A REBUKE To the AUTHORS of A blew-Blew-Book CALL'D The State of Physick In LONDON Which is indeed The Black and Blew State of Physick Dated from the College And Signed by Th. G. and R. M. Written in Behalf of the Apothecaries and Chirurgians of the City of London By WILLIAM SALMON Living near Black-Fryers Stairs Dicere verum quis vetat Hor. LONDON Printed and Sold by E. Whitlock near Stationers-Hall 1698. A REBUKE To the AUTHORS of A blew-Blew-Book CALLED The State of Physick In LONDON c. I. THIS little penny Quack-Book which they sell for Two Pence is only a Fardle or Bundle of Lies containing scarcely one Grain of Honesty or a Word of Truth in it except what is in its three first Lines which either by the Power of Truth was extorted from them or by an over-sight was let slip from their Pen as by taking it to pieces and scrutinizing it we shall make manifest in the following Lines to the eternal Shame and Disgrace of the Authors thereof II. After this Book had been out for some time and dispersed all over the Town to answer the Design it was intended for which was to decry abuse scandalize and undoe if possible the honest and Skilful Apothecaries and Ruine the whole Trade they found it look'd with a very ill Face and that a World of People cry'd shame of it to the great Disparagement of the Knavish Authors and withal that probably its pernicious effects might call for an Answer for which reasons some of the Gang prudently put into the Post-Boy an Advertisement that the Persons Represented by those first Letters of their Names and whom every Body was ready to suggest or suppose did not write it nor publish it to the World whereby they thought by thus decrying their Right in its intrinsick Value they might thereby prevent an Answer thereto or any Reflections thereupon and so gain their Point of doing all the Mischief they design'd by it and yet prevent a Detection of the Villany contained in it III. But the Blind took not the effect and their little Tricks were discerned through it for without doubt if those Men whom those Letters Represent were not the Amanuensis of it yet they know who were and had a great hand in it and were the chiefest contrivers of it and it is reported that the Son of the latter was the very Person which handed or conveyed it to the Press However it owns it self to come from the College and therefore without doubt some of the sneaking malicious and troublesome Members of it who have more Envy than Skill or Honesty might put their Fists to the Quill and draw out in length those false and malicious Lines which are only a Rhapsody of Ignorance and Folly IV. blew-Blew-Book The Practice of Physick before Hippocrates was in Chirurgians hands Page 3. Salmon This is the only Sentence of Truth I find in all their quack-Quack-Book for so indeed it was not only before Hippocrates his time but in his time also even down to Galen and Celsus which as they were both great Physicians were also the most eminent Chirurgians of their Day and so it continued down almost to our times For many of our Modern Physicians were even great Chirurgians also witness the famous Aquapendens Fallopius Hildanus Sennertus Barbet and many others too tedious here to be named and indeed there is so much of Truth in it that it is impossible to be a good Physician without being a good Chirurgian first A good Chirurgian may make a good Physician but a Man can never be the latter without being first excellent in the former And if a Chirurgian is also skilful in Pharmacologia or the Materia Medica first he makes so much the better a Chirurgian so that for my part I think that they all three viz. the Apothecary Chirurgian and Physician did in former times consist in one Person and so truly they ought to do now and for which reason the Apothecaries are the most proper and fit Persons to practice Physick of any Men in the Kingdom nor do I think that they ought to loose their Prerogative of Primogeniture The Quack-Doctor is but an Intruder into the Business of Physick and Chirurgery nor do our Doctors come into their Profession by the Door but as Thieves and Robbers clamber up the Walls and so break in another way V. Blew-Book It consisted then only in outward Applications Pag. 3. Salmon That this is a notorious Lye a Man that has but turned over the Leaves of Hippocrates can easily tell For that great Man who was Apothecary Chirurgian and Physician all in his own Person gives us in many places Prescriptions of inward Remedies But it is true that the first Beginnings of the Art of Physick was in Application of Externals and from thence as their Experience encreased they even the same Persons came to the use of Internals so that the Use of External and Internal Medicaments grew up