herbs, and simples in their medicines, and all their physic in a manner is comprehended in a herbal:  no science, no school, no art, no degree, but like a trade, every man in private is instructed of his master.” [4174]Cardan cracks that he can cure all diseases with water alone, as Hippocrates of old did most infirmities with one medicine.  Let the best of our rational physicians demonstrate and give a sufficient reason for those intricate mixtures, why just so many simples in mithridate or treacle, why such and such quantity; may they not be reduced to half or a quarter? Frustra fit per plura (as the saying is) quod fieri potest per pauciora; 300 simples in a julep, potion, or a little pill, to what end or purpose?  I know not what [4175]Alkindus, Capivaccius, Montagna, and Simon Eitover, the best of them all and most rational, have said in this kind; but neither he, they, nor any one of them, gives his reader, to my judgment, that satisfaction which he ought; why such, so many simples?  Rog.  Bacon hath taxed many errors in his tract de graduationibus, explained some things, but not cleared.  Mercurialis in his book de composit. medicin. gives instance in Hamech, and Philonium Romanum, which Hamech an Arabian, and Philonius a Roman, long since composed, but crasse as the rest.  If they be so exact, as by him it seems they were, and those mixtures so perfect, why doth Fernelius alter the one, and why is the other obsolete? [4176]Cardan taxeth Galen for presuming out of his ambition to correct Theriachum Andromachi, and we as justly may carp at all the rest.  Galen’s medicines are now exploded and rejected; what Nicholas Meripsa, Mesue, Celsus, Scribanius, Actuarius, &c. writ of old, are most part contemned.  Mellichius, Cordus, Wecker, Quercetan, Renodeus, the Venetian, Florentine states have their several receipts, and magistrals:  they of Nuremberg have theirs, and Augustana Pharmacopoeia, peculiar medicines to the meridian of the city:  London hers, every city, town, almost every private man hath his own mixtures, compositions, receipts, magistrals, precepts, as if he scorned antiquity, and all others in respect of himself.  But each man must correct and alter to show his skill, every opinionative fellow must maintain his own paradox, be it what it will; Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi:  they dote, and in the meantime the poor patients pay for their new experiments, the commonalty rue it.

Thus others object, thus I may conceive out of the weakness of my apprehension; but to say truth, there is no such fault, no such ambition, no novelty, or ostentation, as some suppose; but as [4177]one answers, this of compound medicines, “is a most noble and profitable invention found out, and brought into physic with great judgment, wisdom, counsel and discretion.”  Mixed diseases must have mixed remedies, and such simples are commonly mixed as have reference to the part affected, some to qualify, the rest to comfort, some one part,