Memb. 1. Subsect. 1. Of Physick which cureth with Medicines.

After a long and tedious discourse of these six non-naturall things, and their severall rectifications, all which are comprehended in Diet, I am come now at last to Pharmaceutice, or that kinde of Physick which cureth by Medicines, which Apothecaries most part make, mingle, or sell in their shops.

Many cavill at this kinde of Physick, & hold it unnecessary, unprofitable to this or any other disease, because those countries which use it least, live longest, and are best in health, as Hector Boethius relates of the Isles of Orcades, the people are still sound of Body and minde, without any use of Physick, they live commonly 120 yeers, and Ortelius in his Itinerary of the inhabitants of the Forrest of Arden, they are very painfull, long-lived, sound, &c.

Martianus Capella, speaking of the Indians of his time, saith, they were (much like our western Indians now) bigger then ordinary men, bred coursly, very long-lived, in so much, that he that died at an hundred yeers of age, went before his time, &c.

Damianus A-Goes, Saxo Grammaticus, Aubanus Bohemus, say the like of them that live in Norway, Lapland, Finmark, Biarmia, Corelia, all over Scandia, and those Northern Countries, they are most healthfull, and very long-lived, in which places there is no use at all of Physick, the name of it is not once heard.

Dithmarus Bleskenius in his accurate description of Island 1607, makes mention amongst other matters, of the Inhabitants, and their manner of living, which is dried fish in stead of bread, butter, cheese, and salt meats, most part they drink water and whey, and yet without Physick or Physitian, they live many of them 250 yeers. I finde the same relation by Lerius, and some other Writers of Indians in America.

Paulus Jovius in his description of Brittain, and Levinus Lemnius, observe as much of this our Island, that there was of old no use of Physick amongst us, and but little at this day, except it be for a few nice idle citizens, surfetting Courtiers, and stall-fed Gentlemen lubbers. The country people use kitchin Physick, and common experience tells us, that they live freest from all manner of infirmities, that make least use of Apothecaries Physick.

Many are overthrown by preposterous use of it, and thereby get their bane, that might otherwise have escaped; some think Physitians kill as many as they save, and who can tell,

Quot Themison ægros autumno occiderit uno?

How many murders they make in a yeer, quibus impunè licet hominem occidere, that may freely kill folks and have a reward for it, and according to the * Dutch proverb, a new Physician must have a new Church-yard; and who daily observes it not? Many that did ill under Physitians hands, have happily escaped, when they have been given over by them, left to God and Nature, and themselves;

’Twas Plinies dilemma of old, Every disease is either curable or incurable, a man recovers of it, or is killed by it; both wayes Physick is to be rejected. If it be deadly, it cannot be cured: if it may be helped, it requires no Physitian, Nature will expell it of it selfe.

Plato made it a great signe of an intemperate and corrupt commonwealth, where Lawyers and Physitians did abound; and the Romans distasted them so much, that they were often banished out of their city, as Pliny and Celsus relate, for 600 yeers not admitted.

It is no art at all, as some hold, no not worthy the name of a liberall science (nor Law neither) as Pet. And. Canonherius a Patritian of Rome and a great Doctor himself, one of their own tribe, proves by 16 arguments, because it is mercenary as now used, base, and as Fidlers play for a reward. Juridicis, medicis, fisco, fas vivere rapto, tis a corrupt trade, no science, art, no profession; the beginning, practice, and progresse of it, all is naught, full of imposture, incertainty, and doth generally more harm then good.

The Divell himself was the first inventer of it: Inventum est medicina meum, said Apollo, and what was Apollo, but the Divell? The Greeks first made an Art of it, and they were all deluded by Apollo’s sons, Priests, Oracles. If we may beleeve Varro, Pliny, Columella, most of their best medicines were derived from his Oracles.

Æsculapius his son had his temples erected to his Diety, and did many famous cures, but as Lactantius holds, he was a Magician, a meer Impostor, and as his successors, Phaon, Podalirius, Melampius, Menecrates (another God) by charmes, spells, and ministery of bad spirits, performed most of their cures.

The first that ever wrote in Physick to any purpose, was Hippocrates, and his Disciple and Commentator Galen, whom Scaliger cals Fimbriam Hippocratis, but as Cardan censures them, both immethodicall and obscure, as all those old ones are, their precepts confused, their medicines obsolete, and now most part rejected.

Those cures which they did, Paracelsus holds, were rather done out of their Patients confidence, and good opinion they had of them, then out of any skill of theirs, which was very small, he saith, they themselves Idiots and Infants, as are all their Academicall followers.

The Arabians received it from the Greeks, and so the Latines, adding new precepts and medicines of their own, but so imperfect still, that through ignorance of Professors, Impostors, Mountebanks, Empericks, disagreeing of Sectaries, (which are as many almost as there be diseases) envy, covetousnesse, and the like, they doe much harm amongst us. They are so different in their consultations, prescriptions, mistaking many times the parties constitution, disease, and causes of it, they give quite contrary Physick; one saith this, another that, out of singularity or opposition, as he said of Adrian, multitudo medicorum principem interfecit, a multitude of Physitians hath killed the Emperour; Plus à medico quam à morbo periculi, more danger there is from the Physician, then from the disease.

Besides, there is much Imposture and malice amongst them. All arts (saith Cardan) admit of couzening, Physick amongst the rest, doth appropriate it to her selfe; and tells a story of one Curtius a Physician in Venice, because he was a stranger, and practised among them, the rest of the Physitians did still crosse him in all his precepts.

If he prescribed hot medicines, they would prescribe cold, miscentes pro calidis frigida, pro frigidis humida, pro purgantibus astringentia, binders for purgatives, omnia perturbabant. If the party miscarried, Curtium damnabant, Curtius killed him, that disagreed from them: If he recovered, then they cured him themselves.

Much emulation, imposture, malice, there is amongst them: if they be honest, and mean well, yet a knave Apothecary that administers the Physick, and makes the medicine, may do infinite harm, by his old obsolete doses, adulterine druggs, bad mixtures, a quid pro quo, &c. See Fuchsius lib. 1. sect. 1. cap. 8. Cordus Dispensatory, and Brassivola’s Examen simpl. &c.

But it is their ignorance that doth more harm then rashness, their Art is wholly conjecturall, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and got by killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches, men-slayers; Chirurgeons and Apothecaries especially, that are indeed the Physicians hangmen, carnifices, and common executioners; though to say truth, Physicians themselves come not far behinde; for according to that facete Epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what’s the difference?

Chirurgus medico quo differt? scilicet isto, Enecat hic succis, enecat ille manu: Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur, Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille citò.

But I return to their skill; many diseases they cannot cure at all, as Apoplexie, Epilepsie, Stone, Strangury, Gout,

Tollere nodosam nescit medicina Podagram;