve, it is enough if we engage ourselves no further with you, than wherein the things themselves shall justify us.   

CHAP. X. An Expostulation why the Dogmatists will not come to the touchstone of true Experience.  
WHy halt ye thus between two opinions, and will not come fairly and candidly to give the World an assurance of your sound Practice, which concerns their Lives and Souls, but still equivocate, playing fast and loose, tergiversating, wrangling, and quarrelling about Punctilios in Physic, assuming to yourselves a strange Heteroclite or Hermophraditical name, as Galeno-Chymists, invented by your brains to blind the world; a name altogether inconsistent with a true Physician, who may very well be expressed by two syllables.  
Why hath not your Sect yielded formerly to helmont's fair Proposal, while he was alive, that there might be a final conclusion of these Controversies by matter of fact? (indifferent judges appointed on both sides to give their censure) Why do ye not accept of the same at this day, if ye were not conscious to yourselves of your own weakness? What poor shifts and startingholes have ye found out, what pitiful fig-leaves have ye joined together to cover your nakedness, and to wave this fair, necessary, and most evincing way, to discover Truth by Action? Contrary to which, all your Sophistical Disputes, your Paralogismes, your Quirks, your Tricks and plausible Juggles signify nothing; no nor your great Scholarship, not rightly squared and applied to the use and benefit of mankind, and the charity of your neighbour. Let not therefore any Physignathus, inflatus scientia, supercilious Critic, chattering Linguist, or one that knows how to dispute Problematically and Artificially to deceive his Brother; let not such (we say) who professes and practices Physic, being grossly ignorant of the right knowledge of things, for the commodity and use of the world, boast or vaunt of his glittering endowments in this kind: but let him rather lay his hand upon his heart, and considering his own emptiness, reflect upon himself, how he hath deceived and been deceived; and at length let him, though a Senior, (for it is never too late to repent sincerely, and be wise to salvation) embrace the sound Doctrine of Helmont, who will teach him to save men's Lives as he ought.  
If any be so ingenious to say, I have done what I can, and I know no other way then Bleeding, ordinary Purging, and Sweeting Medicines, and doubt whether there be a better, and would willingly learn; we shall undertake to demonstrate to this man, that which will be very satisfactory to him, and question not to convince him, if he be not notoriously obstinate of his mistakes in this kind.   

CHAP. XI. How much to seek the Galenists are in that necessary Philosophy which directs us to the Cure of Diseases.  
NEeds must the Galenist err in the cure of Diseases, when they are very ignorant of their Causes. Their very Fundamentals and Principles in natural Philosophy being false, as Helmont hath plainly made it appear. What an absurdity is it to take in Fire, which is neither a Substance nor an Accident, to make up the four Elements, and to fetch it from the highest Region, next the Moon, that it might enter into all Concretes: and from these Quaternary Elements to deduce their four Humours, Complexions, and Temperaments, and accordingly to proceed in the Cure of man; bending all their forces to remove Qualities, Accidents, and Products of Diseases, leaving the Disease itself behind?  
What an erroneous Definition have they made of a Fever, and therefore it is no wonder if they go unsuccessfully about the Cure; as if there were no more to be done but to take an Indication from preternatural Heat, and so to cool in the same degree, for the restauration of the Patient to his former sanity; making that essential to a Fever which is but a mere product, depending upon the exorbitancy of the Archaeus, or vital Spirits?  
What error can be more gross then to maintain, that the natural Heat of the Stomach, by means of the parts adjacent, is able to alter what is taken into it so powerfully, that in a short time even such hard Bodies, as Bones, Iron, and Glass, are dissolved in it, which the Culinary Fire cannot easily conquer; taking no notice that the Stomach of Fishes are actually cold, and yet digest most vigorously. Surely 'tis very improbable that these men should rectify the indigestion and defects of the Stomach, that know not how it performs its office aright. Hence it comes to pass, that they often destroy by their feculent Medicines the eucrasy or Tone of that part which ought to be taken into care above any in the whole Body.  
Analogous to Fire, they have brought in an Humour called Choler, part whereof they say is gathered into a Receptacle of a Bladder, which overflowing and exceeding (they affirm) causes the Jaundice, and many other Diseases depending upon that Humour; reckoning that an Excrement (to be purged out with Rhubarb) that is of most noble use, which no perfect Creature can want, neither Beasts, Fowl, or Fish; ordained by God as a special Balsam, to preserve the Body from putrefaction; by virtue of which the second Digestion is performed, the Acide juice of the Stomach being converted into a Saline. Their ignorance herein hath produced many capital Errors in Physic, which would be too tedious to insist upon.  
From the Element of Earth they have deduced another Humour called Melancholy, which they have placed in the Spleen, reputing it a part destinated for that purpose; never dreaming till Helmont divulged it, that in it and the continuate Arteries, is resident a ferment of most admirable use for the Digestion of the the Stomach, which being interrupted through multiplicity of occasional Causes, engender various Diseases; as, Scurvy, Pleurisy, quartans, etc. which they neither know how to cure, nor by their good wills would suffer others.  
What a miserable Error is it in Philosophy to assert, that the Stone in the Kidneys and Bladder is engendered from Phlegm, (which they say symbolizes with the Element of Water) which Humour by power of a graduated Heat (but where to be found in the Body we know not) is brought to that stony consistence; which how to break they are altogether unwitting, unless by the knife.  
It hath been a common practice to keep their Patients some months to Diet-drinks of Guaiacum, Sarzaparilla, Sassafras, out of an intent of drying up superfluous moisture, and imaginary Catarrhs in the Body; as if one of their strong Purges would not more effectually answer that Indication in one day, better than their former course in a month. These things Helmont hath plainly showed to be ridiculous.  
Who in his right wits will take these men to be found Philosophers, that attribute the cause of extreme thirst in a Fever simply to Heat and Drought; whereas at the same time a great quantity of cool liquor floats in the Stomach, to some pints perhaps.  
They see Hydropic persons abound with great quantity of moisture all over the body, and yet cannot be provoked to sweat; however they never gave us any clear Reason thereof till Helmont appeared.  
Infinite have been their mistakes in Nature, and false Hypotheses, to the detriment of man's life, which are sufficiently laid open by that great Philosopher Helmont. And therefore having given you a little glimpse of these things, that ye may conceive ex ungue leonem, we shall refer you to know more of that worthy Author, who hath delineated and characterized them exactly; from whom we acknowledge to have received most part of our Instructions.   

CHAP. XII. Of the two grand Supporters of the Galenical Physic, Phlebotomy and Purgation.  
DId the World rightly understand what destruction of mankind hath been made by this Sanguinary way of curing Diseases in all Ages, since this prodigal emission of Blood came first in use, (suggested without all doubt by that sworn Enemy to mankind the Devil) it would (being enraged) utterly abominate any such Physician, or such a pretended remedy.  
How happy may those Nations be reputed in this particular, (witness their Longaevity and Sanity above ours) whom Nature hath so well instructed, as not to part with this precious treasure of Life, unless against their wills through some violent separation of the connexed parts. And certainly were we but governed by Nature, which intends all things for its own preservation, and never errs therein, unless interrupted or put by its scope through some transverse contingent, we would by no means admit of this Bloody course for a Cure; being sufficiently convinced, that this Solar Balsam the pure Blood, called by the Latins (to distinguish it from Cruor) Sanguis, the very Stamen and Subtegmen, the subject and material foundation of Life, is never exterminated or cast out of the Body by Nature, unless extimulated through some exasperating and hostile matter that is gotten into it. And indeed to let out promiscuously Sanguis and Cruor, good and bad together, which is unavoidable, for qua data porta ruunt, is equally absurd, as to cut off part of the fleshy substance of the Finger, that the Splinter or Thorn therein fastened may be removed; or to suffer generous Wine to run out, that some distasteful and fracedinous odour contracted from the Vessel may be taken off; or that the Ebullition or Effervescence thereof, proceeding from the impetuous Spirits, endeavouring a segregation of impurities in it, may be assuaged: whereas it is more consonant to reason, to pick the Thorn out of the finger, to impregnate the Wine and Vessel with some odoriferous fume or liquor, that it may become fragrant and pleasing in smell; likewise to take down the fermentation of the fretting acide Atoms thereof by some artificial means, that is able to lenify and appease the Spirits, and settle all quiet.  
Doubtless the same may be accomplished in man's Blood, (when at any time through some preternatural occasion it becomes tumultuous, exorbitant, and degenerate from its genuine goodness) by ridding it of that pungitive acidity and cadaverous foulness, which makes it disturbed and restless as long as it remains in it; for omne vivens mortui impatiens esse solet.  
And this we are certain an able Physician can effect, being admitted while there is a competent strength, which we are always most careful to preserve and augment, contrary to the tenor of your Practice. For so soon as we have discharged the first and second Digestions, of what did burden and clog them, we either exhibit some potent Arcanum, which upon its first entertainment into the Stomach, doth either pacify the fury of the vital Spirit, or by its illuminating beams doth disperse the black Atoms that obnubilate the same Spirit, that it cannot act for the good of the whole: Or we give some Volatile Alkali, enriched with the specific Virtues of fit Concretes, capable to be circulated with the Blood into all parts of the Body, being allied to the foresaid Spirit, and symbolising with it.  
