THE Blessed Union (which I hope will never die) strugled in the Birth with Difficulties almost insuperable. How violent were the Opposers of our Partnership with you, whose Luxuries and Avarice will insatiably prey on the common Stock; 8 or 10 Leaders of the Parties and Projects shall set on the deluded People, to worry the most Honourable Zeal to do Good, to serve and to save their Country! How immense is the Difference of our Manners? The Protection of Life and Property is the first Article of the Compact of Human Societies. Your most Eminent Physici­ans and Surgeons have been publickly exploded by you, treacherous to the Patients, ignorant of all Diseases and Medicines: the Collegiates have often remonstrated the numerous and the powerful Causes of the Calamities of all the Ranks of the Nation. Are there any Gentlemen of Reason and Honour, able to detect the malignant Disease, and apply the Sovereign Remedy?

But, the Day the most important Article of the Union was to be debated, a Petition of our Apothecaries was read for Permission to practise Physick and Surgery. I had the Honour to be commanded to deliver the Reasons of our Refusal; That we are oblig'd to protect the Physicians and Surgeons Properties, as we must defend our own E­states, and Titles, and Privileges: that, if we betray the most learned and useful Professions, we shall by the Example destroy the Law and the Church; and in the Consequence, our Universities must be a­bandon'd and the Esteem and Pursuit of Learning extinguish'd; that the Libertinage will encourage their Trade to increase prodigiously, and at last, starve one another; that Millions of Native and Foreign Empiricks will break in on their Employment, and complete its De­struction.

Strange! (my United South-Britains) the Hour of my Arrival to the British Parliament presented me the Accomplishment of our Prediction. My Kinsman, who had invited me to his House, observ'd my Disorder from the Fatigues of the tedious Journey, withdrew, and brought his Apothecary. This good old Gentleman, he said, has advis'd our Fa­mily these Fifty Years, he has more Patients and Experience than ten Physicians and Surgeons in our Neighbourhood: Treats them from the Beginnings of all Diseases; They are call'd in only in the most Dangerous near their End. I presented him a Fee, as is our Custom to our Lawyers and Physicians. He persisted refusing to touch it. I declar'd most solemnly, I never will, while I live, be advis'd, when the Numbers and Prices of all the Medicines shall only pay the Reward; when I saw, passing your Streets, eight or ten Shops in every one, and the Prentices prattling and playing; no Preparation making, not a Re­medy compounded; they are more numerous than the Sick.

I was surpriz'd when the good old Gentleman embrac'd me with the greatest Affection, when he wept for Joy, that he liv'd to see one of my Quality endow'd with Wisdom to preserve my Life, and the gene­rous publick Spirit, to assert the Safety of the Royal Family, Nobility, Gentry and People. 'Tis only our taking no Fee, seeming to advise for Nothing, gives us the absolute Power in the Houses of the Nobi­lity [Page 3]and Gentry, and makes us able to invade and oppress our Physick and Surgery. It is in our Power, (as you most wisely foresaw) to pay our selves two or three Guineas a Day in the Wealthy, and one in the ordinary Houses, above the real Values of the Remedies, to conti­nue it uninterrupted to the Recovery, and vastly above the Fees of the Physicians and Surgeons, who are call'd in late in the deplo­rable Cases, have their ten Shillings only every other Visit; when the Life is imagin'd in less Danger, they must often attend without any Reward to prevent the Relapse, to secure the Recovery.

My dear United Britains, I cannot express my Grief and Confusion. My first Reflection painted to me almost all the Physicians and Sur­geons, treacherous to the Sick, and ignorant of all Diseases, and the just Uses of the Medicines. I importun'd my good Apothecary, who I perceiv'd, desir'd the Redress of these terrible Grievances, to report the Disease and the specifick Remedy. My Servant attended to take our Discourse, to be publish'd in a Sheet, as the Sermons, the cheap Anti­dote and Preservative of all the Inhabitants of the Island.

