“Et quoniam variant morbi, variabimus artes;
Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.”

Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve:  well shadowed by the poets, in that they made AEsculapius to be the son of [the] sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the second-stream; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as the soul was the object of His doctrine.  For we read not that ever He vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money (except that one for giving tribute to Caesar), but only about the preserving, sustaining, and healing the body of man.

(3) Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.  For I find much iteration, but small addition.  It considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservations.  The deficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many, and those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate and not place.

(4) The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by recovery or death.  Therefore having an example proper in the father of the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom of the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions, for the direction of future judgments.  This continuance of medicinal history I find deficient; which I understand neither to be so infinite as to extend to every common case, nor so reserved as to admit none but wonders:  for many things are new in this manner, which are not new in the kind; and if men will intend to observe, they shall find much worthy to observe.

(5) In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience:  for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and collocations; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the secrecies of the passages, and the seats or nestling of the humours, nor much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases.  The reason of which omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in the view of one or a few anatomies; but the latter, being comparative and casual, must arise from the view of many.  And as to the diversity of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward parts is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause continent of many diseases; which not being observed, they quarrel many times with the humours, which are not in fault; the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be accommodated