THE SECOND BOOK. 103 



safed 

 one 



d to do any miracle about honour or money (except that 

 for giving tribute to Caesar), but only about the preserving 

 sustaining, and healing the body of man. 



(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) 

 more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than 

 advanced ; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather 

 in circle than in progression. For I find much iteration but 

 small addition. It considereth causes of diseases with the 

 occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the 

 accidents ; and the cures, with the preservations. The de- 

 ficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many and 

 those such as are of a more open and manifest nature I will 

 enumerate and not place. 



(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious 

 diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative 



j t spec , ial cases of his patients, and how they proceeded 

 and how they were judged by recovery or death. Therefore 

 having an example proper in the father of the art, I shall not 

 need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of the law 

 yers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions for 

 the direction of future judgments. This continuance of 

 medicinal history I find deficient ; which I understand neither 

 to be so infinite as to extend to every common case nor so 

 reserved as to admit none but wonders : for many things are 

 new m the manner, which are not new in the kind and if 

 men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to 



(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much 

 dencience : for they inquire of the parts, and their substances 

 figures, and collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities 



t the parts, the secrecies of the passages, and the seats or 

 nestling of the humours, nor much of the footsteps and im 

 pressions of diseases. The reason of which omission I suppose 

 to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in the view of 

 one or a few anatomies ; but the latter, being comparative and 

 casual, must arise from the view of many. And as to the 

 diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framino- 

 of the inward parts is as full of difference as the outward, and 

 m that is the cause continent of many diseases; which not 



eing observed, they quarrel many times with the humours 

 which are not in fault ; the fault being in the very frame and 

 mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine 

 alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diets and 

 medicines familiar. And for the passages and pores, it is true 

 which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them 



