I Had in my Sermon discours'd, That the Creator of the World had given Reason to Mankind, to adapt the Governments and Laws to their various Circum­stances; as the Foods and Medicines, which are bestow'd on us in the greatest abundance, have been prepar'd from Observation and Experience, in the different Climates, for the Preservation of Life. All the Governments have been and must be prosperous, when (as all the parts of our Body are design'd for the common Life of the whole) the People shall with Courage defend the Prince, and cheer­fully observe the Laws; and when the Supreme and In­feriour Magistrates shall vigilantly preserve the Properties of the Subjects. The first and the greatest Property is Life, which demands the Preservation, by the Laws, of the Plenty of all things necessary to maintain it. As all the Parts of our Body assist the other, every Subject is [Page 4]oblig'd to defend one the other, must repell all Assaults, must demand of the inferiour Magistrates their Care of the Publick Welfare. The happiness of Mankind is insur'd to us on these Conditions only, and are not lost and be­tray'd but by our own Follies; as our Health, by Luxu­ry and Excess, and our Life in Diseases by the neglect or unhappy application or Medicines. It is Impious to ex­pect Miracles to supply our Negligence of our own Pre­servation. The Clergy are appointed to act, as the De­puties of the Supreme Power, to admonish the Prince and the People, to exact the great mutual Duties of Justice, Obedience, and the Care of the Publick Prosperity.

You will be surpriz'd, Gentlemen, how much this Dis­course inflam'd my Parishioners, to debate and discover if any Care is taken of the People in Sickness, it has from them recoyl'd on me, and sav'd me, as those that heard it. I could not vi [...]it any one Family, but I was most sen­sibly affected. We are the most neglected, tho' most op­prest People in the World. The Poor, the Servants, the meaner Tradesmen are undone in every Sickness. We are cheated for one Dram and for one Spoonful of the Reme­dies in a greater degree of Expence, than the Govern­ment formerly did, and now can and must secure to us a Pound and a Gallon of the best Medicines in the Uni­verse; and then to multiply these Frauds, we must in e­very Disease take the oppressive, pernicious Multitude of the little shamming Doses. In other Houses, Lord have Mercy on us! VVhat do the Magistrates think, to suffer every Boy setting up the Trade of an Apothecary (whose Skill has never been examin'd) and every Vagabond from Foreign Countries to impose on our Weakness by a Thou­sand Lyes, to undertake all the dangerous Diseases? Do they see and hear, that many near them are daily kill'd by their Ignorance of the Disease, by the Numbers of Medi­cines, by which only they pay themselves for their deadly Care and Advice? Are they insensible of all Humanity, of the Guilt they contract, as Accomplices? The Eternal Uni­on [Page 5]of the Inhabitants of the Island is gloriously accom­plis'd, shall we be wretchedly heedless of securing the Union of the Soul and Body of every Inhabitant? VVe must imitate the excellent Discipline of the Britains of the Northern Part, encourage Virtue and the Publick Spirit, and repel the raging Libertinage and Contempt of all Order and the Laws destructive to all Societies. Are the furious Inroads and Devastations and Butcheries of the Borders abolish'd, and all the Professions of Religion, the Law and Physick without defence, laid open to the Inva­sions of every impudent Pretender, with the Arts only and Abilities to cheat and delude the People, destitute of the Advice and Defence of the Magistrates? The VVicked Physicians and Surgeons are the first and Principal Cause of our Miseries, they basely justify to us their wretched Quackery, when call'd in at the Extremity; they vainly labour to mend the Mistakes by contrary Methods, and they improve the Robbery by appointing the same endless quantities of the little Doses, many superfluous and neg­lected, many more than they use in their own Houses. These two Enormous Crimes (the Physicians and Surge­ons have almost engross'd to themselves) deserve Death. The College and the Company supported by the Govern­ment can only save us. But there are Physicians and Sur­geons more Honest and Learned than our Enemies, who would secure us from this Robbery and Destruction, and preserve the College and Company to improve all the Members in the respective Arts and Sincerity to the Pati­ents, they are both assaulted by the perjur'd Perfidiousness of many of both the Societies. Dr. R. swears every day he will damn and destroy it; that there is, and shall be no other Physician in the Nation but himself. The largest part of the Physicians delude us fatally, commending the vile VVork the Apothecary has made, design nothing more in the Prescription than his Profit, ruin their own Profession to gain the prevalent Recommendation, the Pre­ference in the Apothecaries favour. There is a Surgeon [Page 6]of the same Principles and Morals with the Bravo Doctor, who breaks his Company, and the Improvements and Sub­sistence of his Prentices, that he may be nois'd as the on­ly Judge and Operator. The others, by a deadly piece of Work they are now and then prefer'd to. What will be the Fate of the miserable English, when the Apothecaries are increas'd by two or three Prentices in all the Shops, when the College and Company shall be deserted, and our Life, and the two Professions shall be destitute of the Care of the Magistrate?

You know, Gentlemen, I came lately to my Prefer­ment here from the University; we have the same Usage in Oxford and Cambridge. The Professors are insensible, that the Faculty is invaded, almost ruin'd. Do they in­struct the Students in the faithful and learned Practice, to preserve the Patients and the Profession together? I ob­serve the Outlyers affront the College, refuse to unite with it, betray it and themselves, and the Sick, to the Apothecaries Encroachments. Alarm'd with these Out­rages, I demanded of many of the Apothecaries Physici­ans, how long they intended to cultivate and increase the fraudulent and pernicious Practice? They reply'd with great Impudence, as long as the People cannot discover it, as long as we must live by it. We own, that the Gen­try and People are us'd by us in the most filthy man­ners. We shall be call'd Scavengers and Reformers, if we use them otherwise. We have no other ways to come into Business, but yielding all the Diseases to the Apothe­caries, 'till Danger or Death appear; we must complement the Choice of us to mend the matter, by extolling their great Skill and Care, and by writing two or three Guineas a Day of the small Doses, let the Case be what it will. We will not risque those our only Fees and Reputation, to save the Kingdom. Many Surgeons assur'd me, their Case was the same, and oblig'd me with the Information of the Remonstrances of your College, which they said, assert Surgery as well as Physick, sold at the Crane in St. [Page 7]Paul's Church-yard, to which no Physician or Surgeon had dar'd to reply, which will amply instruct you, how great, how many are the Calamities of the Sick, from our Trea­cheries to them. The most infamous of both heartily wish, the Government would chastise and reform us; but who will call on the Magistrate, who do not know their own Losses, and Pains, and Danger, and are stupi­fied by the numberless Forgeries of the Apostate Physici­ans and Surgeons, united with the innumerable Apotheca­ries their Masters, and the Governours of the Families?

Your College Discourses have no other Design, but the Preservation of the Royal Family, the Nobility, Gen­try and People, by the sincere and learn'd Practice. The Dispensary Poem, writ at the Request, and by the Instru­ctions of the President, and the Majority of the Society, avows the detestable Knavery, and the most certain great­est Ignorance of the Physicians, as well of the Medicines, as Diseases. The Surgeons must be in the same Circum­stances with you.

On Saturday Morning, a great part of my Parish, of the Church and Dissenters, fill'd my Parlour. I observ'd a Paleness, but a resolv'd Air in all their Faces, as in the Al­lies pushing the French at Ramillies. Their Onset on the English, who neglect the Laws, their Property and Life, and the perfidious Physicians and Surgeons, more cruel Enemies than the most raging Tyrant, was as brave, and will gain the Victory. Their Language, I perceive, was taken from your Treatises, which they had read, and of­ten seriously debated: The Proofs of every Article are publish'd in them.

We cry out to you for Justice, and our natural and le­gal Right, the Punishment and Reformation of the most impious Practisers, who betray the only possible Improve­ment of the young Physicians and Surgeons, who com­bine with the Apothecaries to have us forc'd to take their illegal, unexamin'd, unlicens'd Advice, by the insuffera­ble Payments for the Medicines; we are compell'd to [Page 8]hazard and lose our Life, imploying them from the intole­rable Expence, and kill the Growth of the Knowledge of the two Professions. You inform'd us from the Pulpit, that Providence is not, and cannot be deficient in the Pro­vision of the greatest Plenty of all the Necessaries to pre­serve Mankind. The Magistrate is the Steward, and must keep open those Magazines of Bread, the Foods, and all the other necessary Supports, and invite us to enjoy our Shares of the vast Abundance. Our Government has for­merly appointed the general Medicines of common and most frequent Use, to be fold for our Relief, which are all of the cheapest Values: In the last Age, every Fami­ly knew all those Medicines, how to divide or mix them; what were the low Prices of each. This Privilege is now sacredly preserv'd in the other Parts of Europe. We now are undone, we are plunder'd by the scandalous Exacti­ons of one Hundred Parts more than the just common Rates. We have together warily examin'd all the Parti­culars; we avow, the Remedies are in the small Portions of their Doses cheaper than Bread, and the common Nou­rishments. Our vile Physicians and Surgeons are the Contrivers or Abettors of the Cheats of the little Doses, in­stead of the larger Quantities, which they formerly or­der'd the Houses to buy, and to divide and mix, and use in the more easie Cases: we are now pillag'd by them in the Proportions of 40, 50, 100 to one. VVe are forc'd to explain it to you, by a vulgar, but most instructive Example. If my Physician or Surgeon advise me to take Old Malaga VVine, shall they permit me to send for it to the Vintner's, at 2 s. and 6 d. the Quart, or shall they add a fulsome Syrup to deceive me, to alter the Colour, to make it more nauseous and unwholsome? Contrive with the Vintner to send it in by his Boys in di­minutive Parcels, that the one Quart shall draw five Pounds out of me? Do not the Fools engage me to stick close to the Vintner and his Boys, and to command them to advise us? Since we must pay five Guineas for every [Page 9]Quart of Malaga, we will make them save us all their Fees.

They saw me trembling, I was assur'd of their Affe­ction, but they rush'd on me with a Rage not to be ex­press'd to you. I paid six Guineas for the Vulgar Bitter Decoction, sent in the small Glasses, and the Ingredients were heretofore, and may now be had for one Shilling. The 2 d. I paid 30 l. for Perle Juleps in 14 Days, when one of them is worth but 8 d. Then the 3 d. Venice Treacle, Diascordium▪ Mithridate, are very cheap in the Pound. I paid two G [...]neas every day, in a long Sickness, for the Dram Boles of them and the small Draught to wash them down. Then a 4th. the common Cordial Powders are not worth a Farthing a piece. I knew a poor Woman reduc'd to Beggary, by a Crown for every one of many of them every day she was sick, 'till a Charitable Physician made the Cure in a Week, with the Charge of one of them. They all join'd in one Voice and Shout, We are Mer­chants, we are Distillers, Druggists, we have in our long Services for our Masters abroad, in all the Parts of Eu­rope, seen the more honest, and the vastly greater Suc­cesses of the Physicians and Surgeons, and we know the low Rates of many domestick Remedies lately communi­cated to us by our faithful Physicians of the Dispensary As God is the Preserver of Men, the most Soverign Me­dicines must be most plentiful, growing in our own Cli­mates, or imported in large Quantities. Our Reason, as well as the College, supported by all Antiquity, and all the most eminent Physicians of the two last Centuries, as­sure us, that the Preparations must be most facil and ready, rational and simple, not confounded and debas'd by Con­fusions of Ingredients, or corrupted by long pretended Artifices, only to delude and rob us. But our Physicians and Surgeons, during the Contrivance to take away our Money, hazard, or take away our Life. They are not able to plead and defend themselves. Bezoar, the vilely cheap precious Stones, as they call them, the Leaf Gold, [Page 10]are good for nothing, but being indissolvable in us, they do all they can to destroy us: they lie unalter'd in us, in the room of the most useful Medicines, we should have in their stead. Beside the Demonstrations of the College, we know, they are not Medicines, they are not us'd a­broad. How many Millions recover without them: VVe import into England but a small Parcel of Bezoar. You shall hear the greatest Imposture ever wounded your Ears. They pretend it must be in all the Boles and Juleps; all the Remedies are in the Bills styl'd Bezoarti [...]. Our Ima­gination must be tickled by the Bill, to [...]inguish the Assault on our Money and Life.

