Medicina Flagellata; Or, The Doctor Scarify'dAnonymous
Science
Medicina Flagellata; Or, The Doctor Scarify'd
Anonymous
Hygiene; Medicine -- Practice -- Early works to 1800; Plague -- Early works to 1800; Quacks and quackery
Or else may take a Tour by Land to _Milan_, where he will see the finest
Hospital, and the strongest Citadel in _Europe_. Hence passes the _Alpes_,
and that stupendous Mount St. _Godart_, through _Altorph_, and _Lucern_,
and thence to _Bazil_, the chief of the Protestant _Cantons_, so by Boat
down the River _Rhine_ to _Strasburgh_, and _Heydelbergh_, _Manheim_, and
so down the _Rhine_ to _Coblentz_, _Audernach_ and _Collen_, then by Land
to _Brussels_, _Ghant_, _Ostend_, _Newport_, and _Dunkirk_, _Gravelin_,
and _Calais_: And thence to the Place of his Inclinations for his future
Settlement, where, by his vast Experience and Knowledge, being render'd
conspicuous in the secure and certain Method of his Cures, will soon give
Occasion to the People to discern the Difference between him and the
ordinary vulgar Physicians, who by their sordid Deports, and dangerous
Practice, make it their Business to ease the blind People of the Weight in
their Pockets, and plague them in worse Diseases.
How very few go through this Course of Improvement, we too readily
discover, and may be reproved by the first beginning of the Practice among
the Ancients, where we find the Method then in use, to train up Youth to
the Profession, was to place them Apprentices with able Physicians, who
adjudged it necessary to take their Beginning from Surgery, the Subject
whereof being external Diseases, as Wounds, Swellings, Members out of
joint, and others that were visible, proved more facile and easy to their
inmate Capacities, and wherein they might suddenly become serviceable to
their Masters, in easing them of the Trouble of dressing and cleansing
stinking Ulcers, and applying Ointments and Plaisters, a nauseous Employ,
which they ever endeavour'd to abandon to their Scholars with what
Expedition possible: This as it was the easiest, so it was the first, and
ancientest Part of Physick, and from which those that exercised it were
anciently not called Surgeons, but Physicians, tho' they attempted no
other Diseases but what were external; according to which Sense
_AEsculapius_ the first Physician, or Inventor of Physick, and his Sons
_Podalyrius_ and _Machaon_, are by History asserted to have undertaken
only those that wanted external Help; internal Diseases being in those
Days unknown, and by Temperance in their Diet, wholly debarr'd; and if
accidentally an internal Distemper did surprize them, they apply'd a
general Remedy (having no other) of poisoning or killing themselves with a
Dagger or Sword, thereby chusing rather to die once, and finish their
Misery, than to survive the Objects of Peoples Pity, or to endure the
Shocks of Death by every Pain or Languor, especially since the sage
Judgment of that Age did esteem it a signal Virtue to despise and scorn
the vain World, by hurrying out of it in a Fury, a Maxim most of the
Philosophers were very eminent in observing; and was likewise extended to
Children that brought any Diseases external or internal with them into the
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