A cheap, sure, and ready guide to health, or, A cure for a disease call'd the doctor : instructing, how to prevent being cheated and destroyed by the exactions and unmerciful usage of ignorant and oppressive physicians and apothecaries : and to prepare at home the proper medicines for usual distempers : with the prices, to save ninteen shillings in twenty, and expend little more than a penny a dose : likewise a new account of the connection of distempers, key to all physic, and to know any disease / set forth by the benefaction of a very worthy private gentleman, to contain more than any book of the kind, at the lowest rate, as necessary for all families, and all persons.

Date:
1742
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A cheap, sure, and ready guide to health, or, A cure for a disease call'd the doctor : instructing, how to prevent being cheated and destroyed by the exactions and unmerciful usage of ignorant and oppressive physicians and apothecaries : and to prepare at home the proper medicines for usual distempers : with the prices, to save ninteen shillings in twenty, and expend little more than a penny a dose : likewise a new account of the connection of distempers, key to all physic, and to know any disease / set forth by the benefaction of a very worthy private gentleman, to contain more than any book of the kind, at the lowest rate, as necessary for all families, and all persons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To the Ingenious and Virtuous Donor. SIR, IT is by your kind Encouragement and Support that this little Piece, which is partly an Abridgment of what was thought moft valuable in a longer Work, and partly Origi¬ nal, appears in the World : Abftratfts of this Kind in all Arts and Sciences are commonly more lerviceable than bulky and prolix Volumes, in Regard to the Capacities, Conveniences* and Purfes of the Readers: In which Reipefl long Treatifes* like long Rills and :Prefcriptions in Phyfic, are calculated more for Pride and Avarice> than Health : To be in an eminent Degree, juft, ufeful, benevolent and generous, which are (Lining Parts of your Character, without * the leaft Adulation, conftitute the Man of Senfe and Merit, the Gentleman, the Englifh-man, and the Chriftian; make him the moft perfedf and happv in himfelf, and the Friend, the Orna¬ ment, and delight of his Species: The Chriflian Legiflator, who came to reftore and exalt right Reafon and moral Virtue, and in that Light only is the Bijhop of Souls, ( making other Rijhops and Prlefts a Contra fie called Anti-Chrifl) went about doing good, healing Difeafes $ l'ympathifing with our Infirmities, and bearing our SicknefTes and Sins, as, in the jfewijb Phrafe, they were Puniihments of Sins, and he, a good and an honeft <Phyfi- dm, a Saviour from them ; But he did not demand Tall Fees, nor drive a Chariot over Heaps of Slain: He was a Difpenfer, not of Death but Life: His Cures were fpeedy, true, and eafy, therefore faid to be f rom God and Miracles, though there is not a Word in Scripture that ftridUy means a Miracle; by what appears, his vifible Subfiftence was the Pra&ice of Phyfic, Heal- ting is tranflated Salvation in the Acls, and had we hfs phyfical Recipes, we fhould no more want Phyficians, than we really do ParjonS ; being poHefted of his religious Recipes: In fhort, he riiade Charity in genera], and this Exercile of it, in particular, his Law and Practice: the Word, Souls, in the Gofpel faid to be his, (for he wrote none, and thofe we have are _ .) means ufually the Lives or Perfons of Men. Luxury, Covetoulnels, and Ambition, made Phyfic an Art, which, according to its very Word, was Nature: Hence a Shil¬ ling is given for the Worth of half a Farthing, and a Phyfician lately had five Guineas for preferibing a Quart of Sack-Whey; Whatever be a Patient’s Dileafe, his Pocket is Purely in a Con- fumption $ in the Civil Lave, Medicaments are called Poifons, Veneiia: And Diftempers, in St. Luke, (who was a Phyfician, one being fufticiem to make all the other Difcipies Martyrs,) are call’d Devils: This relation of Poifons without to Devils within obliges our Priejfs to be, as their Anceftors were, Phy- Jlcians