compounded: For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for the most part byherbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold Walterations, dressings, and preparations of these several st bodies, before they come to be his food and aliment. Add hereunto, that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change of affections to work upon their bodies; whereas man, in his mansion, sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations; and it cannot be denied, but that the body of man of all other things is of the most compounded mass. The soul on the other side is the simplest of substances, as is well expressed:

·Purumque reliquit

Ethereum sensum, atque auraï simplicis ignem. So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that principle be true, that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco. But to the purpose this variable composition of man's body hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper, and therefore the poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man's body, and to reduce it to harmony. So then the subject being so variable, hath made the art by consequence more conjectural; and the art being conjectural, hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture. For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or master-pieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events. The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the issue of the cause. The master of the ship is judged by the directing his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage. But the physician, and perhaps the politician, hath no particular acts demonstrative of his ability, but is judged most by the event; which is ever but as it is taken: for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of

virtue taxed. Nay, we see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme folly, when they made Esculapius and Circe brother and sister, both children of the sun, as in the verses; En. vii. 772.

Ipse repertorem medicina talis et artis

Fulmine Phabigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas: And again,

Dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos, etc. Æn. vii. 11. For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches, and old women, and impostors, have had a competition with physicians. And what followeth? Even this; that physicians say to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it upon an higher occasion; If it befal to me, as befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise? And therefore I cannot much blame physicians, that they use commonly to intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their profession. For you shall have of them, antiquaries, poets, humanists, statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than in their profession; and no doubt, upon this ground, that they find that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh no difference in profit or reputation towards their fortune; for the weakness of patients, and sweetness of life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend upon physicians with all their defects. But, nevertheless, these things, which we have spoken of, are courses begotten between a little occasion, and a great deal of sloth and default; for if we will excite and awake our observation, we shall see, in familiar instances, what a predominant faculty the subtilty of spirit hath over the variety of matter or form: nothing more variable than faces and countenances, yet men can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of them; nay, a painter with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be, if they were brought before him. Nothing more

variable than voices, yet men can likewise discern them personally; nay, you shall have a buffoon, or pantomimus, will express as many as he pleaseth, Nothing more variable than the differing sounds of words, yet men have found the way to reduce them to a few simple letters. So that it is not the insufficiency or incapacity of man's mind, but it is the remote standing or placing thereof, that breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions: for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so it is of the understanding; the remedy whereof is not to quicken or strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object; and therefore there is no doubt, but if the physicians will learn and use the true approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the poet saith:

Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;

Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.

Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve, well shadowed by the poets, in that they made Esculapius to be the son of the Sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the second stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of his miracles, as the soul was the object of his doctrine. For we read not that ever he vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money, except that one for giving tribute to Cæsar, but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing the body of man.

Medicine is a science which hath been, as we have said, more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It considereth the causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations. The deficiences which I think good to note, being a few many, and those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and not place,

of

Narra

tiones me

The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and dicinales. serious diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by recovery or death. Therefore having an example proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to alledge an example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions for the direction of future judgments. This continuance of Medicinal History I find deficient, which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every common case, nor so reserved, as to admit none but wonders; for many things are new in the manner, which are not new in the kind; and if men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.

Anatomia In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find comparata. much deficience: for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases; the reason of which omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter being comparative and casual, must arise from the view of many. And as to the diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward parts is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause continent of many diseases, which not being observed, they quarrel many times with the humours, which are not in fault, the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and medicines familiar. And for the passages and pores, it is true, which was anciently noted, that the more subtile of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in live: which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus

justly reproved; yet in regard of the great use of this
observation, the inquiry needed not by him so slightly
to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to
the casual practices of surgery, but might have been
well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive,
which, notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their
parts, may sufficiently satisfy this inquiry. And for the
humours, they are commonly passed over in anatomies
as purgaments, whereas it is most necessary to ob-
serve, what cavities, nests, and receptacles the hu-
mours do find in the parts, with the differing kind
of the humour so lodged and received. And as for
the footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of
the inward parts, impostumations, exulcerations, dis-
continuations, putrefactions, consumptions, contrac-
tions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations, obstruc-
tions, repletions, together with all preternatural sub-
stances, as stones, carnosities, excrescences, worms,
and the
ke; they ought to have been exactly
observed by multitude of anatomies, and the contri-
bution of mens several experiences, and carefully set
down, both historically, according to the appearances,
and artificially, with a reference to the diseases and
symptoms which resulted from them, in case where
the anatomy is of a defunct patient; whereas now
upon opening of bodies, they are passed over slightly
and in silence.

de morbis

In the inquiry of diseases they do abandon the Inquisitio cures of many, some as in their nature incurable, and ulterior others as past the period of cure; so that Sylla and insanabili the triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, bus. as they do by their ignorant edicts, whereof numbers do escape with less difficulty, than they did in the Roman proscriptions. Therefore I will not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the perfect cures of many diseases, or extremities of diseases, but pronouncing them incurable, do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from discredit.

Nay farther, I esteem it the office of a physician De eutha not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and nasia exte dolors, and not only when such mitigation may con

riore.