which threatned to exhaust those populous Regions of their Inhabitants,
unless the same Person who freed _Greece_ interpos'd, whom they esteem'd
divine, and sent from the Gods, because successful in so great
Undertakings. Very certain it is, so Noble and Useful a Study were
encouraged, yea and practised by Kings, Princes, and Philosophers, by the
highest, wisest, and best of Men, whereof some were honour'd by Statues
erected to perpetuate their Memoirs, and by many other Instances of the
publick Gratitude. So that when I consider what Reverence has been paid to
this Profession, and the Professors thereof in all times whereof we have
any particular Account, I am amaz'd that in this latter Age wherein it
hath received greater Improvements than in Two thousand Years before, and
that nevertheless it should be by many neglected, by others slighted, and
by some even contemned. After a diligent Enquiry into the Causes of so
strange and sudden an Alteration, I could not, in my Opinion, so justly
ascribe it to Defects in the Profession, as to those of its Professors;
not that I deny that Physick may be capable of greater Improvements,
notwithstanding it might to this Day have been maintain'd at least in the
same Degree of Honour and Esteem which all Ages have justly had for it, if
the Avarice and Imprudence of the Real, the Ignorance and Baseness of the
pretended Artists had not interpos'd: Under the former I comprize the
Vulgar Physicians; under the latter, their Dependants the Apothecaries,
who, I am confident, have caused many of the great Inconveniences under
which the Practice of Physick now labours.

That the Sick are in all Cases oppressed with too many Medicines, and made
to loath, and complain of the very Cordials; that the Expence is made
greater, and more extravagant by the often Confederacy and Artifices
visible in the new Modes of prescribing: And the Deaths of the Patient I
would not say is frequently the Effect not of the Disease, but of the
numerous Doses obtruded in the same Proportions in every Sickness and Age,
pushing on declining, and even departing Life; which after its Exit makes
Pots and Glasses observed, with the same Passions and Concern, as the
bloody Sword is viewed as the Instrument of Death and Mischief. By whom,
or by what Means the Purity of Physick has sunk into this Degeneracy, let
us farther examine, and trace it from the first Steps of entring into this
great Abuse; let us then usher in the you