Pleasant dialogues and dramma's selected out of Lucian, Erasmus, Textor, Ovid, &c. ... By Tho. Heywood |
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I conclude this Worke, suiting with the present, concerning the worth of Physick, and Physitians, deriving my president from a worthy Gentleman called M. Perisaulus Faustinus.
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 | Pleasant dialogues and dramma's |  |
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I conclude this Worke, suiting with the present, concerning the worth of Physick, and Physitians, deriving my president from a worthy Gentleman called M. Perisaulus Faustinus.
[There is a gift that's sacred, lent to man]
There is a gift that's sacred, lent to man
By God and Nature, by which Art he can
Of all diseases know the perfect ground,
And render the cras'd body, whole and sound.
If this Art please thee then, whose hight to gaine
Must be the labour of a polisht braine;
Thou into Natures secrets must inquire,
And (farre as humane wisedome can) aspire.
From best approved Authours seeke direction,
Till thou into all medcines hast inspection:
And when thou shalt be frequent in all these,
Thou shalt be held a new Hippocrates,
Exceed Machaon, and Phillerides,
With th' Epidaurian, godlike skill impart,
And bright Apollo, Patron of that Art.
Thou shalt be health to Nations, people save,
And such as are expired, keep from grave.
To animate the dead thou shalt have skill,
'Tis at thy pleasure whom to save or kill:
Hence shall great sums of wealth to thee arise,
With fame, and honour, such as never dyes.
By God and Nature, by which Art he can
Of all diseases know the perfect ground,
And render the cras'd body, whole and sound.
If this Art please thee then, whose hight to gaine
Must be the labour of a polisht braine;
Thou into Natures secrets must inquire,
And (farre as humane wisedome can) aspire.
From best approved Authours seeke direction,
Till thou into all medcines hast inspection:
And when thou shalt be frequent in all these,
Thou shalt be held a new Hippocrates,
Exceed Machaon, and Phillerides,
With th' Epidaurian, godlike skill impart,
And bright Apollo, Patron of that Art.
Thou shalt be health to Nations, people save,
And such as are expired, keep from grave.
To animate the dead thou shalt have skill,
'Tis at thy pleasure whom to save or kill:
Hence shall great sums of wealth to thee arise,
With fame, and honour, such as never dyes.
But as we see in diverse flowers and weeds,
Where sweetnes is, thence bitternes proceeds,
And from one stalke how many thousand ills
From the same Lymbeck drop, that good distills,
How many discommodities attend
Vpon this Art, which all so much commend;
On it, how many thousand labours waite,
By turning over Bookes, earely and late,
Assiduate study, with an infinite care,
For all the sundry maladies that are,
To provide wholesome medcines, how to please
The sicke mans taste, and find th'unknowne disease,
To know what hurts, what helps; his care being such
Not to prescribe too little, nor too much.
Where sweetnes is, thence bitternes proceeds,
And from one stalke how many thousand ills
From the same Lymbeck drop, that good distills,
How many discommodities attend
Vpon this Art, which all so much commend;
On it, how many thousand labours waite,
By turning over Bookes, earely and late,
303
For all the sundry maladies that are,
To provide wholesome medcines, how to please
The sicke mans taste, and find th'unknowne disease,
To know what hurts, what helps; his care being such
Not to prescribe too little, nor too much.
No night in which thou downe to rest shalt lye,
But ere sleepe fastens on thy tender eye,
Lowd at thy gate, some one or other knocks,
As if he meant, to force both bolts and locks,
Calls for the Doctor to get up in hast,
The patient's ready to expire his last.
His bowels ake, or he complaines his head,
Tossing and tumbling on his restlesse bed,
Still clamoring till he perforce must rise:
Thus (be it night or day) in post he flies.
He feeles his pulse, to know how slowe they beate,
Then must he make conjecture from his sweate,
And to find out where the disease doth dwell,
Forc't sometimes at his chamber-pot to swell,
Then Antidotes are suddenly prepard
With Amulets, and Pills, made round and hard,
Emplasters are to such a place applyde,
Vnguents, and Salves to this or to that side.
Suppositories, Clisters, fomentations,
Pultesses, opening veines, boxing, frications,
Electuaries, sweating, and what not?
According to the Fever, cold or hot.
But ere sleepe fastens on thy tender eye,
Lowd at thy gate, some one or other knocks,
As if he meant, to force both bolts and locks,
Calls for the Doctor to get up in hast,
The patient's ready to expire his last.
