Providence has vouchsaf'd us. I think it a duty remaining to give the publick an account of what is the' result of my meditations thereon, during the week's operation of the oyls. Now we may advantageously theorize from practise, not practise from theory. We may venture to write on a distemper when we have a sure remedy for it: and when the very cure will enable us to reason upon it. Nor will this be an useless labor, or a speculation of curiosity only: because by searching out the true nature of it, we are instructed best in a prophylactic regimen, and may provide for its extirpation, at least to weaken it very much and make it easy and gentle. No wise man will wish for a fever or willingly stand the chance of it, tho' we have so noble a remedy as the cortex, nor ought we to be careless and intemperate, because we can cure the gout.
As to the history of the distemper, I need observe no more than that the earlyest account we have of it is in the Scripture, and the earlyest we can expect to have. "II. Chron. XVI. 12. Asa in the 39th year of his reign, was diseased in his feet till his disease became exceeding great: yet therein he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers and dy'd in the 41st year of his reign." It follows, that he was
