Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/104

76 sunt Medicanda. Besides, if purging Medicines were availing at this Time, and could carry off the unconcocted Parts, they might have done it as well at any Season of the Distemper from the very Beginning; for then the only Obstruction to their Success, was the crude and undigested State of the malignant Matter of the Pustules: And should it be said, that at the latter End, the Putrefaction is not so great as before, much of it having been spent during the Maturation, though defective: I answer, that if it be allowed that the putrid Parts are much fewer than before, it must be allowed too, that Nature is much weaker, and that the Spirits are much wasted and destroyed in the long and sharp Conflict, and therefore the Case will still be equal. Besides, though the Number of the malignant Particles is not so great as at first, yet let them be of what Number the Objector pleases, they are crude and unconcocted, and therefore uncapable of Expulsion; for it is not their greater or less Number, that makes them more or less fit for Exclusion, but their Incapacity consists in their being undigested: and therefore to give purging Medicines to carry off Humours from the Blood, which are not prepared and disposed for Separation, is, in my Opinion an unreasonable Practice. It is in vain to bring a few strained Observations, and drest Narratives, to establish any Practice, that opposes common Sense, and the Experience of ful