These are powerful in Opening, Cleansing, Expectorating, Volatilizing any congealed Blood, invigorating the natural, and correcting the preternatural Ferment; extinguishing the acidity of the Latex in the Blood, dissolving Scirrous and Tartareous-like matter, with which sometimes the Veins, Arteries, and other parts of Body are as it were parietted. These are Diuretic, Diaphoretic, and Antimalignant mortifying Erysipela's, breaking and profligating Vomica's, or any Abscesses in the Body; and this we can engage ourselves to perform, without any notable diminution of the strength, or fear of recidivation, or any dangerous lapse into some Chronic Disease, which the Phlebotomists dares not promise with any security: for it often happens that the Patient is sent Piece-meal to his grave, being (as it were) grated into his first Elements, because his Disease was never rightly managed in the beginning.  
Now the greatest Plea the Galenists have for Blood-letting, is taken from Plethora sanguinis, an extraordinary fullness of Blood quoad vasa, or quoad vires, as they call it; that is, when the Vessels are over-filled, or the strength oppressed with too great redundance of Blood; and here they speak equivocally, leaving us to seek what Blood they mean, either that which is properly named Sanguis, the most pure sincere, and sublimest juice in our Body, in which the Soul is chiefly seated, or that crude (lately rubefied liquor called) Cruor, oftentimes abounding with superfluities and recrements: If they take their Indication of Bleeding from the first, we can confidently upon sound Arguments deduced from some experimental Demonstrations (which we would set down at large, if succinctness which we aim at did permit) assert, that there is no such thing really existent in the Body of man; for never had any man too much of that most vital Balsam called Sanguis, the increase or diminution of which, shortens or prolongs our days; for could there be every way a plenary, absolute, and continuate reparation of the same, our Lives would be protracted to an exceeding great length beyond what they are. This therefore is by no means to be exhausted or squandered away upon trivial occasions, at the unreasonable and arbitrary commands of a desperate Galenist, but to be precisely preserved and hoarded up, as the only Treasure and Stock of Life.  
Well, if they take their Indication to Bleed from fullness of the last called Cruor, then sith this consists of partly excrementitious matter, and partly wholesome juice, disposed, and in a fair way to be made Sanguis by long Circulation, they must necessarily by opening a Vein, let out without any election, the laudable as well as the depraved parts in the Cruor, and its inseparable companion the Sanguis, and all to satisfy one supposed palliating Scope (of little moment in comparison of the rest) an inanition of that which errs in quanto, which being attained, produces more hurt then profit any way; and might easily have been corrected by Diaphoreticks, and those proper Medicines that respect a Quale in the Blood, and cause a free Diapnoe thereof; consuming insensibly (according to Sanctorius his Statica) no small quantity of our Substance in four and twenty hours, sufficient in a very short space with Abstinence joined thereto, to take down any Athletic habit of the Body▪ so that the principal Indication in this case ought to be taken from cacochymy, which frequently infests us to our destruction, and that imaginary and insignificant plenitude to be neglected.  
There is we confess something to be said for the defence of immediate derivation of some degenerate Blood, impacted any where, as when in a Phlegmon the Vein contiguous to the part affected is opened, that the feculent: Blood contained therein, oppressing it, may be directly and moderately discharged, that thereby the residue may be more difflable and easy to be discussed: Likewise, when there is some muddy foul Cruor restagnant about the Spleen and Womb, threatening an Abscess or some other malady, etc. in this condition the Opening the inward Haemorrhoides or Uterine Veins may sometime profit, without damage to the whole; supposed the Physician be destitute of those generous Arcana's, that are able without any solution of continuity, to reach the part affected, and to conquer the Disease radically, by mundifying the Blood, and by ridding it of that Thorny, Vexatious, and Virulent acidity of the Latex that oftentimes gets into it.  
All this seriously weighed, who would not avoid this Bloodsucking course, and rather commit himself to such a Physician, who, not as a mere illiterate Empiric or Quacksalver, ventures his Medicine at random, without any sound reason or intellectual notion of what, wherefore, when, and how much of it he gives; but being throughly acquainted with the Diagnôsis of the Disease, is able upon very firm grounds to make a Prognôsis of it, and so to proceed to a Therapeia, according to just, necessary, and direct Indications, accurately designing an Adaptation, Appropriation, and Adaequation of the Remedy to the Disease.  
Away then with this detestable lavish Phlebotomy, that hath destroyed more than Tobacco or the Sword together, may it be banished the Court, City, and Country, nor ever be depended upon hereafter in this Island, or any of His Majesty's Territories, for the cure of any difficult Disease; but let it be confined and inflicted as a feral Plague upon all those that delight in Blood, and hate our Gracious Sovereign, and all his loyal Subjects.   

CHAP. XIII. Of the second Supporter, fruitless Purgation.  
'tIs not without great reason that excellent Hypocrates mentions one Aphorism no less than four several times, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, If that be carried out of the Body by Purgation that ought to be, the sick man finds himself the better for it, and his spirits more cheerful, and better able to bear his Disease; as if he had foreseen the great mischief that was like to come upon indiscreet Evacuation, with deletery cathartics, which putrefy and colliquate the lately tinged Chymus into a faetide and cadaverous substance; whereby some juggling Physicians take opportunity to impose upon their credulous Patients, that they are in a fair way of recovery, (though they find it otherwise) sith so many ill Humours, as Choler, Phlegm, etc. are purged out of their Bodies, whereas in very truth not a jot of the morbific Cause hath been so much as touched.  
We have a History to confirm this out of Helmont, & experto credamus, for the worthy Author tells us, that taking his leave of a young Lady, holding her by the hand he caught the Itch; whereupon he sent for two of the most eminent Galenical Physicians in that City, to consult with for the cure of it: who, upon the sight of a Purulent Scab presently delivered their opinions, That there was abundance of Adust Choler and Salt Phlegm in his Body, which occasioned a depraved Sanguification in his Liver. Upon this account, after they had largely bled him, and prepared the Humour (forsooth) with their fulsome and nauseous Apozemes, containing about fifty Ingredients, with addition of Agarick, Rhubarb, every fourth or fifth morning, to the end that this supposed retorrid Choler and Salt Phlegm might be drawn forth, according to that innate similitude of Substance, that they would fain make us believe is between the Purgative and the Humour; and at length they gave him those virulent Pills de Fumaria every third day three times, which wrought so liberally, that they almost filled two buckets with the foresaid Humours: But hear with what event in his own words, jam venae mihi exhaustae erant: Genae conciderant, vox rauca, totus corporis habitus concidens tabuerat: descensus quoque è cubiculo atque gressus erant difficiles, quia genua me vix sustinebant. That is, Thus at length were my Veins emptied, my Cheeks fallen away, and I could hardly speak for hoarseness; my whole Body was wasted, so that I could hardly get down out of my Chamber, it being most tedious to me to stir, for my Legs were scarce able to bear me up; yea, my Stomach failed, that I had neither Appetite nor Digestion: and withal my Itch was as bad as ever.  
Thus was this great Philosopher (who at first, setting aside this Cutaneous infection, was found Wind and Limb as we say) brought almost to the gates of Death by this enormous Purgation, who without doubt might have been cured very suddenly, if that true peccant matter, which is the principal occasional cause of Diseases, and is but little in quantity, had been carried off by some appropriate Solutive, and the Miasma which stole in through the pores of the Skin, and there settled in the innate Archaeus, had been mortified; which course Helmont at last took for his recovery, after he had been macerated, and excarnified by a Hypercatharsis, always accompanied with a Dysphoria and ill effect.  
This remarkable Story of Helmont (the same being reacted many thousand times since) may give men a strict Caveat how they put their Lives into the hands of such desperate, perfidious Evacuators, who cast men into Purgatory, and yet never expiate the Disease, Assuredly those Physicians that exterminate out of the Body good and bad at random, the Cruor or good Juice, and the Scoria or Dross, with such uncorrected cathartics, that are no better then absolute poison, leaving sometimes an impression behind hardly deleble; seldom giving any alleviation, unless (as clavus clavum expellit) per accidens, may be very well compared to a mad person, that in cleansing a foul house, casteth out with the filth some of the most useful Furniture belonging to it. And yet what is more commonly practised amongst the Galenists, who being consulted, do upon the bare inspection of the Urine, frequently and rashly prescribe Bleeding and Purging; the last whereof being best of the two, though bad enough as they order the matter, doth generally more mischief then good.  
We speak not this utterly to condemn some moderate Evacuations, both by Vomit and Stool, sith we ourselves oftentimes intent the same and make it our Scope; but we never give them so uncorrected as they, to the injury and impairing of Nature: but they are such that are always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, consentient and competent Remedies for the profligatiag the Disease, leaving behind an Euphoria, an alacrity of the Patient, and an abatement of the Infirmity according to his capacity.  
