Here may he see the Rarities and Antiquities of this once renowned Empress of the World, from whence he may visit the renowned City of Naples, and take a Survey of the Antiquities of the Nature of Pazzoli.
Having thus in all Particulars satisfied his Curiosity, may consult about the most advantageous Ways homeward, which is to embark for Leghorn, or Genoa, where he cannot fail of English Shipping.
Or else may take a Tour by Land to Milan, where he will see the finest Hospital, and the strongest Citadel in Europe. Hence passes the Alpes, and that stupendous Mount St. Godart, through Altorph, and Lucern, and thence to Bazil, the chief of the Protestant Cantons, so by Boat down the River Rhine to Strasburgh, and Heydelbergh, Manheim, and so down the Rhine to Coblentz, Audernach and Collen, then by Land to Brussels, Ghant, Ostend, Newport, and Dunkirk, Gravelin, and Calais: And thence to the Place of his Inclinations for his future Settlement, where, by his vast Experience and Knowledge, being render’d conspicuous in the secure and certain Method of his Cures, will soon give Occasion to the People to discern the Difference between him and the ordinary vulgar Physicians, who by their sordid Deports, and dangerous Practice, make it their Business to ease the blind People of the Weight in their Pockets, and plague them in worse Diseases.
How very few go through this Course of Improvement, we too readily discover, and may be reproved by the first beginning of the Practice among the Ancients, where we find the Method then in use, to train up Youth to the Profession, was to place them Apprentices with able Physicians, who adjudged it necessary to take their Beginning from Surgery, the Subject whereof being external Diseases, as Wounds, Swellings, Members out of joint, and others that were visible, proved more facile and easy to their inmate Capacities, and wherein they might suddenly become serviceable to their Masters, in easing them of the Trouble of dressing and cleansing stinking Ulcers, and applying Ointments and Plaisters, a nauseous Employ, which they ever endeavour’d to abandon to their Scholars with what Expedition possible: This as it was the easiest, so it was the first, and ancientest Part of Physick, and from which those that exercised it were anciently not called Surgeons, but Physicians, tho’ they attempted no other Diseases but what were external; according to which Sense Æsculapius the first Physician, or Inventor of Physick, and his Sons Podalyrius and Machaon, are by History asserted to have undertaken only those that wanted external Help; internal Diseases being in those Days unknown, and by Temperance in their Diet, wholly debarr’d; and if accidentally an internal Distemper did surprize them, they apply’d a general Remedy (having no other) of poisoning or killing themselves with a Dagger or Sword, thereby chusing rather to die once, and finish their Misery, than to survive the Objects of Peoples Pity, or to endure the Shocks of Death by every Pain or Languor, especially since the sage Judgment of that Age did esteem it a signal Virtue to despise and scorn the vain World, by hurrying out of it in a Fury, a Maxim most of the Philosophers were very eminent in observing; and was likewise extended to Children that brought any Diseases external or internal with them into the World, their Cure being perform’d immediately by strangling, or drowning them; neither was this Art of external Physick of short Continuance; Pliny writing that Six hundred Years after the building of Rome, the Romans entertain’d Chyrurgical Physicians from Peloponesus: Idleness and Gluttony at last exchang’d their Ease into a Disease, which soon put them into a Necessity of experimenting such Remedies as might re-establish them into that healthful Condition, which Exercise in War, and Temperance in Diet had for so many Ages preserved their Ancestors in.
Upon a competent Improvement of their Scholars in this external Practice of Physick, and their deserving Deportment, they thought them worthy of giving them Entrance into their Closets, to be instructed in such Matters as the most retir’d Places of their Cabinets contained; which were their Remedies and Medicines, and the Manner of preparing them: And then bending his Endeavours to arrive to the Art of discerning the Disease by its Signs, and making Observations upon the Prognosticks, all critical and preternatural Changes: The Dose, Constitution, and all other Circumstances of giving the Medicines which he did gradually accomplish, by his sedulous Attendance on his Master, and his practical Discourses and Lectures from him on every Patient he visited: Lastly, upon his Attainment to a Degree of Perfection in the Art, discovered by his Master by his private Examination, all the Physicians and Commonalty of the Place were summoned to be present at the taking of his Oath in the publick Physick-School, which served in lieu of making Free to Practise, or taking his Degree; the Form of which, as remarkable as it is ancient, the Oath was as followeth.
