also some Question whether it be a true one or not for it seems not to be sealed with the right coloured Wax which ought to be yellow and with which all true Patents are commonly Sealed But supposing it be a true Patent it gives them no Power over Doctors of Physick who have actually taken their Degrees in Oxford and Cambridge nor have they a power to examine such who have accomplished all things for their Degrees without any Grace if so as it will be in vain for any one to take a degree in any of our Vniversities so it will make the College the greatest Monopoly in the World for as much as their skill or abilities tho' under so great a Probate as the Testimony and Seals of the Universities can be no qualification to privilege a Doctor of Physick to Practise in London and seven Miles round the same But they say This Patent is Confirmed by several Acts of Parliament But truly I cannot find yet that ever it was confirmed by one As for the pretended Act of 14 and 15 Henry VIII Cap. 5. I have seen and examined the Parliament Roll it self but in no part of the Act or Parchment upon which it is written neither on the foreside or backside nor on the top or bottom nor yet on either hand is the Royal Assent to be found which is of absolute necessity for the Constitution of an Act of Parliament if this be not true a Clark of Parliament who can draw the form of an Act may at the end of any Sessions of Parliament thrust what Unsign'd Acts he pleases or may be brib'd for into the Roll where having lain Dormant for some time or Number of years and being forgotten when in after Ages there shall be occasion to over-look the Rolls of Acts of Parliament they being found among the Number may by Posterity be taken for good Acts or Laws not questioning their Validity or how they came there tho' design trick or bribery were the very original Causes of their being found in that place and so at this rate a Clark of Parliament may Act Kings Lords and Commons all in his own Person to the great abuse and prejudice of the People of England their Lives Liberties Estates and Properties which thing for the great danger of it his Majesty and Parliament of England I hope will for the future be very careful of and this pretended Act thus obtruded upon the good People of this City and Nation I think ought to be look'd into and be rejected as a thing spurious and false and detrimental to our Constitution and Government As for that 1 Phil. Mary Ses 2. cap. 9. it is only a Confirmation of the former pretended Act. Now if that of 14 15 Henry VIII be no true Act then it is no Law and so is nothing and so the Confirmation of it is the Confirmation of no Law or of nothing and so in pleading can be of no use But let us examine a little farther and see how their Patent and pretended Act agree Their Patent says That the Community shall every year chuse a President out of the Community who shall transact all the Affairs of the College for his Year The pretended Act says that there shall be eight Elects and that every year the said Elects shall chuse a President out of the Elects Now let any Man of common Sense or Reason judge of these two and see how they agree If a President be chosen according to the Patent it Contradicts the Letter of the pretended Act. But if the President be chosen according to the words of the pretended Act it contradicts the very Letter of the Patent Now what Man in his Wits is there that cannot see that this pretended Act not having the Royal Assent was only a hasty Birth or unconsidered medly of Contradictions made to serve an End and that the Clerk not understanding possibly Latin made that gross mistake in wording his Act to the very great Detriment of the wicked Design Can any Man believe that so August and Wise Assembly of Men as a Parliament of England which are a Choice of all the Great Good and Wise Men of the Nation could be guilty of such a Heterogene piece of Work as that pretended Act is and word it so Incongruously or Contradictory to the Words of their Letters Patents thereby destroying in the one what is built up in the other And so confirm a Monopoly wonderfully prejudicial to the Lives Liberties Estates and Properties of the good People of England Surely No. But now to show you how much a Law this pretended Act is we will give you four famous Presidents of Cases tryed by it as to the very Merit of the Causes and thereby you may see what Validity it is of The First Instance we shall give you is that of the famous Dr. Trig who formerly lived upon Tower-Wharf whom they Sued and upon a fair Tryal at Law were as fairly Cast The Second Instance is that of Dr. Read who then Lived at the Sun in Long-Alley near Morefields This Man they Sued at Law also and the Merits of the Cause being Tryed they came as blewly off as before The Third Instance is that of Sir Richard Barker Kt. late of Barbacan London whom they Arrested and Sued in the King's-Bench This Gentleman as did the others before refusing to be Tryed by the Statute-Book as not being the Law it self but only a Copy of the Law requested to be Tryed by the Law of the Land which is the Act in the Parliament-Roll and was at the Charge and Expence of bringing the Parliament-Roll into Court so that the Book was rejected and the Roll it self only stood by upon which the Judge viewing the Act and not finding any where about it the Royal Assent told them in plain English that Judgment must go against them and that not finding the Royal Alsent to that Act upon which their Declaration was grounded he could not judge by it as a Law that it was not in his Power to make it a Law and that if they would have him to try the Cause by it as a Law they must first bring Henry VIII out of his Grave to Sign it and so the Cause went against them The Fourth Instance is that of Dr. Richard Fletcher which was Tryed at the King's-Bench in Guild-hall London Their Counsel brought their Green Bag wherein they had an Exemplification of some Tryal or Tryals which thro' the ignorance of those Defendents Lawyers went on the College-side But Mr. Wallop who was of Counsel for Fletcher put a stop as to the Issues being put upon their Green Bag and desired of my Lord that this our Cause might be Tryed by our Green Bag which when my Lord Chief Justice demanded what it was Wallop answered it was the Law of the Land and was as it appeared to be the Parliament-Roll which when his Lordship perused and found not the Royal Assent to
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
