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some the Venom of the Distemper, which would otherwise end in Death.
For Nature is that we ought chiefly to regard; to help her where she is weak, to enliven her where she is dull and low, and to pacify her, when by Ferment enraged. Whosoever can accomplish this, shall find the most desperate Maladies fly before him: But Diligence, and a sound discerning Judgment, assisted with Patience, and an uncommon Zeal to do Good, are the only Essentials to reach these Deeps, and to discover such Methods in Physick, as are proper to extirpate those Exorbitances. Those that have trodden this Path, have been very few, and what they have written, rather stirs up Desire, than satisfies: How much more then ought we to regard our Author? That has given us here Remedies, as are impressed with a Divine Seal, capable to extirpate the Characters of these Pestilential Venoms, or at least to subvert their Acts; having a natural Faculty to remove only every occasional Matter, and weaken not, which otherwise would extinguish Life.
After these Observations, it remains that we now say somewhat concerning the Use of Bleeding and Purging; whose pretended Virtues have, for some Time, been so highly cried up, in all malignant Distempers, by the present Book-Doctors of this Age; whose Pride, and an overweening Conceit, has kept them hitherto from searching into the Mystery
