vill | Pakob ar aA C.. E. 
with irritating drugs, which, inftead of effe€ting a cure, often augment 
the difeafe, and not unfrequently occafion premature death. 
Some authors have laboured to prove, that the difference of opinion 
betwixt Culpeper and his brother phyficians originated entirely from 
his own furly and vindi@ive difpofition. But whoever has taken the 
pains to inveftigate the controverfy, will find this affertion moft remote 
from the truth. He found the praéfice of phyfic direCted more by terms 
of art than by principles of nature, and governed more by avarice than 
by a genuine defire of reftoring health and ftrength to the defponding 
- patient. He condemned this practice, by expofing the wickednefs of 
fome and the ignorance of others ; and, though he had the whole medi-_ 
cal corps to encounter, yet fuch was the force of his reafoning, and the 
fuperiority of his abilities, that they fubmitted to the fentence he had 
pafied upon them, without the formality of a defence. 
But after a while, the allied fons of E/ewlapius having difcovered that 
Mr. Culpeper’s practice was guided by aftrological precepts, they rallied 
again, and renewed the combat with accumulated fury. Every infulting 
reflection, calculated to impeach his underftanding, was levelled at him 
and the occult properties of the celeftial fyftem were ridiculed and denied. 
Our author, however, was not to be driven fo eafily from his purpofe. 
He immediately publithed a traét in defence of the aftral {cience, which 
he maintained againft the united oppofition of both the Colleges ; and, 
by introducing i it into his practice, he performed cures which afton ifhed 
ehis competitors, and rendered his name immortal. 
| Experience, therefore, ought to convince us, however oppofed by 
abftract reafoning, that there is indifputably an innate and occult vir- 
tue infufed into all fublunary things, animal, vegetable, and mineral, by 
the aétion of the heavenly bodies upon the ambient and elementary matter, 
which, by the motions and mutations of the luminaries being conftantly 
varied, 