N. B. I have heard, that (Ann. 1639.) the College reported the most weighty Affair to our most religious and learned K. Charles I. in Coun­cil, all the Judges commanded to attend. The Attorney-General was directed to revoke your Charter; your Shops were to be adjusted to the Proportion of the City. The Rebellion prevented the Regulation. Your Physicians after the Restoration, publish'd many Learned Dis­courses on the Subject, they and the Surgeons have often address'd, not for Preferments and Pensions, but the Cure of the Vileness and Desi­ciencies of the Arts for the publick Service.

S. B. Our Advice and most diligent Attendance of all the Sick in the Families of the Nobility and Gentry, being paid by our Bills, of as many Doses as we please, and at our own Rates, greatly exceed the Sums they are able, or willing to expend, to preserve their Health and Life. The Physicians Fee, (we will suppose the Surgeons are in all Points equally concern'd) is, when superadded to our Load, the most intolerable Burden. It's our Interest to suggest the largest Fees, larger than they desire, to make them odious to the People. This makes them dread the Physicians, 'till the Pains and the Dangers are most violent. Then they request us to choose a Doctor for them. We will prefer none, but we can confide in, who shall justifie and commend all we have done, who shall patiently bear the Scandal of the Death: He is abdi­cated for ever, we advance another on the next Occasion; we are never turn'd off, but by one of our Prentices setting up the next House, and prevailing on the Stewards and Nurses.

N. B. Then farewel all the sincere and learned Practice of Physick and Surgery. The ambitious or hungry Sollicitors of your Favour shall explode the Endeavours of the most generous Patriots of their Country to preserve the Royal Family, the Nobility, &c. and your Trade as well as their own Professions. Why are you on the sudden pale and disturb'd?

S. B. By Heavens! we have carry'd the fatal Jest too far, we are un­done. The Peoples Affection, as the Fondness of an indulgent Mo­ther, betrays us to our Ruin. We have our Prentices forc'd upon us to have the Title of Doctors, to practise Physick and Surgery, and the Apothecaries Business. We have this Hundred Years from our Charter, Ann. 1616, by two or three Prentices increas'd to an immense Number, filling all the Streets with eight or ten, as you observ'd, and three or four in all the Villages about the City. Our Gentlemen never think, or to no Purpose, for themselves or us. Our excessive Increase must infallibly [Page 4]compel us to bring them more Medicines in all Diseases whatever, and, from Year to Year, to raise the Prices of the Doses. The Payment grows more and more oppressive, the Physicians and Surgeons must be more fear'd and abhorr'd, and insulted, when they crave to be heard. But why do they not save and rescue us from ten Thousand Empiricks starting up here, and from all Parts of the World, who take the Bread out of our Mouths? The busie or hungry Clergy set up with their secret Cures. An horrible Number of Nurses undertake the Manage­ment, with their own Remedies, of all the Fevers, Small-Pox, &c. The Quacks of the Advertisements deal with their single Preparations to cure infallibly this, or the other terrible Disease, or pretend it shall cure forty or fifty as surely as one; they make the most dreadful Ha­vock of the Sick and us. How many Pretenders live plentifully by the Sale of Elixirs, Spirits, Tinctures, Pills and Cordials; the Papers of their Vertues and Uses pedlar'd about from House to House? Then the Gen­tlemen of Quality, who pretend to top us on the Physicians and Surge­ons, beggar us without Mercy; they buy the Spirits, Tinctures, Laudanum, at the first Hand. We must strive to make up our Losses by thrusting more of our Medicines on them, they struggle against us, by those, and many of their own Preparations, and take the Goa stone, &c. from all the Visitants. And (will you be able to believe it) there are many subtle Projectors of our Company, who have put off their Shops, have contriv'd to destroy me and my Brethren. They invade our Property; We shall not furnish a Sea-Surgeon, our Brother, our Kinsman, or old Acquaintance, they must have their Chests at the Hall, more than they want, certainly dearer; and will you imagine them better than ours, when they are the most competent Judges of the Remedies they use?