as it were together in the very same Persons and one and the same Person exercised all those parts of the Art of Physick and this was done for many Ages yea even down to our days By this it appears how ignorant these Men are in the Art they pretend to and how little they have Read and Understood the Leaves of Antiquity VI. Blew-Book The Number of Observations and Medicines encreasing as well as the Number of Diseases the whole Practice of Physick became too large a task for one Person and so it was thought necessary that one Person should Cure only Inward Diseases another Outward and a third Prepare fit Medicines for both whence came Physicians Chirurgians and Apothecaries Page 4. Salmon No it was not because it was too large a Task that the Practice of Physick devolved or rather divided into those three Branches but it was because of the Pride Covetousness and Idleness of the Physicians who being so wonderfully sought after relinquished the most necessary parts of Physick which are the Preparing of Medicines and the troublesome part which is that of Manual Operation and put it off to others whom they thought more inferiour Men and from hence it was that a proud idle Physician made an Ambitious Covetous Lazy Doctor who assumed into his Province the Art of prescribing Internals leaving the rest to be managed by the other fort of Men And thus in process of time to an Ambitious Covetous Lazy Doctor a fourth part was added viz. Ignorance for he that designed for the Practice of Physick over-looking and neglecting the two prime Parts it follows naturally that such a Doctor or Practiser of Physick must be a very ignorant Fellow for understanding nothing Practically of the Materia Medica nor of Manual Operation he with all his Pride and Presumption became it is true a sorry but ignorant Doctor as being ignorant of any practical Knowledge in the two main Fundamental Parts of the Art of Physick And from these Causes proceeded truly the treble
the pretended Act upon which their Declaration was grounded told the Adversaries Counsel that he could not give Judgment for them by such an Act which had not the Royal Assent to it they fearing or seeing that Judgment was likely to go against them did by their Counsel pray a special Verdict and so it ended and hangs to this day almost twenty years since in expectation of that special Verdict which is to put an end to the Cause to Fletcher's very great Honour and the shame and Disgrace of the Fellows of the Warwick-Lane Monopoly By these Presidents and Examples it is manifest that four Great Judges or Lord Chief Justices of England when a Tryal has come before them which has depended upon the force of this pretended Act would not when the Act it self in the Parliament Roll was brought before them and the Subjects of England demanded Judgment according to the Law of the Land presume to give a Judgment by it against them X. Blew Book This Society has improved Physick and made more Discoveries in Nature than all the rest of the Physicians in Europe They have found out the Circulation of the Blood perfected the Materia Medica Corrected the Dispensatory and brought Physick to a greater Certainty and Perfection since Henry VIII time than their Predecessors did in Two thousand years before Page 6. Salmon This is a wonderful Brag and an admirable way of Boasting and yet after all we will prove that there is not one word of it Truth Nor do I believe that they can produce any one single Discovery in Nature or any rare and specifick Medicament of their Invention or any other ways have added any advantage to the Art of Physick since they have been a Body to this day except that memorable Design of Degrading themselves from being Doctors and in earnest turning Apothecaries by purely stealing the Apothecaries Trade from them I see no reason why the Apothecaries and Chirurgians may not as well turn Doctors and practise Physick as having a greater right to it as they to steal the Apothecaries Trade from them to which they have not the least Pretension But to the matter in hand they say That they have found out the Circulation of the Blood I wonder at their Impudence when they had no more hand in that Invention than they had in building of the Pyramids of Egypt that excellent and admirable Production was the sole Discovery of that most ingenious Man Dr. Harvey a Chirurgian and a Member of the Chirurgians Company whom afterwards for the Honour of his great Name they seduced to be a Member of their Conventicle They say they have perfected the Materia Medica yet that is a thing of so large a Consideration that it is not possible for the Series of all Ages to perform it but if Bragging and Boasting and Lying would do it they are the likeliest Men