highly injure themselves in hopes of doing good to others or any people be so deluded as to let the Devil practise upon them and even possess them with health The common plea of these Empericks in respect of the hazard of their fortuitous experimentings is altogether vain they perhaps thought the Medicaments by them thus used at random to be innocent and safe but I must rejoyn that not only time and opportunity is lost by the interposition of these Empericks with their supposedly harmless Medicines and Nature thereby suffers an interruption in her methodical course on both which Physicians most judiciously do lay great stress but granting that the things in respect of their nature are not deadly yet being indirectly given the event may possibly prove them such for when a little Saphron as a good Observator writes did immediatly kill a familiar Clyster presently occasioned death a little Oyl of Roses which I have seen threatned the same fate and an opiate Collyrium if we credit Avicenna straight-ways depriv'd of life I say when the safest Medicines are by these Empericks unduly and at all peradventure applied though contrary to the true and genuine indications of cure they are so far inexcusable upon the account of such hazards as that they deserve the severest censure who kill with reputedly safe Medicines Well then there is no reason why these Empericks should make a Lottery of mens healths and in hope of a prize or cure hazard Natures stock for in this business there is not only an extraordinary number of blanks meer negations of advantage and success but infinite positive evils destructive and poysonous to mens bodies and these are most frequently drawn by the unfortunate Empericks Ptolemeus therefore as a good Historian affirms not upon a much different occasion wisely answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 h. e. There ought not to be the same hazard of mens bodies as of Dice I shall conclude this Head with a weighty saying of a late Writer Fortuita nullo modo censenda sunt remedia Chance applications deserve not the very name of Remedies 2. They are also Empericks who make experiment of any Medicine or Receipt from an Opinion only of its sufficiency and fitness to cure as chance Periclitations prompted on the others so credulity spurs on these to practise Physick who have no other direction then what proceeds either from Fancy or History Geber gives us an apposite description of the first Qui animam habent opinantem phantasiam quamlibet quod credunt se verum invenisse fantasticum est totum à ratione devium errore plenum semotum à principiis naturalibus says he Such persons who are wholly guided by fancy when they please themselves with an Opinion of true discoveries they are meerly deluded and run into error wanting the safe conduct of Reason and natural principles to be the sure foundation on which they ought to build their knowledg But the Profession of Physick requires the most improved judgment to a right management and exercise of it and by no means is the proper business of Fancy which being uncapable of deliberation cannot weigh all necessary considerations in order to a regular cure 'T is true that the operations of Fancy have oftentimes appeared very powerful so that many wonderful effects owe their production chiefly to their energy but yet I deny that the strong conceit of any person can naturally impower any Medicine with new vertues to eradicate the Disease for which it is to this end directed the true Physicians endeavor to beget a good confidence in their Patiens of their Abilities the properness of the Medicaments prescribed by them but the design is only to compose the Spirits that they may act uniformly in promoting the efficacy of the Remedies whereas these Empericks possess the fancies of the sick by the prevalency of their imaginations and hope thereby to work something answerable to the impression made upon them and I question not but that the effect will resemble its cause and the presumed cure also prove phantastical and imaginary yet by all possible means do the Empericks strive to credit these Operations of fancy perswading people to obey the strange inspirations and secret impulses which at any time either they suggest or else happen to those who give themselves up to follow such delusions did these consider that their fancies are frequently as diseased as their own or Patients bodies admitting impressions according to the acuteness or greatness of the Morbifick invasion they would seek to physick for help rather then profess it by the tutorage of fancy or be matriculated in Bedlam before they attempt such kind of practices I shall produce a sad example to caution others a Revelation was communicated to one being indisposed that she must in order to her recovery drink the decoction of an Hearb growing in such a place but alas the hearb proved Hemlock and that impulse of fancy dispatched the Patient to another World I pass over the fond conceit of many who pretend familiarity with their Genii or good Angels from whom as they relate they learn effectual Secrets to remedy most Diseases for since that the events are not answerable to such extraordinary communications there is just cause of suspition that these Empericks either most pitifully cheat themselves by their easie perswasion or others by imposture By History I intend Medicines learn'd by reading and report for the Empericks do sometime study Receipt-books to stock themselves with Medicines against most Diseases and when they have proceeded so far they are impatient for an opportunity to give an account of their ripe abilities if also a Receipt or Medicine is well vouched many think that they may safely experiment its admirable vertues and as in some places the execution of the Prisoner precedes his Tryal so