I could not support my Abhorrence of a Crime in all its Circumstances, more abominable than the Plunders on the Road. A Remedy must, and shall be found out. —

They stopt me with the Acclamations of Victory, when the Enemy runs. We have the wicked Physicians and Surgeons under our Feet. Our Impeachment of them will require and deserve your Attention and Patience. Our Government, as in all Parts of Europe, commanded the College to appoint Medicines for the general Use. By this Book, the Apothecaries must prepare all the Remedies of their Shops. They are, as they must be, perfect Me­dicines, every one fully design'd to answer the several Purposes, without the Delay and Trouble of Mixture, as far as it is possible to contrive them. The Compound are, and must be, every one compleat in the Kind, as the compound Waters, Elixirs, Confections, Powders, Pills, Oils, Ointments, Plaisters. The Physicians and Surgeons have their Reward for their Advice and Fidelity to us, as in the Instance of the old Malaga, and are oblig'd to preserve to us our Right, not to impose or suffer any Fraud to be impos'd on us. They must report to us the Quan­tities of each of these publick, and our Remedies to be us'd. We can mix (as well as in old England, and all o­ther Nations) the simple, and the compound Waters, the Spirits and Tinctures. We can divide their Doses, and of [Page 11]the Confections, Pills, and Powders, &c. with the surest Exactness. How many Remedies are every day and hour now divided in our Houses, the volatile Spirits, the Laudanums, the Elixirs, the Rhubarb, Manna, and the purging Salts? Our Abilities are equal to the Boys in the Shop, and our Cautions to prevent any possible Errour more powerful than of the playful Lads. They are now prescrib'd by the knavish Physicians and Surgeons, in Mixtures of very many of them together, only to dis­guise them from our Knowledge, and the Price of the whole. They are parcel'd by their Order into many little shamming Doses, to extort 3 or 4 Guineas a day, when often we have all of them ready in the Closet, and the greatest Expence of them cannot be 3 or 4 Shillings. The Government demands, that we shall know the Mix­tures of the 4 or 5 Cordial Juleps, now only us'd, and the Ʋses and Doses of the publick Spirits, Tinctures, Confe­ctions, Pills, &c. for the common incidental Disorders of our Children, and Servants▪ All the Mystery was in­vented only to cheat us; we are basely told, that the excellent publick Remedies are good for nothing, unless they play the Changes on them, by mixing them every hour at all Hazards to blind us, that a Grain or two more or less of Disacordiun, Crabs-Eyes, and Coral, would certainly kill or delay the Recovery. You must not now (the most God-like and ravishing Charity, and of the least Expence) bestow a Julep, a Confection, or a Pill, or Powder, on our Servants or poor Neighbours. They must be left for the Apothecaries to devour by the Rapine of one Hun­dred to one, more than we could purchase the Quantities. Our Poor, have by Tradition, secur'd a small part of their Property; they run to the Shop for a Penyworth of Sa­fron, of Cordial-water, of a Powder, of Mithridate. But their Hearts are broken, they are told they are little worth, if they are not shuffled with Bezoar, and the other Impo­stures. I was then permitted to declare my Resentment, that we must abjure our Religion, and throw up our Commis­sion, if we do not command, that the Divine Benefactions [Page 12]of the Necessaries of Life shall be equally distributed, by de­nouncing from the Pulpits, and by our Admonitions of the Magistrates of their Guilt, the Ravages of the People, by the Violation of the Trust we repose in our Physicians and Sur­geons, and their Neglect in supporting the legal Powers of the College and Company, to expose and punish these Cri­minals. They shall be compelled to order the excellent Medicines without Mixture or Division, and to note the Prices. All the Families will gratefully receive, and soon be Masters of the most gainful Instructions. We are oblig'd by the Laws to make good all the Robberies in our Coun­tries, unless we can apprehend the Robber, and convict him. I and you are guilty of all these Devastations, if we do not inform our Neighbours, rouze them to join with the Magistrate to seize the Thieves. While I was speaking, my Friends, I perceiv'd, had their Breast full: It is nothing, they said, that we are cheated, and the Poor reduc'd to Misery; we are hazarded or destroy'd in every Sickness▪ These Collusive knavish Mixtures are oppres­sive to our Stomachs and Blood, often have no Opera­tion for our Relief, because the 8 or 10 perfect Medi­cines (which are themselves compositions) do violate and obstruct the just and necessary Operations of every Ingre­dient. You will with Difficulty support your self, when you hear the Injuries we receive from the perfidious Phy­sicians and Surgeons. A sower, fermenting, roapy, stink­ing, or at best, sugary and loathsome Syrup is cast into the Juleps, made by it most ungrateful to the Stomach, most corruptive of the Blood. The temperate Powders are heated by the Acrid, these are debas'd in their turns by the absorbing. The Gentle, and hot, and active Pills are mix'd to make a Dose, when one of the sorts was intended for the occasion of the Disease or Constitution. All the Admirable Confections, Powders, Extracts, are jumbled with the corrupted, stinking, sticky Conserves, and the ab­hor'd Syrups, to make a fulsom, nauseated Bole, which re­quires the other condemn'd Mixture to wash it down; two Collusive Medicines forc'd at once to oppress the mi­serable [Page 13]Patient. Our Nature feels and judges, and in most Cases abhors the base Medicines. They are reje­cted with Abhorrence, and thrown away, and in a Million of Instances, Nature then soon triumphs over the Disease, assisted by the excellent natural Cordials, and o­ther Remedies of the Family, or those preserv'd from the Corruptions of the Mixture. Our eminent Physicians and Surgeons, who dare not write any one thing but for the Apothecary's Profit, are by Custom, train'd in directing only these; they cannot appoint any other, they do not know the Virtues and Uses of the excellent Medicines to be taken by themselves, as the Government, from the Col­lege, appoints.

I imagin'd, the Discourse was drawing to its Conclu­sion. But will you, they went on, receive and believe the greatest Truth in the World, that the Ignorance of these Physicians and Surgeons, must certainly expose to De­struction, the Life of the Royal Family, the Nobility, Gentry and People? VVhen they were faithful to us, and dire­cted us to mix and divide the perfect publick Medicines, or to infuse or decoct many admirable Simples, (as the Di­sease or Constitution requir'd, one or two of them toge­ther,) they knew, with the greatest Exactness, if the Wa­ter, the Spirit, the Tinctures, the Powder, Pill, or Confe­ction, were good, or the worst in the VVorld. They would extol this, and fl [...]g away the other, and make us send to such an Apothecary for the best of his they had lately tasted in another House. But our vain presuming ignorant Physicians and Surgeons, when they now s [...] or tast their foolish Mixtures (which they therefore never do) cannot make any Judgment, if any one of the Ingredients is good. As in the Tumults of the Rabble, their Numbers secure them from Execution. They do not know one Sim­ple, cannot inform us that the Rhubarb is rotten, and the Child will die, if he has not better; that these Flowers, and Seeds, and Roots, are not fit for use. All my House was fill'd with the Exclamations. They know nothing of any [Page 14]one Medicine. Dr. R. has been caught a thousand times in his Blunders, has lost the VVagers he wanted Sence to avoid. The other Apostate Physicians and Surgeons, are upon the level with him. They are not made to learn them at the Ʋniversities. VVe know they are here now engag'd in worse Company and Entertainments. The Merchants, Druggists, Distillers, many other Traders, cry'd aloud, VVe will maintain it before the Parliament, before all Mankind, that without frequently applying each singly to their Senses, by carefully comparing and detecting the Differences, they shall never know a Medicine. VVe cannot arrive to any Skill in our Goods, but by many, and continual Examinations and Tryals.

VVhen the Managers of this Part drew to the Con­clusion, many Merchanes advanc'd to me with a Confu­sion and Trouble not to be describ'd. It is from this Igno­rance of our Physicians and Surgeons, that the Apothecaries dare make the most abhor'd sophisticated Medicines. Can you conceive, that it is commonly said, Mine has good things, and I pity the rest of the City. This I believe makes very good, and not one besides. They sell several sorts of the higher and lowest Prices: The VVholesale to a Retaler: The sweepings of the Druggist's Shop furnish the Materi­als. Can you conceive, that six of our chief Apothecaries were accus'd before the College, for making and vending the most frequently us'd Medicines in the [...]fest manners; the prin­cipal Ingredients of many of them inhumanly detain'd from the Sick? The Officers of the Company had injur'd an Apothecary in the City; he order'd his Friends to buy the Remedies most usually administred. They were con­demn'd at the Hall by the unanimous Voice of the Venders of many of them. The Names of the Men and the Medicines are printed by the College. The Apothecary was the Evidence against them; the Physicians (which is the in­tolerable Grievance we now deplore) were not able to say any thing to the matter. They would, they must have past on any one of their Patients of the best Quality: Are [Page 15]they not rare Cures of Dr. R's working with such Tools on Diseases, which are not able to destroy the Sick, when his Apothecary in Covent-Garden, is one of them, and his Apothecary in the City, has been discover'd, and there was a large Collection of their Poisonous VVares, which were not brought to that Tryal? Are not these super­excellent Physicians and Surgeons, who know not, who care not what they order unto us? As the Trade and its Poverty increases; as the Emulation and Necessity of gaining the most they can from the Badness of the Medi­cines, who shall ensure us, when the Advisers cannot, that they are not current in the Royal Chamber and the Nobility, as Well as ours? The Rhubarb Apothecary and his Partners, were by the Druggist accus'd before the Commis­sioners of the publick Accounts, for robbing the late King, by the excessive Prices for the Medicines sold to him for no­thing, and good for nothing, and for the Murthers of many Thou sands of the Army in the first Descent in Ire­land. It is printed, that they took the Oaths of the Cri­minals themselves, were just neither to the King, nor the vast Numbers barbarously destroy'd.

I had not the Power on my Mind, my Passion made the Reply, The Government shall not take care of such Mon­strous Fools as you. You contrive your own Destruction, and are angry, if any one endeavours to save you. You will have the Apothecary come to your House, enter the Chamber of the Sick, when you should command him to the Still, the Mortar, the Scales and the Measures, to deli­ver carefully all the quantities you want, to prevent your being often expos'd, often kill'd (as the College proves in many Particulars) by the obvious Errors of the wanton idle Boys. Was ever Madness thus violent and fatal as Yours? How long a List of the Squires can you make, who send for the Vintner to the Parlour, make him fill and measure each Glass, order the Numbers they shall take off, and make the Reckoning of so many Draughts at his own Pleasure and Occasions? Are you acquainted with the [Page 16] Changelings, who desire the Baker and the Poulterer to carve and send in the Parcels they have design'd for every Member of the House? There are Nurses not blind and decrepit, who can give the Glysters, and dress the Blisters, and apply the Melilote, your Friends and Servants to at­tend. You have a Physician not far From you, examin'd and allow'd by the Government, as the Judge on the Cir­cuit, or your Minister, who makes all the necessary Ob­servations, attends in all the necessary Cases, and appoints the Divisions and Mixtures, and the just Seasons of admi­nistring the Medicines. Will the Apothecary discourse more copiously, of the most abstruse Causes and diffe­rences of Diseases, of the Reasons and Progress of all the Symptoms, on all the Energies of every Remedy, and if he is busy in another Place, send his Journeyman or any one of his Prentices to discourse on the Affairs, nor you nor they can understand? A notable Writer on their side asserts his own great Skill, and not of many more, but protests, That the Master and Wardens of the Company are not able, and are not to be trusted with the Examination of such Abilities as these. The Man and his Lads furnish the Prattle, do all the Drudgeries for the Nurses and Foot­men, bring the Doses, and run on the Errands, and pre­sent them with Cordials and Gratuities, when in Health, and abundance of them, when they complain. The Go­vernour of the House must be thrust from the Chamber, and the Concerns of the Life and Expence, is allow'd no freedom of Speech, or Vote in the Choice of the Physician or Consultation. When the Rout is begun, and the Ship is sinking, we will have the best General and Pilot of his Appointment. Tho' that Life is best, he shall inform the Apothecary the Methods and Medicines to save the next in course. I assert, that he must not, will not, is not able to instruct the Invader of his Profession. Do you know any Art or Trade which is Felo de se? And the General imploy'd only in Rallying the runaway Troops, can never project or make a glori­ous Campaign. Your Physician is a Stranger to the great [Page 17]Design of repelling the Diseases at the Beginning; and of assisting Nature then in its greatest vigour; does he know the Remedies then Necessary? No; he rarely or never uses them. But he will communicate what he knows. No; he must raise so much out of the Disease for the Ruler of the Affair, who will not prepare with the ex­traordinary trouble the appropriate Remedy, when the Waters, &c. lie always ready in the Shop to be mixt up, and divided in an instant; and if our Specifick Medicine de­monstrates the just Application and its Efficacy, the Dis­ease shall vanish, before the tenth part of the Sum is rais'd. This is the Duty and Employment of the Physician and Surgeon prefer'd, as now in all your Houses, to the Ser­vice. And when the Apothecaries shall by their two or three Prentices have Eight or Ten Habitations only from one Shop to another, they must then, as usually at this time, finish as well as begin, and to advance their Repu­tation, and the Peoples surest Confidence in them, bring in to commend, extoll, and set them off, the most pre­par'd Knaves and Blockheads of them both. What will you think of that sort of Physicians and Surgeons, the Men of no Religion or Manners, who ply the Gentlemen of perpetual Surfeits and their other usual Disorders, who by their Banter and Atheistical Impudence extinguish in them all Sence of Honour and Concern for the Publick Welfare, use them as their Engines of Noise and Violence to destroy the College and the Company, which can only (as Merchants in Consort, as Councils of Courts and Armies) raise the Improvements and Fidelity of the two Professions, and prompt the Madmen to cry them up, the only great and all-sufficient Physicians and Surgeons, against the strongest Evidences of their Reason and Sense.

