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need no more but oppose the Idea of Plato, being struck with an Epilepfy or Apoplexy; and, in this Prefuppofition, to defy him to call the rich Faculties of his Soul to his Affiftance: All Means that conduce to Health I can neither think painful, nor dear: But I have fome other Appearances that make me ftrangely fufpect all this Merchandise I do not deny but there may be fome Art in it, and that there are not, amongst so many Works of Nature, fome Things proper for the Prefervation of Health, that is most certain; I very well know, that there are fome Simples that moiften, and others that dry; I experimentally know, that Radishes are windy, and Senna Leaves laxative; and feveral other fuch Experiences I have, which I am as fure of, as I am that Mutton nourishes, and Wine warms me: And Solon would say, That Eating was, like other Drugs, Phyfic against the Difeafe of Hunger. I do not disapprove the Ufe we make of Things the Earth produces, nor doubt, in the least, of the Power and Fertility of Nature, and disapprove not the Application of what fhe affords to our Neceffities: I very well fee that Pikes and Swallows thrive by its Laws; but I miftrust the Inventions of our Wit, Knowledge, and Art; to countenance which, we have abandoned Nature and her Rules, and wherein we keep no Bounds nor Moderation. As we call the Modification of the firft Laws, that fall into our Hands, Justice, and their Practice and Difpenfation often very foolish and very unjust: And as thofe who fcoff at, and accufe it, do not mean, neverthelefs, to wrong that noble Virtue, but only condemn the Abuse and Profanation of that facred Title; fo, in Physic, I very much honour that glorious Name, and the End it is ftudied for, and what it promises to the Service of Mankind, but its Prefcriptions I neither honour nor esteem.

In the first Place, Experience makes me dread it; for, amongst all of my Acquaintance, I fee no Experience not Race of People fo foon fick, and fo long be- very favoura fore they are well, as thofe who are Slaves to ble to Medicine. Phyfic. Their very Health is altered and corrupted by the Regimen they are conftrained to. Phyficians are not content to deal only with the Sick, but they change Health

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Book II. into Sickness, for fear Men fhould, at any Time, escape their Authority. Do they not, from a continual and perfect Health, infer an Argument of some great Sickness to enfue? I have been fick often enough, and have, without their Aid, found my Maladies as eafy to be supported (tho' I have made trial of almost all forts) and as short, as those of any other, without fwallowing their nauseous Dofes. The Health I have is full and free, without other Rule or Difcipline than my own Custom and Pleasure : Every Place ferves me well enough to stay in, for I need no other Conveniences when I am fick, than what I must have when I am well: I never difturb myself that I have no Phyfician, no Apothecary, nor any other Affiftance, which I fee moft Men more afflicted at, than they are with their Disease! What, do the Physicians themselves, by the Felicity and Duration of their own Lives, convince us of the apparent Effect of their Skill?

Nations.

There is not a Nation in the World that has not been Phyfic unmany Ages without Phyfic; and the first known to many Ages, that is to fay, the best and most happy, knew no fuch Thing; and the tenth Part of the World knows nothing of it to this Day. Several Nations are ignorant of it, where Men live more healthful and longer than we do here, and even, amongst us, the common People live happily without it. The Romans were fix hundred Years before they received it; and, after having made trial of it, banished it from their City, at the Inftance of Cato the Cenfor, who made it appear, how easy it was to live without it, having himself lived fourscore and five Years; and kept his Wife alive to an extreme Old-age, not without Phyfic, but without a Phyfician; for every Thing that we find healthful to Life,

may

Montaigne might very well affure us, upon the Authority of Pliny, lib. 29, c. 1. That the Romans did not admit of Phylic till 600 Years after the Foun dation of Rome; and that, after they had made trial of the Art, they condemned and banished the Phyficians from their City; but, as to his Addition, that they were expelled at the Inftance of Cato the Cenfor, Pliny is fa far from authorifing it, that he exprefsly fays the Romans did not banish the Phyficians from their City till long after the Death of Cato. Several modern Writers have fallen into the fame Error as Montaigne, as may be seen in Bayle's Dictionary, under the Article Porcius, in the Note H.

h Idem, ibid,

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may be called Phyfic. He kept his Family in Health, as Plutarch fays, if I mistake not, with Hare's Milk; as Pliny reports, that the Arcadians cured all manner of Diseases with that of a Cow; and Herodotus' fays, The Lybians generally enjoy a rare Health, by a Custom they have, after their Children are arrived to four Years of Age, to burn and cauterife the Veins of their Head and Temples, by which Means they cut off all Defluxions • of Rheums for their whole Lives "." And the Country People of our Province ufe nothing, in all forts of Difeases, but the strongest Wine they can get, mixed with a great deal of Saffron and Spice, and all with the fame Succefs.

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Whether the

Usefulness of Medicinal Purges is warranted upon good Grounds.

