Page:Merret - A short view of the frauds and abuses committed by apothecaries.pdf/80

 make nothing for such Physicians as made their own Medicines; a poor and pitiful revenge, to their own loss and discredit.

Another Scandal is, the fewness of my Medicines, 'Tis true my Closet is not open to every bodies Eye, nor have I so many and large Pots and Glasses, or fill'd with as good as nothing, or the same Medicine, in several with different Titles, neither are any of mine guilded to make a shew with; yet I dare offer to view with the bed of their Shops, for number of good and really useful Medicines fit to answer presently any Physicians intentions, for internal remedies. And this will be attested by some of my learned Collegues, who have seen and perused them. Whereas the Shops contain only some general Medicines, whereof few single Physicians make use of one quarter in their practice, and upon most particular cases are compell'd to prescribe what is not readily dispensed in the Shops. Others insinuate my seldom change of Medicines. To which I answer, that where all circumstances are the same, and a good success follows; I neither do, nor will much vary, the easiest thing in the World to be done, both to colour and tast. For such changes (necessary to be used in Shop-practice) without manifest reason, clog a Patients Purse and Stomach, may not suit with the Patients Disease nor Constitution. And doubtless every Physician writes at first what he conceives most fit, and proper in the Case proposed; and if this agrees fully to his expectation, runs some hazard in the alteration, which he is necessitated to do in the Shop-way, for many reasons before-mentioned. Besides, who scruples to take the Medicinal Waters of Rh