d you to your
former Condition of Health from which you are now so remote, being
necessitated, considering your doubtful State, to be at the Charge of a
Physician or two, to whom, upon Examination of what hath been done before,
the Apothecary shall humbly declare, he hath given you nothing but
Cordials; which Word Cordial, he supposes to be a sufficient Protection
for his erroneous Practice; and I must tell you, that had his Cordial
Method been continu'd in a Fever, or any other acute Distemper, for eight
or ten Days, your Heirs would have been particularly obliged to him for
giving you a Cordial Remove out of your Possession, and that through
Omission of those two great Remedies, Purging and Bleeding, the exact Use
whereof, in respect of Time and Quantity, and other Circumstances, can
only be determined by accomplish'd Physicians.

I cannot better describe their Unaptness for so great a Work, nor express
the great Difficulties that must be conquer'd to deserve the first
Character of a compleat Physician, than in the Words of that eminent and
learned Physician Dr. _Fuller_; 'It requires (says he) to understand the
learned Languages, Natural Philosophy, all the Parts of the Body, and the
Animal Oeconomy, the Nature, Causes, Times, Tendencies, Symptoms,
Diognosticks, and Prognosticks of Diseases, the Indications of Cure, and
contra Indications, the Rules of Errors of living as to the Six
Non-naturals; we must have the Skill to judge to whom, for what, when, how
much, how often to prescribe Bleeding, Vomiting, Purging, Sweating, and
other Evacuations; as also to Opiates, Calybiates, Cortex, and the
numberless other Alteratives: We must be very well acquainted with the
Virtues, Faults, Preparations, Compositions, and Doses of Vegetables,
Animals, Minerals, and all Shop Medicines; and lastly, to compleat all,
must be able, upon every emergent Occasion, to write a Bill for a Patient,
readily, pertinently, and in Form according to Art. Now to accomplish all
this, a Man had need be rightly born, and set out by Nature, with a
peculiar Genius, and particular Fitness, and with a strong prevailing
Inclination to this Study and Practice above all others.

'He must endeavour with Diligence, Sagacity and Gravity, Integrity, and
such a convenient Briskness and Courage as will bear him up, and carry him
through Difficulties, without presumptuous Rashness or barbarous
Hard-heartedness; and then 'tis necessary he should be a Man of a
com