The Holy State, Book 2 · Chapter 2
CHAP. 2. The good Physician.
HE trusteth not the single witnesse of the water if better testimony may be had. Maxime 1For reasons drawn from the urine alone are as brittle as the urinall. Sometimes the water runneth in such post-hast through the sick mans body, it can give no account of any thing memorable in the passage, though the most judicious eye examine it. Yea the sick man may be in the state of death, and yet life appear in his state.
Coming to his patient he perswades him to put his trust in God the fountain of health. 2The neglect hereof hath caused the bad successe of the best Physicians: for God will manifest that though skill comes mediately from him to be gotten by mans pains, successe comes from him immediately to be disposed at his pleasure.
He …ansells not his new experiments on the bodies of his patients; 3letting loose mad receipts into the sick mans body, to try how well Nature in him will fight against them, whilest himself stands by and sees the battel, except it be in desperate cases when death must be expell'd by death.
To poore people he prescribes cheap but wholesome medicines:4 not removing the consumption out of their bodies into their purses; nor sending them to the East Indies for drugs, when they can reach better out of their gardens.
5Lest his Apothecary should oversee, he oversees his Apothecary. For though many of that profession be both able and honest, yet some out of ignorance or haste may mistake: witnesse one of Bloys, *Stephens Apology fol Herodotus, lib. 1. cap. 16.who being to serve a Doctours bill, in stead of Optimi (short written) read Opii, and had sent the patient asleep to his grave, if the Doctours watchfulnesse had not prevented him; worse are those who make wilfull errours, giving one thing for another. A prodigall who had spent his estate was pleased to jeer himself, boasting that he had cosened those who had bought his means; They gave me (said he) good new money, and I sold them my Great-great-grandfathers old land. But this cosenage is too too true in many Apothecaries, selling to sick folk for new money antiquated drugs, and making dying mens Physick of dead ingredients.
6He brings not news with a false spie that the coast is clear till death surprises the sick man. I know Physicians love to make the best of their patients estate. First 'tis improper that Adjutores vitae should be Nuncii mortis. Secondly, none, with their good will, will tell bad news. Thirdly, their fee may be the worse for't. Fourthly, 'tis a confessing that their art is conquer'd. Fifthly, it will poyson their patients heart with grief, and make it break before the time. However they may so order it, that the party may be inform'd of his dangerous condition, that he be not outed of this world before he be provided for another.
7When he can keep life no longer in, he makes a fair & easie passage for it to go out. He giveth his attendance for the facilitating and asswaging of the pains and agonies of death. Yet generally 'tis death to a Physician to be with a dying man.
Vnworthy pretenders to Physick are rather foils then stains to the Profession. 8Such a one was that counterfeit, who called himself The Baron of *Stowes Survey of London. pag. 55.Blackamore, and feigned he was sent from the Emperour to our young King Henry the sixth, to be his principall Physician: but his forgery being discovered, he was apprehended, and executed in the Tower of London, Anno 1426. and such the world daily swarms with. Well did the Poets feigne Aesculapius and Circe, brother and sister, and both children of the Sunne: for in all times in the opinion of the multitude, witches, old women, and impostours have had a competition with Physicians. And commonly the most ignorant are the most confident in their undertakings, and will not stick to tell you what disease the gall of a dove is good to cure. He took himself to be no mean Doctour, who being guilty of no Greek, and being demanded why it was called an Hectick fever; because (saith he) of an hecking cough which ever attendeth that disease. And here it will not be amisse to describe the life of the famous Quacksalver Paracelsus, both because it is not ordinarily to be met with, and that men may see what a monster many make a miracle of learning, and propound him their pattern in their practice.