ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 189 



structions, repletions, tumors; and preternatural excres 

 cences, as stones, carnosities, wens, worms, etc., all which 

 should be very carefully examined, and orderly digested 

 in the comparative anatomy we speak of; and the experi 

 ments of several physicians be here collected and compared 

 together. But this variety of accidents, is by anatomists 

 either slightly touched or else passed over in silence. 



That defect in anatomy, owing to its not having been 

 practiced upon live bodies, needs not be spoken to, the 

 thing itself being odious, cruel and justly condemned by 

 Celsus; 9 yet the observation of the ancients is true, that 

 many subtile pores, passages and perforations appear not 

 upon dissection, because they are closed and concealed in 

 dead bodies, that might be open and manifest in live ones. 

 Wherefore, if we would consult the good of mankind, with 

 out being guilty of cruelty, this anatomy of live creatures 

 should be entirely deserted or left to the casual inspection 

 of chirurgeons, or may be sufficiently performed upon living 

 brutes, notwithstanding the dissimilitude between their parts 

 and those of men, so as to answer the design, provided it 

 be done with judgment. 



Physicians, likewise, when they inquire into diseases, 

 find so many which they judge incurable, either from their 

 first appearance, or after a certain period, that the proscrip 

 tions of Sylla and the Triumvirate were trifling to the pro 

 scriptions of the physicians, by which, with an unjust sen 

 tence, they deliver men over to death; numbers whereof, 

 however, escape with less difficulty than under the Koman 

 proscriptions. A work, therefore, is wanting upon the cures 

 of reputed incurable diseases, that physicians of eminence 

 and resolution may be encouraged and excited to pursue 

 this matter as far as the nature of things will permit; since 

 to pronounce diseases incurable, is to establish negligence 

 and carelessness, as it were by a law, and screen ignorance 

 from reproach. 



De Re Medica, i. 5. 