to do it in the World I wonder that Men should have the Confidence to affirmat this rate when they know themselves that not one of twenty of them knows by sight one Drug of an hundred when they see it or can call them by their proper Names much less do they know them being Compounded into Medicines and as for their knowledge of the Art of Compounding Medicaments I leave that to be judged of by the Learned in the Art who will give themselves the idle time to view the many silly and unlearned Books they have from time to time published to the detriment of Mankind The choicest of all Remedies are prepared by Chymistry which is an Art they have from its first Invention decry'd even almost to this present time how then should they become all of a sudden knowing in an Art they have ever so slighted and despised and since the Materia Medica is not to be perfected but by Chymistry and that their Knowledge and Skill in it is so short and so narrow so poor and so mean how is it possible that the perfection thereof should ever lye within the Spheres of their activity They say They have Corrected the Dispensatory if so this gives a dreadful box of the Ear to their Predecessors who had not Learning nor Skill enough to form a good Pharmacopoeia but to leave it under their Correction But why should we believe that these present Fellows are wiser or more skilful than those who went before them And for what reason can we believe them to be honester As for their Dispensatory they so brag of it is too true a Jest to say it had almost an infinite number of Faults in it but as for their mending of it it is Tinker-like done if ever they mended one hole in it they made ten more for it But I am of Opinion that they made faults where there were none and brought it forth into the World ten times worse than they found it as you may easily perceive if you examine it by my Translation thereof and my Comment thereupon and tho' therein I have Corrected it in some hundreds of places where the faults of it were very gross yet a thousand other faults in it I have left untouched for brevity sake They say They have brought Physick to a greater Certainty and Perfection than their Predecessors did in Two thousand Years before That is to say to a certain Method of Quacking which the Ancient and Learned Physicians for above two thousand years last past never knew nor understood We know by your exouisite endeavours you have brought the whole essential part of Physick to the use of about five things viz. of the Cortex Steel Opium Mercurius Dulcâ—… and Blood sucking these you have determined for the Cure of all Diseases which you promiscuously use I will not say as the Toy takes you in the Head but according as your Discretion shall direct you This rare Method I confess the Ancients knew nothing of 't is you that have Consummated Physick to this Acme of Perfection and out-done in their own way all the Quacks that ever were in the World before you You have brought Physick to such a certainty that if a Man goes to any Apothecary and does but tell him the name of his Doctor he will before-hand tell him what he will prescribe to his Patient let the Disease be what it will What can the World think now of this exquisite Certainty What a shame is it to all the Ancient Doctors of our Art that a few upstarts Fellows but of yesterday should stumble upon five such admirable things which by their own Powers and Efficacy should be able to absolve the whole Practise of Physick What thick skull'd Fellows were Hippocrates Galen Avicen Celsus and a Thousand more of them that they should not hit upon a few things so facile and easy to be found out Oh no! the Honour and Glory of it was perfectly designed for the Men of our Age for the Wonder-working and mighty Professors of Warwick-lane XI Blew-Book Physicians had reason to
the great breach which is between them and the Doctors and which now is become so wide that I hope it will never be healed again The last thing they charge them with is Quacking by selling their Drugs without a Physician 's Order as if any greater Quacks could be in nature than they are I am consident I could teach a Youth of twelve or fourteen years of Age in ten days time the whole Mystery of their way of Practise and if he understands but a little Latin make him as able to Prescribe as any of them for since they have very learnedly abstracted or reduced the whole Art and Practise of Physick to four or five things viz. the Cortex Steel Opium Mercurius dulcis and Blood-sucking 't would be an easy matter to sub-sume the practise of those five Essentials into so short a Method or into so few easy Rules as a youth of any ordinary Capacity or Ingenuity might be able to get them by Heart in eight or