Читать книгу The Female Physician онлайн

6 страница из 123

BECAUSE then there are so many Faults and Defects in this part of Physick; in that the Antients, by reason of their precise Gravity, rendred their Works either obscure, or at least difficult to be understood: As some of the more modern Authors have, treated them but Partially and Defectively in most respects; others but transiently and indifferently, or as if they were otherways employ’d: Some again darkly and briefly; others so confusedly and prolixly, that we may justly say to them, as the Lacedemonians did to the Samian Legats of old; “Prioris orationis vestræ partis sumus obliti, postremam ob primæ oblivionem non intelleximus”: We have forgot the Beginning of your Discourse, and for that reason, cannot understand the latter Part.

THESE being the Reasons of this Undertaking, I shall trouble you with no farther Apologies in its behalf, save only that I thought it my Duty, notwithstanding the Considerable Charge and immense Labour, not only so far to endeavour to imitate my Predecessors, but also to deserve well of Humane Kind, and particularly of English Women: First by collecting these things, which I have found clearly written by the most approved Authors, together with what I have conceiv’d to be true and Rational by my own painful Study, frequent Speculation, and assiduous Practice; and Secondly by publishing this Praxis and Analysis of Women’s Distempers, as they are accurately, tho’ succinctly comprehended in this small Volume: Yet not so briefly neither, but that most Things are consider’d and explain’d for removing Obscurity; nor so prolixly, that any Head is swell’d with Trifles or empty Words: And that not only in our vernacular Tongue, but also in a certain middle Style, adapted to the Capacity of the meanest Reader; so that if it be possible, where the Flowers are thinnest Sown, there the Fruit may appear the thickest; Because I have all along consider’d this to be no Work of Eloquence, but of Midwifery, or Physick, or both together, if you please, in which I have studied the common Good, but no vain Glory.