CHAP. II.] HASTY DESPAIR OF CURES. 165 



medicine, where nothing should be altered without apparent 

 necessity. Therefore, this part of physic which treats ot 

 authentic and positive remedies, we note as deficient ; but 

 the business of supplying it is to be undertaken with great 

 judgment, and as by a committee of physicians, chosen for 

 that purpose. 



And for the preparation of medicines ; it seems strange, 

 especially as mineral ones have been so celebrated by chemists, 

 though safer for external than internal use, that nobody 

 hath hitherto attempted any artificial imitations of natural 

 baths and medicinal springs, whilst it is acknowledged that 

 these receive their virtues from the mineral veins through 

 which they pass ; and especially since human industry can, 

 by certain separations, discover with what kind of minerals 

 such waters are impregnated, as whether by sulphur, vitrol, 

 iron, &c. And if these natural impregnations of waters are 

 reducible to artificial compositions, it would then be in the 

 power of art to make more kinds of them occasionally, and 

 at the same time to regulate their temperature at pleasure, 

 This part, therefore, of medicine, concerning the artificial 

 imitation of natural baths and springs, we set down as 

 deficient, and recommend as an easy as well as useful 

 undertaking. 



The last deficiency we shall mention seems to us of great 

 importance ; viz., that the methods of cure in use are too 

 short to effect anything that is difficult or very considerable. 

 For it is rather vain and flattering, than just and rational, to 

 expect that any medicine should be so effectual, or so success 

 ful, as by the sole use thereof to work any great cure. It 

 must be a powerful discourse, which though often repeated, 

 should correct any deep-rooted and inveterate vice cf the 

 mind. Such miracles are not to be expected ; but the 

 things of greatest efficacy in nature, are order, perseverance, 

 and an artificial change of applications, which, though they 

 require exact judgment to prescribe, and precise observance 

 to follow, yet this i amply recompensed by the great effects 

 they produce. To see the daily labours of physicians in their 

 visits, consultations, and prescriptions, one would think that 

 they diligently pursued the cure, and went directly in a 

 certain beaten track about it ; but whoever looks attentively 

 UltQ tfieir prescriptions and Directions, -vUl fiud, that the 



