se altogether roots, herbs, and simples in their
medicines, and all their physic in a manner is comprehended in a herbal: no
science, no school, no art, no degree, but like a trade, every man in
private is instructed of his master." [4174]Cardan cracks that he can cure
all diseases with water alone, as Hippocrates of old did most infirmities
with one medicine. Let the best of our rational physicians demonstrate and
give a sufficient reason for those intricate mixtures, why just so many
simples in mithridate or treacle, why such and such quantity; may they not
be reduced to half or a quarter? _Frustra fit per plura_ (as the saying is)
_quod fieri potest per pauciora_; 300 simples in a julep, potion, or a
little pill, to what end or purpose? I know not what [4175]Alkindus,
Capivaccius, Montagna, and Simon Eitover, the best of them all and most
rational, have said in this kind; but neither he, they, nor any one of
them, gives his reader, to my judgment, that satisfaction which he ought;
why such, so many simples? Rog. Bacon hath taxed many errors in his tract
_de graduationibus_, explained some things, but not cleared. Mercurialis in
his book _de composit. medicin._ gives instance in Hamech, and Philonium
Romanum, which Hamech an Arabian, and Philonius a Roman, long since
composed, but _crasse_ as the rest. If they be so exact, as by him it seems
they were, and those mixtures so perfect, why doth Fernelius alter the one,
and why is the other obsolete? [4176]Cardan taxeth Galen for presuming out
of his ambition to correct Theriachum Andromachi, and we as justly may carp
at all the rest. Galen's medicines are now exploded and rejected; what
Nicholas Meripsa, Mesue, Celsus, Scribanius, Actuarius, &c. writ of old,
are most part contemned. Mellichius, Cordus, Wecker, Quercetan, Renodeus,
the Venetian, Florentine states have their several receipts, and
magistrals: they of Nuremberg have theirs, and Augustana Pharmacopoeia,
peculiar medicines to the meridian of the city: London hers, every city,
town, almost every private man hath his own mixtures, compositions,
receipts, magistrals, precepts, as if he scorned antiquity, and all others
in respect of himself. But each man must correct and alter to show his
skill, every opinionative fellow must maintain his own paradox, be it what
it will; _Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi_: they dote, and in the
meantime the poor patients pay for their new experiments, the commonalty
rue it.

Thus