A worthy physician is the enemy of sickness, in purging nature from
corruption. His action is most in feeling of pulses, and his discourses
chiefly of the natures of diseases. He is a great searcher out of
simples, and accordingly makes his composition. He persuades abstinence
and patience for the benefit of health, while purging and bleeding are
the chief courses of his counsel. The apothecary and the chirurgeon are
his two chief attendants, with whom conferring upon time, he grows
temperate in his cures. Surfeits and wantonness are great agents for his
employment, when by the secret of his skill out of others' weakness he
gathers his own strength. In sum, he is a necessary member for an
unnecessary malady, to find a disease and to cure the diseased.