I esteem it a high Injury to Society to furnish Empirics with Materials to destroy Mankind, by their Misapplication. By Empirics I mean all those whose Consciences permit them to trifle with the Healths, and play with the lives of Men, without proper education to form their Judgments, and duly qualify them for so arduous an Undertaking; who dare to affront Providence, by daily premeditated Murders, for the narrow consideration of improving a private Fortune …

Now those whose Education have not qualify'd them for reading the Sources from whence the most essential Parts of Physic are derived, and who have never heard of, and much less perused their best Copyers, are not very likely to be aquainted with the principal Doctrines of Physic. Hence in the Chambers of the Sick, instead of Predictions, we so frequently hear of Nervous Fevers, Nervous Symptoms, Animal Spirits, and all that unintelligible Jargon, and unmeaning Impertinence, which is too frequently made the Asylum of Ignorance, and the Refuge of Quackery and Imposture, to the infinite Reproach of true Physic and the scandal of the Healing Art.