_Having had some Occasion to mention the Ancients, and since Gymnastick Courses made a great part of their Physick, perhaps some will think I am setting up for one of those who cry up the Ancients upon all occasions, out of pure Enmity to the Authors of Modern Discoveries, but they will find themselves mistaken; I neither affect to be of a Party in Physick, or Singular; I seldom yet knew any one, who cry’d up ~Acids~, or cry’d down ~Bleeding~, who extoll’d the ~Ancients~ universally, and vilifi’d the ~Moderns~, but if he really understood what he pretended to, had some By-end to serve in so doing. I owe the Ancients no more Respect, than what is due to those upon whose Shoulders we stand, and upon whose Rudiments we have Built; we know their Ætiology was all wrong, their Pharmacy in general was Rough and Barbarous. (I say in General, for there are some few Cases in which their Medicine will perhaps last for ever,) but yet the ways they took to supply their want of Medicine were very commendable, and may shame us; their exquisite diligence in establishing certain Diagnosticks, and their Recourse to various Exercises, to help out what they wanted in other means; ’tis the last of these which has given me occasion to take Notice of ’em, and I think it will appear in the following Discourse to be of so much Importance, that not only in their days, but in ours also, the Art of Curing may be said to be in some Measure imperfect without it, there being some Cases in which the Use of Exercises will be absolutely necessary as long as Nature shall last._ _I have this more to add, that I did not take this Subject out of Choice but Necessity, ’tis not owing to Theory and Speculation, but Experience; the severest Experience, which my own Misfortunes have given me but too much occasion to make in a Distemper, which some Years ago I happen’d to be afflicted with, as I have related in the ~Appendix~ to this Treatise; ’twas under that severe Discipline I made most of the Observations of this Treatise; and tho’ mine was an Anomalous and singular Case, yet from what I perceiv’d to be the immediate Effects of that Exercise in common to all, and from the manner by which it caus’d my Distemper to give way, I could not but discern in what other Cases it was likely to be of the same Consequence, and I have had so very many Serious and Calm hours to confirm me in these Notions, that I cannot think I have extended ’em too far._ _As for what Reception these Papers are like to meet with, tho’ ~I~ have ventur’d abroad in a Cause so obsolete, in an Age so fruitful in Pharmacy, and abounding in Splendid Discoveries; and tho’ I am destitute of a New Hypothesis, that Specious Image of Truth, that Idol to which the Learned all bow down; yet, if what I have advanc’d be strictly Conformable to Truth, and of real Necessity in some few Extremities, I hope I may pass, upon the Merits of my Subject, tho’ without Flourish and Ornament._ _Medicina Gymnastica_: OR, A TREATISE