ten days time why might not then an ingenious and skilful Apothecary be master of the Mystery whose practise it has been for many Years by their special Directions so as to use it upon occasion to serve their turn But if I mistake not the Apothecaries know better and will never fetter the practise of Physick with those few things they knowing hundreds of others full as good and more essential to the Cure of Diseases in many Cases From hence it is manifest that the Apothecary if he practises does not appear to be so much a Quack as the Doctor XIV Blew-Book The excessive number of Apothecaries likewise Discredits that of Chirurgery for Apothecaries as likewise Barbers Mountebanks Quacks and a multitude of other Pretenders practise Chirurgery with as much Assurance tho' with less Success as the ablest Members of the Chirurgians-Hall Page 9 10. Salmon What an Art of Colloguing these Blades of the Blew-Book have gotâ— see how Hypocritically they begin to Claw the Chyrurgians I wonder how this fit of Love and Good Nature came upon the score I am sure it is not usual with them to have such Friendship for the Chirurgians nor to have such a Concern upon them for fear Barbers Mountebanks Quacks and other Pretenders should encroach upon their Profession what can be the meaning of it Why truly they are the Apothecaries yea verily the wicked Apothecaries that stand in the Way these are the Men that do all the mischief they sincerely Friends have encroached upon our Monopoly already and we plainly soresee by the help of our Prophetical Optick Glasses and Perspectives with other fore-seeing Instruments that if these Vile I say Vile Apothecaries be suffered to go on they will Dear Brethren make inroads upon your Profession as well as upon ours and these things we cannot but with Tears I say with Tears in our Eyes give you timely fore-warning of that you might joyn at least lay your helping hands to the labouring Oar without which we can never think that we shall bring our Bark safe to the desired Port of Securit XV. blew-Blew-Book It is therefore reasonably hoped that the Parliament may in due time take a matter of so great and general a Consequence into their Consideration and provide some effectual means of reducing this Company within some reasonable Bounds and keeping it so page 10 11. Salmon It is more reasonable to be hoped that the Parliament may in a short time take a matter of so great and general a Consequence into their Consideration as all Prosecutions at Law by pretended Acts of Parliament which never past the Royal Assent and to prevent the same for the future and to declare by Act of Parliament all such pretended Acts Null and Void and to be holden for no Law as indeed they are none and to provide some effectual means of Reducing the Fellows of Warwick-lane into some reasonable bounds of Moderation and to keep them so that they may not in time to come domineer and tyrannize over their Fellow-Subjects and Ruine quiet and peaceable Men and the King's Liege People by long and vexatious Prosecutions in Courts of Judicature against all manner of Right Justice and Law under the Notion and Pretence of such Statutes which never yet had the Royal Assent nor were ever Confirmed by any King or Queen of England nor under pretence of such Laws to assume such a Tyrannizing Power as when three or four of them shall think sit to Prejudge a Man a Criminal and guilty of male Practise in the Art of Physick when it is a very great question whether they themselves understand what the true practise thereof is as in the late Case of the Learned and Worthy Dr. Groenvelt which is notoriously known and then upon those their Suggestions and Pre-judging to Act the part of a Chancelor Judges Juries and Witnesses all at a time in their own Persons and so to Pre-judge him in the Penalty and to the Damage of 20 l. to be paid down for their own use for the supposed ill Management or male Practise of their Art as in the late Cases of Dr. William Rivet and Dr. John Groenvelt aforenamed tho' many others more Learned and Skilful than they had formerly declared the same to be good and true Practise as in the Case of the last named Person and then if they refuse to pay the said 20 l. to Commit the supposed Criminal or a Criminal only of their own making to Newgate without Bail or Mainprize till the same be paid down into their ungodly unmerciful and covetous Paws which is a Power and Authority greater then ever any King or Queen of England ever pretended to over the meanest Subject and which I hope our most August Assembly at the next Meeting or Sessions of Parliament will so effectually consider of as to abridge them of and punish them for and cause them to refund and make satisfaction to the