That was a pertinent question of Cicero's, lib. i. de Divinatione, 14. _An Medicina, ars non putanda est, quam tamen multa fallunt? * * * num imperatorum scientia nihil est, quia summus imperator nuper fugit, amisso exercitu? Aut num propterea nulla est reipublicæ gerendæ ratio atque, prudentia, quia multa Cn. Pompeium, quædam Catonem, nonnulla etiam te ipsum fe fellerunt?_ As to medicine shall it be accounted not an art, because of the great uncertainty therein? What, then, is there no such thing as military skill, because a great commander lately fled, and lost his army? Can there be no such thing as a wise and prudent government, because Pompey has been often mistaken, even Cato sometimes, and yourself, now and then? If much more than all, that has been proclaimed, were true, in regard to the uncertainty of the healing art, still the practice of seeking some kind of counsel and assistance, whenever a screw gets loose, in our tabernacle of the flesh, is not likely to go out of fashion. What shall we do? Follow the tetotum doctor, and swallow a purge, if P. come uppermost? This is good evidence of our faith, in the doctrine of uncertainty. Or shall we go for the doctor, who works the cheapest? There is no reason, why we should not cheapen our physic, if we cheapen our salvation; for pack horses of all sorts, lay and clerical, are accounted the better workers, when they are rather low in flesh. Or shall we follow the example of the mutual admiration society, and get up a mutual physicking association? Most men are pathologists, by intuition. I have been perfectly astonished to find how many persons, especially females and root doctors, know just what ails their neighbors, upon the very first hint of their being out of order, without even seeing them. It is a curious fact, that, while men of honor, thoroughly educated, and who have devoted their whole lives, to the study and practice of the healing art, candidly admit its uncertainty, the ignorant and unprincipled of the earth alone, who have impudently resorted to the vocation, suddenly, and as an antidote to absolute starvation, boast of their infallibility, and deal in nothing, but panaceas. The fools, in this pleasant world, are such a respectable and wealthy minority, that the charlatan will not cease from among us, until the last of mortals shall have put on immortality: and then, like the fellow, who entered Charon's boat, with his commodities, he will try to smuggle some of his patent medicines, or _leetil doshes_, into the other world. A curious illustration of the popular notion, that no man is guilty of any presumptuous sin, merely because, after lying down, at night, a notorious _pedler_ or _tinker_, he rises, in the morning, a _physician_, may be found, in the fact, that a watchmaker, who would laugh at a tailor, should he offer to repair a timekeeper, will readily confide in him, as a physician, for himself, his wife, or his child.