r clothes." But I will urge these
cavilling and contumelious arguments no farther, lest some physician should
mistake me, and deny me physic when I am sick: for my part, I am well
persuaded of physic: I can distinguish the abuse from the use, in this and
many other arts and sciences: [4100]_Alliud vinum, aliud ebrietas_, wine
and drunkenness are two distinct things. I acknowledge it a most noble and
divine science, in so much that Apollo, Aesculapius, and the first founders
of it, _merito pro diis habiti_, were worthily counted gods by succeeding
ages, for the excellency of their invention. And whereas Apollo at Delos,
Venus at Cyprus, Diana at Ephesus, and those other gods were confined and
adored alone in some peculiar places: Aesculapius and his temple and altars
everywhere, in Corinth, Lacedaemon, Athens, Thebes, Epidaurus, &c.
Pausanius records, for the latitude of his art, deity, worth, and
necessity. With all virtuous and wise men therefore I honour the name and
calling, as I am enjoined "to honour the physician for necessity's sake.
The knowledge of the physician lifteth up his head, and in the sight of
great men he shall be admired. The Lord hath created medicines of the
earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them," Eccles. lviii 1. But of
this noble subject, how many panegyrics are worthily written? For my part,
as Sallust said of Carthage, _praestat silere, quam pauca dicere_; I have
said, yet one thing I will add, that this kind of physic is very moderately
and advisedly to be used, upon good occasion, when the former of diet will
not take place. And 'tis no other which I say, than that which Arnoldus
prescribes in his 8. Aphoris. [4101]"A discreet and goodly physician doth
first endeavour to expel a disease by medicinal diet, than by pure
medicine:" and in his ninth, [4102]"he that may be cured by diet, must not
meddle with physic." So in 11. Aphoris. [4103]"A modest and wise physician
will never hasten to use medicines, but upon urgent necessity, and that
sparingly too:" because (as he adds in his 13. Aphoris.) [4104]"Whosoever
takes much physic in his youth, shall soon bewail it in his old age:"
purgative physic especially, which doth much debilitate nature. For which
causes some physicians refrain from the use of purgatives, or else
sparingly use them. [4105]Henricus Ayrerus in a consultation for a
melancholy person, would have him take as few purges as he could, "because
there be no such medicines, whic