it is here for these being fully perswaded that such Secrets are not inferiour to the commendation of them make proof and afterwards oftentimes too late reason about their fitness for the Disease and Patient because so many employ themselves their friends and purses to procure or purchase Receipts or Secrets in Physick I shall enquire how far not only such as are ordinary but the extraordinary Arcana may enable to practice and if an ordinary measure of skill by the help of directions and cautions in the use of either may be sufficient for persons not indiscreet Were it not confessed that Receipts do little in acute Diseases I would easily prove it for almost every hour varies the case Nature being in a continual Agony to extricate her self by all possible means from the fury of the Distemper and solicitously finding out the most expeditious way respecting the peccant matter and parts chiefly affected to free her self from imminent danger in which sharp dispute sometimes she gains and sometimes loses altering accordingly all the concomitating Symptomes so that she must be traced in all her anomalous motions in which hurry what place
bruitish for the enumeration of their presumed successes because of this defect of Principles is not argumentative to conclude an attainment of Experience in regard that Reason did not make due collection from those tryals and periclitations but these in their practice act not unlike some who take pains rudely to heap stones together designing thereby to erect an artificial Structure the event being far otherwise for the higher the heap adspires the neerer is its downfal and ruine And so when the Empericks multiply their inartificial Experiments to meliorate their knowledg and to acquire experience fruitlesness attends their labors and destruction those who confide in their promised experience They in the mean time who have the luck to be the A B C of the Empericks first attempts and patiently submit to their Embrio experiments run no small hazard when their best grown Endeavors prove Molas-like unshapen and monstrous Births It is confessed that the advantages to Physick have been very considerable upon the account of dissatisfaction with some old Tenents whereupon just occasions of further search and inquiry were administred to make new and more useful discoveries but yet I cannot allow the inference by some late Writers in favor of the Vulgar Experimenters from hence deduced as if because the Medicinal Science by successive discoveries was so much improved a through alteration of what remains seemed no less necessary to its compleatment and perfection and therefore Empericism ought to be encouraged as the likeliest means to advance this hopeful work for the consequence is altogether illogical and fallacious to conclude from some particular defects in Physick that the whole Art is thereupon impleadable of the same misprision of insufficiency and uncertainty and that reasoning equally absurd which pleads for the Empericks to be countenanced as if their experimentings might very much further this pretended Reformation in Physick the new Doctrines are so far from designing the subversion of the ancient foundations that they appear considerable additions confirming and establishing them and they who have been prosperous in making discoveries did not in order to their scrutiny devoid themselves of all artificial helps but proceeded under the conduct of firme and allowed principles to their succesful disquisitions nay were it granted that not only every Age as is abundantly evident but each person should take notice of something before unobserved yet would not these hereby ruine the settled constitution of the Medicinal Science which notwithstanding all such successes is still permanent and unshaken indeed many who applaud their Service have troubled themselves rather to question Opinions in Physick which are conjectural and the Product of Fancy then well formed Aphorisms drawn immediatly from sensible observation on which the Science of Physick is chiefly founded and to this purpose not a few have misplaced their pains in examining and disputing the Hypotheses of Hippocrates Galen and their Disciples about the Humors Qualities and the like Sentiments of those Authors who thought fit thereby to express their Conceptions if any quarrel with those notions they may take the same liberty of substituting others more agreeable to the Phaenomena of Nature but the substantials of Physick are not altered by the various dresses wherein they appear suitable to every Age. As for the Empericks fitness to enterprise this pretended renovation of Physick there seems to be no sufficient ground for any such expectation because they in their experimentings wanting directive precepts can make no true judgment of their performances from whence also no Rule can be formed as their natural result they who would become Physicians are not educated as the raw Lacedemonian Souldiers were wont to be first learning to fight in the dark being emboldned to desperate attempts by this initiation in night service for gross ignorance is so far from accomplishing to attain the greatest difficulties in Physick that it utterly incapacitates for such undertakings When I have given an account of the several sorts of Empericks their inabilities to advance Physick may be easily apprehended of which in the next place The first sort of Empericks are such who try accidental and chance experiments on the diseased not having any sufficient ground of perswasion that the Medicaments thus proved are proper it may seem strange that any who pretend to Reason should after this manner sacrifice to Fortune and yet they cannot be numbred whom good luck and presumptuous hopes of success encourage to give Physick the business is not so much how likely