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and amongst many inconveniences, some comforts are annexed to it. First it is not catching, and as Erasmus comforted himself, when he was grievously sick of the stone, though it was most troublesome, and an intolerable pain to him, yet it was no whit offensive to others, not lothsome to the specators, gastly, fulsom, terrible, as plagues, apoplexies, leprosies, wounds, sores, tetters, pox, pestilent agues are, which either admit of no company, terrify or offend those that are present. In this malady, that which is, is wholly to themselves: and those symptomes not so dreadful, if they be compared to the opposite extreams. They are most part bashful, suspicious, solitary, &c. therefore no such ambitious, impudent intruders, as some are, no sharkers, no Cunnicatchers, no prolers, no smel-feasts, praters, panders, parasites, bawds, drunkards, whoremasters; necessity and defect compels them to be honest; as Mitio told Demea in the * comedy,

"Hæc si neq; ego neq; tu fecimus,
Non sinit egestas facere nos."

If we be honest, 'twas poverty made us so: if we melancholy men be not as bad as he that is worst, 'tis our dame melancholy kept us so:

"Non deerat voluntas sed facultas."

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Besides they are freed in this from many other infirmities, solitariness makes them more apt to contemplate, suspition wary, which is a necessary humour in these times, & Nam_pol qui maximè cavet, is sæpe cautor captus est, he that takes most heed, is often circumvented, and overtaken. Fear and sorrow keep them temperate and sober, and free them from any dissolute acts, which jollity and boldness thrust men upon: They are therefore no sicarii, roaring boyes, theeves or assassinates. As they are soon dejected, so they are as soon, by soft words and good perswasions, reared. Wearisomness of life makes them they are not so besotted on the transitory vain pleasures of the world. If they dote in one thing, they are wise and well understanding in most other. If it be inveterate, they are insensuti, most part doting, or quite mad, insensible of any wrongs, ridiculous to others, but most happy and secure to themselves. Dotage is a state which many much magnifie and commend: so is simplicity, and folly, as he said, hic furor ó superi, sit mihi perpetuus. Some think fools and disards live the merriest lives, as Ajax in Sophocles, Nihil scire vita jucundissima, 'tis the pleasantest life to know nothing; iners malorum remedium ignorantia, ignorance is a down-right remedy of evils. These

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*Ter. Scen. 2. Adelphus. • Plautus. • Petronius Catul.

curious

curious arts and laborious sciences, Galen's, Tullie's, Aristotle's, Justinian's, do but trouble the world some think; we might live better with that illiterate Virginian simplicity, and gross ignorance; entire Ideots do best, they are not macerated with cares, tormented with fears, and anxiety, as other wise men are: for as *he said, If folly were a pain, you should hear them houl, roar, and cry out in every house, as you go by in the street, but they are most free, jocund, and merry, and in some f countries, as amongst the Turks, honoured for Saints, and abundantly maintained out of the common stock+. They are no dissemblers, lyers, hypocrites, for fools and mad men tell commonly truth. In a word, as they are distressed, so are they pittied, which some hold better then to be envied, better to be sad then merry, better to be foolish and quiet, quàm sapere & ringi, to be wise and still vexed; better to be miserable then happy: of two extremes it is the best.

SECT. IV.

MEMB. I. SUBSECT. I.

Of Physick which cureth with Medicines.

AFTER a long and tedious discourse of these six non-natu

rall things, and their severall rectifications, all which are comprehended in Diet, I am come now at last to Pharmaceu tice, 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, and 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 painfall, 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

*Parmeno Cælestinæ, Act. 8. Si stultitia dolor esset, in nulla non domo ejulatus audires. f Busbequius. Sands lib. 1. fol. 89. + Quis hodie bea tior, quam cui licet stultum esse, & eorundam immunitatibus frui. Sat. Menip. Lib. Hist. Parvo, viventes laboriosi, longævi, suo contenti, ad centum Lib. 6. de Nup. Philol. Ultra humanam fragilitatem prolixi,

annos vivunt.

at immaturè pereat qui centenarius moriatur, &c.

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yeers

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 Iseland 1607, makes mention, amongst other matters, of the inhabitants, and their manner of living, h 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, surfeiting 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 Physitian must have a new Church-yard; and who daily observes it not? Many that did ill under Physitian's hands, have happily escaped, when they have been given over by them, left to God and Nature, and themselves; 'Twas Plinie's 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,

Victus eorum caseo & lacte consistit, potus aqua & serum; pisces loco panis habent; ita multos annos sæpe 250 absq; medico & medicinâ vivunt. Lib. de 4. complex. * Per mortes agunt experimenta & animas nostras negotiantur; & quod aliis exitiale hominem occidere, iis impunitas summa. Plinius. * Juven. Omnis morbus lethalis aut curabilis, in vitam definit aut in mortem. Utroq; igitur modo medicina inutilis; si lethalis, curari non poBest; si curabilis, non requirit medicum; Natura expellet.

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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 liberal science (nor Law neither), as * Pet. And. Canonherius a Patrician 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 inventor 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 believe Varro, Pliny, Columella, most of their best. medicines were derived from his Oracles. Esculapius his son had his temples erected to his Deity, 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 calls Fimbriam Hippocratis ; but as m 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 Ideots 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 harme 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 Physicians hath killed the Emperour; Plus à medico

in Præ

In interpretationes politico-morales in 7. Aphorism. Hippoc. libros. fat. de contrad. med. " Opinio facit medicos: a fair gowne, a velvet cap, the name of a Doctor is all in all. +Morbus alius pro alio curatur; aliud remedium pro alio. • Contrarias proferunt sententias. Card. G 4

quam

quam à morbo periculi, more danger there is from the Physitian, then from the disease. Besides, there is much imposture and malice amongst them. "All arts (saith PCardan) adınit of couzening, Physick, amongst the rest,doth appropriate it to her selfe;" and tells a story of one Curtius, a Physitian 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, 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, im perfect, 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,
Tardiùs hi faciunt, quod facit ille citò."

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

"Tollere nodosam nescit medicina Podagram;"

Quartan Agues, a common ague sometimes stumbles them all, they cannot so much as ease, they know not how to judge of it. If by Pulses, that doctrine, some hold, is wholly superstitious, and I dare boldly say with Andrew Dudeth," that variety of pulses described by Galen, is neither observed nor understood of any " And for urine, that is meretrix medicorum, the

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Lib. 3. de sap. Omnes artes fraudem admittunt, sola medicina sponte cam accersit. 4 Omnis ægrotus, propriâ culpâ perit, sed nemo nisi medici beneficio restituitur. Agrippa. Lib. 3. Crat. ep. Winceslao Raphæno. Ausim dicere, tot pulsuum differentias, quæ describuntur à Galeno, nec à quoquam intelligi, nec observari posse.

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