I saw Floods of Tears gush from the Eyes of many of my Friends, which oblig'd me to relieve their Trouble and mollify their Pain. You may be happy, as soon as you please. I will present you with the greatest Wisdom Mor­tal Man can aspire to, the most profitable Invention, its [Page 18]Produce is equal to the Silver Mines; all our Forefathers were Masters of it, we have lost it by the Foolish Pursuits of Luxury and Pleasure, and suffered our Inheritance of Understanding to lie neglecte [...] and wast. Entertain your Physicians and Surgeons, as the Kings do, in your respe­ctive Proportions. You will then engage and subdue them by the irresistible Powers of their own Interest to ren­der you ten Thousand Services more than I can enume­rate. Suppose your only Son is seiz'd with a Fever, your Physician then must by all the Visits, to apprehend all the most Minute and most Important Observations, by his vigilancy to lay hold on all the occasions, by his incessant Perusal of his Authors and his Practice, by his Judgment more elaborated from the private Councils of the most Eminent Physicians he will address to, conclude the Cure, if possible, in 3, 4, or 5 days, which Millions of Events attest, and not permit the Disease to escape him, and run off to 15, 20 days, and acquire daily more violence and danger. Will not your Surgeon's Interest oblige him to the same faithful Treatment of all the Tumours and Wounds? They will both instruct you in the Rates and Divisions of all the Juleps, Powders, Confections, and in every Case save you a Summ more bulky and affrighting than the Salary. But I crave your sharpest Attention, they will by their Interest be necessitated to teach and inform you in the Uses and Applications of all the Medicines, that you may wisely and safely tamper with all the vulgar Disorders of the Family, and the most Divine Charity the Relief of your poor Neighbours with your Council, and the Medicines at no cost, which now destroy and undo them. VVhen the Case is more difficult, it is your Interest to re­commend your Physician and Surgeon to all the opportu­nities which shall increase their Knowledge and Experience. How secure will you make your selves, fortify your Minds with the strongest Confidence of Success, when you know he has cur'd 500 of the Disease, which has surpriz'd you? You must not object, that you must have a burnisht Phy­sician, [Page 19]as Dr. R. or an impudent all-assuming Surgeon, as C. B. Your Physicians Learning shall not be glistring Tin­sel, as Dr. R. but have all the weight and richness of the Metal. If all our Knowledge is seeing the differences of Diseases, of their Symptoms and the Event after the use of the Remedies, the vain Pretenders may have more Wit and artful Negligence: But yours will have more Art and Success in proportion to the Numbers of his Patients near him, and the careful Journals he has enter'd of the Course of their Voyage. This copious and assiduous Practice will make your Physician warranted to you from the strictest Education and Examination at the College, an Hippocrates, Galen, and Sydenham, furnish'd with the two necessary Parts of the Mixture, Integrity and Science. As the Princes and People fearfully depend in a dubious War, on the Art and Courage of the Generals and Admirals, all the Crown'd Heads, and the Knees of the Subjects pro­strate themselves, do and must bow down and bend to the two Professions, when under the Terrour of insulting Di­seases. The greatest Honours and Regards engage the proportion'd Zeal and Affection. They are assaulted and worried in no part of the Universe, as by the deluded, unthinking English. The Rabble only judge the Merits of the Victory; the Aged, the Wise and observing Gentry are lost, or dare not appear, and humbly offer their Judg­ment. The Apothecary, as the Midwife, is call'd to all the innumerable safe and natural Labours of the Distem­pers, he only s [...]es all the Mothers and Children; but the Artist sent for in the insuperable Difficulties is condemn'd, they ply their Engines and Waters at all the Outcries of Fires breaking forth, the other has nothing left to at­tempt, but blowing up, and laying the Houses in an Heap of Ruines. The Rabble are accustom'd to the Numb­ers of Doses and irrational casting them into, and against the Disease. The Physician is accus'd of the Death of the Pa­tient, if he pretends, by Reason, and the Cautions of ruf­fling the natural Motions by the numberless Remedies, [Page 20]to seize the just Informations, and prevent the fatal Effect of any one violently opposing the natural Designs of the Recovery. But, as the Mob are for sighting instantly, and are well contented, tho' they are beaten, if a great many are killed, our wretched People judge only by the boisterous Management, with the vast Excess of the Ran­dom Shots of the Medicines. If one presumes to give the first and the richest Cordial, the Prospect of certain Re­coveries, will you dare go on as you begin, let Nature recover it self. Dr. R. and the blustering Surgeon, take away all the hope of Recovery at first sight. They swear and damn they shall die, and some do so; but when one does well, we magnisie the Cure, and are infinitely pleas'd with the most hazardous Escape. Thus every Fever and Small Pox, tho' the Kind, reigning then, may be safe, must have every two Hours, such a Quantity of Boles and Draughts, [...], as the Apothecaries will have made the Fashion, tho' we see in a thousand Instances, many have their Healths restor'd by ten times fewer. The People will not see the Dangers they were preserv'd from, when an equal Proportion remains on the Table. You shall hear them lament, that tho' seven of the House got over the Small-Pox by the honest Treatment, they lost one dear Child, they fear had not all the Remedies could be taken. The judicious Physician must grievously suffer, and the poor Patients with him, when profuse and frequent Bleedings, the rudest Vomits, Cupping and Scarifying, and much Bliste­ring, and bloody Water and Pain shall give the grand Reputa­tion, as the Vulgar cry up Surgeons from cutting off a Limb, gashing, and letting out of a deal of Matter, and trepanning the Skull. I have lately been assur'd by several Physicians, that no Credit can be acquir'd by saving the Life of a Pa­tient, by preventing the deadly Symptoms, by conducting and supporting the natural Powers. The healthy Enter­tainment and Feast is rejected, and the Luxury and De­bauchery are the Demonstration of much Respect and Af­fection: tho' the Stomach and the Head terribly suffer▪ [Page 21]and a dreadful Fever follows the Surfeit. The Physicians have compell'd me to believe them, that their Fame was usually advanc'd after the Patients had fall'n by the Load of ungrateful oppressive Doses, the World never knew be­fore: That they lamented from their Souls, the Calami­ties of the Sick, when the Dr. is every day driven on by the Apothecary, and vehemently drag'd forward by the Attendants to oppose the Life, by the half Sheet of Pre­scriptions in every Visit or many Doses, and to be pleas'd when the next Day they remain from the Sleep interve­ning, or the fortunate Aversion of the Patient. When we do not comply with the Importunities for the superfluous Remedies, we must trick the foolish People, with the odd silly Advices of an Issue on the top of the Head, or a Seton, or going to Bath or Turnbridge, what ever the Disease is, when there are very many may be used to better purpose than two Waters only. Shou'd you at any time discover one of the many Deaths, that you lost your Son by the exces­sive Dosing, or a little impertinent Whimsey of distin­guishing Advice, and cry out for Justice on the Murthe­rers; you must be reprimanded, that you do not consult the ancient Gentlemen of the oldest and wisest Observa­tions, that you cannot see with your own Eyes, that Millions of Children have saved themselves by the fierce Cries, and beating off, and spattering out the Boles; that thousands of old Men and Women had protected their Life to the longest Periods, by the Chamber, and Absti­nence, and the Dread of too many Medicines. But you must, with all your Power, maintain the Honour and Discipline of the College, which can only, by the mutual Improvements of the learned and faithful Practice, give you the great Standards to judge by. You must use your Reason, the Methods the Government has given you, and not cry out to be help'd, like the careless Child, who will be taken up, when he might have kept his Legs, if he pleas'd. If the Mirmils, Querpoes, Bards, and the Ʋp­starts, have carried the Patrons daily Earnings of two or [Page 22]three Guineas a Day, too far in most of the Diseases, and you can prove the Sick were grievously injur'd, or dy'd by the modern and growing Practice, you must appeal to the Censors of the College, who have publish'd them as Homicides and Villans.

All the Company call'd aloud, we will oppose the Apo­thecaries, the Origine of all our Sufferings, and not pay the Bill of two or three Guineas a day, which we can have in the Quantities for two or three Shillings.

I answer'd them, you will expose your Folly, and the Apothecary shall come off victorious in the Tryal; he shall have his Bill justified, tho' he sets down many Pow­ders daily not worth two Farthings, at 4. s. and 6 d. and shall have the Cost of the Suit. The Court and the Jury shall denounce your Sentence; we will never examine the Merit, the Value of any Dose. You shall be cheated and undone. Is the Bill 30 l. in one Fever? It shall pass, were it 300 l. Is it 200 l. for a Clap? You should pay it, were it 2000 l. If most of the Boles and Draughts after them, we know are all worth but 2 d. rated now to you at 5 s. were set down at 5 l. at 50 l. you shou'd be forc'd to pay it; which, as their Numbers and their Wants improve, they will swear is the common Reck­oning for them. Do you trouble the Court in a revenge­ful Prosecution, that all the Money you can spare for your Health and Life, is wrested and taken from you by the Apothecary? The Government has appointed, that all these Medicines, prepar'd in the Shop, shall be bought in Quantities at the smallest Values, to be easily mix'd and divided by you. Why do you use any Physicians, that are not honest and just to you, do not inform you of the Provision of all the Necessaries of Life, your Property, and the obvious Skill of adapting them to the frequent Occasions? Are you Fools to be govern'd by the Apo­thecary? Are you Fools to suffer him to defraud your Physician? You shall be whip [...] with the Rods you prepare. Begone from the Court, and report to all you [Page 23]know the Decree we make, that we will not be the Col­lege Beadles. The Law has impower'd them to restrain the Apothecaries from Quacking out of their Shops, and can, if you please to support it, deter and punish their Mem­bers, and prevent the Exactions and Destruction of a wanton Nation, proud of their Laws and Liberties they are always breaking. I suppose they had the dismal Re­membrance of the vast Yearly Payments, of the Death of their Children, of the Defeats in the Tryals with the Apo­thecaries; I heard die Shrieks, and Groans, and Gnash­ing of Teeth, as in the Old Baily; when the Sentence is pronounc'd to the Barr full of Criminals.

I must confess to you, I sympathiz'd with them. But all was calm and serene in a Moment, after I had assur'd them, that the miserable English should not fall, as in the sacred History, into the Hands of Thieves, be stript and wounded to death by them. The Priest and the Magi­strate shall not pass by on the other side, regardless of their Calamities. You shall be restor'd to your Proper­ty, the Knowledge of the Prices and Uses of all the pub­lick Remedies the Government has presented to you. The Physicians and Surgeons shall not be ignorant, as now, if they are honestly or treacherously prepar'd, and pass, as it may happen, the vilest Medicine on the Sick, when the Life depends, in the Juncture of many Circum­stances, on the Dose. They shall be compel [...]'d to learn the great Variety of the Simples, and not, as now, delude and destroy, with 30 or 40 of the general Remedies only. They shall not dare to confound these together in an use­less Mass, then to be broken into little Doses, to blind our Knowledge of the Values, and expose our Life. They shall not, with the most abhor'd Perjury, assault their own Societies, and deliver to the Apothecary's Ignorance, all the Cases which can only nourish and increase their Knowledge, and by the Communications, the Stock of Sience of the two Professions. The Sick formerly were expos'd in the Temples, and the Porches of their Houses, [Page 24]to the Views and Advice of all the Spectators, we are en­compass'd only with the Impostures of the Apothecaries, the most wicked Physicians and Surgeons, without the Knowledge of the Goodness and Virtues of the Medicines, or the different Circumstances of our Diseases. We will implore the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, to address to the Fountain of Justice for the Visitation of them, and the most severe Inspection into the State of the Nation, the Health and Life of the Subjects.

I was almost deter'd from the Pursuit of my Design, fearing the Nobility and Gentry would not receive the In­formation, and the common People boysterously rage, when assur'd, that their eminent Physicians and Surgeons, are only the Setters and Sweetners for the Apothecaries to pilfer them, that they have not the Learning and Abili­ties which will preserve them in any one very dangerous Disease. But then, the College asserts both in many parts of their Remonstrances, and our most Religious and most Learned K. Charles I. and the Lords of this Council, and all the Judges of England, did most solemnly avow, that, without the one Soverein Remedy, the Profession must be more and more corrupted to the Consumption of all its Virtue and Knowledge. You have try'd many Me­dicines without Success. Your College, and the Surge­ons Company, must humbly address to her Majesty, who derives all the Royal Virtues from your great Patron, K. Charles I. You will excuse me, when I urge the Ne­cessity of saving your Societies, and the Life of the Pub­lick, by the Address to her Majesty in Council, from the most weighty and irrefragable Reasons the College Dis­courses have abundantly furnish'd me with. All the Eng­lish Gentlemen will excuse my Confidence, my Pre­sumption, when I assert, that you cannot be refus'd, that the College and Company shall be restor'd to their Dignity and Power of relieving the most opprest Peo­ple. That the Decree must be the same, which was made by that most Religious, and most Learned Prince. I [Page 25]scorn and defie all the Objections the deluded English Gentlemen can invent. Are they more wise than the King? Have they more Honour than the Lords of the Council in that Reign? Is not the most profound Learn­ing of the Judges, at that time, admir'd in this? To come close to my Adversaries, your College demonstrated, that the Profession of Physick must be destroy'd, when the Apothecaries are suffer'd to intrude into the Chambers of the Sick, leaving their Station and Duties of preparing, and carefully delivering the Medicines in the Shop, hav­ing no Reward, but what they contrive out of the Multi­tude and Dearness of the Doses. Their Numbers force them to suggest all the Forgeries imaginable, to cry up that sort of Physicians, who shall fatally deceive the People, support their most absurd and pernicious Advices, and justifie and improve the Profit from the many and dear Medicines. They must cry down the other sort, who shall caution them for the future, against the unexamin'd, il­literate Pretenders, and maintain the Property of the Use of the publick Remedies, and preserve their Knowledge of the small Prices of the most generous Medicines.

His Majesty and the Council, allow'd the clearest: and the greatest Truth.

You then proceed to avow; that it is the greatest Folly, that God has not afflicted Mankind with the Permission of any more deadly Infatuation, than to take an Apotheca­ries Judgment, in the tender or furious▪ Begining of Di­seases, whose Capacity was never examin'd, to force him to pay himself what he pleases, 1, 2, 3 l. a Day, by the Number of the Doses, and the fraudulent Prices, when all the Parts of the Universe have observ'd, that many se­vere Diseases pass off by the Strength of Nature, assisted or not disorder'd, and that the largest Part of the Medi­cines of our own Growth, are, and must be of the lowest Rates. But that the unhappy People will easily be im­pos'd on by the Impostures of no Efficacies in the most plentiful, of the few pretended to be dear, being mix'd [Page 26]in every thing they shall take, especially when the per­jur'd Physicians are ready to vouch all the Articles of the Forgery.

Your College then, with a Generosity never to be pa­rallel'd, confess'd, that the Physicians Knowledge of Di­seases was almost lost; that by treacherously commending every Practice of the Apothecaries, they were by degrees, more and more neglected; that the Disease is broken from the natural Types every day, by the improper and hourly intruded Remedies, that prescribing in that Confusion of the genuine and unnatural Symptoms, they can never judge of the Disease: That their Violations of the Laws of Physick must destroy all the Patients, unless the natural Vigour is able to oppose them, and perform the Cure.

The Physicians must lose all the Knowledge of Me­dicines, not able to discern the best from the most So­phisticate, not commend or reject the Use of them in the most hazardous Cases, and not distinguish the true Qualites and Virtues, or judge of the Operations, when they conspire with the Apothecaries to blend together, with the most fatal Inhumanity to the Sick, the perfect, complete Remedies, design'd to be us'd in their full Power, unmix'd. The Confusion of them confounds and breaks the Efficacy to be rely'd on. This must be the great Art and Mystery of the Practice to kill and ob­literate the Peoples Discernment of their Prices, and their Application of them in the more easie and frequent Di­stempers. The Apothecaries will insult the Physician's Ignorance, will affront them, if they pry into the Secrets of the Shop, and observe the single unmix'd Medicines there, will reject the Prescription, which shall give the unusual Trouble of Preparation, in the place of the Vul­gar, always ready to be clapt together, will command the Physicians, fearing their Displeasure, never to examine a­ny Qualities or Virtues of any Simple, or contrive any more rational Preparation, or bring to the Test, any for­merly or lately publish'd. They will demand in all the [Page 27]Houses they govern, their faithful Assurance, that they will decry all the Improvements of the Learning in Me­dicines in the publick Laboratory of the College or their own, and report it Scandalous to reflect, what Medicines their Patients shall take.

