Tabular observations recommended as the plainest and surest way of improving physick. In a letter to a friend / by Francis Clifton.

  • Clifton, Francis, -1736.
Date:
1731
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tabular observations recommended as the plainest and surest way of improving physick. In a letter to a friend / by Francis Clifton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    it was not doubted but the Art of Phyfick wou'd foon be brought by it to the utmoft per¬ fection \ fo demonftrative were his proofs, and lo fanguine the Phyiicians. But whether the art is too difficult and extenfive for the human mind entirely to comprehend 5 or whether the Knowledge of the Circulation is not of lb much importance as was at firfl apprehended ; fo it. has fallen out, that we are but little the better for this Dilcovery, and in lome degree worfe. Men's minds have taken a quite different turn, and been almoft entirely employ'd ever fince with *Diagrams and Theories, and a thoufand things of that kind (all of'em pretty amuie- mcnts in their leafon) to the lhameful negleCt of other matters, really important. The body has been Purvey'd inch by inch, and the lup- poled force of every fibre computed* with a ihew of furprifing exactnefs 5 the fluids have been examined by all the ways that could be thought of 5 and leveral ingenious books wrote to Ihew their nature, their changes, and their confequences. Nay, fo extremely nice have the enquiries of this kind been, that we are now lo happy, as to be able to talk as much of ani¬ mal Spirits which we have not leen, as of any other matters, that we have feen. In a word, the fpeculative part of ,cPhjfJtcky which thean- tients fet but little value on, has been vaftly improv'd within a century: and to lay the truth*