Injured Persons for all the wrong they have done them both in this and several other Cases But as for their hoping that the Parliament should reduce the Apothecaries Company is plainly to desire the Government or Supream Authority to take away the Liberties Priviledges Estates and Properties of Englishmen which is a desire so malicious and wicked that I question whether any thing beside could be uttered so Vile as it is XVI Blew-Book It is likewise for more ample benefit to the Publik very necessary that the Lord Mayor conjoyntly with the College of Physicians and Court of Aldermen should Rate and Publish the Price of all Simple and Compound Medicines Page 12. Salmon 'T is mannerly to give the Lord Mayor the preference but I see they have the Confidence I will not say Impudence to take it of the Court of Aldermen but letting their ill Manners pass we will come to the Matter in Hand What brave Blades these Blew-Book-men are that they should presume to tell the Lord Mayor his Duty or what is necessary for him to
think that neither the Lives of their Patients nor their own Reputation could be safe unless they were sure of the goodness of the Medicines they prescribed to the Sick Page 6 7. Salmon I know not what you think nor how much you value the Lives of your Patients I am sure if the Miscarriages of the Blood-sucking Doctors of this Age were but exposed to publick view it would be in terrorem to all future Generations for ever And if you ground your Reasons upon your own Knowledge or certainty of the Goodness of the Medicines prescribed to the Sick then I am sure the Apothecaries and Chirurgians stand the fairest for the honest and just Practise of Physick of any Men in the World and so you are condemned out of your own Mouths I must confess I should not think any Patients Life safe unless it was in an Apothecary-Doctors or a Chirurgick-Doctor's hands all other Doctors are truly but Quacks and suck out the Bowels of People's Estates and trifle with their Lives which is too plainly manifest by a great many that I can name As for Reputation that 's not to be talk'd of where the Lives of patients are of no value or the Covetousness of the Doctor is without Limitation or Bounds And as for your turning Apothecaries for the reason you give in this Paragraph it is as vain as can be for you are yet no more sure of the goodness of the Medicines you prescribe than you were before because possibly you may trust the Preparations of them to crafty Servants and who knows whether they may not abstract the most valuable Ingredients out of them as knowing where to make a better Penny of them and withal that if they should play such a trick they are sure their Masters have not Skill and Judgment enough to find out or detect them of the Cheat. XII Blew-Book About Sixty Years ago all the Apothecaries of London and Westminster did not amount to an Hundred and at present they are above Eight hundred Page 7. 8. London may be fully satisfied with Two hundred page 12. Salmon The Gift of Lying is certainly an Inheritance to the Authors of this blew-Blew-Book there is scarcely a Line in it but is stuft with a Lye or something worse They say there is above Eight hundred Apothecaries at present in London and Westminster and I perswade my self and it is known to the Company of Apothecaries that they are but a little above half that Number But supposing they should be right in that they shew their wonderful Charity and good Nature in the next Paragraph where they say London may be fully satisfied with Two hundred What must become then of the other Six hundred which they reject their Wives Children and Families why they must give over their Trades and go a Begging or else starve this is the Charity this the Kindness of Our Mighty Regulators of Physick they shall come and turn Apothecaries and take the Trade out of their Hands and when they have done turn above Six hundred Men their Wives Children and Families out a-doors to seek their Fortunes in the wide World But now I think of it I will find out an Expedient for them in this Case which is Lex talionis and a very just thing that since the Doctors will turn Apothecaries by stealing their Trade from them to which they have no right at all these Six hundred discarded and excluded Apothecaries shall immediately turn Doctors and set up the Practise of Physick as a Recompense for the Theft and so make Reprisals XIII Blew Book The Number of Apothecaries thus encreasing it necessarily follows that either they must starve or raise the value of their Drugs beyond reason or by their Interest get only such Physicians employed as have the Conscience to prescribe more Medicines than the Distemper requires or Quack to sell their Drugs without a Physician 