or contrary the applications are to the Disease if a Cure is wrought thereby and I will not deny but that some of these are very prosperous by the use of Medicines not reduceable to any known Rules of Art if the reason is demanded I know not how to avoid the attributing of their successes to any other power then the Infernal Spirits assistance the Divines term this an implicite compact for that person as a reverend and late Writer notes Who applies the Creatures to those ends and uses to which either by its own propensity or by God's institution it was never inclined is at length taken in the snare of prestigious and diabolical delusion And the excellent Matthias Mairhofer is of the same judgment Quando aliquis assequitur effectum propositum non adhibendo causas legitimas legitimas causarum conditiones licet sciens deliberate non expetat Diaboli auxilium dat tamen operam in procurando effectu quibusdam occultis dubiisque modis qui à Viris bonis merito judicantur symbolum Diabolicae operationis clam intercedentis says he When any person designs the attainment of any effect without respect to natural Causes and not heeding the conditions necessary to its production although he doth not wittingly and with deliberation implore the Divels help yet working by occult and dubious waies he is most deservedly censured by all good men as guilty of a private and more secret Covenant with the Divel to co-operate with him I cannot distinguish between Charms and other known and solemn methods of Sorcery and Witchcraft and these no less prestigious and hellish practises in a business of such consequence I am willing to speak plain that the busie and officious people of both Sexes may understand their adventure when either out of an ambition to gain the popular repute of doing good or for profits sake they give Medicines at random not being able either to satisfie themselves or others concerning the true Vertues thereof and the reason of application if what is thus given succeeds not then must they answer at least to God the death of the Patient if the party recovers then is there just cause of suspition that the evil Feind is their Adjutor with his long experienced skill being willing to cure the Body of one to destroy the Soul of another When Learned and Experienced Physicians are at hand what occasion is there that these Empericks should hazard their best part and so
equally capacitated to understand vulgar notions in Physick as the others I say the most ignorant of the Empericks despair not in a shorter time then Trallianus his six months to commence lucky Conjecturers and if to profess the knowledg of nothing in respect of the great improbability of a right Conception is the sum of Ingenuity and the shortest cut to true knowledg these have good hopes to deserve Promotion and be as soon Graduates in Ignorance as any Thus do the Empericks insinuate themselves into the common peoples favour who not being able to understand the fallacy entertain their suggestions as Oracles and are willing to be deceived but although the excellency of the Medicinal Science may be one cause why so many desire to profess it yet there is reason why hereupon they should be discouraged since that they are insufficient to arrive at an ordinary measure of knowledg in these profound Mysteries I might instance in the several parts of Physick but having occasion elsewhere to treat of them I pass to the next Reason of the Empericks adventuring to practice which is 2. Because the Magistrates either want power to punish unskilful Practisers of Physick or are remiss in the execution of penal Laws upon them So soon as Barbarism was expeld the Confines of any Nation and Government civilized mens unnatural Cruelty into a peaceable Deportment to their Superiors and an amicable Society respecting the good and welfare of each other Lawes were timely enacted to restrain the dangerous attempts of ignorant Practitioners but yet Physicians in all Countreys have not causelesly complained that there still wants another Law to command the due execution of the former I shall not set down the Arguments which moved the High-Court of Parliament heretofore to guard both the People and Physicians with fitting Laws from the Injuries of the numberless illiterate Pretenders to the Profession of Physick for the passing of those Acts imports the Grand Concernment and unquestionable necessity thereof for the publick good and therefore since it appears that those Laws by reason of some circumstantial omissions or defects cannot be effectually observed according to their true intent we may easily believe that the present Parliament being no less careful of the Nations Welfare then their Predecessors especially in an Affair of such Consequence will either vigorate the old Statutes with convenient Power and Enlargements or make new to prevent such notorious Abuses as are now without redress practised on his Majesty's Subjects In regard the People claim Liberty to employ whom they please the Empericks as well as Physicians I shall enquire whether they ought to enjoy such freedom Fabritius Hildanus thinks it unfit that they use whom they best approve the ignorant as well as learned and lawfull Practitioners Non licet unicuique quod nonnulli objicere solent corium suum cuicunque libuerit venale offerre I know not whether the Law will adjudg them felones de se who take destructive Medicaments from the hands of others being well informed of the hazard they run therein as those who buy and use poysons with intent to destroy themselves indeed the first is a more solemn Conspiration then the latter but they differ not in the event for thereby the King loses a Subject and the Common-wealth a Member and however these do not seem to design their own Deaths yet when they take the directest course