THE SECOND BOOK 121 



and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as 

 the poet saith : 



Et qxioniam variant morbi, variabimus artes ; 

 Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt. 



Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art 

 doth deserve ; well shadowed by the poets, in that 

 they made Aesculapius to be the son of [the] sun, the 

 one being the fountain of life, the other as the second 

 stream : but infinitely more honoured by the example 

 of our Saviour, who made the body of man the object 

 of his miracles, as the soul was the object of his doc- 

 trine. For we read not that ever he vouchsafed to do 

 any miracle about honour or money (except that one 

 for giving tribute to Caesar), but only about the pre- 

 serving, 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 judgement, rather in circle than in progression. For 

 I find much iteration, but small addition. It con- 

 sidereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impul- 

 sions ; the diseases themselves, with the accidents ; 

 and the cures, with the preservations. The deficiencies 

 which Ivthink 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 dihgence of Hippocrates, which 



used to set down a narrative of the special ,^Jj-^"'i^f4! 

 cases of his patients, and how they pro- 

 ceeded, 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 lawyers, who are careful 

 to report new cases, and decisions for the direction of 

 future judgements. 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 



