_The principal Hints in the Essay are taken from some loose Papers I have had long by me upon those Subjects; many of them were collected upwards of fifteen Years ago, when I was a very young Adventurer in Physick; so that I don’t pretend to call them all my own, yet I have had long and frequent Occasion to see the Truth of them confirmed in many Instances, and the Pleasure to find them embraced and applied, by some of the greatest Masters of our Profession both at Home and Abroad. It is a great Loss to Observations of this Kind, that the Motions and Quantities of Matter are so far beyond our Senses, as to be incapable of being reduced to any certain Measures, which prevents that strict Mathematical Certainty we have arrived at in the Knowledge of the Properties of Motion in larger Bodies, more within the Compass of our Senses; the Gravitation of the heavenly Bodies, and of Bodies upon our Earth, to their respective Centres, have been reduced to certain Measure; and that there are mutual, attractive and repellent Powers, which act in certain Distances and Positions, annexed to the smallest Particles of Matter, as the immediate Cause of several natural Appearances, is highly resonable to believe; but whatever Boasts have been made by some of the modern Philosophers of accounting for those Appearances upon this Principle, they have amounted to no more than Evidences of its Existence; for the Laws of its Action are not yet sufficiently known for such Purposes as I have been speaking of; so that we must content ourselves with the History of Nature, in its Appearances, which under the same Circumstances will ever be the same, or at least as long as we shall have Occasion to observe them, let their Causes be what they will._ _I have avoided the Quotation of Authors through the whole, as much as possible, because I have observed that whatever Appearance of honesty there may be in attributing to every Author the Hints he may have furnished, yet, a Multiplicity of Quotations is generally imputed rather to the Vanity of appearing Book learned, than any thing else, except to skreen Defects under greater Names, by the Publisher’s not making himself by this Means accountable for what he says; the first I think I have disclaimed, by declining the Occasion, and the latter could be of no Use to me, because I hold myself accountable in this Publication only for the Truth of the Facts, and the Honesty of the Intention, which is to contribute what lies in my small Sphere to the good of Mankind, my Friends, and my Profession._ AN ESSAY UPON DIET, Applied chiefly to the GOUT. _All Birds, Beasts, and Fishes, Insects, Trees, and other Vegetables, with their several Parts, grow out of Water and Watry Tinctures and Salts; and by Putrefaction return again into Watry Substances._