to it what good interpretation can well be put upon such practises it is at least the highest imprudence wilfully to run upon death in hopes of life That all persons ought to be just to themselves will be easily granted this being their pattern in relation to others in their converse and wherein can they better express their sense of this Duty then in the use of the best and likeliest means to rescue them from Diseases they then seem dishonest to themselves who intrust their lives in the hands of those who more certainly kill then cure whereupon the Law which restrains the Empericks doth chiefly respect the people that the opportunities of their harming themselves might be taken away and all mischief thereby prevented Why the World should so fondly dote on these illiterate impudent and cruel Practisers as to prefer them before the most learned modest and experienced Professors of Physick he cannot imagine who is unacquainted with the Stratagems by which they insinuate themselves into the peoples esteem It is my next Task to discover the Empericks Practises and to strip them naked of their plausible pretences 1. The Empericks undertake to cure infallibly all Diseases in all Persons if we can think that certain news of recovery can be welcom to a dying man surely the Author of those comfortable tydings exceedingly merits an interest in him who is to partake of such an unexpected and valuable a benefit as Life so then the Emperick hereupon is entertained for great expectations do naturally beget confidence and self-love works easily a through conformity to multiplied assurances of an escape from imminent danger Pliny hath a very remarkable passage to this purpose Adeo est cuique pro se sperandi blanda dulcedo ut cuique se medicum profitenti statim credatur cum sit majus periculum in nullo mendacio majus says he Every sick person doth so please and satisfie himself with hopes of a restoration to health that he readily commits his body to the care of any one who pretends that he is a Physician whereas there is no such cheat in the world as this However if these universal Undertakers can screw themselves into esteem with their Patients by promising what is incredible not within their nay many times any humane power yet they hereby lay a sure foundation of Popularity on which they build steadfast hopes that either by well wishing Friends and Relations or else by the Patients themselves they shall be called in that it may appear upon tryal whether they fail in their secured performance so that the contrivance is subtle for if these Empericks are not employed what ever they presume to say speaks them to be no less then what they pretend there being no publick or sufficient conviction of their vain boastings And if by the Artifice of promising a certain Cure they gain such an opinion of their Abilities as to be employed then be the event what it will their design of being entertained is thereby compassed The Digression may be pardonable if before I take a prospect of the Empericks sufficiency to carry on his rash undertakings I spend a little time in explicating what is commonly understood by incurable Diseases by the Learned Diseases are reckoned incurable in respect of themselves the Patient and the Physician Of the first kind are those Diseases which tincture the very rudiments of our nature and being which are conceived born and grow up with us he therefore who imagines himself to be such an expert Engineer as to turn the Microcosm at his
overcome these pestilential ferments mixed with the blood with its utmost vigour it attempts to expel and dissipate them and and if the poison of the disease is so powerful as to destroy the ferment of the Heart the blood soon coagulates the sequel of which is death Here I might particularly take notice of that strange lassitude which was very observable in most affected with this scorbutical Pest as well by reason of the distention of the vessels as the immediate mixture of the malignity with the serous humours abounding in such bodies but I shall not any longer insist on the Symptomes which are common in Pestilential Feavers but descend to those diagnosticks which most peculiarly discover the Pest as Blains Bubo's Carbuncles and discolorations vulgarly called tokens of which briefly in their order Blains are pustles or rather blisters sometimes greater or sometime less and for number fewer or more according to the quantity or quality of the Pestilential matter segregated from the blood and other liquors of the body by their fermentation these were obscurely incircled and coloured according to the serous humour either flowing to or discharged upon those parts where they appeared but as no place could plead exemption so those parts were most subject to these blaines which did lye nearest to this poysonous humour when it was forced out the liquor contained in these blysters was of the same nature with that which produced Carbuncles but more diluted and dispersed wherefore the Pest was rightly judged not so dangerous where onely blaines were discovered however if these grew numberless as I observed in one who from head to foot was full of them as the condition of that Patient was most desperate so a multitude of these blaines do indicate the excess of malignity and great hazzard thereupon Bubo's are tumours of the glandules if under the ear they are called Parotides others happen under the armes and in the groin Pestilential matter in circulation with the blood being retained in these glanduls whereby they are tumified and inflamed that some persons without any sense either of the Contagion or any illness by it have complained of these tumors must be ascribed to the mildness of the malignity having before upon others spent its virulency but most commonly these Buboes were an effect of the