When the Physicians of more cultivated Learning and Experience, shall with Reluctance betray their Patients, the Apothecaries will select the poor and necessitous, and daring Impudence of the Novices, who have not had the Observations of Diseases or Remedies to compare and form a just Judgment of. These must unite and blast the Physicians of long Practice and Discernment of the Successes of the various Methods of Cure, whose In­structions and Cautions can only educate and raise to Perfection the Crude Attempts of the Practice lately begun. They shall never or after the Destruction of many of the Sick begin to correct their Errors, and fear there may be more rational ways of treating the Dis­eases and better Medicines to be employ'd.

His Majesty, and the Lords of the Council, and the Judges were pleas'd to allow the most necessary Conse­quences in the Art of Physick, and in all other Professions, and therefore determined to dissolve the Apothecaries Company, to appoint the competent Number in the City. The Application was prevented by the Rebellion breaking forth soon after.

Your College generously imitates your Learned and pub­lick Spirited Predecessors: You have presented to the No­bility and Gentry the boldest Discovery of the Ignorance of the Physicians in all the Diseases and Medicines. You assert that the great Enquiries are no more, and by a large variety in the first and last Pages you endeavour to convince them, that the Profession (and the Surgeons cannot be secluded,) has no Honour or Conscience, no Design or In­dustry, or Ability to procure Health and Life. It will be unpresidented to admit Dr. R., &c. to enter their Protesta­tion [Page 28]when the Majority of the Society has included them▪ and they can plead no Cause of Exception.

I know our Gentlemen are proud of their Wit and Im­provements from Conversation, and fancy that Divinity, Law and Physick are learned by Rote and by the Ear, and in good Company. Because some useful, many very ri­diculous Inventions have entertain'd the Age, they ima­gine, that it excells all the preceding times. All before us were nothing to us. The French, they say, conquer'd the Island in the Reign of our King Henry, V. the Spani­ards subdued us in 88, that the Reformers of our Reli­on had no Learning, that the Judges and the Lawyers were not regarded, that they had then no Physick: That we are wiser than all the World beside, and have more Courage and Bravery, that they would conquer the French sooner, without any Allies. Tho' our present Physici­ans are not instructed by the Professors in the University, nor by any one ever after at all wiser than themselves, tho' they pretend to little Study and Diligence, value them­selves on the general Learning, preliminary only to, and ne­cessary to enter all the Professions, or are very elaborate in Trifles nothing to their Purpose, they assume a Cha­racter they have no Pretence to, a Grandeur and Lustre to cover the Crimes, of which you accuse them. I am therefore oblig'd to deduce the History of Physick from its Original, out of your Books, and the Comments on them to the almost total Corruption and Death of it in our Age. The Records are authentick, your Observati­ons most just, that the noisy Admirers of the Modern Ac­complishments shall be forc'd to confess their Folly and repair the Weakness of their Understanding.

The first Labours and Industry of Mankind were ex­ercis'd in discovering the Fruits, and Grains, and Fountains, the grateful and present Remedies of Hunger and Thirst, then in discovering the Caverns of Rocks, and building, in imitation of them, their Securities and Defences from the Cold and the Ravages of the Beasts of Prey, till they [Page 29]had learnt from them to assault and destroy their own kind. The first Surfeits and Pains, and Fevers, Bruises and wounds, rais'd their most eager Affections to relieve, and the most unwearied Solicitudes to find the Medicines, which should be able in the parallel Dangers to preserve them­selves. The Plants they had tasted in their searches after Food, and had rejected from their Qualities and Vertues more powerfully affecting the Palate and the Stomach, were instantly demanded and apply'd. The natural Cra­vings and Instincts of the Patients were heard and regar­ded, the Aversions and Antipathies were most warily ob­serv'd and recorded. The observations of the various Suc­cesses were made in the view and Inquest of all the little Communities, and preserved for the use of Posterity. When the small Governments increast and multiply'd to Kingdoms and Empires, the Medical Knowledge of pre­venting and curing Diseases was proportionably extended. The first most populous Countries were therefore most famous from the Improvements of Physick, before all the o­ther Arts. Apollo therefore and Aesculapius were immor­taliz'd as the greatest Benefactors, from the great Improve­ments of the Science, which preserves Life: they were a­dor'd in their Temples, where all the Healthy and Diseas'd made their daily Sacrifices for their Protection and Preser­vation. Many of the other Deities were neglected, there was no City, where Aesculapius was not addrest to for his Inspirations and Communications of the most Sovereign Medicines. This alone was the Profession, which engag'd the most indefatigable Industry of all the Princes of both Sexes, of all the Nobility, of the most sagacious Popula­cy, till after many Ages, a great Magazine of Observati­ons of all Diseases, and their most prevalent Remedies had been collected, and the Application committed to the as­siduous Practisers of the Science. Can it be doubted, that it was in many Centuries advane'd to the greatest Height and Honours, when the Patients and Observations innumerable had made infinite Records of all things inju­rious [Page 30]to Health, of the unhappy and most prosperous E­vents of Millions of Attempts in all the different Disea­ses and their Symptomes. They then had from the Di­ctates of Nature, the good Sence the English have now lost and cannot recover, to desire in the first Invasions of the most deadly Enemies, the most celebrated and most pre­par'd Adviser? Navigation and Commerce communicated from the East and from Egypt to the Greeks, the Know­ledge of the differences of Diseases, the various Methods to attempt the Recoveries. Hippocrates is not the first Writer of Antiquity, he records many before him. There were many thousand of Discourses of Diseases, and Medicines to furnish his admirable Collection, and the most sublime Philosophy, of the Motions of our Nature, to relieve it self from the Violences of Diseases, and in the Progress of them, and of the most powerful Succours of its Allies, the Operations of the Medicines, as many thousand Poets flourish'd before Homer, who inflam'd his Emulation to surpass them in his Poems, which have never been imi­tated or equall'd. The most necessary Art was pursu'd with the greatest Ardour through many Ages, till Galen in the most eloquent and learned Volumes, collected the Histories of all the Diseases, which can afflict us, and almost all the Remedies, which are able to repell them. Our Gentlemen will rave at my Assertion, but I assert, that the Genius of Antiquity (when Human Nature was rais'd to its greatest Elevation, when the Governments were secur'd by the most equal and wisest Laws, when the Courage and Arts of Invasion and Defence, when the Buildings of Magnificence and Use, the Histories, Poetry, Oratory, Painting, Statuary and Musick, and all the other Entertainments of Life surpass our just Compre­hension, as they explode our pretences to imitation) could not be wanting or defective in advancing the Profession of conquering the most deadly and stubborn Diseases to its greatest Perfection. The Gentlemen, who do not under­stand me, will pelt me with most terrible Objections: I [Page 31]must in the first place request them to consider most se­dately and maturely the most important Affair they have ever examin'd and refer them to the most instructive Com­ments on your College Publications. There are not many Distempers, which are not largely treated of in the Writings of the Antients. But they give the most necessary, the infallible Rudiments, the only firm and solid Foundations, on which alone the Superstructure can be rais'd; all the different Symptomes of Diseases our Nature can be affli­cted with, all their necessary Consequences and Events, which will pass off by the Natural Efforts alone, and which of them require the most tender Treatments or the most vigorous Oppositions. As the General does not learn to conquer one Enemy and one Army, to besiege one Fortification only: Nor the Master to conduct the Ship into one Port, and govern it in the Storms of one Season of the Year. Had they great Plenty of the Medicines? They were Masters of the Knowledge of the Qualities and Preparations of all the Plants the Universe produces. Is a small Pittance pretended to be lately discover'd? How vast a Number of theirs are known only by their Names? their Properties and Uses are now neglected, banish'd from the English Enquiries and Practice? Our People foolishly fond of the sufficiency of the Moderns, will be angry our Physicians shall be commanded to consult Hippocra­tes, Diascorides, Galen. They have possess'd, engrost all the immense Wealth of Knowledge in their Treasury. They are the Originals and Master-pieces, which we must copy after and labour to imitate. We must obey the immutable Laws of Nature they have publish'd, and every Devia­tion from the most perfect is erroneous and absurd, and in the present Case fatal to Life. They were examin'd, approv'd, authoriz'd by all the Nations in many succee­ding Ages; the Diseas'd must dye, if they cannot be pro­tected and preserv'd by them. Shall any one conceit, that the Preparations of their Medicines were not then the most exquisite? Did they take care of their Bread and Wine [Page 32]only? Did they exceed us in all the Incentives of Luxury and Debauchery, and neglect the most potent Preservers and Restorers of Life? Their Medicines were prepar'd in the greatest degrees of Perfection, not enervated or de­bast by the impudent Fallacy to amuse and defraud the Sick, not the collusive Prescripts, void of all Virtue and Efficacy to delude, not the raging and violent, wasting and consuming the Blood and Spirits they pretend to sup­port. The Patients had all the natural mixture of their Powers and Operations in the Substance, or in the Extracts, or the admir'd innumerable Infusions in their Wines or other Liquors. But the Art, as the Life it defends, after Maturity declines from its Beauty and Vigour. The Am­bition, Emulation, and rapacious Avarice of Physicians corrupted it. The Diseases, the most terrible, had been frequently cur'd, and Life extended to the longest Pe­riods, but in Pain, in the dreaded Dangers, the solicitude for a greater, for a new Medicine, more vigorous they fancy in the first Invention, gave the Honours to all the Innovations, the giddy Desertions from, and the impu­dent Affronts to all the establish'd and constant Successes of the general Use. The Grecians and Romans were as­saulted by barbarous Nations they were prevented by their Calamities, from debasing their Physick by the im­portunate Demands, and therefore indefatigable Pursuits of their Physicians, after the endless Novelties of Prepara­tions. The Prosperity of the Arabians unhappily destroy'd the natural sincere Practice, the Contagion from them spread into Europe. Our Age suspects, because the Load­stone was lately apply'd to direct our Navigation, that the Ancients had no Ships, or Commerce: because Printing was not long since invented, that they knew not the Art of Writing; that they made War with Clubs and Stones, for want of our Powder and Artil­lery. It must be repeated, as the first and greatest Point in the Controversie, that the Eastern Nations, the Greci­ans and the Romans, who excell'd the Moderns in all things [Page 33]of Necessity and Grandeur, has all the most rational Prepara­tions of the Infusions and Decoctions, all the Extracts, the Artifices of all the Balsams and Ointments, especially the Externals for all the various Purposes; that they were able to comprehend the two first and greatest Laws of Medi­cine, that the Remedy, whose Qualities and Virtues have been examin'd, and confim'd by the Experience of repeated Success, must be given to the Patient without the Load and Incumbrance of many Ingredients of uncertain, of suspected, of contrary Qualities, but only to convey the great Specifick more pleasantly to the Palate and Stomach, to bribe the one, and fortifie the other, to receive the Re­medies for the whole Body. The other Instance of their Wisdom and Fidelity, demands our Gratitude and Imita­tion. As the Fruits must be eaten before they are dead and rotten; Bread, before it is dry and mouldy; Flesh, without Salt, and dry'd in the Smoak; when the newly prepar'd is most agreeable to the Taste, and Appetite, and Digestion. In this manner, were the Remedies then ad­ministred: the great Specifick, which governs the Cure, (by altering and reducing the observ'd vicious Intempera­tures of the Blood and Spirits) or instantly powder'd, late­ly extracted, infus'd, or decocted, the entire unevapora­ted Powers were presented to the Sick. But the hot and restless Arabians, with the parallel Folly of rejecting the noble Models of the Grecian Architecture, 'till they know the Elements of Marble; the Nature of the Cement, all the Qualities of the Iron Tools; with the Madness of re­fusing to sail, to acquire the Wisdom and Wealth of re­mote Nations; 'till they have disputed on, and resolv'd the Causes of the Winds, and of the Ebbing and Flow­ing of the Sea, lost the Substance for the Shadow, heated one another with the never-ceasing Disputes concerning the Causes and Modes of all the Operations of, and on the Humours of the Body, when the first are felt and discove­red by a thousand Signs, and the other are obvious to all our Senses. The Churchmen were more early corrupting [Page 34]in the same manner, Religion and Morality, by their end­less Controversies, to adjust the plainest Truths to the Notions of Plato and Aristotle. But to return to the Me­dicines; the Arabians insulted, and affronted all the most faithful Observations of the great Effects of the most natu­ral and rational Preparations, and impos'd on their Prin­ces, Nobility and People, the most absurd and sophistica­ted, desir'd for their Novelty by the Imagination debauch'd by the assum'd grater Industry and Penetration of the Impostors. These could not be stop'd in their Career of Riches and Glory, to be acquir'd by the new Fashions of Medicines: They strove to outdo one another, vitiating and destroying the genuine Preparations and Mixtures of the Sovereign Simples, by their newly discover'd simple and compound Waters, and Conserves, and Syrups. The obvious Frauds of the Craft, prompted and incited their Dillgence, to invent many Thousand new Waters, and Con­serves, and Syrups. To prepare these, there must be a Le­gion of Apothecaries, they and the Physicians unite, in Con­federacy, all their Forces, to damn and decry all the ap­plauded Remedies: The new, tho' infinite, will not subsist them without Deceit, and the Artifices of mending the Trade. An Arabian Prince and Physician had his Army pester'd with another Army of Apothecaries, as numerous. He resolv'd to lessen their Numbers, by separating the Honest from the Knaves. He appointed an unintelligible Jargon of insignificant Words, to be publish'd as a Receit of a general Remedy; many Thousands undertook to prepare it, were detected busie in the compounding it, and were discarded. 'Tis now time to return to Europe, and England, to observe how we have been, and how we are treated at this time.

France, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, had from the Phenicians first, then the Greeks and Romans, (beyond their own Discoveries in common with all the other parts of the World) the Observations of the various Diseases, the Use of the most natural and rational Me­dicines, [Page 35]establish'd by Prescription of constant use. When the Mahometans conquer'd Constantinople and Greece, the distress'd Nobility and Gentry, and the learned fled for Refuge into Italy, then barbarous, after its Subjection to the wild Northern Invaders. The Princes, who receiv'd them with the greatest Humanity, had the ample Reward, the Communication of the Grecian Learing. Printing was at that time invented. Who is able to express. with what Ardour and indefatigable Industry, all the Parts of Learn­ing were in that Century cultivated by them? The Britains, the French, the Germans travell'd to Italy, (as the old Phi­losophers into the East and Egypt) to collect the inestima­ble Riches of all Literature from the Professors. These Merchants return'd with the Cargoes of the Wealth of Knowledge of Philosophy, Physick, Surgery, the Anatomy almost finish'd by the Ancients, their Pharmacy of Medi­cines, which scorns and despises all the Modern Pretensions to alter or improve it. France first, then Germany, reapt the great Harvest and Plenty, from the Seed receiv'd from the Italians. But the Germans confin'd, during the long and frozen Winters, to their Stoves, outdid the Arabians, worrying all the Minerals, Animals and Plants, into ten Thousand Preparations of Spirits, Oils, Tinctures and Salts. Their Chymists, heated into Phrenzies by their Fires, swore every one of their Medicines would cure ma­ny Hundred of Diseases at the first taking, in few Drops, or 3 or 4 Grains. The Italians and French invade them in their turns, with fierce and numerous Armies of hard and unintelligible Notions, then with the Atomical Solu­tions of every thing, tho' above the Sence and Reason of Mankind to comprehend. The Mechanicks have since come into the Farce. The People, they imagine, will have the surest Confidence in their Advice and Medicines, when one sort of the Operators shew the minute indivisi­ble Corpuscles of their sick Humors, and of the Reme­dies, and the other undertake every thing by the Laws of Motion, by Measure and Weight. Great Britain in its [Page 36]Order had, as its Manufacture and Trade, the Ancient and Modern Learning imported from Abroad. Our fa­mous Universities had their Professors from Italy; the Court and Nobility, their Physicians from Italy and France. Our most Learned and Magnanimous King Henry VIII. Establish'd by Act of Parliament, the College of Physicians: Your Royal College, compos'd of Physicians from the two Universities prepar'd by their Professors, in a City, which furnishes innumerable Cases of all Diseases, and the surest Methods of Cure, and most just Observa­tions of the Effects of the Medicines, could not fail to emulate the Glory of the Universities of Paris, Montpelier, and of Italy and Germany. The frequent Lectures and Consultations, and Conversations of so many learned Physicians, improv'd the Stock of Learning, and the Ho­nours of the Society. Who can want to be inform'd, how much our Great Britain has rais'd its Fame equal to its Ri­vals by Dr. Linacre, Caius, Goulston, the immortal Harvey, Hamey, Glisson, Wharton, Scarborough, Miclethwayte, Pru­jean, Bates, Willis, Lower, Sydenham? These Physicians were capable to assist and instruct one the other; the Wri­ter often enrich'd with the most valued Materials, with which he raises the Structure of his Treatises and Fame. The most difficult Profession in the World cannot be created by the vain ridiculous Presumptions of any one Impostor. They were then as grave as the Judges, and as learned as the Bishops; their Modesty equal to the vast Extent of their Kowledge of all the Languages and Au­thors. Nothing could escape their early and indefatigable Pursuits: After the general Learning of the Languages and Philosophy, necessary to all the Professions, the Pro­fessors exacted from them the Task of perusing carefully Hippocrates, Diascorides, Galen, the Sacred Oracles of the Art, and compare with them the Comments of the late celebrated Authors: But our Physician is a Novice, knows not one Disease nor Medicine from the Books alone, as a thousand Books cannot describe a Face to be certainly [Page 37]known, nor make the Colour, Tast, and strength of any one Wine judg'd of without Errour. They were there­fore introduc'd into Practice by the Professors and other Physicians of Experience, prudently observing the present State, the Symptomes, the Progress, and the Crises of every Disease. They were commanded to make all the usual Preparations, to examine in their Laboratories, the Qualities and Virtues of all the Remedies. Common Sence and the Experience and Usage of Mankind inform us, that all the Arts of Difficulty, and the highest Importance must be taught by the Master and Instructor. Can there be any General, Admiral, Merchant, any excellent Artist without this necessary Education; and the Master is great­ly improv'd, while he is offering his best prepar'd In­structions? But how forcible is the Necessity, to revive the neglected Methods of ripening the knowledge of the Physicians, who are as the Surgeons, the supreme General, and Judge, the Patient must forfeit his Life from his Errour and want of Conduct?

How many Patients must they destroy, before they be­gin to suspect, they have err'd in the Judgment of the Course of the Disease, or the just fitness of the Remedy for the Case and Constitution? But your College solemn­ly declares, that the present Physicians, (who never had Professors, nor read the Authors, nor learnt the Langua­ges, nor ever had any Guide or Director in the first or latest Practice) know not one Disease or Medicine. A great Number of the most elevated station of Quality are of the same Mind, and you have all most solemnly de­clar'd it. A Surgeon in Print publishes, that his Art has had no Improvements, has lost the Knowledge and Use of many the most excellent Methods and Operations practis'd by the Ancients. All the modest Surgeons avow with the Physicians, the Ignorance of their present Soci­ety, and the publick, as for you, are not wanting in con­firming the certainty. But our impudent Physicians and Surge­ons pretend to great Sence, to great Cures, and they alone [Page 38]demand to be excepted from the common and general Sus­picions or Accusations. They dread they are undone, if our People shall be willing to learn (which the Comments on your Discourses demonstrate) that the strength of the Life design'd for old Age cannot be overcome by every Gentleman's Surfeits and Debauchery, and every one a­bove the Discretion of a Fool, wou'd remark, how many Fevers and Small-Pox, and the usual incidental Disorders are heal'd by Nature alone, by Rest, Abstinence, and the use only of the general Cordials. These are Dr. R. and the other Physicians Cures, whose great Fidelity and Dexte­rity are confin'd to the crafty magnifying of those high Performances, when the Patient had the good Fortune to escape the many Neglects, and the many Errors, and the foolish or vile Medicines they employ. Our most assu­ming Surgeons are now detected, by the more modest and qualify'd, most erroneous in their Judgments, unfor­tunate in their Operations, tho' there are many, they dare not undertake. Foreigners are sent for, our bold Un [...] ­takers every Day call out for the Cures they d [...]e [...]t venture to engage. Many of their mighty Cases, as well as the Physicians Diseases, are every Day conquer'd by the Care and good Sence, and old try'd Remedies of the Cha­ritable Women.

The Son broke the Palsy of his Tongue, to cry aloud and save the Life of his Royal Father; shall I or you be silent, and conceal the Assassins of the Royal Family, the Nobility, Gentry and People and share with them the Guilt of the Horrid Crimes? Our eminent Physicians and Surgeons are notoriously engag'd in the Conspiracy to destroy them by their own, and the future Ignorance of all the Physicians and Surgeons, when they betray the College and their Company; the Lectures, the most in­structive Communications, and the great Advances from the mutual Knowledge of all the Members. The Pro­fessors of the Universities are ingag'd in the same Designs, not exacting the Study of the best Authors, not exposing [Page 39]in their Lectures, and private Instructions to their Con­tempt and Neglect, the vain and whimsical Presumptions and Falsities of many of the Modern Scriblers of Hypothe­ses and new Systemes of Theory and Practice. From the failure of their Duty, there are many past and Licens'd without the first Language of the Science, which gives all the Terms, and Maxims and Laws, which govern the Practice of all Diseases; many are suffer'd without Advice or Reproof to assault Life in the most secure Cases with Opiates, Mercurials alone. The College glories in its Success, having abrogated the pernicious Trade of selling Degrees for Money paid in the place of the Learned Pur­chase by the Exchange of the solemn Exercises for the Diploma, a Fraud pernicious to the Hope and Expectation of the young Students they are obligd' to protect. Your College has been lately oblig'd to reject from both, when the Candidates had not the least pretence to any degree of Merit. Your Examinations have necessarily abated the Rigour of your Statutes, to comply with the Defici­encies of the new Physicians. If the Professors are excu­sable, they will plead; that the English are mad and will employ a young Physician of inexpressible Impudence, who swears, he is above and scorns the Professors Assi­stance, or any other Councils and Helps of any Phy­sician of long Experience in the World, and that all the Practicers of great Learning and Observation are Fools to him, that he can never Kill a Patient, follow­ing the new Projects of Diseases, and the lately fashiona­ble Medicines; that he pretends every Day new Projects of Diseases, and will give the Remedies in a way peculiar to himself, never thought of before him. Dr. R. claims the Precedence of this new way of treating the Patients, when he had past his Time many Years merrily, and had the first initiating smatterings of Learning, in common with every one beside: T. A. an Apothecary, who never knew, nor had one good Medicine, the Professor and Leader of the Youngsters, advis'd him to drink with the [Page 40]Tutors, and over the Bottle with them cry down and banter all the Physicians of Judgment and Experience. Will they call you to their Pupils, or the Gentlemen of the Country use you, if you allow the Professor and the other Learned Physicians, to be better than your self? T. A. at the same time, plaid his part, and assur'd the Tutor's easie to be impos'd on, and the Gentlemen's Grooms, and that all the other Doctors were rid out, and they could now have him only in the present Difficulty. When he was mounted the Stage, it was a pleasant Part to perswade, that he was the only good Physician of the Age, and had then, all the Knowledge he would ever pretend to; that he was then above all others, and even then equal to himself. This I avow to all the English Gentlemen, carries its own Evidence in all the Employ­ments and Professions of Hazard and Moment. Another of the more pale and sullen Impudence, shews his Skele­ton, is the greatest Dr. on the Earth the first Year, blas­phemes the Professor in all his Companies, bespatters all the other Physicians, is forc'd to run away, deludes the greatest Quality to imagine, the little Sonnets in Latin bespeak a Man able to allay the most furious Vehemence of Diseases. But can the Physicians, that drink hard, and these Poets, take all the Understanding from all the Na­tion? There is a more potent and latent Cause, which the College in its Remonstrance, has discover'd to us, fully explain'd in its Commentaries. When King James I. made the Apothecaries a Company, the greatest part of the Physicians were Gentlemen of Integrity, possess'd of all the Acquisitions of Learning, of Diseases and Medicines, by the most unwearied Industry and Study, and their Modesty applying in all Cases of Difficulty to the Physi­cians, the experienc'd Officers of the Art to lead and con­duct them, increas'd their Skill and their Courage, flush'd them with frequent Victories. But Theodore Mayern [...], leaving France (in the unsuccessful War of the Chymists with the prudent and cautions Physicians, relying on the [Page 41]Remedies, the most safe and efficacious of the Antient and New Preparations) comes to our Court, and attacks all the Diseases, with the Royal Eagles and Dragons of an hundred Colours, and with Medicines, the Quintessence of Gold. VVhen the Gentlemen and Ladies were terribly a­fraid of the violent efforts of the Eagles and Dragons, but could not be easy without Cheats and Impostures, could ex­pect no Success from their Medicines their Ancestors and they had taken, and given to the Servants and Neigh­bours with the greatest Success, they had Magistrale Wa­ters order'd for them of 150 Ingredients in every one, and Magistrale Syrups of each 200, every Glyster had some 100, others 200. All the Electuaries, and Juleps, and Pills were prescrib'd of 70 or 80 parts, which were each made of the 150. Can a Prescription of 1 or 2 or 3 chosen Simples affect you like ours, which have the Virtues of 1500 or 2000 in them? When the Physici­ans of the new Project to raise themselves, had made the Nobility and Gentry despise and throw away the publick Remedies, which by order of the Government lay ready for use in the Shop, (sent for in Quantities and mixt into Juleps, and divided into their Doses, most easily in all the Houses,) and the Grocers or Druggists, for every Magistrale Water, and Syrup, Glyster, or Electuary, were forc'd to take more Servants, to collect all the Simples, to pick and w [...]k and beat them in the Mortar; the Grocers or Druggists fly to Sir Theodore. VVhat shall we do? Must we neglect our Spices and Fruits and Drugs, to make only these new Compositions? VVe beg, we may leave the Spices and Drugs, and attend to their Compositions only. As the Soldiers often desert, they know not why, 114 request to be put into the Charter, when 14 would have serv'd the City, as Apothecaries at that time, to vend the known general Remedies, appointed by the Government and the College. They saw with Horrour after one Co­lony of 2 or 3 Prentices from every Shop, they could not live, if they sold the Magistrale Water, and Syrups, and [Page 42] Electuaries in Quantities, as all the Medicines at that time, tho' they had great Rates for their new Compositions: Your College does not inform us, who made the first Pro­posal, that the Dr. and Apothecary s [...]uld go snipps in the Profit of every Dis [...]ase, 5 or 10 Shillings in [...]he Pou [...]d, to reward the Labour of the Thoughts, and the Hand in writing ten times more of the Remedies, then the Diseas'd wanted. Th [...]se the old [...]a [...]den'd Physicians strike up another Bargain with the A [...]thecaries; we will have you, when we are sleepy in the Afternoon, and will drink and be merry with our Friend [...], in the Evening at the Tavern, or in the Night, visit our Patients for us, and decry and keep out all the young Physicians. They and their Prentices attend the Sick with great Diligence, and for­ward the taking and consumption of the Remedies. But when more and more Shops are daily open'd, they are a­gain at their wits End, and cry aloud to the Doctor. We are undone, they will not give us a Farthing, for all our Judgment and Attendance: VVe are ruin'd, if you do not help us by subdividing all the larger Quantities into little Doses, pretend to new dear Ingredients in them all, that we may take great Rates for each small parcel, and make 50 l. of a Disease, tho' the Physick us'd to be had for one. Now the Apothecaries are in the Houses, they tell all in the Chamber; we can run more nimbly to you, than the old Doctor, we have all his Medicines these 200 Years past, and know all he has studied for, or observ'd 50 Years together: Believe me, as able as he is, and pay me 50 l. for every Distemper, I will attend you without a Fee, and make Visits to you every Day. Your History gives a famous Instance of a Nobleman intreating your College to spare his Apothecary, (who was under your Examina­tion, for Killing many of his Customers,) for his civil Carriage, Honesty and Sufficiency, and attending daily and hourly in his House. Does not every Inhabitant of Great Britain see the unavoidable Consequences? I will fly from the horrid Apparition, and represent it in one [Page 43]Breath. The Apothecaries denounce to the Physicians and Surgeons, in an angry Tone. Now we can harangue the Masters, Mistresses and Servants as oft as we please; we are your Masters, you must depend on us, you shall betray the People, and your Professions and Societies to us. You shall always justify our Practices, and take the blame of the Death to your selves, when we call you in the Extremity, you shall give to us in the Price and Num­bers of the Remedies, all they can spare in Sickness, even when they have cast off their Prentices and all the Servants to be d [...]vour'd by us. You shall order only the Shop-wares we always have ready, the general Remedies, disguis'd by Mixture, that the People shall not know them, and you shall never be able to detect and blame the worst of them, nor be able to examine publickly our Sh [...]ps: you shall not pretend to be wiser than us, to know any Remedy but those we have: VVe will never pardon your exami­ning and trying the Preparations you read of, in your pri­vate Laboratories, and pretend to apply a sovereign Re­medy, in the [...]ice Circumstances of any Disease or Con­stitution: VVhen the Time shall come, that we must have both the Professions, the Eminent of you, who have no Honour and Conscience shall break in pieces your College and Company, and unite your strength to raise ours on both But twenty Y [...]ars were scarce expir'd, when your College addrest to King C [...]arles [...]. in Council, who commanded the dangerous Company to be dissolv'd, and as many only to be se [...]tled in the City, who cou'd pro­vide the necessary publick Medicines. After the Rest [...]ra­tion, many admirable Discourses were publish'd by Dr. Goddard, Dr. Merett, Dr. B [...]ook, &c. to alarm the Nobility and Gentry, to see the terrible Condition they were fallen into. There was then no Addressing to the Favourite Duke, or the wanton luxurious Witts, the declar'd Enemies to all Learning and Virtue. Your vicious Mem­bers, many of them your Presidents, have frustated all your generous Attempts to relieve the Nation; the lewd Atheists [Page 44]of the Surgeons have broken all the great Designs of that Company. But the thinking and the suffering Gentlemen cry out, if the Physicians would unite, if the Surgeons would unite, they can save us and their Pro­fessions: But all the villanous Physicians and Surgeons are united; they are the major part of both Societies, deter­min'd to sacrifice the Publick for their present Glory and Advantages. Since therefore, the weigthty Cause of the Properties and Life of all the Subjects will be brought before her Majesty in Council, and Visitors appointed to repel the Violences of the Apothecaries and their Physici­ans and Surgeons, and their Allowance of, and exacting the Observance of 2 or 3 necessary Statutes, will preserve us: I design to move all my Brethren to solicite the Lords Spiritual, to introduce it to Her Majesty. I am oblig'd to collect the irresistible Proofs you produce, that the Physicians and Surgeons know no more than the common general Medicines, that they destroy the Sick by the Numbers of the Doses of the worst of them now al­most only advis'd; that they have not the Knowledge of the Qualities and Virtues of any of the Specifick Medi­cines, necessary in the great Cases of Danger, that the People therefore are destroy'd by them in the Diseases, their Nature alone would expel, and cannot be preserv'd, wanting the great Assistance or Controulers of the natural Motions in Diseases. You support me, professing, that the Art is turn'd into a scandalous Craft, that the Physicians are Homicides. How shall I be able, in the narrow space I have confin'd my self to, that the Gentlemen may see, without much Trouble, that Dr. R. and the eminent Physicians and Surgeons, can only pretend to the Title of Witty and Crafty Homicides?