“I Swear by [1]Apollo the Physician, and [2]Æsculapius, and by [3]Hygea, and [3]Panacea, and I do call to witness all the Gods, and likewise all the Goddesses, that according to my Power and Judgment I will entirely keep this Oath and this Covenant; That I will esteem this Master that taught me this Art, give him his Diet, and with a thankful Spirit, impart to him whatever he wants; and those that are born of him I will esteem them as my Male Brethren, and teach them this Art, if they will learn it, without Hire or Agreement; I will make Partakers of the Teaching, Hearing, and of all the whole Discipline, my own and my Master’s Sons, and the rest of the Disciples, if they were bound before by Writing, and were obliged by the Physicians Oath, no other besides; I will, according to my Capacity and Judgment, prescribe a Manner of Diet suitable to the Sick, free from all Hurt or Injury; neither will I, through any bodies Intercession, offer Poison to any, neither will I give Counsel to any such Thing; neither will I give a Woman a Pessary to destroy her Conception: Moreover, I will exercise my Art, and lead the rest of my Life chastly and holily; neither will I cut those that are troubled with the Stone, but give them over to Artists that profess this Art; and whatever Houses I shall come into, I will enter for the Benefit of the Sick; and I will abstain from doing any voluntary Injury, from all Corruption, and chiefly from that which is venereal, whether I should happen to have in Cure the Bodies either of Women or of Men, or of free-born Men or Servants; and whatever I shall chance to see or hear in curing, or to know in the common Life of Men; if it be better not to utter it, I will conceal, and keep by me as Secrets: That as I entirely keep and do not confound this Oath, it may happen to me to enjoy my Life and my Art happily, and celebrate my Glory among all Men to all Perpetuity; but if transgressing and forswearing, that the contrary may happen.”
Between those Bounds of Secresy, Veneration, Honesty and Gratitude, the Art was for many hundred Years maintained; for in the Time of Galen, and many Ages after him, Medicines for their greater Secresie were used to be prepared and composed by Physicians, as you may read, Libr. de Virt. Centaur. where is observable, their Men were wont to carry their Physick ready prepar’d in Boxes after them, which they themselves, according to the Exigency, did dispense. This Custom was continued until Wars ceasing, People began to be as intent upon the Propagation of Mankind, as the Cruelty of the former martial Ages had been upon its Destruction; where the World growing numerous, and through Idelness and want of those Diversions of their military Employ, addicting themselves to Gluttony, Drunkenness, and Whoredom, did contract so great a Number of all inward Diseases, that their Multiplicity imposed a Necessity upon Physicians (being unable to attend them all as formerly) to dismember their Act into three Parts, whereof two were servile, Chirurgery and Pharmacy; and the other imperial and applicative or methodical.
The servile Part being now committed to such as are now called Surgeons and Apothecaries, the former were employed in applying external Medicines to external Diseases; the latter in preparing all ordinary internal and external Medicines, according to the Prescription and Directions of the Physicians, whose Servants were ordered to fetch the prescrib’d Medicines at the Apothecaries, and thence to convey them to their Patients; by which Means the Apothecary was kept in Ignorance: As to the Application and Use of the said Medicines, not being suffered to be acquainted with the Patients or their Diseases, to prevent their Insinuation into their Acquaintance, which otherwise might endanger the diverting the said Patients to other Physicians, or at least their presuming themselves to venture at their Distempers. Neither were the Physicians Servants in the least Probability of undermining or imitating their Masters in the Practice, not knowing their Medicines or Prescriptions. Besides all this, those Remedies from which the chief Efficacy and Operation against the Disease was expected, still remain’d secret with the Physicians, who thought it no Trouble to prepare them with their own Hands. Thus you may remark the Physician’s necessary Jealousy of their Underlings, and their small Pains prov’d the sole Means of impropriating their Art to themselves: And yet by the Advantage of their Chirurgeons and Apothecaries, were capacitated to visit and cure ten times greater Numbers of Sick than before; which in a short Time improved their Fame and Estate to a vast Treasure, whence it was well rhimed,
——dat Galenus Opes, dat Justinianus Honores.
