jack-of-all-trades. Is the animal machine lefs complicated than a brafs pin? Not lefs than ten different hands are required to make a pin; and fhall the body be fet right by one fingle operator?

The English are fenfible of the force of this reafoning; they have therefore one doctor for the eyes, another for the toes; they have their fciatica doctors, and inoculating doctors; they have one doctor who is modeftly content with fecuring them from bugbites, and five hundred who prefcribe for the bite of mad dogs.

The learned are not here retired with vicious modefty from public view; for every dead wall is covered with their names, their abilities, their amazing cures, and places of abode. Few patients can efcape falling into their hands, unless blafted by lightning, or ftruck dead with fome fudden diforder: it may fometimes happen, that a ftranger who does not understand English, or a countryman who cannot read, dies without ever hearing of the vivifying drops, or restorative electuary; but for my part, before I was a week in town, I had learned to bid the whole catalogue of disorders defiance, and was perfectly acquainted with the names and the medicines of every great man, or great woman of them all

But as nothing pleafes curiofity more than anecdotes of the great, however minute or trifling, I muft present you, inadequate as my abilities are to the fubject, with fome account of those perfonages who lead in this honourable profeffion.

The firft upon the lift of glory is doctor Richard Rock, F. U. Ñ. This great man, fhort of ftature, is fat, and waddles as he walks. He always wears a white three-tailed wig nicely combed, and frizzed upon each cheek. Sometimes he carries a cane, but a hat never; it is indeed very remarkable, that this extraordinary perfonage fhould never wear an hat,

but

but fo it is he never wears an hat. He is ufually drawn at the top of his own bills, fitting in his armchair, holding a little bottle between his finger and thumb, and furrounded with rotten teeth, nippers, pills, pacquets, and gally-pots. No man can promife fairer nor better than he; for, as he observes, Be your diforder never fo far gone, be under no uneafiness, make yourself quite eafy, 1 can cure you.

The next in fame, though by fome reckoned of equal pretenfions, is doctor Timothy Franks, F. O. G. H. living in a place called the Old-Bailey. As Rock is remarkably fquab, his great rival Franks is as remarkably tall. He was born in the year of the chriftian æra 1692, and is, while I now write, exactly fixty-eight years, three months, and four days old. Age, however, has no ways impaired his ufual health and vivacity; I am told, he generally walks with his breaft open. This gentleman, who is of a mixed reputation, is particularly remarkable for a becoming affurance, which carries him gently through life; for, except doctor Rock, none are more bleft with the advantages of face than doctor Franks.

Let the

And yet the great have their foibles as well as the little. I am almost ashamed to mention it. foibles of the great reft in peace. Yet I muft impart the whole to my friend. These two great men are actually now at variance; yes, my dear Fum Hoam, by the head of our grandfather, they are now at variance like mere men, mere common mortals. The champion Rock advises the world to beware of bog-trotting quacks, while Franks retorts the wit and the farcasm (for they have both a world of wit) by fixing on his rival the odious appellation of Dumplin Dick. He calls the serious doctor Rock, Dumplin Dick! Head of Confucius, what prophanation! Dumplin Dick! What a pity, ye powers, that the learned, who were born mutually to affift in en

4

lightening

lightening the world, fhould thus differ among themfelves, and make even the profeffion ridiculous! Sure the world is wide enough, at leaft, for two great perfonages to figure in; men of fcience fhould leave controverfy to the little world below them; and then we might fee Rock and Franks walking together hand-in-hand, fmiling onward to immortality.

Next to these is doctor Walker, preparator of his own medicines. This gentleman is remarkable for an averfion to quacks; frequently cautioning the publick to be careful into what hands they commit their fafety; by which he would infinuate that if they do not employ him alone, they must be undone. His public fpirit is equal to his fuccefs. Not for himself, but his country, is the gally-pot prepared and the drops fealed up with proper directions for any part of the town or country. All this is for his country's good: fo that he is now grown old in the practice of phyfic and virtue; and, to use his own elegance of expreffion, There is not fuch another medicine as his in the world again.

This, my friend, is a formidable triumvirate; and yet, formidable as they are, I am refolved to defend the honour of Chinefe phyfic against them all. I have made a vow to fummon doctor Rock to a folemn difputation in all the myfteries of the profeffion, before the face of every Philomath, ftudent in aftrology, and member of the learned focieties. I adhere to, and venerate the doctrines of old Wang-fhu-ho. In the very teeth of oppofition I will maintain, That the heart is the fan of the liver, which has the kidneys for its mother, and the ftomach for its wife *. I have therefore drawn up a difputation challenge, which is to be fent speedily, to this effect:

* See Du Halde, vol. II. fol. p. 185.

I, Lien

I, Lien Chi Altangi, . N. ti. H. native of Honan in China, to Richard Rock, F. U. N. native of Garbage-alley in Wapping, defiance. Though, Sir, I am perfectly fenfible of your importance, though no ftranger to your ftudies in the path of nature, yet there may be many things in the art of phyfic with which you are yet unacquainted. I know full well a doctor thou art, great Rock, and fo am I. Wherefore I challenge, and do hereby invite you to a trial of learning upon hard problems, and knotty phyfical points. In this debate we will calmly inveftigate the whole theory and practice of medicine, botany and chymiftry; and I invite all the philomaths, with many of the lecturers in medicine, to be prefent at the difpute: which, I hope, will be carried on with due decorum, with proper gravity, and as befits men of erudition and fcience, among each other. But before we meet face to face, I would thus publicly, and in the face of the whole world, defire you to anfwer me one queftion; I afk it with the fame earneftnefs with which you have often folicited the publick; anfwer me, I fay, at once, without having recourfe to your phyfical dictionary, which of thofe three diforders, incident to the human body, is the most fatal, the fyncope, parenthefis, or apoplexy? I beg your reply may be as public as this my demand *. Iam, as hereafter may be, your admirer, or your rival. Adieu.

The day after this was published the editor received an anfwer, in which the doctor feems to be of opinion, that the apoplexy is moft fatal.

LETTER

LETTER LXVIII.

TO THE SAME.

INDULGENT Nature feems to have exempted this ifland from many of those epidemic evils which are fo fatal in other parts of the world. A want of rain but for a few days beyond the expected feafon in China, fpreads famine, defolation, and terror over the whole country; the winds that blow from the brown bofom of the Western defart are impregnated with death in every gale; but in this fortunate land of Britain, the inhabitant courts health in every breeze, and the husbandman ever fows in joyful expectation.

But though the nation be exempt from real evils, think not, my friend, that it is more happy on this account than others. They are afflicted, it is true, with neither famine nor peftilence, but then there is a diforder peculiar to the country, which every feafon makes strange ravages among them; it fpreads with peftilential rapidity, and infects almoft every rank of people; what is ftill more strange the natives have no name for this peculiar malady, though well known to foreign phyficians by the appellation of Epidemic terror.

A season is never known to pass in which the people are not vifited by this cruel calamity in one shape or another, feemingly different though ever the fame: one year it issues from a baker's fhop in the fhape of a fixpenny loaf, the next it takes the appearance of a comet with a fiery tail, a third it threatens like a flat-bottomed boat, and a fourth it carries confternation at the bite of a mad dog. The people, when

once