N. B. You see the necessary Tendencies of incroaching on one another. Do not the Magistrates know how the Publick suffers by the Inva­sions of the sacred Boundaries of the Professions and Arts engag'd in the Preservation of Health and Life? You have attempted the Regulations of the Law; the lurking Pochers of the Game are deter'd by the se­verest Penalties. It is now your turn to appeal, to implore the Prote­ction of the Government. Has not your Company resolv'd to lay its own, and the Publick Distress before the Parliament?

S. B. An Apothecary has in Print demonstrated the Necessity of re­pelling the Empiricks, and of reducing our Numbers. He proposes, That one Half may be oblig'd to serve the other as hired Servants. There are many of my Brethren (when the College has often desir'd us to foresee the Consequences of our endless Multiplication) have in the Hall earnestly recommended our using only Labourers to prepare our Medicines. I know many Surgeons, who lament with us the deadly Confusions and Disorders, and the necessary barbarous Ignorance of the modern Practice from the fear'd Destruction of the College. You know the sovereign Medicine prepar'd by the Royal Martyr, and the Lords of his Council. You have seen the Discourses of Dr. Goddard, Dr. Bates, Dr. Merret, &c. and lately, the Dispensary-Poem, which remon­strates the Integrity and Learning of the Professions sinking more and more into the vain Presumptions of Arrogance, or the humble Compli­ance of using only the 30 or 40 vulgar Remedies of the Shops, contriv'd by Divisions into numerous Doses in all sorts of Diseases, to comple­ment our Choice of them, to raise for us out of every Fever, Small-Pox, &c. 30 or 40 Guineas; out of the long Cures, 100, or 150. This you see is the only Title and standing Army of our Power, and their slavish Subjection. As there are 3 or 4 Champions of our projecting Par­ties, there are 8 or 10 Apothecaries gain their 1500, or 2000 Pounds a [Page 5]Year: We raise about as many Physicians and Surgeons, Bold Britons who stick at nothing. The Court, the Gentlemen of Quality, can never see their own, and the common Calamities, when their Physicians and Surgeons are presented by us to them, pretending to the Learning in vogue, the empty Cyhimaera's and Romances of Hypotheses, every day chang'd, and assoon out of fashion, the Whimsies of the unseen Moti­ons and Operations of Atoms, nothing to the purpose of curing Disea­ses, or the Cases of Surgery. And these unfortunate Guessers and Ope­rators are commanded by us, to observe the Instructions we give them, to defy and damn the College and all the generous Attempts to preserve the Publick.

N. B. How many Thousand Crimes form their Character? They must abjure their own Societies and Professions, they must for the Ho­nour of their Preferments, for their Salaries, expose their Patrons and the People to certain Death in all dangerous Diseases, and carefully transmit to Posterity these detestable Accomplishments of their Arts.

S. B. Will you allow, that they have reported almost these hundred Years, the most Learned and publick Spirited of the Society, the most troublesome Disturbers of the Publick, the most factious Reformers; that a Collegiate must be warily observ'd, and prevented, or expell'd from any Post of Publick Service. Shall the Royal College, Learning or Vertue flourish, when their most deadly Enemies infatuate the Gentlemen to fly from them, to assault their best Preservers?

N. B. Is it conceivable, that none of the Gentry shall be able to dis­cover their true Interest, and detect the Impostors?

S. B. When they leave the Care of their Wives, and Sons, and Daugh­ters to the Nurses and the Attendants, to us, and our Physicians and Surgeons, all these our mighty Grievances must grow in Stature and Strength. As the innumerable Empiricks, and the lurking Venders of Medicines multiply, we must enlarge the Numbers of Doses, and their Rates; the Fevers, and Small-Pox, &c. must produce the 20 l. to 40 l. 50 l. the Chronical, the 100 l or 200 l. How can I and many of my Brethren stint the Numbers and Prices, when every Year necessitates us to larger Numbers and Rates? When a large Part of us gain the Dr's Fee out of every Bole, and the Cordial-Draught to wash it down; when 3 or 4 Guineas a Day are gain'd and 3 Papers of a Powder (worth 2 d.) shall produce almost the Guinea, must they not turnpale tremble at the Sight of a Physician and Surgeon. dreading we are laying our Taxations more heavily on them? Must they not implore us to keep them out to the latest Exremity, and then bring the Adviser, who must enlarge the Account.