second sweat promoted by proper Alexipharmical remedies and such risings gave hope of the Patients recovery some of these tumours were indolent and hard continuing so many months notwithstanding means either to discuss or suppurate them and when these were unadvisedly opened by incision nothing else but an ichor gushed forth and the part wounded was very apt to mortifie but these risings were generally so painful that most could not endure the fierce and frequent lancinations and the extream burning they felt until the time of suppuration approached which upon this account was hastned by suitable applications of Cataplasmes and Plaisters the number of these Buboes was not certain some had two others three many four neither was their bigness limited the risings in some being very large so as to equal an half-penny loaf in others not exceeding an hens egg very many of these tumors were discussed if the patient at first submitted to effectual sweats and if afterwards they encreased great care was taken to further their enlagement and to break them the Feaver usually going off and declining as these tumours ripened and were fitted for apertion and here I must not omit to intimate that according to the condition of the Pus discharged these Buboes were more or less secure but I shall discourse more of these when I come to the method of curation A Carbuncle is a Pestilential sore appearing at first with a very small pustle and a circle about it of a red flaming colour which pustle either opening or rather the liquor in it being spent by the extream heat of the adjacent part soon hardens and growes crusty the incompasing inflammation spreading it self and by reason of the corrosive quality of the humour cauterizing that place where it fixes I have seen Carbuncles in most parts of the body which proved more or less dangerous in respect of the part affected and the degree of the malignity here I might produce innumerable cases which I have met with during this Visitation but I shall onely relate two or three I was called to one Patient who had a Carbuncle within two or three fingers breadth of a Bubo in the groin though they were differently handled in relation to the cure yet the business succeeded very well also one recovered when there was a large Carbuncle directly opposite to the Heart a third with one in her breast at the same time she gave suck and the child discovered no other infirmity then a loosness during his mothers cure another was afflicted with a large Carbuncle very neer the bottom of the stomack and she lived until cicatrization but then the malignity retiring within took her away my designed brevity in this answer forbids me to relate all necessary circumstances in these histories Carbuncles are sometimes very large I saw one on the thigh above two hands bredth with a large blister on it which being opened by the Chirurgion and scarisication made where the mortification did begin the Patient expired under this operation but most commonly these Carbuncles do not exceed the breadth of three or four fingers after few hours the skin shrivels into a crustiness of a duskish or brownish colour at certain times and in some especially scorbutical bodies these Carbuncles did mortifie and except timely care was taken by immargination scarifications or applications of actual Cauteries the Gangreen in few houres overspread that part and destroyed the Patient this most saline corrosive humour was not easily and by ordinary means brought to digestion and consequently not without much difficulty cured I shall not at present inlarge on the accidents attending these Carbuncles but proceed to the Tokens of which in the next place These tokens are spots upon the skin of a diverse colour and figure proceeding from chiefly extravased blood which by reason of its stagnation putrefies and produceth such mortifications discolouring the skin so then those spots which are the true tokens are profound mortifications caused by the extinction of natural heat upon the account of highly prevaling malignity because many spots arising upon the skin were onely cutaneous and so farre imposed on many Searchers and unskilful veiwers of them that they declared them to be true tokens experiment was alwaies made upon these discolorations by a lancet or large needle to try whether that part so affected was sensible if not then it was most apparent that such persons had those fatal marks upon their bodies which were most certain forerunners of death but if the Patient did discover sense upon the pricking or incision then such spots being onely cutaneous were not esteemed deadly and I have seen very many recover who were in this condition
Anatomical observations have likewise informed us that these tokens have their original and rise from within and afterwards externally shew themselves which is evident because the basis of them is larger then their outward appearance and the internal parts are found very often spotted when there is no discoloration visible on the skin the figure of these tokens is not alwaies certain but generally they are orbiculary shaped as I suppose by the pores to which the extravasated blood most readily tends and for want of circulation fixing there corrupts the pores thus closed up by any cold check the dyaphoresis whereupon the malignant corpuscles being retained in the body their attempt to sally out proves unsuccesful so that they cause a very great putrefaction in the parts where they settle and soon after if a speedy vent is not given these tokens straightwaies appear foreshewing the event of the distemper not to number up all those waies by which these deadly mortifications are produced I shall onely assert that wherever these marks are found they evidently express a full conquest of natural heat by the highest degree