's Order page 9. Salmon Whatever their Numbers may do I am sure the Course you are a taking is effectually to make them starve If you would but let them alone they fear not but to do well enough as they have all along hitherto done But you are resolved upon new measures you will have the Honour and the gain of the one and the Prosit of the other 't is no matter what becomes of others so you but get by it they may beg or starve for all you you matter it not But since this is your Conscience it is as reasonable that they should take other measures too If they do not starve you say They must raise the value of their Drugs beyond reason I find the Authors of the blew-Blew-Book have not only the Gift of Lying but also the Gift of Scandalizing and that in Commendam They are resolved now to strike at the root of the Trade and with their Blew-Book to give a black and blew stroak to the whole Trade of Apothecaries at once this is a Scandal they think will bear Water this will do their Work to the purpose and now they fear no Colours but that they shall be able to carry on the Design to the utmost and Ruine six hundred Families at once beyond all retrieve unless the Apothecaries will have the easiness and good nature to do it of their own accords by their special Advice and Direction But lest this Scandal should not take as in probability it will not among those who have tryed both and do already know by Experience that they can make use of an Apothecary eight weeks at less Charges than one of those Doctors one Week I say wisely foreseeing that the Scandal is not Armour of Proof in their Defence they have another notable Stigma which is That the Apothecaries by their Interest will get only such Physicians employed as have the base Conscience to prescribe more Medicines than the Disease requires I know not who are so guilty of this Crime as the Authors of the blew-Blew-Book who some of them by their Black and Blew Practises have in a few Years leap'd from the next degree above Begging to Estates of many Hundreds if not Thousands a Year and yet these plaguy covetous Wretches cannot be satisfied or contented but they would still have more and think much at every Morsel which goes besides their own Chops Something is the matter that the Curing of Bodies is so much better than the Curing of Souls else several of our Grande Doctors would never have left the Pulpit to have ply'd an Hospital for so many Years together as they have done But to tell the truth of the Business 't is not the Apothecary that makes it his Business to get such damnable ill Doctors but such wretched Doctors who have continually courted the Apothecaries to commend them to their Patients which has been to the prejudice of the Trade and of the whole Art of Physick And this practise when the honest Apothecary found it out and would not Countenance it was the true Cause of
of Apothecaries Medicines and their skill in well preparing them I really believe notwithstanding the Blew-Book-mens boasting that they will find the Apothecaries Shop the cheapest place of the two XXVI blew-Blew-Book The Physicians have obliged themselves to attend by turns two of them at a time at the College every Week Wednesdays and Saturdays at three a Clock in the Afternoon to give Advice Gratis there to all poor Diseased Persons whose Sickness will permit them to repair thither for help page 19. Salmon What their Gratis Advice is we have Discoursed before so that nothing more need be said of it in this place But as to their Attendance it is very short and narrow These Blew-Book-men are by their own Report to the number of five and Forty which have subscribed page 14. And it is strange that out of such a Number no greater Attendance can be given in so great and mighty a City as this of London is where the poor are so vastly numerous Not two whole days they can afford nor yet two half days but only two bits of an Afternoon viz. only from three a Clock post meridiem for so few hours as their Worships are pleased to stay Surely they expect but little Business and but few Patients that so short a limited time will do their Business in it is very narrow and short Charity I am satisfied in that such a Body of them as Forty five cannot afford to spend no more time about it But the Brevity of the time agrees with the Penuriousness of their Charity and both conspire alike to the Benefit of the poor sick Patient who if he has any Money shall have some of their Blessings but if he has none shall certainly go without Thus they feed the wretched and miserable with a bit and a knock whereas I who am but One attend upon my Charity almost whole Days and every day in the Week and I believe I Cure more than three hundred poor People I speak