The Age was dull, and Comedy was coarse,
Cob's Tankard was a Jest, and Otter's Horse: Our Men and Ladies now speak better Wit In Conversation, than those Poets writ.
This is the Case of the first Writers of our Profession; though they started a few good Things, and had some Knowledge in Plants and Minerals, yet their Understandings were still clouded, their Sentiments embarrassed, and their Ignorance very great; and what Advantage can accrue from a laborious Study of such Authors? If a Man had perused often, and common-placed all Aristotle, and gone thro’ the immense Volumes of the grave Triflers his Commentators, would he by that become a Philosopher of any Value? In like Manner had a Student read all the Works of Hippocrates, and with indefatigable Toil ransacked and rifled the crude and undigested Heaps of Authors, who by undertaking to set him in a clear Light, have added their own Darkness to that of the Text, what could they gain worthy of their Labour? What Knowledge could they acquire to reimburse them for their Expence of Time? Are not these innumerable Volumes, these Productions of fruitless Industry, become Piles of waste Paper and the Refuse of the Shops? Are they not the heavy Lumber of Garrets, and the Trumpery and Riffraff of old Libraries?
And supposing any Man should happily translate the Text of Hippocrates himself, and by correcting his involved Method and removing his Obscurities should set his meaning in a full and clear Light; and particularly should he unriddle his τὸ φεῖον quid divinum in some Distempers, which is as dark and as inexplicable as Aristotle's ἐντελέχξα, or his occult Qualities and substantial Forms in lifeless Bodies, What has he done for the Advantage of the present Age, which is so much refined and improved since the Times of that Author, and seeing the Art of Physick is now got out of its Cradle, freed from the Weakness of Infancy, and being grown Adult is possessed of the Schools, and dictates from the Chair? Should any Man compile and publish an accurate Account of the Passage of King Solomon's coasting Fleets from Esiongeber, through the Red Sea to the Ports of Asia, or the East Indies, or of the Manner of the antient Tyrians sailing along the Shores of Africa or Europe, when the Seamen of all Nations were ignorant of the Use of the Load-stone in Navigation, and intended this Performance for the Improvement and Instruction of Modern Sailors, who understanding the Compass since invented, perform their Voyages with more Safety, and in a far shorter Time, would not the World cry out, What is come to the Man? How should such a ridiculous Design ramble into his Head? And is it not equally absurd to publish the Works of Hippocrates, who neither knew the Use of the Pulse, though as necessary in Physick as the Compass in Navigation, nor the Circulation of the Blood, nor the Benefits of Chymistry, for the Advancement of the Art of curing Diseases, and the Direction of Physicians at this Time, who are Masters of all this Knowledge, and a great deal more, of which the Greek Author was destitute? Suppose likewise that any Man was acquainted with the Model of the first Boats and Ships, whether built by the Argonauts or any before them, or of the original Contrivance of the Junks and Canows employed by the Indians, and should write a curious History of this Invention, and declare that he designed it for the Benefit and Instruction of the Builders in his Majesty’s Docks, and the Service of the Royal Navy; I cannot imagine that he would be much respected and applauded as their Benefactor, by our Master Shipwrights. Many more Instances might be insisted on, as the Art of making Clocks, and that of comick and tragick Poetry in their first Rise, to shew the Vanity and Unreasonableness of propounding the Examples of the Antients, when Arts and Inventions were green and scarcely begun, for the Service and Imitation of others many Ages afterwards, when those Arts and Inventions are brought to a great Degree of Perfection. Grant that Hippocrates was complemented with divine Honours, and that Æsculapius his Predecessor, who if Cicero was rightly informed, practised at first the low Art of drawing Teeth, was for his Skill, such as it was, advanced from so mean a Beginning to the highest Dignity, (strange Rise!) from a Tooth-drawer to a Demigod! yet this is no more than happened to the first Inventors of any Art, that was very commodious and beneficial to Mankind. Bacchus and Ceres had their Priests and Temples, one for his being the first Planter of the Vine, and the other for finding out the Way of sowing Bread-corn; and yet if any Man could give us an Account of the first raw Attempts and imperfect Practice in these Arts, he might indeed gratify the curious Lover of unprofitable Philology, but never oblige the present Age by any useful Knowledge.
In a Word all the Benefit, that can arrive, by the Translation of Hippocrates or any antient Author in Physick, is only to exhibit the State of Physick in its Birth and Infancy, that the Reader may see its Weakness and Imperfections, compared with its present mature State, and so may please as an Historian; but surely none can imagine that the present Physicians can receive thence any Lights for their Improvement: If any should think so, for some Men have a strange Way of Thinking, and a great Dexterity in deviating from the Right, let them learn the Weakness of that Author from his two most celebrated Pieces, his Book of Fevers, and that of Aphorisms. As to his Book of Fevers there is no Account given in it of the Nature, nor of the different Kinds of that Disease, nor any Method of Cure, nor any Medicines proper and beneficial to suppress it: My Reader will here begin to wonder and cry out, what then does his Work contain? Why nothing but an obscure and involved History of several Cases that fell under his Observation, and a Recital of their Symptoms, and Complaints from Day to Day; and is that sufficient to denominate a Man a great Physician, which any Relation, or Neighbour, or any sober and experienced Nurse can do as well as the Doctor; that is, tell when the Patient was sick in his Stomach and vomited, when griped, when his Head ached, how he slept, &c. Nay, this was what they actually did, for sure Hippocrates, who had so many Patients to attend, did not continue Night and Day with any one, to set down the Series of his various Complaints; no, he must have received his Information from those that constantly continued with the Patient, or succeeded one another in their Attendance, as our Physicians now are made acquainted with the several Symptoms and Sufferings of the Patient during their Absence by the Relation of those that were about him; and now in all this Performance, what has our Author done more than barely put down in Writing a Narrative of Facts, or Incidents, as they were communicated to him by other Hands? I am certain if Hippocrates had not had the Reputation of curing the Plague in Greece, which I imagine he never came honestly by, he had never been Deified for this Book of Fevers. It is remarkable that this antient Writer makes frequent mention of Fevers, that continued seventy or eighty Days, but does not tell us to what Class or Species those Fevers belong; but however since there are no Fevers, such as he treats oft that are of so long Duration to be met with in this Age and Country, it is a manifest Proof that the Fevers, which Hippocrates saw, were different from those that prevail here; which is directly contrary to the Assertion of a late learned Commentator upon that Writer: And therefore the antient Authors and modern too, in very remote Countries, should not be of great Value here, for the Nature of Diseases, and the Force of Medicines, are by no Means the same in distant Climates, nor in distant Ages of the World.
As for his Book of Aphorisms, it is like my Lord Bacon's