I will therefore recollect and fortify the Articles of Impeachment, and conclude with the necessary Methods, you must pursue, that the Enemies to the Col­lege, and the Nation, may on the Promise and Prospect of their Reformation, be pardon'd, or receive the Punishments [Page 45]they deserve. In the first Collection of Laws, the Prohi­bition of Killing precedes that of Stealing. I am oblig'd to invert that order, because the Apothecaries and their Physicians and Surgeons design only to pilfer from, and strip the Patients; it was in the beginning Consequential, that the Sick were destroy'd; but its now inevitable, the Artists having been train'd up and educated to the custo­mary Practice, and have not the Knowledge of the Dis­eases, and the true Medicines to save the Life, tho' they most ardently desir'd it. I will promise for my Flock, and will engage for my Brethren the Clergy, that they shall call out Thieves in all the Families, and put them on their Guard, and direct them, to defend themselves. How adsurd and impious is it to imagine, that Providence has not given us all the necessary Medicines to preserve us? That the wealthy and prodigal are alone provided for? The Fields and Gardens, and the large Cargoes of the imported Simples, oppose and confute the heedless Ob­jectors. The Frauds of Physick, and all your Publications, demonstrate the great Plenty and Cheapness in all the Particulars.

The Government will command the Apothecaries to make their Defence, and clearly prove, (which they dare not undertake) that more than five or six only do exceed the value of one Peny in the Portion of their Use, and that they are Richer in their Virtues. Every Family in England was able to support the great Truth by their Testimony, when their Closets were stor'd with the Remedies for themselves, and their generous Cha­rity to all their Neighbours, the same Remedies, which are now sham'd on them under the Cover and Disguise of the more unwholsome Mixture. When a malignant Fever, or Pestilential threatned the common Safety, the Munifi­cent Nobility and Gentry, provided for the People the most powerful Alexipharmicks to arm them against, and expel the Enemy: The large Quantities of them did not rise to any higher Rate, than that of the now frequent [Page 46]Doses in every Disease. Do not the Empiricks now draw the People from the Apothecarses, receive them into their Protection, by the large Elixirs, and Electuaries, Juleps, sufficient for many Days, equal to the Prices of the kna­vish Divisions of the modish Couzenage? In the Fits of their Anger and Vapours, they cry out, the Physicians shall not lessen the Apothecaries arbitrary Profit, but they embrace the Advice, and use many of the Domestick Cordials, the Mixtures and Infusions in the most Cordial Wines, the Patients call freely for them, and detest the Collusion of the Perle Juleps. They have 3 or 4 of the simple and compound Waters, the best of the Shop, they join them in all the Varieties of the Juleps; they know, and keep all the most esteem'd Spirits, the vinous, the vola­ [...]tile and acid. They have the Stomachick and Solutive Tinctures, the Elixir Proprietatis, their Elixir Salutis. They make 20 Composing Draughts from the Bottle of Laudanums, and of the Syrup of Poppies. They infuse their own Rbu­bar [...] and S [...]a, they do [...]e the purging Syrups, Manna, Cream of Tartar, and the purging Salt. The best of the Pills, are understood by them, Venice Treacle, Diascordium, Mi­thridate, the Goa-stone, the best of the Oils, and Ointments, and Plaisters, are apply'd to the incidental Disorders. When they shall be convinc'd by us, from the College Discoveries, that Bezoar, Perle, the Leaf-Gold, are injuri­ous, or of no use, we must prepare them to oppose the only Artifice imaginable, which can be put upon them. The Physicians and Surgeons, to merit the Patronage and Preferment of the Apothecaries, will pretend they must direct a large Quantity of the best water'd Diamonds, of the brighest Rubies, of a Chinese Flower, lately imported in the smallest Parcel. The Magistrates at this time, have no Concern, whether the Poor are starv'd or un­done in every Disease. Let us have the great Medicines to save our Life, cost what they will. But their Condi­tion is equally pitiable, and must be releiv'd. You have demonstrated, that our eminent Physicians and Surgeons [Page 47]have not the Knowledge of the truly efficacious Medi­dicines, and they dare not make any Defence. They have unhappily begun, and proceeded in the English Pra­ctice, which, instead of the one appropriate Remedy, to correct the vicious Humor, and repel that Disease fre­quently taken, demands Varieties of several sorts of Do­ses, pleasant, and which shall not raise too much of the Patient's Aversion. What excellent Medicines are these, which are not to offend, tho they pretend to no Activity and Qualities which shall oppose the Distemper? The Distill'd Waters of almost no Tast, made comfortable to the Stomach, with a small Addition of a Cordial Water. The Powders are not to molest the Stomach or Blood, by any kind of Virtues or Operations. The Bezoar is excellent for this Purpose, which has been often solemnly try'd, and detected to have no sort of Operation, it has been examin'd by the most careful Tryals, and lately before our Royal Society, and avow'd to be indissolvable by any Liquor in the Body of any Animal. Perle, and the other gritty Powders of that kind, will take away the Sowreness of an Humor in the Stomach, but cannot operate fur­ther. This, and all the Tribe from Animals, common Sense will inform us (as the Jaw-Bone of a Pike, the Stones in the Head of the Perch, and many other Projects of fool­ish and knavish Physicians) may nourish, may affor'd a poor nutritive Jelly, but cannot rival the Famous Powders of the Earths, ador'd by Antiquity, and now, with great Success, advis'd in malignant Fevers and Pestilences, from the admirable natural Mixtures of the Salts and Sulphurs. I am oblig'd therefore, to challenge Dr. R. and the Phy­sicians and Surgeons, who sham their Patients with such despicable Wares, to answer the Learned Discourses of the most famous Physicians of this Age, whose Arguments you report on this Subject. But, they wound and de­stroy Life, when the ignorant Practisers have almost no­thing to deal in, hut the distill'd Waters, and know none of the great Remedies, which are most necessary to the respective Diseases Many Ages after the Distillation of Wa­ters [Page 48]was invented, the judicious and sincere Physicians, with the other valu'd Remedies, gave them in Faintings, in the Coldness and Deadness of the Stomach, cautiously, and with Reserve, as our old English presented a Glass of Wine after a Journey before Dinner. Our silly or impi­ous Advisers now gives no other Entertainment or Food to all the Sick, but these only. The small simple Waters pals away, are liquid and moist, and perform nothing but wetting and quenching the Thirst, dare not rival the many excellent infusions, but the Compound and hot Waters burn the Stomach, enter their Blood with all their Flame, and are the most deadly Medicine in the World, frequently taken (as now) in all the inflam­matory Diseases, in all the young and tender Constitutions, and in the Rise and State, as well as Declinations. There are no surer Poysons to destroy the Appetite, make and harden the Obstructions of all the Viscera, evaporate the Blood to Water and Coldness, or Dryness, and the fatal Empyreum. Has Dr. R. and the other English Doctors, the Learning and Courage to encounter the Arguments you produce of the most famous Physicians of Europe, the judicious Galenists, the acute and most candid Chymists, and justisie 5 or 6 Punches they prescribe all the Winter, as the Bath or Tunbridge Waters in the Summer, to all the Complainers? Not only the Distillers, but all the Women, who ply their Alembicks, shall assert, that all the simple cold Waters have only the distinguishing Tang of the Virtues of the Simple: almost the 100 of them in the publick Receit-Book, are dispis'd and out of use, 3 or 4 only are reserv'd as the Vehicles and Deluters of the strong Compound, which are nothing but the Brandy Spirit, with the burning Oils of the Herbs, which can rise and come over. You infer most clearly and cogently, that the Spi­rits, which rise from all fermented Liquors, are the Oil broken by the Fermentation, that they do not, cannot differ from the Brandy drawn from Wine. You proceed to demonstrate, to the Confusion of Dr. R. and the nume­rous Pretenders, who never thought of, or learn'd this [Page 49]most useful Philosophy, that only one sort of Plants can impart a­ny Oil to the distill'd Water, that all the other specifick opera­tive Qualities remain behind, and the deluded Patient must languish and dy, when his Relief is design'd from those Vir­tues. The most judicious common Sense of our Porters and Carrmen, as well as Gentlemen, prompts them to call for true Brandy, or the Infusions of the Ʋsquebaugh and the Ratafies: they abhor the distill'd Waters, which raise a Storm of Wind and Eructations, annoy the Palate with the uncon­querable Oils, many Hours without Respite. We may rescue our selves from the Infatuations these Physicians and Custom have seiz'd us with, by experimenting what Nou­rishment we shall receive from Flesh, or Milk distill'd. If we make the Tryals by distilling Imperial or Bohea Tea, or Coffee prepared by the Fire, the Water from each of them shall be clear, sweet and pleasant, without one Particle of their Qua­lities. Does not our Natural Reason prompt us, to desire for our Support the cook'd Chicken, or the Jelly, or Broth, and by the same Reason implore the Remedy in Substance and Extract, or the various Differences of Infusions and Decoctions?

