Volume 1

The method of physick, conteining the causes, signes, and cures of inward diseases in mans body from the head to the foote. Whereunto is added, the forme and rule of making remedies and medicines, which our phisitions commonly use at this day, with the proportion, quantitie, and names of ech medicine / by Philip Barrough.

  • Philip Barrow
Date:
1617
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The method of physick, conteining the causes, signes, and cures of inward diseases in mans body from the head to the foote. Whereunto is added, the forme and rule of making remedies and medicines, which our phisitions commonly use at this day, with the proportion, quantitie, and names of ech medicine / by Philip Barrough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/514
    “THE PREPACE haute firft bene fet.out ia French and Italian, and afterward for the commodity of other Nations, haue benetranflated into Latine, and fo made generally which before the writer had as it were bequeathed to his countreimen, And no doubt they were all touched with an efpeciall care to profite their owne countrey:, being willing that. all men (as indeed it concerneth all) thould reapethe commodities of their labours. For [ cannot fee how that faying of Quintilian can be verified in this one Ast (which is this) That then all Attes fhould be truly happy, when the profeffours of the fame fhould onely iudge ofthem: but I haue alwaies bene of this minde, that it behoueth cuery man to be cunning ins owne conftitution , and to know fo much as may ferue te foreftall the corning of many ordinary difeales, which commonly light vpon the ignorant :. yeaandfometime to be able to chafe away a malady when it hath already caught hold of the bodys my rea‘on is, both becaufe euery man may indge belt of his ownebodie, and perceiue the declinings and al- terations of the fame, And againe we know, how many haue died,and do die continually for want of helpe,(the Phyfition being not alwaies at their elbow) whereas in the beginning of their ficknefle , a little knowledge might haue {topped the paflags.of the infirmity. In the old time when A Soa was brought vnder no forme,but confifted only of afew experiments which paffed from hand to hand,yong children, together with other Artes, did receiue cer- taine precepts and rules , how to order and gouerne the body, and learned alfo preferuatiues againft poylon, and the receipt of falues to cure any greene wound , and the meanesto helpe certaine ordinary difeafes, which (indeed) were butfew , tHe age of man being then farre more ftrong, Wereade how Linus, who was (choolemaifter to Hercules,when he had inftru€ted him in the Art of wraftling (which then was honoured efpecially)and in Muficke,that he gauc him the receipt of a certaine balme , which he often vied in many of his aduentures. And what was it that gaue matter to the fable of Achilles, Low his mother Thetis had made his bodieimpenetrable,but that knowledge of his which he had Jearned of his maifter Chyron the Centaure, who taught him the vertue of an hetbe, which to this day beareth his name, by which he healed all the wounds he receiued in battell 2 What an honorable mention doth Homer make of Machaow and Podaliriue thefounes of A/culapivs,inthat they could cure themi{clues when they were at any time hurt of the enemy? ‘This cun- ning alfo had Mithridates,and Fabriciws the Romane,he that vanquifhed Pyrs rhus,and allo Marcus Curive, and many other who are reco: ded by hiftories, whofe names I would remember , if I did not fee the enlarging of this com- mon place by examples to be altogether vnneceflary , when there is no man which fo farre {waructh trom common fenfe,that will not confeffe it to be ve- ty expedient and needful for all to know the eftate of their owne bodies.] will therefore forfake the prouing of fo manifelt athing, and returne vato thee (good Reader) whom I haue already oftended in exceeding the iuft length of a Preface, like voto that wayfaring man, who when he had purpoled to vnder- take along iouracy, ftumbled even in the very threfhold of his doore, Butif it be an oftence, I did voluntarily runne into it, chufing rather tobe carped at of the Rhetorician for vfing too many words, thento be worthily ia ie C