N. B. I see these Gentlemen of the Faculties must stick at nothing; but what Methods can you and your devoted Physicians and Surgeons use to destroy the Physicians, whose generous Disinterest preserves you, with their Society and Profession?

S. B. They shall assault them with the Rage of a Gladiator. Dr. G. has publish'd our Attempts on the Life of two of his Patients, to kill his Reputation with them. The pious Cabal of our Surgeons and Apothe­caries, near our Cathedral, hir'd the Nurse to affright and poison a Lady in the Small-Pox, with Child, on the same great Design. The Assassination was prevented by her Recovery, when their honest and skilful Management dispatch'd to the Grave a Gentleman of the House, a Party of the Company and Plot.

N. B. I am an Accomplice with them, I must take my part of the Guilt and the Punishment, if I do not in the next Parliament, lay the Universal Calamities before the Committee of the State of the Na­tion. We must, in the first place, protect you from the Numberless, most ignorant and daring Empiricks, from the sly Pedlars of the Re­medies. We must then preserve you from being undone by your two or three Prentices in all the Shops. We cannot defend our Life, but by the just Proportions of the Medicines in the various Diseases. We must betray our own, and the Life of all the People, we must abolish the Faculties in your two famous Universities, if we do not restore the Since­rity and Sufficiency of the Profession, the most implor'd in the greatest Distress by Mankind. The Gentlemen then of Great Britain will explode the perfidious Physicians and Surgeons, will detect the ignorance of the most Arrogant, will applaud the most honourable Zeal of the Collegiates, from the Address to K. Charles I. in Council, to the mo­dern Reformets of the most vitious Practice.

S. B. You may please to add, who have been assaulted by our Out-Guards, our Physicians and Surgeons in all the Houses about the Court, but when they presented the Publick Calamities to the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen and the Common Council, and Our Com­pany unhappily rejected the Expedient, the Panacea, which can only redress the Confusions and Malignity of the modern Practice, which the Committee had resolv'd after long and the most mature Deliberations, the City requested the College to erect its Dispensaries. But we cannot live without the great yearly Payments from the Poor and the Wealthy: This gives us our Power, confirm'd more and more by the long and consuming VVar, to raise to [...]ame, or starve the Physicians. The Poem describes our Champions assaulting the College, and the greatest Part of the Dispensarians have been forc'd for Bread to revolt to us.

N. B. The imminent Danger of the Invasion will unite us, will rouse our vigilance and Courage, when we reflect, that we must die in all the most safe and secure Diseases, without Hope of Relief in the most intricate and severe.