Neither do we depend upon Solutives simply, as sufficient to cure any difficult Disease, but having often that most excellent Rule of Hypocrates in our thoughts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, to carry the Morbific matter that way Nature is most inclined to send it our, supposed the passage be commodious. We never give any Purgative Medicine, but the same is Diaphoretic, Diuretic, and Expectorative: For whereas your cathartics are often pernicious in malignant Fevers, as the Pest, Small Pox, Spotted Fever, and the like, so that the Archaeus being distracted upon the admission of such an unwelcome guest, leaves the propulsion of the malignant matter, and bends all her forces to conflict with the late received poison, whereby it comes to pass that the venom of the Disease, which before tended to the Peripheriae, or outwards parts of the Body, hastens forthwith to the Centre, and there fixes upon some of the noble Viscera, We on the contrary can safely exhibit, in any of the foresaid Diseases, some Medicament that may rid the first Region either upward or downward of trash and trumpery, which encumbers it there; and at the same time both kill and drive out the Venom to the extreme parts, and grand Emunctory of the whole Body the Skin: questionless he that omits this last principal intention, shall seldom cure any Fever, or any other Malady as he ought. And indeed it is most happy for us that what Hypocrates faith is most true; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, That is, our whole Body is porous and transmeable, especially our Skin: for did we not freely breathe out those hurtful Atoms, that are engendered within, and likewise insinuate into us from without, we should perpetually be obnoxious to Fevers, and other horrid Diseases, that would quickly destroy the World; for never did any one recover of a Fever, but by Transpiration either sensible or insensible; which ought especially to be regarded by all legitimate Physicians, that they may labour vigorously with their own hands to have in readiness such noble Arcana's, that may reach the sixth Digestion, and there join with the Archaeus, to extinguish any malignity, to difflate and dissipate the gross Peritomata, and virulent Excrements therein contained. He that is ignorant herein, may as well presume to cure the stinging of a Scorpion, the biting of a Viper, or Tarantula, by Purgatives, as with any assurance to heal most Infirmities that are predominant among us at this day. For very many Diseases have in them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Hypocrates, something of a more spiritual and invisible Nature, then to be carried off by gross Purgatives.  
Hath not the Apoplexy (that destroys a man in the twinkling of an eye) something in it like the poison of a Basilisk? Is there not in the Palsy something of the stupefying Nature of the Fish Torpedo? Have not some Plagues destroyed men suddenly like some Mephitical or pernicious Damps, arising in the subterranean and deep caverns of the Earth, which happens to those that dig in mines? Questionless the Letharigie arises from a poison analogous to Opium or Hyoscyamus. The Itch may be compared to the venom of Cowich, The Spots in Fever and the Scurvy, to the biting of Fleas. The small Pox to some virulent Epispastick; and the Measles to Nettles or Gnats.  
There is sometimes engendered in our Bodies an nitrosulphurous matter, that may be compared to Gunpowder, which puts us as it were into a flame, and would quickly shatter us in pieces like a Granado, were there not free vent for its expiration through the pores of the skin. In a Gangrene, the part is mortified as if some potential Cautery were applied to it. What a strange poison is there in the Rickets, that often makes an Exostosis, and bends the Bones of Children like a bow? But most prodigious is that poison in Plica Polonica, that in one night doth so complicate and contort the Hair, that all the art of man cannot untangle and unsnatle it; which if you attempt to cut off with a pair of Sciffers, a large haemorrhagy or flux of Blood presently follows, to the hazard or ruin of life.  
Many more Diseases in this Microcosm might be instanced, that do manifestly express a poisonous Nature of affinity with those in the Macrocosm; but this may suffice to convince those men of most palpable ignorance, that think the common course of Scouring the Body with ordinary and deletery Laxatives, is sufficient to cure most Diseases that consist of so subtle and almost immaterial substance. It is as possible to hinder the Magnetic Operation of the Loadstone upon Iron, by the interposition of a piece of Lawn, as to be able to cure the foresaid Diseases by feculent colliquating cathartics. Certainly that cannot be an appropriate and adequate Remedy, that is not in some degree proportionable to the Disease, as it is more or less graduated and sublimed in its activity: For let us take into our contemplation, what an inconsiderable thing in bulk is able from without to discompose, and disorder the whole frame of our Bodies, turning them as it were topsie turvie turvy in a trice.  
In what a minute subject matter doth the poison of a mad Dog, a Viper, a Tarantula reside? of what little moment is it in bulk to our eye, and yet how admirable are their effects to our speculations? Sith than Venom's no whit inferior to the forementioned, are oftentimes produced in our Bodies, being exalted to that degree of malignity, that they sometimes destroy us solo intuitu et radio, how solicitous and sedulous should we be to inquire after such Antidotes, which the great Creator hath ordained, equivalent to their poisons; that may be able with as much celerity and vigour to preserve and restore us, as the other to pessundate and destroy us.  
This undoubtedly might be compassed by industrious and learned labourers in Chemistry, did not these obstinate Galenists (who always stick in the mire of their stercoreous Purgatives, as, Scammony, Colocynthis, Agarick, and Rhubarb, utterly to be sequestered from the Body of man so unprepared, (as is evident through their whole Dispensatory) and never to be made use of so crude and hostile to Nature by any Son of Art) discourage and disparage us, and take off the hearts of Princes from favouring us, by falsely traducing this Honourable Science, and the Professors thereof.   

CHAP. XIV. Of that fictitious Rule of Contraries, by which the Dogmatists are guided in the cure of Diseases.  
THat Sentence, Contrariorum contraria sunt Remedia, is generally taken up by the Galenists as a certain Rule, by which they presume to abate or remove most Maladies; but with what little success, and what little verity there is in it, may easily be obvious to any intelligent Observer, that hath but seen a Fever directly cured. What destruction hath been made of mankind by this one Position, to which they have adhered most superstitiously, (though altogether false, having, as Helmont hath proved, no absolute being in Nature) is unspeakable. How many Orphans and Widows have reason to brand with a Curse this one Sentence, whose Parents and Husbands might have survived many years, had not their Physicians taken a contrary course to cure them, and thereby sent them packing to the Grave? Some of us could relate notable storries not long ago acted by them in this kind, which for brevity sake we shall now omit. For the first thing they usually declaim against in a Fever (when they have got a Patient in a hopeful way of recovery out of our hands, by their insinuating close ways) is, that our Medicines (if they find that they be spirituous, active, and strike upon the Nostrils any whit strongly, or affect the Tongue by their Leptomerie and subtle penetrative Atoms) are too hot (forsooth) for the Disease, and endanger the inflammation of the Blood, causing thirst, etc. whereupon, having by their smooth eloquence possessed the Patient with a dislike of such Remedies, they presently fall upon (according to the foresaid Maxim) the prescribing of cooling Juleps, P●isans, Emulsions, Decoctions saturated with crude Herbs, uncorrected juice of Poppy, and the like, hardly allowing them a draught of small Beer, but by no means any Wine; whereby it comes to pass that the Tone and Ferment of the Stomach is subverted, Transpiration hindered, the Malignity detained, the Blood made restagnant, the Vital Spirits depauperated, losing their activity and force, becoming torpid and careless to preserve themselves, and the Morbific matter more tenaceous; and at length perhaps the sick Man rid of his Disease, and laid cooling in the Churchyard.  
Were it not far better to trust in a Fever to a Pepper or Mustard Posset, a Decoction of Carduus Benedictus, Aron, and Horse-raddish-roots, that quicken the Archaeus, strengthen the Stomach, rarifying and cleansing away the febrile, gross, viscous matter by Urine and Sweat, then to such dull, destructive, and mortifying juleps of the Galenists, given according to the pernicious Rule of Contraries? How do these men neglect the saying of Hypocrates, Naturae (that is the vital Spirits principally) sunt morborum medicatrices, when they will not support and invigorate them with a little Spirit of Wine, (with which they symbolise above any thing) because it conspires with the Fever, and so too hot; not considering those qualities of Heat and Cold are but Products and Consequents of the Disease, which being removed, there presently follows a cessation of them in an instant: so that it matters not whether the Medicine be Hot or Cold, so it eradicate the Malady, which irritates and exasperates the Archaeus, that it is impatient till it have shut out such an unwelcome guest; and according as it makes several Assaults and Onsets upon the occasional Matter, so it varies in those momentary and transient qualities of Heat and Cold in the extreme parts; which are but insignificant in comparision of that which is primarily to be looked after, the enabling and advancing the enormontick power of the vital Spirits, to profligate the Disease; which can be done no better way than by spirituous Liquors, which whosoever denieth moderately and seasonably, for fear of some small inconvenience, which the violation of the Maxim of Contrariety may induce, may very well be reputed a pitiful ignorant Physician. For we are able to make it appear optically, that Wine (as it may be ordered in the hands of an Artist) is able to conquer many very acute Fevers, even that they call a Causus.  
The same reason they observe for the curing of Diarrhaea's, Lienteria's, Gonorrhaea's, Vomitings and Hemorrhages, making use of Astringents and Corroboratives, that may diametrically answer the Laxity and weakness of the parts, whereby they many times constipate in the Body, and as it were wedge in that which Nature went about to extricate; whereas any but a daubing and palliating Physician, would aim at the extirpation of the original Cause of these Effects; which being once expedited, all the Products, Symptoms, Phoenomena, and Epigenomena cease immediately. But to be short, for I must but touch upon these things, 'tis no wonder and these men take a contrary way to heal Infirmities, sith they have always been and still continue so contrary and opposite to the most sound Pyrotechnical Philosophy, stiffly holding fast their opinions (we fear) with one of their great ones, who swore in another case, se nolle persuaderi etiamsi aliquis persuaserit: That he was resolved not to be convinced that he was in an Error.   

CHAP. XV. A brief Examination of their Pharmacopoea.  
WHat invalidity and impotence to heal Infirmities there is in their Preparations in general, set down in the Pharmacopoea Londinensis, as a pattern and rule for all their Servants to follow, is obvious to any one that hath made a considerable progress in the Theory and Practice of Physic, so that he be not prejudicated and carried away by sinister respects. It would require a long time to scan and set down at large those Nonsensical, Ridiculous, Improper, and Languid Medicaments they have ordained for the help of man: We shall only compendiously give you a Glance of some of them. We find throughout their whole Dispensatory these remarkable Errors inseparable and common to all their Preparations.  
