lination to Mankind, to instruct them to
preserve and prolong their Lives, thereby to prevent them from using
fraudulent Quack Medicines (which are now become so universally vendible
amongst them) or advising with such as are wholly ignorant; and I should
think my self sufficiently rewarded for my Pains, if I could arrive to
the Point of reforming the Abuses of the present, and restoring the
Simplicity of the ancient Practice, by laying open to the World my
Observations of the pretended and fallacious =Methodus Medendi=, and the
Insignificancy of a great Part of their =Materia Medica=._

_And here I will particularly address my self to all those Persons
concern'd with me, who are the People or Patients; and the Physicians with
their Followers, the Chirurgeons and Apothecaries: This Discourse is
chiefly intended for the first, it being they who are most highly injured
by the unwarrantable Practices of those we have therein accused; for
although many understanding Persons among the People are sufficiently
satisfied of the Abuses we have mentioned; and that it is of absolute
Necessity some Reformation should be made: Yet all are not thus perswaded;
for we may daily observe, that many who are less discerning, being
deceiv'd by an imaginary Good, covet their own Ruin; and unless they be
given to understand which is the Evil, and which is the Good, by Persons
they have Reason to confide in, they must necessarily run much Hazard._

_I have here endeavoured to undeceive them; which I should dispair of, did
I only foresee Inconveniencies afar off (the Vulgar being led by Sense,
and not by probable Conjectures); but since they do now actually labour
under many, and those obvious, Inconveniencies, how short sover their
sight be, the Senses of Feeling being no less acute in them than in
others, I persuade my self, they will readily assent to those Truths I
have largely discovered._

_And here must I venture through all the Barricadoes and the
Fortifications of popular Resentment; but Satires, like Incision, become
necessary when the Humour rankles, and the Wound threatens Mortification;
when Advice ceases to work; when Loss, Experience, and Disaster will not
convince, then Satire reforms, by making the Error we embrace ridiculous:
Shame works to make us forsake a Thing, which Instruction augments, or
Persuasion could have no Effect upon._

_Many and great Abuses, and of the last Importance to the People, have
urged my Duty and d