S. B. All the Professions and Arts, the Serious and the Amusing must be fed and led by the Hand in their Infancy, will conspire in their Evi­dence, and assist us to make the surest Judgment in the Cause. A young Gentleman buys a Commission, he must be instructed by the Of­ficers, or learn from their Footmen and the Sutlers. The Professors in the Universities do not inform the Students, what Authors give the most certain Observations of Human Nature, of the infi­nite Diseases, which are expell'd by Nature alone, of the various Medicines and the Seasons of applying them. The Physicians of many Years Ex­perience, with a Generosity almost peculiar to the Profession, were the most candid Patrons of the young Practicers. The young Arrogants now raise themselves by insulting their improv'd Learning, their Ob­servations of the Happy, or ill Success of the various Methods and Medicines in all kinds of Diseases. But they must have one or other to introduce them. Our Apothecaries of the different Designs, oblige them with the suitable Instructions. You must prescribe the common Juleps and Boles, and three or four sorts of Apozemes, from 30 or 40 Medicines, we have confin'd the Practice to. You must make the greatest Pother with them, and Blisters, and Scarifying, and Setons, to amuse the Assistants. The greatest Part in the common safe Di­stempers will recover. You must pronounce every Escape a mighty Cure, shift off from a dangerous Business, but proclaim in all your Companies, you could have sav'd the Life: If you find them reco­vering [Page 7]in 2 or 3 days, shew your Care, and damn all the Medicines be fore prescrib'd. How different was the Practice, when I came first to the City? The Physicians from the Universities, examin'd and applau­ded by the College (as the Clergy by the Bishop) supported by the old Practisers, visited all the numerous Cases of the meaner People in their Neighbourhood, as the Gentlemen of the Gown open the Causes, and advise in the Purchaces of less value. The proportion'd Fees, and the Cheapness of the Medicines, introduc'd them to all the Families. The Success was assur'd by the frequent Converse with the Patrons of the Art, by their Instructions or Consultations in the most Important. We were not then their dangerous Rivals or declar'd Enemies. Our Shops were open to them, to confirm and improve their Skill in the Drugs, to examine their Qualities and Virtues, and Preparations, or to observe the Tryal of the New, or lately improv'd. The frequent endow'd Le­ctures often conven'd the Collegiates. The Conversation discover'd the never-failing Methods to subdue the Epidemical malignant Fevers, the specifick Medicines in the acute or most obstinate Chronical Diseases. They may now debate their own Distmpers, if the Dispensary Poem has truly drawn by the Instructions of the President, the Characters of the Mirmils, Querpoes, the Bards. Will it therefore surprize you that we frequently foretel in the Chamber, that the Dr. we present to them, will order only this and the other Remedy, and Blisters and Cupping, that the Gentlemen of Quality avow they can see no Difference, that their Apothecaries do as well as the most Arrogant? Shall the Gene­ral enter the Field to turn the flying Troops; or the Judge, when the Pleadings are ended? Can they ever understand a Disease, when they are brought in by us, when all the natural Powers are ruffled and bro­ken; when the fatal Symptoms are first discover'd by the Attendants?

N. B. How easily are Fevers, as Fires, extinguish'h by timely Care? How easily are almost all Distempers prevented from the most dange­rous Symptomes? Has the Royal Family, the Nobility, &c. the Physi­cians early Conduct? How shall they ever know the Manners of the Invasions of Diseases, their Advances, the Ravages they make of the Natural Strength, when they have lost the ten Thousand Cases of the Patients near them, who must stand in the Front, receive the Shocks of Diseases, and protect the Life of the Royal Family, and the Nobi­lity? When shall their Physicians begin to understand them, when all the Novices in all the Arts, are allow'd their Proportions of Defeats and Blun­ders, especially in the Practice which wants the experienc'd Patrons In­structions and Cautions?

S. B. When the natural Tendencies to collect and separate the mor­tify'd Humors (by which only Life can be preserv'd in all Diseases) by the different Evacuations are assisted, directed, or controul'd, if too vehement, the Diseases shall be rendred more benign, the Ferments of the Humours to greater Malignities prevented, and a large Part evacu­ated the first Days, the Feeble remaining subdu'd by the internal Mo­tion of the Blood. When they are suddenly brought to the unhappy Turn of the Disease, what can we expect from their Observations and Advice only in the Morning, when after the Storm during the Night, all the Symptoms are allay'd? While the Medicines prescrib'd are pre­paring, they often begin to rage more violently, seize on the Brain, the Breast, the Bowels. The Medicines may be in the Evening destru­ctive. The salutary Exclusion of the Humours may be fatally stopt, or the Evacuation fatally promoted by them.

N. B. I remember you asserted, That the Physicians are confin'd to 30 or 40 vulgar Remedies always ready in the Shop, to be mix'd and divided into the Doses. I suppose, because you are engag'd in the ad­vising and attending your own Patients, and cannot attend to any new, or nice, or difficult Preparation, how can they apply them to the many different Indications of Cure?