His bowels ake, or he complaines his head,
Tossing and tumbling on his restlesse bed,
Still clamoring till he perforce must rise:
Thus (be it night or day) in post he flies.
He feeles his pulse, to know how slowe they beate,
Then must he make conjecture from his sweate,
And to find out where the disease doth dwell,
Forc't sometimes at his chamber-pot to swell,
Then Antidotes are suddenly prepard
With Amulets, and Pills, made round and hard,
Emplasters are to such a place applyde,
Vnguents, and Salves to this or to that side.
Suppositories, Clisters, fomentations,
Pultesses, opening veines, boxing, frications,
Electuaries, sweating, and what not?
According to the Fever, cold or hot.
He searcheth where the paine lyes most extreame,
Whether it rise from Choler, or from flegme.
The Megrim, Pleurisies, great or small Pox,
The Measils, Wormes, the Scouring, or the Flocks.
Consumption, Ptysick, Iaundies, black or yellow,
Convulsion (or what scarce can find a fellow
For suddaine killing) Squinsy in the throat,
Obstructions, Dropsies: each disease of note
Is knowne unto him how and whence it grows,
The Ague, Cough, the Pyony, the Pose.
Aches within, and accidents without,
Strangurian, collick, Apoplex, the gowte,
Ruptures, the fretting of the guts, the Stone,
Who's troubled with the Spleene, who Liver-growne,
Cramps, numnes in the joyntures, Inflamations;
Swelling i'th secret parts, Impostumations,
Warts, Blisters, Tumours, Pimples, Tetters, Wheales,
Even Leprosie it selfe, his medcine heales.
Whether it rise from Choler, or from flegme.
The Megrim, Pleurisies, great or small Pox,
The Measils, Wormes, the Scouring, or the Flocks.
Consumption, Ptysick, Iaundies, black or yellow,
Convulsion (or what scarce can find a fellow
For suddaine killing) Squinsy in the throat,
Obstructions, Dropsies: each disease of note
304
The Ague, Cough, the Pyony, the Pose.
Aches within, and accidents without,
Strangurian, collick, Apoplex, the gowte,
Ruptures, the fretting of the guts, the Stone,
Who's troubled with the Spleene, who Liver-growne,
Cramps, numnes in the joyntures, Inflamations;
Swelling i'th secret parts, Impostumations,
Warts, Blisters, Tumours, Pimples, Tetters, Wheales,
Even Leprosie it selfe, his medcine heales.
And yet when he hath used all his Art;
If suddenly, the patient doe not start
From his cras'd couch, and instantly head-strong,
The vulgar murmur, and the Artist wrong,
And say; who first begot this superstition,
That the sick-man should seeke to the Physition?
What madnes ist, their trifling Art to trust?
If they could keepe themselves from being dust,
And their owne bodies free from all disease,
Not yeeld to death, when so the Parcæ please,
As all else doe; I should approve their skills,
And yeeld to taste their Potions and their Pills.
Till then; I hold them made up of abuses,
Meere cheating with their Cordials, and their Iuices.
If suddenly, the patient doe not start
From his cras'd couch, and instantly head-strong,
The vulgar murmur, and the Artist wrong,
And say; who first begot this superstition,
That the sick-man should seeke to the Physition?
What madnes ist, their trifling Art to trust?
If they could keepe themselves from being dust,
And their owne bodies free from all disease,
Not yeeld to death, when so the Parcæ please,
As all else doe; I should approve their skills,
And yeeld to taste their Potions and their Pills.
Till then; I hold them made up of abuses,
Meere cheating with their Cordials, and their Iuices.
Thus, though they oft redeeme men from the grave;
This, for their merit is the meed they have.
To adde to these: the Doctor is still tyde
Amongst sad folkes, and mourners to abide.
Where nothing's heard but sighing for the sicke,
And most contagious maladies raigne thicke,
Nay, though the Plague, or pest it selfe be there,
In him there must be found no cause of feare:
Such are the hazards and the toyles we know,
Best Artists still are forc't to undergoe.
This, for their merit is the meed they have.
To adde to these: the Doctor is still tyde
Amongst sad folkes, and mourners to abide.
Where nothing's heard but sighing for the sicke,
And most contagious maladies raigne thicke,
Nay, though the Plague, or pest it selfe be there,
In him there must be found no cause of feare:
Such are the hazards and the toyles we know,
Best Artists still are forc't to undergoe.
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