INTRODUCTION. iii. 



not what they should believe. This is more cau- 

 tiously regulated here. The real virtues alone 

 are set down, as they arc assured by experience . 

 and the principal of these are always set in the 

 most conspicuous light. Perhaps it may be allow- 

 ed the author, to speak with more ass urance than 

 others of these things, because he has been accus- 

 tomed to the practice of physic in that way. Very 

 few things are named here that he has not seen tri- 

 ed ; and if some are set down, which other wri- 

 ters have not named, and some, of which they have 

 said most, are slightly mentioned, it is owing to 

 the same experience which has added to the cata- 

 logue in some things, and has found it too great for 

 truth in others. 



Nature has, in this country, and doubtless also 

 in all others, provided, in the herbs of its own 

 growth, the remedies for the several diseases to 

 which it is most subject ; and although the addi- 

 tion of what is brought from abroad, should not 

 be supposed superfluous, there is no occasion that 

 it should make the other neglected. This has 

 been the consequence of the great respect shewn 

 to the others ; and besides this, the present use of 

 chemical preparations has almost driven the whole of 

 galenical medicine out of our minds. 



To restore this more safe, more gentle, and 

 often more efficacious part of medicine to its na- 

 tural credit, has been one great intent in the wri- 

 ting this treatise ; and it is the more necessary for 

 the service of those, who are intended most to 

 be directed in this matter, since this is much less 

 dangerous than the other : nay, it is hard to 

 say, that this is dangerous at all, in most in- 

 stances. 



The apothecaries are apt, in their unfeeling 

 mockery., to say, they are obliged to the good 