First, we observe a great Defect in the Analysis, or opening the body of any Concrete, that its Crasis or purer part may be obtained; so that what they give is very little of its Virtue, separated by halves, or drowned and swallowed up with the Scoria, Faeces, and Excrement of the whole; so that it is impossible it should explicate its activity as it ought.  
Secondly, we observe what a Congeries, Cento, Linsey Wolsey of Simples they jumble and clutter together, to some scores, without any reasonable symbolising contexture or congruity, looking more ways at once, then ever Argus his eyes, but still from the principal mark; clashing, conflicting, and at greater hostility with each other, then ever their supposed contrary Elements; whereby they castrate and rob many a single Ingredient (by this confused hotchpotch) of its eminent Properties, which being duly prepared and applied, would do a Physicians business.  
Thirdly, we cannot but especially take notice and condole the ineffectual, frivolous, and vain Corrections of those virulent and poisonous Concretes, which they take into many of their Compositions, thinking it enough to add to them a little Aniseed, Ginger, Cinnamon, or some Gum, with the like, only to disguise and palliate, no whit to mitigate the violent Powers of those things that are of themselves destructive to our Nature.  
'Tis strange they should be so wilfully ignorant, in making no scruple of prescribing ten or twelve grains of Scammony, and little less of Colocynthis, manifest poisons so uncorrected, and yet startle at, and are very nice to give four or five grains of Antimonium Diaphoret. whose supereminent Purgative operation is taken off by virtue of a Spirituous Salt that purifies and fixes it in the Fire. But 'tis the custom of these Polypragmones to busy themselves about impertinencies, and to neglect matters of greatest weight, stumbling at a straw and leaping over a block, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, superstitiously precise in the regulation of the Patient's Diet, over punctual in the contrivances of Slibber-sauces, and withal to offer him pestilent and lethiferous Medicaments, which they are not at all solicitous to correct. If such be not ignorant in their Art, we would willingly be informed who are? that neither know how to make a good Medicine, nor how to order it in every respect when they have it, as we can make evident.  
It cannot be denied but that the best of the Remedies in the Dispensatory are Chemical, for which they are beholden to us, and these (we assure you) are of the lowest Tribe and meanest trivial sort in comparison; neither are these free from being sophisticated through inadvertency of some, and covetousness of others, nor are they at the best such as they might be exalted to in the hands of an Artist. We shall instance in some few that are frequently used: Who, but such as are supine, and indifferent whether they kill or cure, would suffer the flowers of Brimstone to be so slightly prepared, that we can see little difference between it and the vulgar finely powdered? whereas if it be Pyrotechnical handled, four or five grains sublimed shall effect more good than a dram of the ordinary.  
The most usual, safe, and best Vomit (in their account) is borrowed from Antimony, called Infusio Croci Metallorum, and yet this acts but uncertainly in the carrying off the morbific matter; for wanting its due alteration and correction, it causes sometimes no small discommodity in malignant Fevers; moreover, their Method will not suffer them to use it aright; not knowing when, how often, nor to whom it may be given with any confidence, that an Euphoria or alleviation may follow: and the reason of their hesitation therein, is their often being frustrated in their intention, and some sad consequences that have come upon it.  
They have taken into their Shops another Vomit called Mercurius vitae, which we wonder they would ever venture to admit into a Catalogue of their safe Medicines, with a— etc. sith they always heretofore railed at it, and are not yet absolutely reconciled, calling it Mercurius mortis: Some of them having had ill fortune with it, because their shallow wits understand not the right process, the just dose, management, and use of it, which a Mountebank or Quacksalver is better acquainted with (to their disgrace) than they; for by virtue of this common Vomiting Powder, many an illiterate Empirick hath gained no small reputation in conquering those stubborn Effects which baffled them, and were believed incurable. Now (setting aside the abuse of the thing) if Mercurius vitae meanly prepared, and extravagantly given by Idiots, be able to do such rare feats in Physic, what think ye might be done by it if graduated, exalted, and perfected in the hand of a learned well experienced Chemist, that utterly renounces the Galenical Method?  
In Fevers and Agues they cannot but confess that they are much obliged to us for the discovery of Oil of Vitriol, which doth them the best service therein of any one thing they possess, for the extinction of the thirst, and allaying the Ebullition and Effervescence of the Blood; not by cooling, as they grossly imagine, but by comforting the natural ferment of the Stomach, and by correcting that Alkalizate, Exotic, and putredinous matter therein. How difficult it is to procure this Medicine legitimate (and without exceptions) from the Shops, let any Euchymist that hath laboured with his own fingers herein be judge? For as those directions they have set down for the drawing it over are very ordinary, and much inferior to the more sublime way, so likewise their use and application thereof is very suitable; for the Prescription of it is many times as absurd, and to be derided, as their ordering of four drops of the Spirit of Vitriol in the composition of Electuar. Sassaphr. consisting of two pound of Sugar and other Ingredients.  
How poor, jejune, and barren is the Preparation of Pearls and Coral with Vinegar, that doth but only superficially divide them, and as it were pulverize them into small parts or atoms, not at all penetrating them Centrally and Essentially? What dull Preparations of Mars have they set down, more becoming some Feminine Practioners than such learned Doctors?  
Mercurius sublimatus dulcis, and Praecipitatus, are now exhibited by some of them, for the Cure of knotty and stubborn Diseases, as, Lues Venerea, and the like, but after a deal add, niceness, and scrupulosity, they were loath to venture upon them, till some confident Surgeons lead them the way, and taught them a better Method than their own, to destroy these Hydra-like monstrous Diseases, that have of late sprung up among us.  
How strangely blind most of them have been in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or manual tractation of Mercury, may appear by a Galenist, who bitterly enveighing against Chemical Remedies in the presence of a Spagyrist, by whom when he was questioned, why he did then prescribe Mercurius dulcis, as appeared in one of his Prescripts upon the File, and being convinced of the truth thereof, and how it was a Mineral, protested he verily thought it had been a Vegetable, and had its original from the Herb Mercury. Hence we may learn how perfunctory and drowsy many of these Prescribers have been, and what little inspection and scrutiny they have made into that which is deservedly reputed by all Hermetical Philosophers, a miracle in Nature.  
Thus they credulously rest themselves contented, trusting to other men's Eyes and Hands in things concerning Man's Life, thinking it sufficient if they can get by rote the bare Names of some Paracelsian Medicines, though they neither know the facture of them, what they give to their Patiens, nor how much, nor when, as they ought. For did they take pains themselves, they would quickly discover that these Mercurial Sublimates and Praecipates in the Shops are very imperfect, compared with those that an Adeptus is able to produce.   

CHAP. XVI. A Cursory View of the Mineral Waters, to which the Dogmatists fly, as to a Sanctuary, in Difficult Cases.  
HAd not kind Nature provided some better means and more forcible Helps for the poor Diseased, ready to his hand, than the Galenist, he had been at a very sad pass. How many by virtue of these Mineral Wells have been restored, that have been brought to a very low ebb by Ill Physicians, having run through a long and irksome course of Physic, even to desperation?  
We are apt to believe, that those that lately endeavoured to Engross all Physical Practice into their own hands, would by their good wills likewise have prohibitted the admirable use of the Waters, unless to whom they should have prescribed them, that their Method might have gained the more credit: For we are persuaded that they looked upon the Waters with as Envious an Eye, as ever they did upon our Chemical Preparations; (although they have been forced to make use of both upon a pinch) and why? Because when all their costly Compositions could do no good, some few Draughts of a Cheap Mineral Water hath done the business. Which thing may very much plead for the rare Effect of Minerals (which they have so declaimed against formerly) were not the Dogmatists perverse beyond expression. One would think they should not so long with such Heat have contended against them as dangerous, scarce allowing them a place in the Apothecary's Shop, after so many visible Experiments of their Sanative Property, to which they have been beholden at a dead lift.  
Had they not minded their own, more than the public good, they would have observed Nature, and contrived by Art those Medicines, that might at least have equalled, if not excelled, what she was pleased liberally to afford us out of the Bowels of the Earth for our comfort.  
Who, that had not been lazy and supine, but would have found out e'er this a Succedaneum to Natural Martial Liquors, that so powerfully rectify the Spleen, and open the tough Obstructions of the Hypocondries, cleanse away any Sabulous Synagma, and gross impurities from the Kidneys, takes off the Acidity of the Serosa Colluvies, and corrects the noxious Aspect of the Womb, pacifying and amending its furious exorbitance? Were it not much for the repute of Physic, to have always in readiness (at all Seasons of the year) some such Artificial Preparations contracted into a small bulk, (proportionable to the foresaid Natural) answering the like Intentions, that thereby the Patient might save the labour of a long journey, and the Excessive Sumption of crude Water to his prejudice sometimes?  
What cannot a good Menstruum friendly to Nature, free from Corrosion, do in this kind? that is able to reserate those secret Active Virtues that are fast locked up in Metals, and bring them to light. By this means the Primum Ens of Minerals may be discovered, and their Sulphurs extracted, which are able to perform wonderful Cures in the hand of an Adeptus.  