within Compass of their deplorable Distempers in a year with a Continuation of the same Charity every Year which Course I intend through the help of God to persue to the utmost Period of my Life And as to repairing to them for help if they have no Money I am sure they must go without it XXVII Blew-Book It will be thought no small Relief to a poor sickly Person to have thus recourse to the College twice a Week to have his Case sedately heard by two Grave Physicians and to have their advice in Writing for nothing and Medicines there ready made for what they only Cost page 19 20. Salmon Here is Tautologies upon Tautologies the same things over and over again their Relief if you have no Money is no Relief nor can you expect it for they tell you themselves that you must pay for your Medicines what they Cost which is in plainer terms what they shall be pleased to set down at the bottom of their Bill page 17 18. whether it be reasonable or unreasonable and you must take it at a venture without finding sault But the jest of it is That the poor Patient shall have his Case sedately heard by two Grave Physicians One would think by their foolish way of wording it that it was some brangling Cause to be heard at some of the Courts in Westminster-hall or Guild-hall at the former of which places it is hoped that some of their Cases will be e're long heard to their shame and Contempt Besides it looks by their Discourse as if they lived far from Neighbours for it is always thought so when Folks begin to praise themselves They say The poor Patients Case shall be sedately heard by two Grave Physicians Now what they mean by this damnable hard word Sedately who can tell Whether it signifies Appeasedly or Mitigatingly or Temperately or Soberly or Calmly or some other thing is difficult to be understood But letting that very hard word alone the Cream of the jest is That the Case shall be heard by two Grave Physicians now here is another hard word Grave as for Physicians we will let them alone because we do not know whether they are Physicians or no or only Fellows which call themselves so or whether they may not be master Doctors or half Doctors or no Doctors which may know little or nothing of Physick the thing which we chiedy reflect upon is that they are Grave not Sepulchralis but Gravis heavy grievous fore dangerous ungentle uncourteous and so let them go and glad we are rid of them XXVIII Blew-Book It is hoped the Lord Bishop of London the Rectors Church-Wardens and Overseers for the Poor of the several Parishes will as they have occasion direct their respective Poor hither for Advice and Relief as likewise for preventing them for going to Quacks and Mountebanks c. page 20. Salmon I do not doubt but that honourable Person the Lord Bishop of London as also the Rectors c. of Parishes have something else to do than to mind the Blew-Book-mens fooling and trifling especially when it is to no purpose And I wonder at their Impudence that they should think that the Honourable Person aforenamed should so far demean himself and stoop below his Character and Dignity to be an Assistant to their Deceits and shamming of Mankind For to speak in sober sadness all their whole Design is only to ruine the Apothecaries Trade and to get it into their own hands and so under the Umbrage of their pretended Charity to make their own Fortunes by it tho' it is really thro' the Ruine of anothers As to their Advice that it will be worth any thing is more than any the wisest Man can say but as to their Relief it is the same which we told you of before if they bring Money they may expect some of their Trash for it but if they have no Money they must be sure to go without this is their admirable and wonder-working Charity but if People should be prevented from going to Quacks I am sure they must not then come near the Blew-Book-men XXIX Blew Book To make this Charitable work the more easy it would be requisite that the Rectors of Parishes and Church-Wardens should agree to allow some small Contribution out of the Money paid to the poor in every Parish towards hiring one Room in Covent-Garden and another towards the Monument without sending so far as the College of Physicians which is near St. Pauls in the Center of London p. 21. Salmon How What have the Rectors of Parishes to do with the Poors Money This I am sure of the Law of the Land will never permit them to dispose of it and by what Law can Church-Wardens give that Money away which is for buying the Poor Bread to Hire Apothecaries-SHOPS for the College of Physicians I am sure if they-should be so silly to do such a thing they might be made to refund it again out of their own Purses and that