If therefore the simple Waters have not greater Virtues, then their scarcely discernable Qualities, and their fiery Waters from their Brandy and Oils are to be us'd only in the pres­sing Exigences of the Weakness and Coldness, and Deadness of the Spirits and Blood, as the Surgeons apply the burning Irons to Mortifications and the cold Death of the Limbs: If the vile Arabian Cookery of the Medicines in Conserves and Syrups, the most abhor'd by the Stomach, distended and oppress'd by their Flatulencies, and after three or four Months cor­rupted and fermented, and their Virtues consum'd by the Sugar, as Flesh by the Salts and Pickles, if Dr. R. and our self-admiring Physicians and Surgeons never knew or us'd the most rational and efficacious Preparations, they are by their Negligence and Ignorance, our most cruel Homicides, as your College remonstrates. The Comments pass over ill few Lines, the Vomitters, Purgers, Sweaters, which are not many, to be adapted only to the Strength of the Constitution, and are only to eject the Humors from the Stomach, Bowels and Pores, if they happen to be duly pre­par'd [Page 50]and ready for the Expulsion; but with the most commanding Arguments you engage us to regard and admire the six Classes of the Alterative Medicines (which each com­prehend a large Number) which are to repair the Blood, to remain in it, to become the Constituent Parts of it, to re­alter it from the diseas'd to the healthy State; to make it watery, if burnt into Dryness, and incapable to circulate, to make it more acid, if dull and vappid, to restore the natural Oil and Balsam, to unite and fortifie the Crasis of the Parts separa­ting from one the other, by the cementing Earthy Mixture. After the Demonstration of the new and certain Discovery of the four Principles of all mix'd Bodies, you enumerate the 6 Classes of the wonderful Medicines, Providence has prepar'd to restore all the Disorders of every Disease. Dr. Lock has ena­cted the Law, which can never be abrogated, that our Knowledge is Seeing, Tasting, Smelling; that he is an impu­dent Fool, who presumes, he knows Tea, or Coffee, or Wine, who never saw the Infusions, nor had consider'd the Colour, Tast and Scent, and examin'd the Qualities and Operations by his Palate and Stomach. You inform us, that the Apothecaries have prevail'd on the Nobility and Gentry, to permit, that the Eyes of the Physicians and Surgeons to pluck'd forth, their Tongues pull'd out, and their Hands cut off. By long Usage, Dr. R. and the others have been gelt, made Eunuchs, after the Manners of the Eastern Empires, that they shall not propagate and preserve the Race of the Medicines, which will too soon, and effectually cure the Patients, to the great Trouble and Detriment of the Apothecaries, gaining the 2 or 3 Guineas a day by the instantaneous Mixture of the Waters Into Draughts, and the Conserves and Syrups into Boles. What sort of Gentlemen will hastily object, that they may write them out of the Books, and, when the Patient have taken them twenty four Hours, come and consider what has been the Effects and Qualities? If they transcribe the Huddles and Jargons of the Compositions, they shall never know the Smell, and Taste, and Powers of any one. But they dare not prescribe more than 3 or 4 Decoctions, the Sweating, the Bitter, the Pectoral, the Emulsions by Roat and Memory, and almost the same in every Disease and Constitution, if they [Page 51]vary, it's only from a wild Imagination, not the Judgment from the Knowledge of the Ingredients. They have been often chid severely, and whipp'd for their Wantonness in Variations and Alterations from the Lessons the Apothecaries have given them; who have loudly and truly proclaim'd in the most publick Assemblies, and every hour in the Chambers, that Dr. R. &c. are guilty of the foolishest Mistakes and Blunders, when they spell before they know the Letters, when they rashly throw 5 or 6 together, and are not able to conjure or fore­see, what consistence, what Colours, what Tasts, what Con­fusion will be made. We, they say, are content to know no more, than the Hackney Doses or vulgar Use, and you shall not assume to be wiser, than we are. How much the Health and Life of the poor Patients suffer from the Idleness and Ignorance of the modish Advisers, exacted with so much Cruelty by their Masters the Apothecaries, will appear to all Mankind, who shall distinctly consider the Energies and Properties of the six Classes of the Remedies. They are the Wa­tery, Sweet, Acid, Bitter, Astringent, Acrid. Under these are a vast Diversity at Energies and Properties compriz'd. There are many of the Watery, which have a Mixture of the Qualities of the other, and there is not one, which is not allay'd or im­prov'd by one of the other. The Acrids are in the greatest Degree, or temper'd by the Ʋnion of the Sweet, or Acid, or A­stringent. The first are able, and will quench the Thirst and the Flames of Fevers (not fallaciously, as the distill'd more Waters, which instantly pass off without any Impression on the Humors) by altering and correcting the burning Fer­mentation. The other will powerfully deterge the Slime of the Stomach, and revive the Appetite, and corroborate the Digestion. The Astringent can unite the Parts of the Blood in Malignant Diseases, and with the Acrid enable it to sepa­rate and reject by the known Evacuations the morbid Humours. The Dyscrasies of the Blood, which specifie and distinguish every Disease, must be remedied by the Antagonist Quality of the Medicines united with it. These therefore, are the only Medicines, which by the first Intention (Bleeding, Vomitting, Purging, Sweating, are to be us'd only on the just Occasions) of changing the vicious Disorders, must be us'd often to [Page 52]supply gradually that Principle and Quality which the Blood wants, to reduce it to the Temperature it has lost, and must recover, before the Disease is cur'd. These only can redress the Diseases of the Head and Nerves, and Spirits, of the Breast, and Bowels, and Limbs, of the Blood and Viscera, and those pecu­liar to the Sex. They have never wanted Success in all the preceding Ages, and at this time, in the Parts of Europe, where they are us'd, and in England, by the fortunate Appli­cation of the select Simples prepar'd or infus'd (to name only the great and sudden Cure of the King's Evil in the Treatise of Exercise, when the Shop Doses had lead the Patient to the Atrophy, and almost Death) from the Records of the Ancient Practice, in the Memorials, or Tradition of the Nobility and Gen­try. Our Writers have in many Ages swell'd their Books to the admir'd Bulk and Conceit of the Reader, of their extra­ordinary Industry, with varied and shuffled Receits, a thou­sand Cordials, and Electuaries, and Pills, &c. (of which Dr. Willis is a late Instance) which they had never us'd, whose contrary Qualities make an intestine War, and break the Powers of one the other, and are detected by frequent Observation, to have no Operation. Many Physicians, wanting the Rea­son and Philosophy, and Experiments and a just Judgment, and to distinguish themselves by a pretended rigorous Ex­actness, have appointed the Services and Stations of the Medi­cines to one part, to the Head, the Eyes, the Heart, and the Li­ver, and Womb, &c. These are commanded by them to at­tend the Men only, these the Women in their respective Complaints and Disorders: When the Parts of the Body, and both the Sexes, are preserv'd by the Blood and Spirits, main­tain'd or reduc'd to the natural State. Besides the Decrees of the most Eminent Physicians in all Ages, our natural Reason will instruct us, that the less compounded Preparations are most agreeable, and will have the surest Efficacies, as by the most simple Diet, the Appetite and Concoction are pre­serv'd, and Health and Life supported. If then, the admir'd natural Composition of each Plant makes many of the Watery, Acrid and Hot, many Astringent, Laxative, the Bitters are some Acid, others Inflaming; what Havock shall be made on Life in the nice and various Constitutions? when the Quality not [Page 53]understood by the Physician, shall confine the Humours in a Pleurisie, and purge in a Consumption, when the malignant Humours in a Fever, flying off by the Bowels, shall be detain'd and driven back into the Blood again. And it is impossible, it is absurd to imagine, that our Physicians shall ever acquire the Knowledge of the Conditions of the peccant Humours in the Stomach, in the Blood, when they know nothing of the Qua­lities of the Medicines, which correct them. These alone, are and can be the only Essays and Discoveries of them. The se­dulous Examination of the Qualities and Virtues of the Drugs will banish the Idleness of the Mode, entertain them with the Observations and Improvements of the most pleasant and un­bounded Philosophy, which examines the Preparations of the old and new Pharmacy. The most learned and candid Chymists have lately confess'd, that their Chymistry is very poor with the Presumption of the largest Abundance. All the acid Spi­rits are almost the same: The Volatile have almost no Diffe­rences; all the Oils are equally burning; in a thousand fix'd Salts there's hardly any Variety; all the Magisteries and Calcinations are a dead Earth, and good for nothing, all the Alkali Powders are matcht by the Bones calcin'd.

I will maintain before all the Learn'd and Unlearn'd of the Nation, and prove beyond Contradiction, that if the Phy­sicians and Surgeons have had by the Apothecaries expell'd out of them the Enquiry after, and the Knowledge of the only saving Medicines, and use in their place only the fal­lacious shamming Juleps, and the offensive destructive Sweet­meat of the Conserves and Syrups; or have lost their Learning by their Idleness and Sottishness, and plying the Gentlemens and the Apothecaries over the Bottle, the Setters and Finders of their Business, that the Differences of Diseases, their Symp­toms, and the natural Attempts of Recovery are equally un­known to them. I shall calm all the noisie Oppositions, and eradicate all the filly Prepossessions and Prejudices of the de­luded People, when I produce the Confession of your Soci­ety, that all the Patients are, and must be now destroy'd by you. They will cover their Face, and bow down the Head, adore and reward your Discovery, and importun'd Preven­tion of your Assassination of all the Diseas'd. Beyond your [Page 54]Attestation, there are concurrent circumstantial Evidences too strong to be resisted. Dr. R. and the impudent Monopo­lizers of all the Skill, swear, that all the Patients but only their own are murther'd. The more modest and learned Phy­sicians retort, that he was never taught, or studied any part of the Profession, that he never saw a Dissection, that he knows not the Places or Uses of any part of the Body, that he never sees but broken pieces of Disease, and never con­sults but with the Apothecaries, who manage the 3 or 4 days of his Absence; never read the Authors who deliver the Laws, and report the History of the Victories or Defeats, prescribes only the trifling Waters and Powders, and Mineral VVaters to all the Cases. The Surgeon, who has abus'd his Study, cor­rupting and destroying all the Principles of Religion and Virtue, makes his Reputation from the most easie and obvious Cures, but denounces them insuperable and fatal, to cover and conceal the perpetual Blunders of his Head and Hand, but is out-done in the Hospital by the Surgeons he tramples on, plies the Patients with the same Internals as the Dr. he now co­pies after, and will not pretend to the Recovery of more pow­erful, which have always been communicated to them by the Physicians, when their Learning, and the Knowledge of the necessary internal Alteratives to reduce all the Chirurgical Cases made their Assistance thought of the greatest Use. How shall we be able to pronounce the Sentence in the most puzling, and the greatest Cause in the World? The People cry out, they were sav'd, they had been in the Grave, if the Doctor, Surgeon or Apothecary had not preserv'd them, that we are bless'd with the best in Europe. It is infallible, that Na­ture (as it recovers the Herbs and Plants of the Fields and Gardens by the Sun, by the Change of the Seasons, by Dews and Rain) by its own Force, with Rest and Labour, Absti­nence, and the regular Use of the Foods, in a short or lon­ger time does pass off many the most terrible Diseases. The frightful Convulsions are subdu'd by the Periods of Age and the Ripening of the Sexes, when all the Remedies had been baf­fled. The Plague and Malignant Fevers shall be attack'd by one with the Acids, by others, with the burning Alixiphar­micks, with, and without Blisters, by many, by few or reje­cted [Page 55]Medicines, by Physicians and Surgeons of the present Smatterings of Skill, or of none at all, many of both shall escape and survive. Then it is as infallible, that a knavish or silly Artist shall spoil the best Work, overset the natural Moti­ons of Strength, by the Imposture and Consumption of a large Number of the vile Medicines. A Physician was permitted by a Prince in a Italy, to lay the Wager, if there were 500 Ad­visers in the City. He expos'd himself muffled for the Tooth-ach, and had 500 Cures offer'd to him. But I have known many who have had from their Physicians the Pain asswag'd by Death. Dr. Sydenham calls aloud to the People, that our Tampering in the Fevers, Small-Pox, &c. destroys more, than the Rage of War. What must we fear, when not many Years past, only 5 Medicines undertook all the Diseases? Dr. O. has in Print expos'd the many Pairs of Blisters, the sweating Boles and silly Powders and Juleps of Dr. R. as most absurd and fatal; if the mighty Assurances of his single Abi­lities do not support the natural Vigour, as true and presump­tuous as the Blank Paper sent to him from Court, to fill with his own Panegyrick and Demands. All the wary Observers, and the best Judges, the Families who have retain'd the old, or acquir'd the lately reviv'd more sincere and judicious Pra­ctice, do avow, that Millions yearly are kill'd by the Apo­thecaries and their Doctors raising the 2 or 3 Guineas a day, or the 25 or 30 Guineas, out of the Medicines in every Fe­ver, Small-Pox and Measles, when in the favourable Seasons, every one recovers from the prudent Use of the sovereign ap­propriate Infusions. The now famous Foreign Physicians are proud of their Kings, who feeble from the Cradle, and op­press'd with Age, are preserv'd by them, when the Loss of many our Royal Family are lamented. The dark Mystery must then be expos'd to view, as bright as the Rays of the Sun, in the Parallel of my Ld R— r turning Quack on Tower-Hill, with the Name of Dr Bendo, when the King had commanded him to leave the Court. In his printed Invitation he rails bitterly at the College, despises and pities the Ignorance of all the Doctors, his Brethren, had his Share of the common polite Learning, had an Apothecary to prompt him behind the Scenes, and us'd all Dr. R's Remedies. The Gentlemen and [Page 56]Ladies were much better, by Time, more regular living by the strong Hope of the Cure, as they lately sen­sibly mended by Sweating, after the German had given hi [...] Dose to their Waters. How many Malignant Fevers, and the dangerous Putrid, how many Consumptions, Convulsions, &c would have escap'd, if he had carelessly visited the Sick to belt them and improve himself, past away his time always mer­rily, and had never learnt from his Apothecary the best Preparati­on or use of any one or the Divine Alteratives? All the Disease. which afflict Mankind, are varied with the innumerable Cir­cumstances, are secure or fatal. The secure denounc'd Morta [...] by him, and to be manageable by himself alone, would have made amends for the Losses, the Dead do not complain, and the Living would have rais'd his Fame. Shall I add to the black List of the Dead, which daily increase more and more, the English, who resent the Pride and Impudence, and design'd Neglects, and the high Fees for one equal in Value to many Visits, the firm Belief of the Ignorance of every other Phy­sician living, and on the other side detest, and abhor, or suspect and dread the Villanies of the Physicians you pub­lish, who invade every Life for the use of the Apothecary, who prefers them, and therefore submit to the Chance and Event, are destroy'd in the Acute and Chronical Diseases with­out Relief, but from the giddy accidental Judgment on the Cases, or the Impudence of the infinite Empiricks?