And to say the Truth; of all this Diversity fufion of Prescriptions, what other End and Effect is there, after all, but to purge the Belly? Which a thoufand ordinary Simples will do as well; and I do not know, whether fuch Evacuations be fo much to our Advantage as they pretend, and whether Nature do not require a Settlement of her Excrements to a certain Proportion, as Wine does of its Lees, to preferve it. You oft fee healthful Men taken with Vomitings and Fluxes of the Belly from unknown Caufes, and make a great Evacuation of Excrements, without any preceding Need, or any following Benefit, but rather with Hurt and Damage to their Conftitution. 'Tis from the great Plato, that I lately learned, That of three forts of Motions, which are natural to us, Purging is the laft and worst; and that no Man, unless he be a Fool, ought to take any 'Thing to that Purpofe, but in the extremeft Neceffity". Men difturb and irritate the Disease by contrary Pp 4 Op

i In the Life of Cato the Cenfor, c. 12.

* Nat. Hift. lib. xxv, c. 8.

1 Lib. iv. p. 323.

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Montaigne fhould have faid, by which Means they propofe to cut off fuch Defluxions, &c. for though Herodotus fays, they do it with this View, yet he does not prefume to fay, that, for this Cause, they enjoy fuch perfect Health. Tis true, fays he, the Libyans are more healthy than any People that I know, but, that this is the Caufe of it, I cannot affirm po fitively.'

In Timeo, p. 551% ·

Book II. Oppofitions: It must be the Way of living that must gently weaken, and bring it to its Period: The violent Contest betwixt the Drug and the Disease is ever to our Lofs, fince the Combat is within ourselves, and that the Drug is an Affiftant not to be trusted, being, by its own. Nature, an Enemy to our Health, and has no Access to our Conftitution, without making a Disturbance. Let it alone a little The Order of Nature that provides for Fleas and Moles, does also provide for Men, if they will have the Patience, which Fleas and Moles have, to leave it to itself: We may bawl out, as the Carman does to his Horses, till we are hoarfe, and the Cure be never the nearer. 'Tis a proud and pitilefs Order: Our Fears, our Defpair, disgust and stop it from, instead of inviting it to our Relief: It owes its Course to the Disease, as well as to Health, and will not fuffer itself to be corrupted in Favour of the one, to the Prejudice of the other's Right, for it would then fall into Disorder. Let us, in God's Name, follow it: It leads those that foliow, and those who will not follow; it drags along both their Fury and Phyfic together: Order a Purge for your Brain, it will there be better employed, than upon your Stomach. One afking a Lacedæmonian, What had made him live fo long?' He made Anfwer, The Ignorance of Phyfic.' And the Emperor Adrian continually exclaimed, as he was dying, That the Croud of Phyficians had killed him. An ill Wreftler turned Physician : Courage, fays Diogenes to him, thou haft done well, for now thou wilt throw those who have formerly thrown thee P.' But Phyficians have this Advantage, according to Nicocles, according to Nicocles, That the Sun gives Light to their Succefs, and the Earth covers their Miscarriages: And, befides, they have a very advantageous Way of making Use of all forts of Events: For

Whether Phyficians do more Good or Harm, and how they excufe the ill Success of their Prefcriptions.

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Xiphilinus in Epitome Dionis Vita Adriani, and Bayle's Dictionary, in the Article Hadrian. The fame Complaint was made before Hadrian, as [ learn from Pliny, who has copied an Epitaph, wherein a Perfon deceased complaining, Turba fe Medicorum periiffe. Nat. Hift. lib, xxix. c. I.

P Diog. Laert, in the Life of Diogenes the Cynic, lib. vi. fect. 60.
Ch. 146. of the Collection of the Monks Antonius and Maximus,

what Fortune, Nature, or any other Causes (of which the Number is infinite) produce of good and healthful in us, it is the Privilege of Phyfic to attribute to itself. All the happy Succeffes that happen to the Patient, who is under its Regimen, must be derived from thence: The Occafions that have cured me, and that cure thousand others, who don't apply to them, Physicians arrogate to themfelves: And, as to ill Accidents, they either absolutely difown them, in laying the Fault upon the Patient, by fuch frivolous Reasons, as they can never be to seek for; as, he lay with his Arms out of Bed; or, he was disturbed with the Rattling of a Coach:

Or,

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He heard the Wheels, and Horfes trampling Feet,
In the ftreight Turning of a narrow Street.

Some-body had fet open the Window; or, he had lain on his left Side; or, had had fome uneafy Thought in his Head:' In fhort, a Word, a Dream, or a Look, feem to them Excufe fufficient for this Miscarriage: Or, if they so please, they even make ufe of their growing worse, and do their Business by a way which can never fail them; which is, by buzzing us in the Ears, when the Disease is inflamed by their Medicaments, that it had been much worse but for their Remedies. He, who, for an ordinary Cold, they have thrown into a double Tertian Ague, had, but for them, been in a continued Fever. They do not care what Mischief they do, fince it turns to their own Profit. In Earneft, they have reafon to require a very favourable Belief from their Patients; and indeed it need be a hearty and very eafy one, to fwallow Things fo hard to be believed. Plato faid very well, That Phyficians were the only Men that might lye without Controul, fince our Health depends upon the Vanity and Falfity of their Promises.? Efop, a moft excellent Author, and of whom few Men discover all the Graces, does pleasantly represent to us the tyrannical

Juv. Sat. iii. v. 236.

De Repub, lib. iii.

Fab. xliii.

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