_Pearl_ is a Disease in a Shell-Fish, as _Bezoar_ is in the _Quadruped_: They are very different in Shape and Bulk, the whitest and most glittering are most in Esteem; the sickly Fancy conceits it will revive the Blood as it pleases the Eye; and that it will brisk up the Spirits and Mind, when it reflects on its being dear and fashionable. But this has been despis'd by the honest Physicians, who prescribe for the Cure of their Patients. The famous _Plater_, after the Experience of a many Years Practice, rejects the pretended Virtues of Pearl, or Metals, which have no Taste or Smell, to give the least Pretence to rank them with the Vegetable Alexipharmicks. Most of our Writers are of his Sentiment, and give it only a common Place with the others usually prescrib'd in the Heart-burning, or windy sour Humour offending the upper Orifice of the Stomach: But the Shell of the Fish that breeds them, pretends to, and is allow'd by all our best Authors to have the same Virtues. Nature has been very liberal in this Sort of _Alkali_; all the Shell-fish, all the Claws of Crabs, or the Tips, if you please to value them most, the two Stones of the Craw-fish, and the Shells of Eggs are directed frequently with the Pearl: The two Corals, _&c._ and the numerous Earths of the absorbing Kind, the Chalk, the Marles, are judged by many preferable to it, or are used with the same Success: So that we have the greatest Reason to believe, that the debauched Practice of the _English_ Preservers of Health have made use of it, with Design to extract Sums out of the Purse, rather than of making the Crasis of the Blood better, or the Spirits more vivacious; and if you have Oyster-Shells or Crabs-Eyes in its Stead, which are generally made use of under that Name, they will have the same, if not a better Effect. Gold is by our Chymical Writers stil'd the Sun, and the King of Metals. The Kings and Princes of the last Age were amus'd and defrauded, their Lives made less durable than their Subjects, who were beneath the Use of Gold; the Chicken they eat had the Happiness to be fed with it, that they might extract the Sulphur and prepare it by their Circulation, and volatize it for their Use. But the Physicians were contented to collect all the Gold which past unaltered and undiminished thro' the Poultry, into their Pockets. This, with many other Artifices of this Stamp, are by many laid aside, because the Publick begin to be sensible that the Gold, as the _Bezoar_ and the Pearl, were of more Cordial Virtue to the Adviser and Confederates than to the Subject of their Care and Attendance.