If the Esurine Salt of Sulphur Embryonate lightly touching a Vein of Iron or Copper, and therewith imbued, is able to exert and express such powerful Efficacy in Healing within and without; ought not this to excite any industrious man to follow the footsteps of Nature, to observe the beginning and progress of her Motions and clandestine Working in the innermost parts of the Earth; and accordingly to imitate her in dissolving either of the foresaid Metals, by an Appropriate Saline Liquor, that is able to penetrate them Centrally. If ye took pains herein as ye ought, many a calamitous Disease might be overcome in the beginning, which through delay and procrastination becomes incurable, before the Patient arrives at the Mineral Waters.  
It was not without Reason that a famous Empirick did cause an Esurine Water every other day to be fetched fresh, which he made use of as the best Liquor to receive and convey the Virtues of Concretes; which may be a fair precedent for you that are destitute of better Remedies.  
And sith ye will not vouchsafe to foul your own fingers about matters of so great moment concerning the Life, show yourselves so far desirous to do Righteous things, as to put in practice what Nature, or some laborious Artist, shall offer you prepared. For our parts, few of us depend upon these Mineral Fountains, having wherewithal to supply the wants of our Patients, and to procure Sanity at home: and we conceive that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, some Vinous Spirituous Liquor, a surer, safer, and more expedite means to overcome a fixed Disease, than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the pouring in a great quantity of raw Water, not without some inconvenience, as we have known, though prescribed by a most Exquisite Galenical Method.  
But the Offence in these Esurine Waters is far more Venial than the frequent Oblation of Aqueous and maukish juleps in Fevers, sine Sale, aut Sole, without either Spirit or Life; as Unsavoury and Torpid as the Authors that Dictate them, who with as much Judgement and Reason prohibit those the use of Salt, that are inclined to the Duelech, Stone, and other Troubles, which we are certain is most effectual to prevent them. Doubtless it is far better if opportunity be offered, to take a journey to the Wells, and to drink moderately of those Esurine Waters, abounding with Saline Corpuscles, then to be obliged to take the dull Drench-like Potions of the Dogmatists, more fitting for a Horse then a Man; for those being of thin parts quickly pass through, and carry with them some Peccant Matter, seldom leaving any great evil Impression behind: but these being gross and muddy put the Expulsive Faculty to much trouble to discharge them, leaving many Faeculencies and Grounds behind, and thereby debilitate the Digestion of the parts.  
Now our faithful Advice in general to such as drink these Mineral Waters, is, that they first take some proper Emeto-Cathartick, that may cleanse away any filth lurking in the Stomach, Guts, and Mesentery. Secondly, That they begin with a small quantity at first, and so rise higher by degrees, according to the capacity of the person; always taking after the Water that which may rectify its Crudity, corroborate the Ventricle, and other parts, stir up and increase the Vital Spirits, furthering the Water in its operation. Thirdly, that the Diet be very moderate, always gratifying the Appetite, offending rather in Liquid then Solid nourishment; and here generous Wine taken soberly with discretion, cannot but profit and produce many good effects.   

CHAP. XVII. A Vindication of Chemical Medicines from that false Accusation of being Dangerous.  
IT is a hard thing to strive against the stream of a vulgar Opinion at any time, but especially when countenanced and backed by men of eminent Knowledge and Fame. Nought in this case save somewhat of a Miracle, is able to undeceive those, that have obliged themselves to an implicit Obedience, and indisputable Belief of whatsoever their admired Professors shall deliver, conceiving what proceeds from their mouths must needs be Oracular. Such reverence doth some men's Authority carry with it, that they need not take pains to invent Arguments, where an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 puts the matter out of doubt. Indeed we much approve of this in Religious Matters, but can by no means allow it in Humane Arts and Sciences, which ought to have something of Demonstration to confirm the Truth of them.  
What Difficulties some of us have undergone to persuade some prepossessed against us, (that have imbibed the Exitious Precepts of the Galenists) to admit of those Chemical Remedies (which we knew would save their Lives) is well known to those that have been made sensible of their Error herein. For the very name Chemical did sound so Deadly in their ears, that many in those places (where we practised) did apprehend, that he that dealt in such Medicines had a design to destroy them; and that he was to be avoided as a Necromancer, or one that busied himself in some unlawful Art: So that if prevalent necessity had at any time forced them to take these Preparations into their Bodies, they were even sick with conceit; and we had more ado to cure their Misapprehensions and Crazy Fancies, than their Diseases. Yea, now and then all our Eloquence and best Reasons could not prevail to persuade them, that what we had given them was innocent, leaving no ill effect behind; and that they were perfectly restored without Relapse. Now their scrupulosity principally arose from this ground, (besides what the Dogmatists had infused into them) because we performed our business with quickness and dexterity, without those large Purgations which they had been formerly used to. To satisfy all these foolish and frivolous Doubts, which their great Doctors had buzzed into their ears, took up no little time and patience.  
Now, these things considered, have not the true Chemists been put to a very hard task, to conflict with a sworn Enemy the Galenist, a peevish, prejudicated, unruly weak Patient, and a predominating Disease. What, but Omnipotent Truth, could ever have brought this Despised and Exploded Art into any Estimation, that the Professors thereof should dare to look any Opposer in the face, and defy what he can openly object against it.  
Magnarum usque adeò sordent primordia rerum. The greatest things have but minute and contemptible beginnings, attaining perfection by degrees. Never was any excellent, useful Invention brought to light, inconsistent with some men's Interest, but presently there emerged malicious Zoili, or proud Emulatours, that contrived how they might strangle it in the birth, by defamation and false suggestions.  
This course the Galenists took in the Infancy of this noble Science, crying it down with all might and main, conjuring the world that they should avoid all Chemical Medicines as most dangerous; damning them all without distinction. And when they saw they could not maintain this falsity long, ere some Benevolent Patients that had found the contrary by experience, made it appear otherwise: Then missing their aim here, they inserted this Hypothesis, If they be not well Prepared; as if any Artificial thing could be innoxious if not well prepared; for even our common Food not well ordered may be dangerous to us; and a nasty Slut may poison a man, and verify the Proverb, God sends meat, and the Devil sends Cooks.  
Who that argues for Spagyrical Medicines doth not take it for granted, that they ought to be made by an Artist? Will ye never desist from diminishing the worth of a good thing, because some have abused it? Is Chemical Physic in express terms (without equivocation) any whit dangerous, unless depraved by you and some illiterate Pseudochymists? How is it likely that ye should ever make an approved Chemical, that never made a Good Galenical Remedy? Whose are most saving, and consequently safe, yours, that are either like Chip in Potrage, or else hazard the producing some mischief; or ours, that according to the capacity of the Patient (due circumstances observed) acts as infallibly for his welfare and preservation, as Fire burns and Water moistens, from a Power of its innate gift, that the great Creator hath bestowed upon it.  
You would do very well to reflect upon your Dispensatory, wherein (except some few Chemical lent you) all your Preparations either omit to do what they should, or commit what they should not: And certainly these are dangerous per se, supposing they be made accordingly to your best Art. If ours offend it is but per accidens, because those Requisites set down are neglected to make them such as we intent them.  
For Example and Experience, which is the true Touchstone that must discover us: Let any of you in perfect Health pick out of your formal Apothecary's Book, stuffed full of supernumerary Preparations, the most Safe and Active of them, that do you the greatest service, to the number of ten; weigh out the known Dose of any one singly, with the strictest curiosity you please; take each of you the same into your own Stomaches, and repeat the Dose as often as ye dare; and so proceed likewise with another, and so on to the residue of the ten: When ye have acted your parts, we likewise (every way sound) selecting ten of our Arcana's, will swallow down (without trusting to the Scales) a sufficient quantity of any one (that may be most suspected) which we commonly exhibit to the Sick for their recovery; look how often ye have taken of each of your ten, so often will we iterate or duplicate the sumption of any one of ours. And then let any indifferent person judge who bears their Medicines best, having the fewest bad Symptoms following, and so conclude accordingly whose are most dangerous.  
Such hath been our zeal for the good of our Neighbour, that we have for some years seldom given any thing to our Patients which we have not first taken into our own Bodies perhaps many times: And consideratis considerandis, an Acute Medical Observer shall learn more feelingly from himself, that which tends to the right use of any Arcanum, than he shall from another. Assuredly for our parts, we had rather run the hazard of an ambiguous Remedy ourselves, who know, and can best correct any supervenient inconvenience thereof, then to proffer it upon uncertain grounds to another, who perchance through his impatience and morosity will neither suffer us to amend what is fallen out amiss, nor listen to any reasonable Apology how it came to pass. If the Galenist did take this course, he would not give Chemical Preparations with such a Tremulous hand as he doth, being doubtful whether they be made as they ought, and what certain effect they may have. For all this proceeds from a want of that true experimental knowledge which he may (setting aside this timorous childish apprehension of danger and hurting himself) acquire, by frequent repetitions of ingesting that into his own ventricle, which may instruct him far better then another's.  
We deny not but the Ambient Air, and the differing Constitution of several individual Bodies do somewhat alter the Operation of that which works by sensible vacuation, which is to be considered, but not to be insisted upon too superstitiously; but we see no reason why some transcendent Arcana's which act tono unisono invisibly, should not cure divers persons alike indifferently, in the East Indies, and this part of the World, with some small variation of the quantity. So that an Adeptus may presume to induce, that if the best sort of Medicines have a constant happy effect upon himself at all times of the year, the same cannot but express the like energy upon others, presented by an expert hand that hath an eye in it.  
