Page:Merret - A short view of the frauds and abuses committed by apothecaries.pdf/65

 Titles on them, more win the vulgar then a Physicians Library of far greater value.

As to their incapacity for Practice, 'tis manifest by their education, and ignorance of all those things which are required in an able Physician, viz. the knowledge of Arts and Languages; by the former whereof men learn the way and rules of observing, and improvements to be made thereon; by the latter, what the learned searchers of Nature have in all Ages taken notice of, necessary, and little enough in an Art so difficult as that of Physic. They are wholy ignorant also of all Philosophy, and the very Elements of the Art, and therefore unskillful in knowing diseases; and more surely their causes, whereto respect is to be had, as well as to the diseases, to which, fit remedies are to be applyed. For want of Anatomy know neither the part affected, nor how 'tis affected, much less any thing of Chirurgical directions. And through their ignorance in Philosophy, and Arts, they have not skill enough to advise a diet sutable to diseases, a thing most necessary, as well in curing diseases as in preserving of health, and which requires a great insight into the nature of things; nor the true grounds and reasons of compounding, practising their way rather by rote then by rule; with better reason may a Brick-layer or Carpenter pretend to be a Mathematical, or a Common Fidler to be a Musick Reader in the Universities, or Gresham-College, since both these have the practical part of those Sciences, which Apothecaries have not in Physic, in the least measure.

And to conceal their mis-actings, they generally do Rh