LETTER VII.

PROFESSIONS-PHYSIC.

Finirent multi letho mala; credula vitam
Spes alt, et melius cras fore semper ait.

Tibullus.

He fell to juggle, cant and cheat
For as those fowls that live in water
Are never wet, he did but smatter;
Whate'er he labour'd to appear,
His understanding still was clear.

A paltry wretch he had half-starv'd
That him in place of zany serv'd.

Butler's Hudibras.

PHYSIC.

The worth and excellence of the true physician.—Merit not the sole cause of success.-Modes of advancing reputation.—Motives of medical men for publishing their works.-The great evil of quackery.-Present state of advertising quacks.—Their hazard. Some fail, and why.-Causes of success.-How men of understanding are prevailed upon to have recourse to empirics; and to permit their names to be advertised.-Evils of quackery: to nervous females: to youth: to infants.-History of an advertising empiric, &c.

LETTER VII.

PHYSIC.

FROM Law to Physic stepping at our ease,
We find a way to finish-by degrees;
Forgive the quibble, and in graver style,
We'll sing of these with whom we seldom smile:
Helpers of men* they're call'd, and we confess
Theirs the deep study, theirs the lucky guess;
We own that numbers join with care and skill,
A temperate judgment, a devoted will;
Men who suppress their feelings, but who feel
The painful symptoms they delight to heal;
Patient in all their trials, they sustain,

The starts of passion, the reproach of pain;
With hearts affected, but with looks serene,
Intent they wait through all the solemn scene;
Glad if a hope should rise from Nature's strife
To aid their skill and save the lingering life;
But this must Virtue's generous effort be,
And spring from nobler motives than a fee:
To the physician of the soul, and these,
Turn the distress'd for safety, hope, and ease.

But as physicians of that nobler kind

Have their warm zealots, and their sectaries blind;
So among these for knowledge most renown'd,
Are dreamers strange, and stubborn bigots found:

* Opiferque per orbem dicor."

Some too, admitted to this honour'd name,
Have, without learning, found a way to Fame;
And some by learning-young physicians write,
To set their merit in the fairest light;

With them a treatise is a bait that draws
Approving voices-'tis to gain applause,
And to exalt them in the public view,
More than a life of worthy toil could do.
When 'tis propos'd to make the man renown'd·
In every age, convenient doubts abound;
Convenient themes in every period start,
Which he may treat with all the pomp of Art;
Curious conjectures he may always make,
And either side of dubious questions take:
He may a system broach; or, if he please,
Start new opinions of an old disease;
Or may some simple in the woodland trace,
And be its patron, till it runs its race;

As rustic damsels from their woods are won,
And live in splendour till their race be run;
It weighs not much on what their powers be shown,
When all his purpose is to make them known.

To show the world what long experience gains,
Requires not courage, though it calls for pains;
But at life's outset to inform mankind, 1-
Is a bold effort of a valiant mind.

The great good man, for noblest cause, displays What many labours taught, and many days; These sound instruction from experience give, *? The others show us how they mean to live; That they have genius, and they hope mankind Will to its efforts be no longer blind.