who shall be no other than his Covenant
Physician; by which Means the former Physician, who by his extraordinary
Care and Skill had oblig'd the Family before, shall be passed by, and lose
the Practice of that Patient: And should it happen, the Sense of Gratitude
of the forementioned Patient, should engage him to continue the Use of his
former Physician, yet this Covenant Apothecary shall privately cavil at
every Bill, and impute the Appearance of every small Pain, or Symptom
(which necessarily in the Course of a Disease will happen) to his ill
Address in the Art of Physick, and shall not give over before he has
introduc'd his Covenanter, whose Authority in the Fraud of Physick he
supposes to be most necessary.

But least you should think me overbalanc'd with a Prejudice to those that
so much abuse that noble Profession, I'll conduct you into their usual
Road and Method of examining their Patients, and making Enquiry into their
Diseases, wherewith being acquainted, you may, without any farther
Conviction, pronounce a Verdict.

This Knack doth chiefly consist in three Notions; _viz._ _First_, That a
Patient's Grievance is either a discernible evident Disease, which his own
Confession makes known to you, what it is; or, _Secondly_, an inward Pain;
or, _Thirdly_, one of those two Endemic Diseases, a Scurvy, or
Consumption; or, a _Fourth_, the Pox. This is their Theory, which is so
deeply ingrafted on their _Dura Mater_, and may be acquired with less
Industry than fourteen Years Study at one of our Universities; for so
much Time is requir'd to make a Man grow up a Doctor, the Formality
whereof in most Places consists in this Elogy; _Accipiamus pecuniam, &
dimittamus asinum_.

If a sick Man makes his Address to a vulgar Physician, he demands his
Complaint; t'other replies, he is troubled either with a Vomiting,
Looseness, want of Stomach, Cough, bad Digesture, difficulty of Breathing,
a Phtisick, Faintness, Jaundice, Green-Sickness, Dropsy, Gout,
Convulsion-Fits, Palsy, Diziness, or Swimming in the Brain, Spitting of
Blood, an Ague, a continual great Heat or Fever, _&c._ These are all
evident Diseases the Party himself expresses he is troubled with; but his
Sickness not being an evident Disease, which he himself can explain, the
Vulgar Doctor concludes, it must be either an inward Pain, or an Endemick
Disease: The Patient then making complaint of an inward Pain, to his old
way of guessing t'other goes, enquiring first in w