Page:A practical method as used for the cure of the plague in London in 1665.pdf/46

 Now, to, conclude; it may not be improper to take notice, that altho' there are innumerable other Preparations to be met with, in the Writings of several Physicians, for this Distemper; yet, to discharge here my Duty, I have only mention'd these few of our own Progenitors; by whose Dignity from their Authors, tho' they seem'd to be the Parents to all others, yet we do not find that their Effects were of sufficient Force to drive out the venemous Miasmata, in Answer to the Expectations of those many that confided too much in them: For as the Terrestreity of their Medicines was not separated by Chymistry front their spiritual Parts, they must be unfit to be administered in any Case, so far as Communication of Strength was needful. And to add to this, that altho' under the Notion of Antiquity, the Vulgar have ever reverenc'd our Ancestors for their Art, yet these, by their Recipe's, were really but the Infancy of the World; and that it is our Age then, which, by following long after theirs, is indeed the true Antiquity: Why therefore must we dote still upon their Childhood Inventions; and not rather, having these Advantages, (which Beginners must needs have wanted) proceed and grow old in the Medicinal Understanding, as well as in Time?