S. B. It's now thought unbecoming the Physicians to examine all the Chymical and Galenical Preparations, and select the best of both. We have many Years past, deter'd them from that most necessary Part of their Art. We have therefore, often in the Court of Requests, and in the private Families, publish'd their lamentable Ignorance, that if they ha­zard the Prescription of any but the common Receipts, the Colours, the Scents, the Tasts, the Consistences expose them to the Laughter or Pity of our Prentices, that they must be redrest by us, before they are sent to the Patients. And we may send in what Remedies we please, without the Dread of their Discovery of the Fallacy. You will be inform'd, that 6 Eminent Apothecaries Preparations, now of the most general Use, were condemn'd in our Hall, vilely sophosticated, wanting every dearest Ingredient; that 3 or 4 Apothecaries supply'd the Army in Ireland with the most infamous Drugs, confest by the Druggist; that our Gentry often debate, whose Apothecary has the best Things; but our Physicians never distinguish, if the Bole, or Julep, or Powder, or Pill which are mixt by their Order, of 8, or 10 Preparations, are compounded of the best or the worst Ingredients,, cannot be assur'd, if the Bark, the Laudanum, the Spirits or Tinctures are good; whether the Ignorance of the Disease, or the horrible Remedy prevented the Cure. The College lately voted the Necessity of composing a new Dispensatory, rejecting the worst Preparations, and substituting the most rational and efficacious, which the improv'd experimental Philosophy in all the other Parts of Europe has discover'd, but the modern Learning is of no Use to them and the People: Disease and Medicines can only be known by the most diligent Observations and Experiences.

N. B. Are not the Gentry able to detect the Imposture?

S. B. They have many Years suspected it; In almost all Diseases, fly for Help to the experienc'd Preparations of their Families communica­ted to them, before our Physick and Surgery were corrupted and de­bas'd. But when we and the Artists combine to disguise the Fraud, how easily will the Amusement prevent the Conviction? If the Fevers are attempted to be cur'd by Acids, the Chymical Corrosives are us'd, whose Force the Metals cannot resist; they operate with too much Vi­olence, precipitate and colliquate the Blood. If by Alkalies, what Suc­cess will you hope, unless the Constitution can expel the easie Disorder, when 1000 Doses may be taken without any sort of Operation; and the Bezoar is demonstrated by the best Physicians of the Age, and many late Experiments to be indissolvable, which the most corrosive Chymi­cal Spirits cannot penetrate. Not many Years past, 5 Medicines only pretended to conquer all Diseases whatever, with our Cordials, design'd only to fill the vacancies.

N. B. What are the Remedies we want?

S. B. You know the Bark is a powerful Specifick in all intermitting Fevers, which mixt with the Blood subdues its effervescence, but it must be fatal, when the Humours are malignant and detain'd by it. The College therefore in the Poem complains, That the Art is dwindled into the meer Craft of deceiving the Sick with few vulgar Compositions; but it wants the generous Specisicks or Alteratives, that the great En­quiries or the Recovery of them, have been lately expell'd the Practice. [Page 9]Dr. P—has in his Comments, explain'd the Design of the Col­lege in that Publication, as my Lord Cook the Tenures of Littleton. Common Sence, as well as the Philosophy of Physick will inform us, the morbid Humours are not always prepared to be evacuated by Sweat, by Urine, by the Bowels, that the vicious Qualities of the Blood must be reduc'd and dispos'd for the Evacuation, by the Medicines of the con­trary Qualities. The alteration of the Blood inflam'd, extremely Vi­cious, fermenting with Violence, and preventing the collection and ex­pulsion of the morbid Matter, or acid or watery, or roapy, or the Cra­sis broken, and the necessary Ferment too languid, ought to be the first Intention and Design of the Physician. Then he must warily observe the Progress of the Natural Efforts, and distinguish which of the dif­ferent Evacuations are chosen in the various Constitutions, then assist and promote, and direct the Exclusion, or moderate or repell the preci­pitate or excessive Evacuations.

N. B. This is the most Soveraign Present Mankind can receive, if the Health and Life of all the Inhabitants, are of any value to them­selves or the Publick; oblige me with a short Report of it.