of malignity These tokens are not of one size or bigness some being broader then a single penny others at first very small by degrees enlarging and spreading themselves to the touch they seem hard not unlike little kernels under the skin the superficies being smooth yet I saw one where these tokens put out with little blisters upon them very many were puzled to distinguish aright between these marks and the Petechiae pestilentiales or pestilential appearances in spotted feavers as also Scorbutical spots frequently interspersed amongst them I have taken notice of many mistakes upon both these accounts some of our Mountebanking Chymists much vaunted of their in comparable medicines effectual as was pretended to cure such who were stigmatized with the tokens when as they not for want of ignorance opinionated those little rednesses like fleabites to be these true signs of the Pest which indeed were Scorbutical marks and soon vanished and if other contracted feaver spots were discovered though these with one sweat usually disappeared they concluded them to be nothing less then the tokens and the removal of them an absolute cure of the Plague in its worst condition The colour of the Tokens was various in some reddish with a circle inclining towards a blue in others they represented a faint blue the circle being blackish many were of a brownish dusky colour like rust of iron or moles in some bodies that the reddish and blackish tokens were from blood is most evident but whether the others might not proceed from the nervous liquor extravasated concreted and mortified by the malignity is more doubtful when I assayed to prove them I found them almost impenetrable I do at present onely mention this that further experiment may be made by such who have fit opportunities Although no part of mans body is secure from these most pestilential marks yet the neck breact back and thighes are most apt to them but these things are so vulgar that I may very well spare my pains in giving any further account that which did seem at first most strange to me was that many persons who had continued in a delirium throughout their sickness so soon as the tokens appeared they came to themselves and apprehended that they were in an hopeful and recovering condition I might here relate two eminent stories which I can onely without circumstances mention one was of a maid whose temper seemed good her pulse equal and stronge her senses were perfect at that time when I was called to see her she complained of no disorder or pain and concluding her self secure but when I veiwed her breast and discovered very many tokens I left her with a Prognostick and within two or three houres she died not long after I visited an ancient woman and found her at dinner with a chicken before her on which she fed greedily and had eaten half before I came after a due inquiry into her case finding no satisfaction either from her pulse or temper I searching her breast observed the tokens and she expired within one or two houres these clear intervals as I conceive did happen when all manner of fermentations were ceased the Pestilential ferment having gained a compleat victory and quieted all oppositions which Nature made in order to her preservation that the tokens do sometimes appear after death is to be attributed to the high ferment in the pestilential matter which vainly seeking to force its way thorow the skin imprints there indeleble characters of its excessive malignity To these tokens I might add those oblong stroakes like lashes discovered on the backs of some but because I saw during the whole time onely one thus marked and have not been informed of many I suppose that these are not common however their cause is the same with the tokens and they are to be esteemed of the same consequence the contiguity of these marks not at all altering their nature or effect What is often mentioned in most Authours concerning the flexibleness of bodies kild by the Pestilence hath not been confirmed in this Plague for although such bodies were not so soon rigid and stiff as those which dyed of chronical or common acute diseases yet due time being allowed or if the bodies were exposed to the cold air there appeared no difference between them and others but I shall not hence conclude that in no Pests there is not to be found this flexibleness The Prognosticks in this Pest were very fallacious for oftimes when all things presented fair and the Patient seemed past danger on a sudden the case was altered by the near approach of death and on the contrary in some whose condition upon many accounts was judged desperate an unexpected change at a dead lift hapned which gave full assurance of a speedy recovery besides considering that the Pest did primarily seat it self in the Spirits it was not easie to determine positively the success of their contest for the spirits which for a while were almost suffocated and extinguished being almost over-powred with the pestilential venome did frequently like the fire for some time suppressed break out into an aspiring flame and thereby evidence their victory and many times the spirits which maintained the combate very well the first charge by the second onset were utterly defeated so that the transactions of the spirits are not so certainly foreseen as the progress of diseases fixed on any internal or external member of the body the best Prognostick is taken from the strength of the Patient under a skilful hand directing a proper and methodical cure Before I come to the cure of the Pest I shall say something touching the great business of Preservation from it nature instructs us that by all means possible we preserve and safeguard our selves from all things prejudicial to our lives and Art hath most happily by its discoveries furnished apt remedies for