What sovereign Remedy can prevent and extinguish all these our Calamities of the Sick? We must call for that provided by our most Learned Magnanimous King Henry VIII. and of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, who establish'd, from the most pressing Inducements, your College and the Company of Surgeons, to avert the High Displeasure of God, when the Sick shall be expos'd to the Robbery and Destruction of the Traders in the Remedies, of the Apothecaries, who are to save the Life, and at the same time thrust into the Patient all the Numbers and Exactions of the Doses, necessary for their own Preservation. I am not able to represent the vehemence of the Zeal, the sacred Rage of that great Prince and his Parliament against the execrable Inhumanity, and the impious Temerity of the [Page 57]Quacks and Apothecaries, intruding their illiterate unexa­min'd Dealings on the Life of the People, in the most diffi­cult and dangerous Diseases. This the most religious, the most wise and necessary Law was reviv'd and restor'd to its Health and Force, by our most learned and pious K. Charles I. after the most mature Deliberations of his Privy Council, with the Advice of all the Judges. Our most terrible Ene­mies frequently present us with the most important Wisdom and Vigilance. We will appeal to the French King the Grand Patron of Learning, and of all the Arts and most useful Knowledge. Not to insist on the Royal Academy of Sciences, that of Painters will to the life represent the vast Design of the Royal Establishment of your College and the Company of Surgeons. The Painters meet often in their Aca­demy, compare their Peices with the most accomplish'd Per­formances there. The fundamental Laws of the strictest Imitation of Nature in the Lines and Colours, the Qualities and Mixtures of the Colours are demonstrated, and promul­gated. The appointed Inspectors, and Visitors and Judges of the Excellencies of the Drawings, the Royal Reward of the most finish'd Peices, raise the emulations and sufficiency of all the Society. Your College (as that of the Surgeons) was erected by the Acts of Parliament, as the Supreme and only Ʋniversity of Physick. The two famous Ʋniversities can only instruct the Students, in the previous and preparatory Learning of the Languages and Philosophy. There is only one Professor, and not many Practicers, the Cases of Disea­ses are rare, and the hasty and less frequent Visits of the Pa­tients in the several Distances cannot afford the accurate Observations. All or the greatest Part of your Society must be equal or superiour to their Professors, because the most Po­pulous City in the World supplies innumerable varieties of all Diseases; the furious and impetuous shiftings of the Symp­tomes may be hourly visited: the mutual Consultations of the most experienc'd Physicians will determine the State of the Disease, and the Method of Cure authoriz'd by infinite Suc­cesses. The Solemn Lectures in the College (and in all the Sciences the great Advancements have almost only been made from these publick Discourses) will reduce to the most possible [Page 58]certainty, the Methods of treating all Diseases, and the most assur'd Qualities, and Virtues, and Preparations of all the Medicines, and will most awfully, as the Voice of a King, com­mand the Silence and Modesty and future Industry of Dr. R. and the other impudent Pretenders to the Monopoly of all Knowledge. Your Treasury of the most useful Philosophy, for the Preservation of Life will be equal to the rich Impor­tations from all Parts, by the Royal Society, of the Natural History, the most ravishing entertainment the Mind is capa­ble of. But you inform the Nation, that your College is ap­proaching to its Death, destroy'd by the Animosities, Refracto­riness, and the most infamous Desertion to its Enemies. Shall not there be a Coroners Inquest to examine, if it is Felo de se, or if it falls by any external violence? Shall not VVitnesses be in­terrogated on both; if Dr. R. has often sworn, he would sink it, if your Men of no Honour or Conscience, your ex­pos'd Mirmils, Querpoes, and Bards, and their new numerous Associates, have not, with the most abhor'd Perjury, betray'd and expos'd all your generous Attempts of the Society, to preserve the Publick and its own Life? Your Publications of their Villany, and of Dr. Badger, and Dr. Bernard will con­vict them, as well as the Surgeons of no Religion or Consci­ence, who have, with the same Perjury, deserted from the de­fence of their Profession, and the Protection of their Prentices, to the Apothecaries. The Confusion of Dr. R. and the per­fidious Members will condemn them; when the Evidences shall be collected by the Judge, that they know not one Sim­ple, nor its Qualities and Vertues and Preparations, that they cannot discover or warrant the Goodness or Virtues of any one of the common general Medicines, cannot therefore insure the Success, that they have sillily squander'd away their time, in sweetning and deluding their Companions, never observ'd the true Motions of any one Disease, advising only from the heedless Reports of the Apothecary, they are scandalously delivering their Profession to.

When Her Majesty in Council shall Graciously receive your Humble Address, and tenderly commiserate the Calami­ties of the most injur'd People in the Universe: the Decree of the Royal Martyr shall be put in force. The learned and [Page 59]Honourable Visitors appointed will instantly redress all the deplor'd Grievances of the Nation. The Observance of 3 or 4 Statutes confirm'd by them will be rigorously exacted, that the Physicians and Surgeons shall not dare to rob and de­stroy the Sick by Blending the complete and perfect now pub­lick Remedies, to blind the Families from their Knowledge of the small Prices, and great uses in the vulgar incidental Disorders, and contrive the most abject and Knavish Falla­cies of the minute high pris'd Doses: That no Physician or Surgeon shall ever discourse of the Disease, and resolve the Method of Cure, and perform the Operations, in the imper­tinent Intrusions of the Apothecaries, from their necessary Duties in the Shops, to infatuate the People into the Ima­gination, that they are able on the next occasions to sup­ply their Places: That the mutual Affection and Emulation shall be more religiously observ'd, that Dr. R. shall never presume to magnify himself to an immense Bigness, without the clearest Reasons assign'd, of his indefatigable study and In­dustry, and of his great Proficiency from the most frequent Consultations with the most learned and experienc'd Physici­cians: and that the detestable Mirmils shall not give their Li­cences to Practice to every Quack and Apothecary, by extol­ling their Skill and Judgment and Success, when run for at the last Gasp, before their own. As our Kings have almost the Divine Complacence and Honours, when they see the Magistrates diligent in exciting the Observance of the Laws; the Visitors will observe the College enforcing the Industry and Sincerity of all the Members, after the Election of the President ( not by and out of the 8 Elects only) and of the Censors and Committee by the Society yearly, by the Names written, and deliver'd, as in the Bank and East-India Company: Because all the Publick Calamities, and the Dissolution of the Royal College prognosticated and dreaded by you, are imputed by you to the Treachery and Debauchery, and the Passiveness of the President and Censors, and Committees, who have been brib'd to the Neglect of all their Statutes by the Apothecaries Pre­sents of the Patients to them, or the Terrors of Poverty and Disgrace from their Resentment.

I, and my Brethren the Clergy, must not look on as indifferent [Page 60]Spectators, offer up the Prayers of the Congregation, for the Divine Influence on the illegal and pernicious Quackeries of the Empiricks and Apothecaries. VVe are oblig'd to visit every House, every one of our Flock in Sickness; we must, with the sharpest Severity, scourge away all the Exchangers of the fal­lacious Doses with the Health and Life of the Patients. We must inform them, it is their Duty to apply to the Physicians, the Divine Laws and our own have appointed; that their Obligations to the justest Care of the Families will cure the present Indif­fence, Idleness and Debauchery, and Neglect of the necessary Knowledge of Diseases, from the industrious Perusal of the Authors, and the Enquiry into the Improvements of all Medi­cines. We shall then instruct them, how great, how many will be their Rewards and Advantages, from the most diligent and rational Adjustment of the few cheap, necessary Reme­dies, that the constant Physician is compell'd by his own In­terest, to communicate to them the Knowledge of the more easie Diseases, the Values, and the Divisions and Mixtures of all the Preparations directed by the Government to the Publick for their Use. Then we and they shall (as formerly with the greatest Pleasure) distribute the Divine Bounty of the ex­cellent publick Medicines to the Poor, or more Indigent of the People, who will not then greedily entertain the Em­piricks from all Countries, when they can receive our Cha­rity of our own more sovereign Preparations.

The Clergy, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Gentry are under the sacred Obligations with you, to preserve the Honour and Dignity of our two famous Nurseries of all Learning. We may recover the Zeal of the Officers, by reviving the Re­wards, which their inestimable Services claim from the Cog­nizance and Beneficence of the Court, the Nobility and Gen­try. The Universities may be mov'd by us to correct and reform their Physicians, their perfidious Enemies, who deli­ver them up to the illiterate Impostors, by the Combinations you have so often detected; that they will not suffer our Out-lying Physicians from them to increase their Numbers and Power, and hasten the Ruine of this Ʋniversity of Physick, our Laws command them to support. Our Vigilance and Courage will be animated by the imminent Dangers and Destruction of [Page 61]all Learning in the Nation, from the impetuous Libertinage, which, in the late Rebellion, insulted on all the Orders and Professions. Religion now suffers from the same Causes, which affect you, from the Preferments bestow'd on us by the Athe­ists, the Lewd and Ignorant, with the same Conditions annext of their unmolested Ravages on all Learning and Virtue, their assum'd Sufficiency to determine in Religion, as in Phy­sick, from the trifling Pamphlets they read in their Mo­ther Tongue.

The Rights of the Christian Church give us Power to admo­nish the Magistrates from the Pulpit, to avoid the Guilt, (which is adjudged unpardonable by all the Divines) exposing know­ingly the Life of the People to the endless Increase and Ne­cessities of the Apothecaries, and other Unlicens'd Underta­kers. The Company will confess (as an Apothecary in Print has) the invincible Reasons for their speedy Reduction. The per­petual Swarms of their Numbers, from 2 or 3 Prentices in every Shop, and their filling all the Streets, must, from the nume­rous Proofs you assign, threaten or take away the Life of the Royal Family, the Nobility, Gentry and People.

Before old Laws and Establishments are pull'd down, and the Rubbish remov'd, we should council them to frame a new and better Model, to make the Draught of the Fabrick, and expose it to the Judgments of the wisest in the Nation. The Plan of the new Structure is, that the People shall have the liberty to do and suffer what they please; to gratifie the pre­sent Rage for Anarchy and Confusion. They shall be cheated and kill'd by any one, who shall fall into that Trade and Employment. The Government has made a triple Contract with your College and the Company, and impos'd an Oath on all the Members to defend the Professions necessary to pre­serve the Life of the Subjects. You are oblig'd to return your Commssion, and Request to be declar'd absolv'd from the sacred Obligation; that the Societies shall be dissolv'd, when they have publickly been declar'd useless, to be abandon'd and demolish'd, as a Fortress of no Importance. You may move, that the Committees may examine your Conduct and Discharge of your Trust, when they consider, what Laws are obsolete or necessary to be reviv'd. You may both humbly [Page 62]offer to them (the greatest part of whose Laws, as of the Government and all the Arts are infallible) that the rash bold Attemps may be allow'd in Cases desperate, never seen be­fore, but are condemn'd and exploded, when the known Me­thods receiv'd and justly apply'd, never fail'd of Success. The Merchants and other Traders may venture, as Volunteers of an Army, their own, or the Stocks of their Creditors, in the most hazardous Projects, new Discoveries and Settlements: But the General will not betray his assur'd Victory, and forfeit the Honours of his VVisdom and Conduct. The two Societies are a part of the Government, their Establishment is in force; the Consultation will not resolve their Extirpation, if the Mortification is capable of Cure, if they can be restor'd to their Health and Vigour, and the Support or Defence of the whole.

In the mean time, it is your Duty to reserve to the Peo­ple their Property of all the Remedies assign'd them by the Government and College, to make the frequent Additions, to amend the Defective from the many Discoveries of the modern experimental Philosophy, and the late excellent Receit-Books of almost all the Cities of Europe. But it is impossible for you to attempt or perform it without the constant Use of your publick Laboratory, and the more necessary and productive Dili­gence of your private and retir'd, in imitation of all the most famous Physicians, and of our most excellent Mr. Boyle. You must open the Stores of your three Dispensaries, to furnish the general Remedies to all the Families. You must revive the Practice of all Ages, by advising only the Patients in Charity not too remote from you, that the Sick may hope the surest Re­covery from the same Adviser, observing the Progress of the Diseases and collecting all the Observations, they shall present to him. You must apply to the Ld. Mayor, Court of Aldermen and Common Council, who, by their Committee with yours, re­solv'd, that the Prices should be subscrib'd in every Prescription, that the Bills should be sent to the Apothecaries, promising to deliver them at the Rates assign'd. They were assur'd, that 30 or 40 Shops are sufficient to prepare and sell all the Medi­cines in the large Quantities demanded, the infinite, most facil Divisions being made in the Chambers. Religion and com­mon [Page 63]Honesty exact your Care of the Sick, to direct your Pati­ents to those Shops only, 'till the Government and you shall be assur'd, that the Medicines (lately condemn'd in the eminent Shops) are not sophisticated and wanting all the chiefest Ingredi­ents. The Law has carefully preserv'd to you the Right of pre­paring and disposing of the Medicines, and the Defence of your Profession requires you to invade the Apothecaries, to deter them from the most unjust and absurd Invasion of your Practice. Be­sides, the Patient cannot be safe without it. If you advise the most proper Medicine, the Incroaching Apothecary breaks the Heart of all the Sick; It is well enough, a pretty tolera­ble Prescript, he could have sent in a better. But if he has a wretched Physician to bring in, or would set up for the Phy­sician alone, he changes the Medicines, enrages the Impatient against the Doctor by one of no Operation, provokes the most Patient by a violent destructive Dose, as you prove in many Criminals you expose. Your own Interest will sollicite you to barter and communicate your Observations of the improv'd Pre­parations, and the Recoveries of the many lost. But the Specifick and Appropriate to each Disease must be reserv'd from the Peo­ple, who are now craving after the endless Changes and Shiftings from this to the other sorts, and importuning every knavish Practiser to cheat and destroy them. You will lay before them and the Quacks, as Edg'd-Tools in the Reach of Children, the most efficacious Qualities of the Medicines to cast at, with the known Chances and Hazards, every Di­sease, which falls in their way. The Surgeons do not publish their Balsams and Tinctures, and lend their Knives and In­struments for the grand Operations. The French King did not importune our Dr. Tabor, to reveal the Remedy he gave to the Royal Princess, and the Nobility of both Sexes. It is the most deadly Poison to kill the Industry of the Physicians, who would retrieve the Negligence and Losses of this Age. The Cabinet Councellors, our Generals and Admirals, do not divulge the De­signs they have form'd. The Painter does not suffer the Face he draws to see his manner of mixing or laying on the Colours. The Forbidden Fruits are most violently coveted. The Fox in the Fable was many Hours eagerly craving the Food in the Glass, the Tongue could not penetrate. You [Page 64]must assert to your Profession, the Prerogative truly Royal, the most magnificent Bounties to the Distress'd, from the publick Magazine of the general Remedies presented to them, but you must reserve the most Soveraign for the most Deserving, and you are above the Fear of being in­vaded or compell'd.

Mr. Boyle, in his Treatise of the Ʋsefulness of his experimen­tal Philosophy in Physick, represents to us the most sublime Character in the inspir'd History (He went about doing good,) above the pretended Glories of ambitious Princes, who have consum'd their Life, and Mankind by their Ravages and Conquests. The Honours and Distinctions of the Subjects in all Governments have no other Foundation, than being serviceable to the Publick, and promoting the common Prosperity. How great will the Publick Gratitude be to you, when your College shall preserve the Profession the most Learned, and most implor'd in the greatest Distresses of Pain and Fear of Death? You restore to the Kingdom its Right, its Property in all the general Medicines, as a Charity diverted from, and hid from the Poor, the Pious Donors reliev'd. You will have the Honours you demand, from every one, who can comprehend the Value of the almost immense Benefaction, and will pity and despise the Careless, and the Foolish, Unable to fathom its Extent and Importance; as the Deity receives the Adorations of the Philosophers, who incessantly search after the inexpressible Grandeurs and Beauties of the Universe.