S. B. The Comments Publish and Demonstrate the 4 certain Prin­ciples or constituent Parts of all Vegetables and Animals, which variously alter'd and mixt produce the Healthy and Diseas'd Qualities of the Blood: The happy Application and Union of the Qualities of the Me­dicines cannot fail to restore the Natural and Healthy Crasis. They present us the abundant Plenty of the Degrees of those Qualities mixt and compounded in the vast varieties of their Vertues, the Magazine of Medicine, Providence has provided to prevent and subdue all Diseases. Chymistry has unfortunately attempted to improve them by separating and destroying the Divine Compositions. The separated Principles cannot unite with the Blood act on it with the most vehement Impressions, are only of the noblest use in the rare Cases, when the Salutary Violence is demanded, as the Burnings and Incisions of Surgery, are most necessary to inflame the languid Spirits and Blood, but they dissipate and wast, with themselves flying off, the most active Spirits of the Blood and the Nerves. They are (the Vinous and Volatile Spirits, the Oyls) most necessary to enforce the Evacuations of Sweats and Perspiration, to blow up the Vital Fire when almost extinguish'd, or (the Acid Spirits, the fixt Salts) to cool and repress the inflam'd Oyl of the mixture of the Blood. But how despicable is the Penury of Chymistry compar'd with the Riches and Magnificence of Nature. All the Vinous, and Volatile and Acad Spi­rits are but three Medicines differing only in the Degrees of one Quality. The unfermented Oyls are only discriminated by the being more or less di­luted. All the fixt Salts are only varied by the Circumstances of their Fusion. The Magistcries and Calcinations are a deed unactive Earth. when you except the Preparations of the Minerals. The greater part of the Ad­ditions of the crafty Arabians to the most rational Pharmacy are the most absurd Medicines in the World. Most of the Conservet and Sycups pretend only to prevent the trouble of preparing the most generous Remedies, the Extracts, Infusions and Decoctions, but are the most oppressive in the Stomach, the most corrosive corrupters of the Blood. The largest Part of their Compositions is infamous from the horrible tumults of the contrary Qualities of 50, 100 Ingredients in one, controuling and de­stroying one another's Efficacies.

N. B. The most Self-evident and serious Truths! The noble Specisick, the Bark, must be taken without Addition, Powder'd, or, infus'd or decocted, or extracted, shall it be debas'd by Sugar to a Conserve or Syrup; or Distiled to a Simple vappid Water, or to a Brandy Spirit from a fermented [Page 10]Liquor? Shall the stronger Fire force over the stinking Oyl? The wonderful Composition of its Principles is vitiated or wanting, or corrupted by their brutish Cookeries of the ador'd Specifick. Surgery will use the Oyls, or the Subtilizations of them by Fermentation in the Vinous Spi­rits on the rare Occasions, but the Fomentations, and all the other Topical confess their powerful Operations from the preserv'd entire Qualities of the Vegetables. How ridiculous are the Pursuits of Chi­mistry, design'd only for surprize and the Pleasures of Amusement? How vain the Ambition to out-do by our Artifices the inimitable Master-pieces of Nature? How unhappy are the Great and Noble, poor in their Confinement to the enjoyment of the Trifles they reserve to themselves?

S. B. The Alterative Specificks are the Medicines, which in all the Ages past, restor'd the most Difficult Diseases to Health, by correcting the vicious Qualities of the Blood, by uniting with it and supplying the Principles defective in the respective Disorders. The innumerable Fe­vers, Diseases of the Brain, Breast, Bowels, the Viscera, the Dropsie, Jaundice. Gout, the Scorbutical Colliquations, the Disorders of the Sex can only be cur'd by the frequent use of their Alteratives in the proportioned Quantities, as the Waters, to dilute with the Efficacy of their Minerals. The Comments range them under the obvious Classes of their Qua­lities and Vertues, 1. The Aromaticks, the Acrid, Spicy or Cordial, the Restorers of the Oyl and internal Motion of the Blood, 2. The Astrin­gent, 3. the Bitter, 4. the Acid, 5. the Sweet, 6. The Watery. But the Wisdom and Powers of Nature are boundless. The Aromaticks are more Acrid, or attemperated by the Astringent, or Bitter, or Acid, or Sweet or Watery Qualities, every other Class regales us with the same large A­bundance and Variety.

