( 450 ) 
ablenefs of it, and when they fhew fo much Foiidnefs 
of citing and telling Examples of the healing accidental 
Wounds of the trachea^ without ever mentioning their 
own regular Performance of the Operation (which 
would have been a fhorter and much more effectual 
Recommendation of it) when I fay, I conlider all this, 
I find myfelf obliged to think that it has very feldom 
been reduced to Pra8;ice. So rare had it been that 
y^reiiCus, a Man of vaft Judgment and Skill in Dif- 
eafes {Cur, ^cut,\. 7 .) thought the Operation had 
never been adually done with Succefs. And CMlus 
y^ureUanus looked on it as an impradicable Whim of 
y^fclepiades. Neither ydvenzoar {Medic, i. x. 14.) 
nor yilhiicajfs {Chirurg. ii. 43.) knew any of their 
Countrymen who had undertaken it. And the 
hians are reputed to have been hardy enough Surgeons, 
The mofl: that I know of amongfl them of this Kind is 
in A^enzoay\ who tried the Experiment on a Goat, 
and cured the Wound 3 which fhews the Ingenioufnefs 
and Induftry of the Author. For as to what you will 
find fome Writers telling you, that Rafes {Contin.vu. 
Fol. m. 77.) faw Andrufrus the Phyfician do it (the 
Copy I looked into, printed at Venice lyoy, calls him 
Anclllfms : and prehaps it fliould be Antyllus for them 
both) .1 think this flows from a miftaken Interpreta- 
tion of that Author’s Meaning. Since you will read 
the whole Context, I think you will eafily perceive 
that all he fays of the Operation is upon hearfay 3 and 
confequently, that he had only feen in Books, that fuch 
a one had done it. That moft accompliflied Anatomifl 
and Surgeon Fabrlcus ah Aquapendente ( Operat, 
Chirurg, xliv. p. 477.) frankly acknowleges, that nei- 
ther he nor any of his Contemporaries had ever ventured 
to 
