or the Number of Drops, _&c._
But when the Apothecary deserts his Station, is always abroad, and leaves
the compounding Part to his unexperienc'd Apprentice, who cannot avoid
sometimes infusing one thing for another, by which Errors many are known
to have lost their Lives; when 'tis known that the Prescripts are made up
of Medicines bought by Wholesale of the Chymist, and not made up by the
Apothecary himself, as is too much the present Practice, and consequently
can't be known to be made of all, and best Ingredients, but are suspected,
because bought at low Prices; you will doubt whether the Character of an
Apothecary can be given to this new, and till lately unknown Employment:
When he neglects the Business of his Trade, neither prepares himself the
Compositions, nor forms the Doses for them, to be deliver'd at the most
urgent Occasions, but daringly undertakes to advise in all Distempers, he
becomes an Emperic, and invades a Profession which he cannot be supposed
to understand.

And here give me Leave to be serious, in examining their general Practice
in all Diseases. Suppose your self to be troubled with any Distemper, it
matters not which, for all is one to him you send to; upon his Arrival he
feels your Pulse, and with a fix'd Eye upon your Countenance, tells you
your Spirits are low, and therefore it's high time for a Cordial; the next
Interogatory he puts gravely to you is, When was you at Stool, Sir? if not
to Day, he promises to send you a laxative Clyster by and by; and if you
complain you have a Looseness, then instead of one laxative, he will send
you two healing Clysters: If besides you intimate a Pain in your Stomach,
Back and Sides, then, responding to each Pain, you shall have a Stomach
Plaister, another for the right Side, another for the left, and one for
the Back, and so you are like to have a large Patch and well fortified
round the Middle. Now before we go farther, let's compute the Charge of
the first Day. There is the Cordial, composed by the Direction of some old
dusty Bill on his File, out of two or three musty Waters (especially if it
be towards the latter End of the Year, and that his Glasses have been
stopt with Corks) _viz._ it may be a Citron, a Borrage and a Baum Water,
all very full of Spirits, if River Water may be so accounted; to these is
to be added one Ounce of that miraculous Treakle Water, then to be
dissolved a Dram of _Confectio Alkermes_, and one Ounce of nauseous Syrup
of July-