N. B. You observ'd, That the more rare Indications demanded Blee­ding, the Vomits, Purgers, Sweaters, the Chymical Spirits, and the Vi­nous Waters, to revive the Vital Flame. I have heard, a Sect of Phy­sicians has cur'd all Diseases by the Alteratives you have describ'd con­vey'd into the Stomach and Blood, with the Nourishment of our Foods, and the three last are avow'd to be restorative by Nourishment, and Me­dical, and Correctors of the Vicious Humours. Will not the Patients fear, that the dead distill'd Waters of the Fruits and Herbs, will turn their Blood into a Dropsie, that the fermented Spirit of the Grape, of all the Vegetables will evaporate and consume the more active Parts of the Blood, the Spirits, and therefore every Hour raise the craving a new supply, till the Apetite and Digestion are destroy'd to a Dropsie or Consumption? Will they command their Cooks to prepare the Flesh with Sugar, or Distill it to a Simple or Compound Water? Will they feed on the Drops of the Oyl extracted from it?

S. B. Not more than 3 or 4 Centuries are past, since the Arabian in­vented the Distillations. EƲROTE long preserv'd the use of the Spe­cifick Alteratives, the collusions of the last Age made the fatal Deluge of the Simple and Compound Waters. The Ease and Profit of the Apo­thecaries have abdicated the vast Numbers of them. Milk-Water and of Black-Cherries, and 3 or 4 of the Compound are only retain'd in service. The Physicians are indifferent which of them make the Julep for the Head, Breast, or Stomach, &c. The Evidences of the Com­ments are irresistable, from the attestations of all the most successful Pra­cticers of this Age, who avow they only divert their Patients with the temperate Juleps, as Sweet-meats, and from the Philosophy of all the kinds of Distillation, which can bring over no one Part of the great Natural Composition from any of the Specifick Vegetables [Page 11]but the Aromatick, and from them only the Oyl separated from the other Principles. If there are 50 Plants in the Compound Water, and 25 Aromatick; you have 25 Oyls with the smatch only of the Qualities of the Plant: Every Oyl must vehemently inflame, raise the Nau­sea's and Flatulencies, and the Tempests of Wind they are pretended to break. The good Sence therefore of our Gentlemen and Porters prefer the Simple Spirit, or the Infusions Rattafia and Ʋsquebaugh before them, and the surest Success in all the windy and Phlegmatick Colicks supports their Judgment. Shall our Arrogant Physicians and Surgeons be able to appoint none of the Appropriate Remedies, but these most of­fensive Punches, in all the Hours of all the Diseases of all the Consti­tutions and Ages? The Appropriate Alteratives, either the Watery Oyly, or the Watery Sweet, or the Sweet Acids, or the Acid bitter in the most a­greeable Animal Liquor lately presented from the most efficacious Plants of the Field, and the more agreeble Liquors, whose Oyls are attem­perated by the other Principles, shall abate every Hour the deputary Motion of the Blood in all the inflammatory Diseases, reject a part of the Recrements, every Hour, by the Pores, by Urine or the Bowels, and gradually reduce the ferment to the Natural Temper, and make the just Crisis by Sweats, and the other Evacuations or the Cutaneous or Glan­dular Separations. When we shall have this and a thousand other Reforma­tions, the Physicians and Surgeons oblig'd to learn, and prescribe the most useful Medicines, the Apothecaries carefully preparing the Reme­dy adapted to the Circumstances of each Case and Constitution: The People will generously reward our Industry, we shall not insult and de­stroy the Professions to make our Reprizals on them, because Millions of Empiricks, the daring Privateers and Pirates on our Trade, invade and plunder us.