with Interest I wonder at the Impudence of these Blew-Book-men They cannot be contented to act illegal base and ill things themselves but they must be encouraging and prompting others to do the like but I doubt not but that the Rectors and Church-Wardens of Parishes will be wiser and not be imposed upon by such ill-minded People Now the World may see these Mens Charity for all their so great Profession of it they would have the Charity-Money belonging to the Poor given to them to Hire College-SHOPS withal in which these narrow-Soul'd-Fellows may Act their villanious designs against the whole Company of Apothecaries to the Ruine and Destruction of their Trade and the undoing some hundreds of Families and this all under the pretence of Charity all which they would willingly do thro' the help of the Poors Charity-Money they have not Souls of their own large enough to act this pretended Charity which after all is no Charity out of their own Pockets No! they are willing and had rather have it out of the Poors Chest this indeed pleases them much better But then for their direction how to know in what part of the City the College is Why they tell you it is near St. Paul 's in the Centre of London as if they were ashamed of its true Scituation the true Direction is this Situate in Warwick-lane near our Pleasure-House of Newgate which every Thief knows now judge you which of the Directions is the better or nearer the mark XXX Blew-Book The Physicians I suppose they mean the Blew-Book-men design to have Lectures of Chymistry and Anatomy read in the College every Year and to try a great many natural Experiments as likewise to examine Quack Medicines to discover and publish the Cheats of those Impostures c. page 21. Salmon As for their Lectures of Chymistry it is so rediculous that nothing can be more that they should set up for that Art they have all along from their first Conventicling till now dedryed and declared against as useless Empirical and Dangerous is a Riddle not to be unfolded it is like Phormio who never had seen or knew any thing in the Art of War his reading a military Lecture before Hanibal the ablest Soldier in the World I intend God willing to make e're long Monthly Lectures of Physick Chirurgery Anatomy and Chimistry in Our College of Black-Fryars in which we shall unfold the Foundations of those Arts and raise up Super-structures of Knowledge as may be of perpetual Duration and be good for and useful to the Universality of Mankind Their trying of natural Experiments is like a Blind Man's groaping out his way in the dark for not understanding the Principles of Chymistry nor viewing things in a true Light it cannot be otherwise supposed but that their Experiments must be deceitful like the Fallacious Mediums by which they were found out Then they pretend to Examine Quack Medicines whereas their own are nothing else and of the worst kind too nor have they or any of them the Skill to know things contained in any Composition of anothers making how then can they Examine Quack Medicines or discover the Cheats of Impostors the Blew-Book-men themselves being so great of the kind But all this is only mighty bragging and Boasting of things they know nothing of and which truly lye above the Sphears of their diminutive Knowledge and is indeed the most like to Mountebanking and Quacking in the World XXXI Blew-Book The Apothecaries Bills are generally unreasonable page 21. Salmon That is our Enemies being Judges But if the Enquiry into this Scandalous Assertion be rightly made by comparing an Apothecaries Attendance upon a Patient with a Doctors or one of the Blew-Book-mens we shall find a vast difference in the Account An Apothecaries Attendance upon a Patient ten Weeks together with his Bill at end of it will not amount to so much money as a Blew-Book-mans will do in one week and this I have several times observed to be true But you see Scandal is all they aim at they will be sure to observe Matchiavel's Rule which is to fling dirt enough for that in so doing they are sure some will stick XXXII blew-Blew-Book If any Enemies to the Publick Good should artfully give out any ill meaning in this Charitable Design of the College Time and Experience will shew that there is nothing else intended by it but the Relief of the Poor the Honour of the College and the Improvement of Physick page 22. Salmon If any Enemies to the Publick Good shall maliciously give out any ill-meaning to this our honest design of discovering what the Blew-Book-men are Time and Experience will shew that there is nothing else intended by it but the eviction of the male-practises of their Monopoly to the hurt of the Poor dishonour of the Society of Physicians and Disimprovement of the Art of Physick as we have ex abundanti demonstrated William Salmon THE END