[ 869 ] • 
may not be an improper thing to be put into the 
hands of ftudents in phyhc : perhaps it may excite 
even fome of the more experienced to improve and 
afcertain the virtues and dofes of antimonials, which 
at prefent are not a little undetermined. 
Befides, I had alfo a further view in drawing it 
up, which is to recommend the ufe of what I have 
called effence of antimony, or the vinum antimo- 
niale (for the aromatic in it is of no great import- 
ance), as much the moll; fafe and ufeful preparation 
thereof. I have ufed a great variety of antimonial 
medicines for near thirty years ; and muft fay, from 
fufficient experience, I greatly prefer this to any 
other, though I am far from condemning all the fo- 
lid preparations of antimony ; but I affert no one 
.of them hath greater or better effedts in medicine 
than this ; and very few, if any, can be given with 
equal fafety. I think I may fay of many of them; 
in the words of Celfus, “ His varie medici utuntur, 
<c ut magis, quid quifque perfuaferit fibi, appareat, 
u quam quid evidenter compererit” 
But, after all, it is not this or that medicine, or 
preparation, will cure a difeafe, unlefs prudently 
made ufe of. A man may as perfectly well know 
how to make a hatchet, a hammer, or a faw, as a 
chemift how to make fuch or fuch particular medi- 
cines j and yet the firft may be as far from beings a 
good carpenter, as the fecond from being a good 
phyfician; the arcanum is how to ufe them. 
cvl 
