THE SECOND BOOK 283 



tie themselves to no receipts severely and religiously : for 

 as to the confections of sale which are in the shops, they 

 are for readiness and not for propriety ; for they are upon 

 general intentions of purging, opening, comforting, altering, 

 and not much appropriate to particular diseases : and this 

 is the cause why empirics and old women are more happy 

 many times in their cures than learned physicians, because 

 they are more religious in holding their medicines. There- 

 fore here is the deficience which I find, that physicians have 

 not, partly out of their own practice, partly out of the 

 constant probations reported in books, and partly out of 

 the traditions of empirics, set down and delivered over 

 certain experimental medicines for the cure of particular 

 diseases, besides their own conjectural and magistral 

 descriptions. For as they were the men of the best 

 composition in the state of Rome, which either being 

 consuls inclined to the people, or being tribunes inclined to 

 the senate ; so in the matter we now handle, they be the 

 best physicians, which being learned incline to the tradi- 

 tions of experience, or being empirics incline to the C 

 methods of learning. 



In preparation of Medicines, I do find strange, specially 

 considering how mineral medicines have been ex- 

 tolled, and that they are safer for the outward Naturae in 

 than inward parts, that no man hath sought to B et 



make an imitation by art of Natural Baths and Median*. 

 Medicinable Fountains; which nevertheless are 

 confessed to receive their virtues from minerals : and not 

 so only, but discerned and distinguished from what par- 

 ticular mineral they receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, 

 steel, or the like ; which nature if it may be reduced to 

 compositions of art, both the variety of them will be 

 increased, and the temper of them will be more commanded. 

 But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable 

 either to my intention or to proportion, I will Filum 

 conclude this part with the note of one defi- Medianaie 



i . -i r sive de vici- 



cience more, which seemeth to me of greatest bus Medi. 

 consequence ; which is, that the prescripts in use cinarum - 

 are too compendious to attain their end: for, to my 



