_Dispensatory_, and Brassivola's _Examen simpl._, &c. But
it is their ignorance that doth more harm than rashness, their art is
wholly conjectural, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and got by
killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches, men-slayers;
chirurgeons and apothecaries especially, that are indeed the physicians'
hangman, _carnifices_, and common executioners; though to say truth,
physicians themselves come not far behind; for according to that facete
epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference?

[4094] "Chirurgicus medico quo differt? scilicet isto,
Enecat hic succis, enecat ille manu:
Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur,
Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille cito."

But I return to their skill; many diseases they cannot cure at all, as
apoplexy, epilepsy, stone, strangury, gout, _Tollere nodosam nescit
medicina Podagram_; [4095]quartan agues, a common ague sometimes stumbles
them all, they cannot so much as ease, they know not how to judge of it. If
by pulses, that doctrine, some hold, is wholly superstitious, and I dare
boldly say with [4096]Andrew Dudeth, "that variety of pulses described by
Galen, is neither observed nor understood of any." And for urine, that is
_meretrix medicorum_, the most deceitful thing of all, as Forestus and some
other physicians have proved at large: I say nothing of critic days, errors
in indications, &c. The most rational of them, and skilful, are so often
deceived, that as [4097]Tholosanus infers, "I had rather believe and commit
myself to a mere empiric, than to a mere doctor, and I cannot sufficiently
commend that custom of the Babylonians, that have no professed physicians,
but bring all their patients to the market to be cured:" which Herodotus
relates of the Egyptians: Strabo, Sardus, and Aubanus Bohemus of many other
nations. And those that prescribed physic, amongst them, did not so
arrogantly take upon them to cure all diseases, as our professors do, but
some one, some another, as their skill and experience did serve; [4098]
"One cured the eyes, a second the teeth, a third the head, another the
lower parts," &c., not for gain, but in charity, to do good, they made
neither art, profession, nor trade of it, which in other places was
accustomed: and therefore Cambyses in [4099]Xenophon told Cyrus, that to
his thinking, physicians "were like tailors and cobblers, the one mended
our sick bodies, as the other did ou