It were to be wished that Physicians would animate some nice scrupulous Patients, and convince them of those harsh conceits they oftentimes harbour, (not without just cause) that they shall make an Apothecary's Shop of their Bellies; (and if what they take do not work it will poison them) by swallowing down the same before their faces, that they may recant of their folly, and be further encouraged to submit to those Rules which are easy to observe, without any rigour or danger in them. And we admonish any that desires to be approved in the jatrical Art, to make it his principal pains and study to be throughly acquainted with the Practical use of those Medicines he possesses so exactly and accurately, as a Shoemaker with his Last, or an Artificer with his Tools; that knowing what he can trust to, he may after a judicious examination of the Sickness, begin and proceed in the Sanation of the same with confidence, and no less real performance.   

CHAP. XVIII. Of the Galenical Method.  
OUr Adversaries do much glory and vaunt in their Method of Curing, asserting, that if a man have never so excellent Medicines, if he be ignorant therein, he cannot discharge his duty as he ought. We desire first to know of these learned Grecians, what (according to the Etimon) this word Methodus signifies. Is it, we pray, any more than a short way of healing Maladies? How short ye come of this, the world may easily judge, who keep your Patients in a course of Physic so long, till ye run them quite out of breath, and all under a pretence of Method. Is it worthy of a Physicians Method to dally with his Patient some months, even years, and not absolutely satisfy him, whether he be curable or no: or perhaps after he hath exhausted his strength and purse, to send him into the Country, to the Wells, or Bath; yea, sometimes into France, that the less notice may be taken of it if he chance to die (as we have known) by the way? Is not this a rare Method to see a Physician keep a pother, and make a great noise about a sick man's Diet, precisely to enjoin him, upon loss of his Life, not to violate the least punctilio; strictly forbidding those things which (given by the Nurse or standers by, and concealed from the Physician) have cured him? To see a sick wretch in a vehement Fever, almost parched up for want of moisture, and not a draught of small Beer allowed him to quench his unsatiable thirst, or a little Wine to refresh his drooping spirit, is enough to make a man afraid of such a Method.  
To hear them when a man is in a peracute Fever, Logically discourse of their Indications, General, Subalternate, and Specific, Profitable and Unprofitable, Artificial and Inartificial, Condications and Contraindications; with those they call Consentientia, Correpugnantia, and Permittentia, and be extremely ignorant of Indicata, or Remedies, proportionable and competent to cure the Fever; suffering the Patient either to perish, or to fall into some desperate Chronic Disease, and so to twindle and moulder away at length; whereas if things had been rightly ordered, all this might have been prevented, is sufficient to make a man explode and nauseate their Method.  
When we hear how curiously they examine, which of the four Humours, arising from the mixture of the four Elements, (which never had an existence in Nature, as Helmont hath sufficiently proved) abounds in the Body, that thereby they may find out a convenient Purge; as, Rhubarb for Choler, Agarick for Phlegm, etc. loosening the Body by stool sometimes fifty or sixty times; to the consumption of the strength of the Sick party, without any ease, the Morbific matter still remaining behind untouched.  
When they learnedly babble concerning Complexions, Temperaments, Constitutions, being grossly ignorant of the Seminal, Formal, and Vital Properties of things; not able to discover in the least without relation, or to give any plausible reason thereof from their dirty Elements, Humours, and Qualities, that this man naturally abhors Posset-drink, a second Honey, a third an Egg, which if they should take into their Bodies, in some Diseases, were enough to cost them their lives. When they stand so superstitiously upon the Season of the Year, the Climate of the Country, the Qualities of the Air, the Time of the Day, that before they can take an opportunity, the Patient is ten times more hard to cure, or perhaps past relief: All this (rightly understood) would justly provoke a man to condemn, abhor, renounce, and defy their Method.  
Who that hath any spark of charity in him, but must needs pity that distressed wretch, who hath a Physician attending him, that gapes for a Crisis even to the one and twentieth day, doubtful what is like to be the issue then; and in the mean time exhausts the purple Soul of his Patient by frequent Phlebotomy, spending his Spirits by some torturing course, marring the ferment of the Stomach; and is so far from assisting and furthering Nature, that he becomes a remora, or hindrance to her; so that if strength of Body be not extraordinary, 'tis impossible such an one should escape without a miracle: Certainly a man may not offend to say that this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Satan's device and plot to destroy mankind. Or we may justly censure this Galenical Method, as the word Methodus signifies, according to another interpretation, Fictio, or Ludificatio; a mere Imposture or Cheat. Had not a man better either to trust to God and Nature, or, if he can be procured, make use of some honest, plain Physician, who without any deceit or pompous Praeludium, shall fall to his work of curing you.  
'Tis a sad thing to behold a young man in the flower of his years, in full strength of body, abounding with Vital Spirits, sending for a Physician in the beginning of his Disease, to be thus Methodised into his Grave, by them that pretend to be such grave learned Doctors; who, if he had died in the Field bravely, ought little in comparison to be lamented. Can any sober, wise man blame any one that knows this to be true, and dares demonstrate it, that he is Satyrical and invective against these notorious actions? That man questionless that knows he can prove these things to be so, cannot but damnify his Soul, if he make not a timely discovery of them for his Country's good. We invocate the supreme Power, that 'tis not malice to any man's particular person, nor a principal Design to be known in the World to our advantage, that hath excited us to declare ourselves thus, to the detriment of any man's individual credit and reputation: Far be it from us, for these things (if it could have consisted with Charity and a good Conscience) should never have been published; and we hope our future actions will sufficiently demonstrate our sincerity herein; though we expect from our Adversaries nothing but harsh censures, undermine, quick eyes to discover our lapses, calumnies, and reproaches. But 'tis sufficient that we have done our duty, to give the world a fair warning of these Abuses, which if it make not good use thereof, let it be upon their score, sith we have done what we ought.   

CHAP. XIX. Of the Helmontian Method.  
AS you magnify your own Method, so ye often cast it in our teeth that we use none, and that we can give little account of what we do, but as Empirics. As to this we would willingly know of you, whether of the two performs things more orderly and methodically, he that brings the Life into confusion, disorder, and at last perhaps to a sad Catastrophe, by a tedious, impertinent, groundless, absurd, and fruitless means, quite beside the mark; or he that sweetly composes, pacifies, and allays the disorders, irregularity, exorbitancies, and tumults in the Microcosm, by direct and adequate applications and appropriations of those friendly Medicines, which may assist Nature immediately to conquer its grand enemy the Disease, that at length there may be a happy conclusion to Health, without your insalutiferous Method?  
What man that hath been throughly cured of a dangerous Disease in a short time by us, will ever find any fault that we did not use your long Method; a mere Ens Rationis, invented to delude the world? Are ye to be excused that go far about to destroy your Patients, notwithstanding your tinkling and trapped Arguments and Conclusions deduced from false Premises? For our parts we had by far rather enjoy an ability in our Profession, to relieve a languishing wretch, tortured and racked with some cruel Malady, then by making a great noise in the world, puffed up with empty knowledge, be reputed great and eminent Scholars, but altogether ignorant in the cure of a Disease; Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri potest per pauciora, is known to every ingenious man.  
If we Heal in a fortnight a Sickness, that ye cannot in a month, are not we the best Methodists? If we strike at the Root of a Disease, ye at the Branches; if ye mistake in applying Agents rightly to Patiens, erring egregiously in the Primary, Efficient, and Material Causes of a Disease, often blundering and overseen in your Prognostics, and extremely blind in the proper Crasis of things, thus groping in the dark, are seduced by the Ignes fatui of your Elements, Humours, Temperaments, seldom (unless by accident) hitting the mark (as ye ought) your Patient's sanity: If we can give a better evidence and Phisolophical account that we are in the right in jatrical Practice above you: If we, when we come to our Patient, after some short inquisition shall declare, that there is such a cause of his Disease, and that the subject of it is in such a part; and that if he be observant, we shall in some little time satisfy him, whether we have a Remedy sufficiently potent to make Nature master of the Disease or no; and so accordingly make our Prediction confidently, and that on the fifth or sixth day after our first visit in acute Diseases: If we peremptorily deliver, that by God's help we doubt not but to cure him, and bring to pass the same, without relapse or succeeding Diseases, far better than the Galenists, will not any man say that we are the best Methodists?  
What signifies it if ye abound with hundreds of Medicaments, composed by your own Apothecaries, which ye say ye use according to Indications, and not one of these a competent or adequate remedy for many great Diseases? Is it not better to enjoy twenty or thirty good Auxiliary Preparations, made with our own fingers, the meanest whereof shall be more effectual than the best of yours; and these used not (as ye falsely object) at Random, at a Venture, but Rationally, and according to a just Techmarsis, taken from Nature and the Disease; the one whereof we shall (as aught to be done) assist to overcome the other, by removing impediments, and occasional causes, by purifying and strengthening the Organs, by tinging the parts with some excellent and appropriate Balsam, by invigorating and rectifying the ferment of the Stomach and other parts, by dulcifying the degenerate sharp Latex, which infests the Blood, Viscera, or any instrument, by expunging and razing out the Character or Idea of the Disease in the Archaeus, or Vital Spirits; lastly, by pacifying the displacency, tumults, fury, and exorbitancy of the Archaeus. And when we have made the truth of these things appear in the presence of modest, indifferent, and discreet Judges, we shall give sound, satisfactory, Philosophical Reasons of what we have done, which we will undertake to elucidate thus.  