of the Rich and good reason too because those are the only Persons which can feed them liberally and give them often and large Fees and therefore in Gratitude tho' they be otherwise ill-natured Fellows enough they ought to wish them well However this they prudently leave to the wisdom of the Parliament and so do I and all those good People whom they have basely Abused and Persecuted against all Law Justice and Right And hope the Parliament will look into the Matter and resolve us by their Votes and a peculiar Act for that purpose that all Forms of Acts of Parliament not having the Royal Assent shall be holden for no Law and indeed it ought to be accounted no less than high Treason to judge any Subject of England by any Form of an Act not ratified by the Royal Power of some King or Queen of England for by such Practises they that so judge assume the Royal Power of making Laws subvert Justice and overturn the very Foundations of our Government And I doubt not but when the Parliament shall look into this matter and find this Form of an Act without the Royal Assent annexed to it as I have said that they will take care likewise that all Judgments formerly past by virtue thereof may be reverst and where Execution has been made that the Blew-Book-Fellows may be made to refund or repay to those Persons so abused if alive or to their Heirs Executors or Administrators the whole value so taken away with the Interest thereof for so many years as they have unjustly kept it and that a compleat Satisfaction may be made to those Persons to the utmost penny of their Damages XIX Blew-Book We give here a short account of the Charitable Method which the College of Physicians after several years Consideration has lately thought of and used to provide the poor with Medicines cheaper than has hitherto been ever practised in any Country page 13. Salmon Here 's brags of Charity indeed but what does it amount to Truly only to this that if poor People have any Money they may have Medicines of them for it but if they have no Money positively they must go without and this without any Circumlocution is the downright sense of the matter Now if the Blew-Book-men can thus impudently interlope into the Apothecaries Trade by dispensing the Medicaments they prescribe endeavouring their Ruine and Undoing Why should it not be as just for the Apothecaries to study the Art of Prescription and turn Doctors and so Prescribe their own Medicines which they dispense I think it is no sin in the Apothecaries to make the Case as broad as the Doctors have made it long But they will tell you that the Poor shall have Medicines cheaper than 〈◊〉 … therto been ever prastised in any Country How shall I or any poor Body know that Why they tell you so and you are bound in Conscience to believe them Now I cannot tell that for tho' it may be possible to be true yet it is not probable that it is true and the reason I have for it is this that I have taken them in so many Lies and manifest Falsities in this Book which I my self know to be so that I cannot tell when to believe them and I cannot help it for my Life the believing all they say to be false unless I know it my self before-hand to be true and indeed this is that which common Lyars get by such assiduous telling of Lies that no Body can believe them when they speak Truth But they say this Method after many years Consideration they have lately thought of so it seems they have been but lately thinking of it yet it has been many years under their Consideration All that long time they thought nothing at all of it they are the only Men in the World then that I know of that can consider with themselves for many years without thinking of the matter they consider of This is a Bull all over what pity is it that Men of their Stations should be able to write no better English XX. Blew-Book The President Censors and Majority of the Members c. pitying the miserable Condition poor Patients were in for want of Remedies agreed that Medicines should be prepared at the College and given at the Poor at the prime Cost p. 14. To relieve the Poor for ever with Medicines at the Intrinsick Value page 15. Salmon Here 's a great Cry and a little Wool as the Devil said when he shore his Hogs Here is a wonderful pitying the Poor for want of Remedies and therefore they say that Medicines shall be prepared and given to the prime Cost and this prime Cost they declare to be the intrinsick Value It is an odd thing that such Men as they are cannot write good English without making so many Bulls in it how are their Medicines given to the Poor when they only sell them and will let no Body have them without Money And what does all this noise of Charity amount to but only what I said before viz. that if poor People bring Money with them they may have Medicines but not otherwise But they will give their Advice Gratis Who knows that or what Security have we that they will keep their word and not bring it into their Intrinsick Value And if they should do it what is it worth especially when poor People have not Money by them to buy Bread or other Necessaries Something I spoke to this Head in an Advertisement I gave about the Town and I hear the Blades found fault with it that I begun my Observations about Intrinsick Value with Item and not with Imprimis now the reason of that was because I could do no otherwise that being taken out of the middle of the Account But in this place I care not greatly if I give you the Imprimis which is so much for loosing our certain Practise and trusting to an uncertainty in Degrading our selves by turning Apothecaries out of meer spight and malice to the Trade because we would have six hundred Families be turned out a-doors and sent a Grazing or Begging Item so much for half a Dozen Bottles of Claret after the Company had drunk enough upon Consideration that it ought to be put into the Intrinsick Value for that they were then met about the Concerns of the Business Item so much for debasing the College by turning it into a Mechanick-SHOP against the Honour and Dignity of the Place Item so much for the Price of the Drugs Item so much for Waste in making up Item so much for Laboratory Room Item so much for the Use of the Weights Item so much for the Use of the Scales Item so much for Dispensing the Ingredients Item so much for the Use of the Pestle Item so much for the Use of the Mortar Item so much for Preparing them Item so much for SHOP-room Item so much for Servants Wages Item so much for the Interest of their Money
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-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