But at length, their Honour and vast Riches in the Eye of Apothecaries and Surgeons, proved Seeds sown in their Minds, that budded into Ambition of becoming Masters, and into Covetousness of Equality, and shareing with them in their Wealth; both which they thought themselves capable of aspiring to by an Emperical Skill the Neglect and Sloath of their Masters had given them occasion to attain, since they did not begin to scruple to make them Porters of their Medicines to their Patients, to intrust them with the Preparation of their greatest Secrets. This Trust they soon betray’d, for having insinuated into a familiar Acquaintance with their Masters Patients, it was a Task not difficult to perswade them, that those that had made and dispensed the Medicines, were as able to apply them to the like Distempers, as they that had prescrib’d them, who had either forgot, or were wholly ignorant how to prepare them; so that now they were as good as arrived to a Copartnership with their Masters in Reputation and Title, the best being call’d Doctors alike, and there being no other Difference between them, than that the Master Doctor comes at the Heells of his Man Doctor, to take in Hand the Work which he or his Brother Doctor (the Chirurgeon) had either spoiled, or could not farther go on with; a very fine Case the Art of Physick and its Professors are reduc’d to, and that not only of late Days, but of almost Seven hundred Years, for before that time Apothecaries had scarce a Being, only there were those they call’d Seplasiarij from their selling of Ointments on the Market of Capua, call’d Seplasia, Armatarij, and Speciarij, or such as sold Drugs and Spices; tho’ I confess Apothecaries may offer a just Objection in pretending to a far greater Antiquity, since the Original and Necessity of their Employ was deriv’d from the Egyptian Bird Isis, spouting Water into its Breech for a Glyster: But ’tis no Matter, the Doctor must truckle to this powerful Engineer, he must conform to the Manner of the Age; and were I to enumerate the many Abuses that are practised by this lower Profession, I mean the Generality of them, you would be more careful in making Choice of your Apothecary, or making a better Choice in having least to do with them; and how dangerous is their Ignorance in the Latin Tongue, which is of very ill Consequence, as their Prescriptions sent ’em by the Physicians are writ in Latin, and which not being rightly understood, hath often occasioned not only innocent but fatal Mistakes. Homine semi docto quid iniquius? and that a great Part of the Apothecaries are very illiterate! is so evident, that they themselves dare not deny it; among many Instances of this Kind, that most unfortunate one recorded by an eminent Physician is notorious, who instead of a Dose of Mercurius sublimatus dulcis, exhibited so much common Sublimate, a mortal Poison, which was scarce ever given inwardly, instead of an innocent Medicine approved by all Physicians. Yet those worthy Sons of Bombast must disgust your Palate with the Relation of the nauseous and choaking Terms, their Ends of Latin and stifling Phrases, driving to confound and amaze the simple Vulgar. An Instance of this Kind may afford you some little Diversion: A practical Apothecary coming to see his Customer, a Cobler, that lay indisposed of the Cholick, observed him to crack a Fart (for so it is express’d in the Original) upon which, said the Apothecary, Sir, that’s nothing but the Tonitruation of Flatuosities in your Intestines; this was no sooner out of his Mouth, but the Cobler crack’d another, and reply’d to his Doctor, Sir, that is nothing but your Hobgoblin Notes thundring Wind out of my Guts; which literal Return of his Terms of Art in plain English, though by chance, obliged the Apothecary to this Expression; I beg your Pardon, Sir, I suppose you have study’d the Art of Physick as well as my self, and want not my Help: So away went Doctor Pestle, imagining the Cobler to be as great a Master in the Faculty as himself.