We will so many of us on each side (as we shall agree upon) visit the sick people of some Hospital, with equal and competent Arbiters or Censors: After that each party hath given his Verdict, and Opinion of the nature of the Disease, inward or outward, we will make our Prediction what is like to be the Epilogue or Event thereof, whether it be curable or no, and in what time probably it may be brought to pass. Let the Galenist, or Helmontian, that doth (according to the Sentence of those elected persons, to whose award we are to stand) perform his business best in the Diagnostic, Prognostic, and Therapeutic part, prevail, and be taken into the favour and tuition of the Magistrate; and the other be rejected, and banished out of the City with disgrace, never to appear here to practise Physic any more.  
Or we will deal with you in this manner, we will summon so many Patients that have Fevers, or other Diseases, in the City, whom we will visit together, and according to our former proposition, enter upon a direct proof, who may best deserve a Diplôma or Patent.  
Or we will (if ye please) act severally, we will (with so many impartial Judges) undertake twenty persons that have Acute Diseases, and so many Chronic; after that we have illustrated the Nature, Condition, and Magnitude of the Disease to the standers by, (our foresaid Arbitratours) we will enter upon the Cure with a Prognostic, in Acute Diseases, after our first admission, upon the fifth or sixth day; and in Chronic Diseases, in the space of three weeks or a month at farthest. Ye shall be bound to act the like, the same Supervisors attending you that did us; who, after they have seriously weighed all Circumstances, being rightly informed, and considered what difficulties both parties have been put upon, shall determine as each of us have done better or or worse, who are the true Artists, and so receive a Reward or Mulct.  
Moreover we declare, that we shall take into our hands twenty sick persons that have Acute Fevers of what kind soever, and of these twenty, we will engage to secure under God Sixteen of them upon the fifth or sixth day after our approach, or to give a Prognostic upon the same days, how the Disease will terminate; in which if we fail, we shall be willing to suffer accordingly, supposed that ye come to the like trial.  
And because ye insist so much upon Bleeding, and there is no Disease according to your own Positions, that requires it more than a Pleurisy; we dare oblige ourselves to cure more Pleuritic persons, citò, tutò & jucundè, without Bleeding, than ye shall, making use of the same.  
This is the way, great Doctors, for you to redeem the credit of this noble Science, and to restore it in some part to its pristine Renown, and doubt not, if ye do your business as ye should, but that our Sovereign Lord the King will give you a Diploma, and confirm a Patent to you ex condigno; for questionless he is of Hannibal's mind, Hostem qui feriet erit sibi Carthaginensis. Do well and have well. But if ye fall to your wont Scribbling, your quarrelling de lanâ caprinâ, your captious and critical Censures, your guilful Sophisms, and Paralogisms, making the world believe that this is but a foolish Contest, and that Truth cannot be determined this way, by reason of the variety and multiplicity of circumstances to be observed; and that to put these Controversies to a trial in an Hospital, is to put our Sickle into another man's Harvest, with such like Mormolyceia, or Bugbears, which ye returned us as Answers, when some of us did urge by Letters, and Challenge you in particular to this most expedient proof: Yea, one of you arguing with another of us in the presence of some ingenious persons, (and the Galenist confounding the Argumentation with much prattle, on purpose to amaze the Auditors, that they might not rightly understand the Opponent the Chemist, (by whom, when he was put upon then, as at several other times, an Essay of Action) made a pish of it, objecting, that in difficult Cases, we Chemists had always a recourse to Action. If (we say) ye shall continually deal thus with us, and disregard us, that profess, and can vindicate ourselves Scholars, and Philosophers, equal with you, we are resolved (after this Epitome, being only an hint to the World of some of your Indecorums in Physic) to publish an History of your Errors therein at large.   

CHAP. XX. Some Animadversions upon the late Attempt to procure a Patent from His Gracious Majesty, for the Erecting a College of Chemical Physicians.  
NEver was there a more just, honest, desirable, and useful Enterprise set upon in this Nation, than an endeavour of some Chemists to purchase an Influence and favourable Countenance from our Sovereign Lord the King, that thereby we might be authorized and encouraged to meet together, and consult (without interruption) about some expedite and effectual way, for the regulating and reforming those present enormous Abuses in this excellent Spagyric Science; and for the prevention of the same for the future; and that we might join our forces for the meliorating and advancing of that Art, which in despite of all Adversaries, will in some short time manifest itself to be Queen Regent in Physic. Moreover, seldom hath there been any Design more generally countenanced and animated by the learned Nobility, and ingenious Gentry of England, than this.  
But such hath been our fate, that some malevolent ill-disposed persons (as well from within as from without) have both maliciously and ignorantly cast such rubs in our way, that we have been disappointed from attaining that end, for which his Gracious Majesty hath professed to have no small kindness.  
That therefore every Inquisitive man may in part receive some satisfaction, what hitherto hath obstructed our business, we certify him, that some of us have been overseen at first in admitting among us certain very illiterate persons, that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Chemic Umbratiles, mock Chemists, no whit exercised in Anatomy and Botanics, inexpert in the History of Diseases, their Efficient and Material Cause, their Event, or any Cure, of which they could give any Philosophical reason: These have been among us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, foul blots and disgraces, presumptuous Boasters, heady and highminded, intruding themselves to our disturbance; whereby our subtle supplanting enemies have taken advantage to defame us, representing us to the world a company of fanatics, falstly suggesting that we went about to tread under foot all Learning, and to introduce a mere Empirical way of Practice in Physic, with such blasting language, contrived on purpose to diminish our Repute, and to disenable us from achieving that which would prove so useful to the world; that they may the better establish their pretended Polyarchical Government in the Galenical way.  
That these Aspersions therefore may be taken off, and no more reflect upon us to our prejudice, who profess ourselves Philosophers by the Fire; we freely declare, that we are Philomathêis, hearty lovers and promoters of Learning, and shall never go about to derrogate from Schools and Academies, but shall vigorously defend them so far as truth will admit; and shall be ready to censure him that pleads for Amathie, or illiterature in the Body Natural, disposed (if ever opportunity be offered to him) to stand up for Anarchy in the Body Politic. And we are resolved upon mature thoughts, never to join with such, that (disclaiming against Scholarship) go about to lay the foundation of such an Illustrious Art, upon the sandy foundation of some wild and extravagant Notions, that they have picked up by chance from some slight Operations made at a venture. For whosoever enters upon Pyrotechnie, aught to have beforehand some general knowledge in the Nature of things, and to acquire some infallible Axioms and Theorems delivered to him, by those that have been most expert; which how any one can attain to, without a competent knowledge in the Scholastic Languages, we are much to seek. And certainly Helmont never thought a rude and illiterate person destitute of any previous Theory, a fit Agent to aspire to the Mysteries of this profound Science. For our parts we should be willing to condescend to any thing below ourselves, that such an eminent Attempt as a Society of Chemical Physicians might be established; but should unwillingly yield that such a Great Mistress of Knowledge should be committed to those, that are no whit able to protect, adorn, or credit her.  
'Tis not a good Medicine, purchased we know not how, or stumbled upon by some ridiculous chance, that makes a real Philosopher, nor multiplicity of Furnaces, contrived on purpose to get a fame in the world, but undeniable and stable Principles, that ennoble an Adeptus, or son of Art. Le no therefore any blind Bayard, that wants the discretion to hold the Reins of Phoebus his Steeds, presume to drive the Solar Chariot of Pyrotechnie, lest instead of cherishing and illuminating the World, he bring all into confusion and combustion, as some Pseudochymists among us of late have endeavoured.  
To conclude, although we have been hitherto crossed in this noble Enterprise, on one side by the Galenist, and on the other by the Pseudochymist, or pretender thereto, (this most innocent Art being as it were crucified in the midst between them) yet we question not but that at length in despite of all opposition, true Chemistry will flourish, and moving in its right Sphere, will scatter all black clouds and mists of Ignorance and Envy, and shine out in its perfect splendour.   


The Figure of two Colic Stones extracted out of the Body of Anne Taylor.    

An Appendix. DE LITHO-COLO: OR, A History of three large Stones excluded the Colon by Chemical Medicines.  
THe importunity of some friends have moved me to expose (on a sudden) to public view these prodigious and monstrous Stones, generated in the Colon, that the World may be informed what strange Coagulations sometimes happen in this Microcosm; and what need we have to look after Remedies of the Superlative Degree, to dissolve and dispossess them of their lodging place. The Narrative is thus:  
In the Year, 1655. I was sent for in the midst of February to Anne Taylor (servant to Mr. Sikes a Brewer, living at Rumford in Essex) about twenty years old, of a florid ruddy colour, having a square Body, Vivacious and Active, but low in stature; who was suddenly taken with a violent Pungitive pain on the left side, an inflation and distension of the Epigastrium, a Fever, an Aching in her Loins, Inquietude, a nauseous Disposition, frequent Belchings, and great constriction of the Belly. Having examined the Symptoms, I apprehended that her Disease arose principally from the Spleen, stuffed with feculent degenerate Blood, which having contracted Malignity, darted its venom at the Pleura, Stomach, Intestines, and Reins; hence the Vital Spirits being disturbed, an Estuation and Effervescence arose in the Blood, which caused a Fever. This considered, I presently offered upon my first access in the Afternoon, an Emeto-Diaphoretick, which making some small evacuation, gave her ease, but of short duration, for a few hours after there was a recrudescence and exacerbation of all the foresaid Symptoms.  
The next morning I offered her an Emeto-Cathartick, intending to carry the morbific matter most downward, but in vain, for it still regurgitated, and came away by Vomiting: however, she found an abatement of the racking pain of her Side, and other parts, which yet still returned by fits. Then I plied her hard with those things that were Diaphorerick, Resolving, Abstersive, for the space of three or four days, making use of requisite Topics; not omitting whatsoever might pacify and invigorate the Vital Spirits against future paroxisms.  
