Page:Merret - A short view of the frauds and abuses committed by apothecaries.pdf/70

 usurp unlawfully over the single and lawful way granted Physicians for their livelihood? Or why should they repine, and revile them for advancing their Art, the publick health and profit, and for maintaining their profession by their Pens, and actings against themselves, who are the first aggressors in this division? Which I profess to be the sole end of these present papers, and heartily wish they may thrive and prosper as long as they conform themselves to the Laws of Honesty, Reason, and of the Land. Besides, why may not the Plaisterer more reasonably pretend the same to the Painter, and many other Trades against one another, as the Brick-layer to the Stone-Cutter, &c. that they understand the Trade, and that truly too, and that they cannot subsist without this incroachment? And why should not Chirurgeons keep open Apothecaries Shops? but that the same Law limits those Tradesmen, as well as prohibits the Apothecary from the practice of Physic. And surely the Law and State have no consideration of those persons subsistence, who conform not to them; and why should we have of those, subordinate to us, who against all good Confidence take away from us all that is our due, and continually traduce and slander us very untruly and designingly?

The last objection (and a strange one) is, that in this private way of giving Medicines, Physicians may poyson their Patients. But this is easily retorted upon the Apothecaries, who may themselves or their Servants do the like, as 'tis known in the poysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury; besides, since it cannot be otherwise, but that the Patient must trust somebody, 'tis better to trust one Rh