Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/355

Rh was the best sign in the world. Pray remember Martin, who is an innocent fellow, and will not disturb your solitude. The ridicule of medicine is so copious a subject, that I must only here and there touch it. I have made him study physick from the apothecary's bills, where there is a good plentiful field for a satire upon the present practice. One of his projects was, by a stamp upon blistering-plasters, and melilot by the yard, to raise money for the government, and to give it to Radcliffe and others to farm. But there was likely to be a petition from the inhabitants of London and Westminster, who had no mind to be flead. There was a problem about the doses of purging medicines published four years ago, showing, that they ought to be in proportion to the bulk of the patient. From thence Martin endeavours to determine the question about the weight of the ancient men, by the doses of physick that were given them. One of his best inventions was a map of diseases for the three cavities of the body, and one for the external parts; just like the four quarters of the world. Then the great diseases are like capital cities, with their symptoms all like streets and suburbs, with the roads that lead to other diseases. It is thicker set with towns than any Flanders map you ever saw. Radcliffe is painted at the corner of the map, contending for the universal empire of this world, and the rest of the physicians opposing his ambitious designs, with a project of a treaty of partition to settle peace.

There is an excellent subject of ridicule from some Rh