Upon the sixth day after my first admission, coming to see her, I found her cheerful, (the Pain of her Side and Fever abated) with many hopeful signs of speedy recovery, only she complained of a Weight of her left Side, tending downward toward the Kidneys, and a straitness of her Belly, but yet she thought a small matter more would perfectly cure her; so giving her precaution, I bade her go on to take what remained, charging her to give me notice if any thing fell out amiss.  
The Sabbath day following, being the tenth from the first onset of her Sickness, a messenger came in all haste to me to Horn-Church, relating the anguish and cruel torments that this wretched Maid suffered about the Region of her Loins, with straining to vomit, sharpness of her Urine, and difficulty to make it, and continual watching. Upon this I began to think that the Kidneys had a great share in the production of those Iragical Accidents, which formerly appeared: wherefore I presently dispatched away to her another Emeto-Cathartick, and some other Chemical Preparations, that were of force to cleanse and sweep away any sabulous matter, or gross impurities from those parts. Having taken the first she was put into great straits, and had many pangs, yet upon my strict injunction they urged her to take whatsoever I sent: which, upon every sumption and repetition, caused a Crispation and Convulsive motion of the Genus Membranosum, the Archaeus endeavouring to make an extrusion of that which as long as it harboured in its bosom, could never be at rest; so that by a frequent exciting the Expulsive faculty, and by corroborating the Spirits at the same time, Nature by an Alternate vicissitude of rest and motion producing Throws, was delivered at length by the help of some dextrous hands of three strange stony Concretions, conceived in the upper part of the Colon nigh the Spleen.  
Now the first appearance of these was after a great Agony on Monday night, being the eleventh day; for the Sphincter of the Anus being notably dilated, a hard rough Body was discovered in the Fundament by a Midwife, or some of the officious Women there present, who by frequently assaying, and tender contrectation thereof, made shift to get out one of these deformed Stones (more friable than the other two) by fracture and piece-meal, and then forthwith sent to me to hasten to be a spectator of this monstrous Birth.  
No sooner had I entered the House, sounding with the exclamation of the Neighbours, but I was presented with some fragments of an Exotic matter, which I beheld not without just admiration. This (quoth some of them) is nothing in comparison of what is behind, wherefore we desire you to meet another Doctor and Surgeon tomorrow morning about nine of the clock; which I easily assented to in such a difficult case, both for instruction, and also the evasion of slanderous tongues, which I knew had much partial respect for this safe Galenist they sent for, that could (if she miscarried) maintain it Cum Privilegio.  
The next morning I precisely observed the time appointed, waiting three hours for his Worship, but neither he nor the Surgeon coming, I thought good to take my leave, and to resign her up to whom they pleased; but by persuasion of the Master of the House, who told me (let the issue be better or worse) he would undertake to defend me against the Galenical Gang; I fell to my work, and having taken a strict view of the outward site of the bigger of these Stones, whose Basis appeared every way about an inch to my eye; the Sphincter being much expanded through great stress, I concluded that these lapideous Concretions were either to be broken by a fit Instrument, and so to be drawn out by parcels, or to be extracted whole, if it could be done without danger of lacerating the Sphincter: To this end I presently sent for a plain Barber Surgeon of the Town, Thomas Flemmin, since dead, whom I enjoined to fetch me the strongest pair of Curling-Irons he had, which forthwith done, I directed him to insinuate and worm them in between the Sphincter and the Stone, to lay fast hold, and to try whether he could turn it about; which he did artificially, and setting a strong hand, pulled it out confidently in a trice. The other quickly followed, and the Patient was immediately freed from her dolorous condition, a large quantity of Urine issuing forth which had been stopped nigh forty eight hours. After this succeed an involuntary flux of Excrements, through a weakness of the Fibres of the Guts and Sphincter violently distended, which were at length restored to their former Tone by virtue of a Fumigation which she received, sitting over a pan of quick coals.  
Thus was this miserable Virgin recovered at length from an untimely death, by force (under God) of some Chemical Medicines, which may add a little to the lustre of this useful Art: For none but Remedies more potent than ordinary could have forced three such petrified Bodies of that bulk, lurking under the left short Ribs, through the manifold Cells of the Colon down to the straight Gut, and so to be voided.  
Ever since she hath enjoyed her health, only taking two or three years (Spring and Fall) what was requisite; and since married an Innkeeper, Francis Chatterton, living now at Rumford at the Sign of the Dolphin, by whom she hath had two Children.  
For present satisfaction take this short Description of the three Stones thus: Touching the first which the Midwife and some others broke out by their subtle working into it with their fingers, in my absence, I cannot give that exact observation as of these two I have in my own custody; for they having shared it amongst themselves, desiring to keep it for a Rarety, had so dispersed it, that I am not able to set down any certain Dimensions of it: but so far as my conjecture can reach, according to their relation, it might very well be equal in quantity to the greatest of these two, inclining to a Cylindrical shape, of a friable and fragile substance toward the Superficies, but more tenacious toward the Centre; consisting of Dissimilar parts, wherein appeared many white Filaments like Alumen Plumosum. The Cortex or outside was of a Pitchy colour, but the innermost part brownish.  
The second of the three, and the first of the two which I extracted, and now reserve by me, is of a Conelike Figure, broad beneath and sharper above, nigh three inches in length, two and a quarter in breadth abowt the bast, one and three quarters in the midst, and somewhat above half an inch on the top.  
The outward coat covering the inward like a bark, is more compact, and of a tartareous substance, partly blackish and partly mouse coloured. It hath four great Dokes in it, two nigh the Basis, and two nigh the cone, beside many small ones, and Tortuous Incisures. Under this Cortex lieth a Calcarious matter, which hath a small quantity of a Thready or Lanuginous substance mixed with it, tending to a gravel-like colour. It weigheth now not above two ounces seven drams, being diminished and circumcised by those that handling it have out of curiosity picked off something considerable; and withal the ambient Air hath made it somewhat lighter, but at first its weight was much more.  
The second to this is Triangular, almost Equilateral, each side being about two inches three quarters in length, and near two in breadth. It's substance much resembles the other, only its outside here and there is softer to the touch, feeling Plushie like some part of a Stag's horn, to which it is like in colour. In the middle appears a harder Body dissimilar from the Angles, which seem to be Appendices to it. In it are some small Cavities, but one very large, like the hollow part of that the Latins call Astragalus, an Hucklebone. It is lighter than the other considering its proportion, weighing one ounce five drams and a half.  
We observed when these Colick-Stones first came to light, that many Plum-stones and Cherry-stones lay couched in several hollow places in them, which had continued in her Body about half a year undissolved, appearing fresh as if they had been newly swallowed. Hereby the bulk of these Coagulations was increased, that they became more hard to be precipitated, their unequal asperities impeding their passage, exasperating and galling the tender and most sensible Tunicles of the Colon: Hence arose most exquisite Dolours, which this poor wretch underwent for several days, which would undoubtedly have destroyed her, had not her Vital Spirits been lenified, appeased, and supported by some Spagyrical Cordials that were most amicable to them.  
Throughout the whole course of the Disease, I avoided Cooling juleps, Barley Liquors, ordinary Opiates, or any common papaverous Preparation of the Galenists, which would have brought Nature into a numbed and drowsy condition, and so have made it supine in the Expulsion of these Hostile Guests, that had taken such firm possession in the Colon to its utter ruin.  
I make no question but a Dogmatist would presently without any scruple (being confirmed by those Indications there present to which they severely adhere) have first Bled her perhaps two or three times, under the notion of a Pleurisy, then Expectorated her with their nasty slaps; but failing here would have given her Laudanum for the mitigation of her intolerable pains; and so bringing her into an everlasting sleep, have sent these remarkable Coagulations into the Grave with her unseen.  
This Tragical History ending Comically, I have here communicated to the World, that it may be alured to become a Phylo-Chymist, and understand the insufficiency of Galenical Preparations to help in extremity; and to encourage all Ingenious and Industrious Artists in their labours; that such a Litho-tribon, or Break-stone Arcanum may be attained, that hath power to dissolve the Stone even in the Bladder, without direful Cystotomy.  
To conclude, I shall hereafter (if God permit) give you a fuller and larger account of this Colic Duelech, with some other unusual Observations, collected in eighteen years diligent study and Practice; and shall likewise give you my thoughts of Splenotomy, or exection of the Spleen out of a living Dog, his life preserved: which I can (absit jactantia) vindicate to be the first that made any sound and notable trial thereof in Europe known publicly, although some of our Galenical Anatomists have very unhandsomely assumed the Credit of it to themselves. In the mean time make good use of this here delivered, and be grateful to the most High if thou reapest any benefit thereby.  
The Stones before spoken of are in the Authors keeping, at his Lodgings near to the Blue Boar Inn without Allgate; where any Ingenious Person that desires to be further satisfied concerning them, may be freely admitted to see them.  
FINIS.   

Errata.  
PAg. 2. line 28. read their. pag. 42. l. 1. read Hermaphroditical. p. 60. l. 3. r. profligating. p. 62. l. 1. r. Perittomata p. 63 l 27. for magnetic read specific. p. 68 l. 15. r. comparison. p. 74. l. 14. 1. Affects. p. 77. l. 8. r. precipitates. p. 92. l 7. r. Coindications.