The PREFACE.
If any Person wou'd be more fully inform'd about the Particulars of so Pious a Work, I refer him to a Treatise set forth by the Authority of the President and Censors, in the Year 97. 'Tis call'd A short Account of the Proceedings of the College of Physicians, London, in relation to the Sick Poor. The Reader may there not only be inform'd of the Rise and Progress of this so Publick an Undertaking, but also of the Concurrence and Encouragement it met with from the most, as well as the most Ancient Members of the Society, notwithstanding the vigorous Opposition of a few Men, who thought it their Interest to defeat so laudable a Design.
The Intention of this Preface is not to persuade Mankind to enter into our Quarrels, but to vindicate the Author from being censur'd of taking any indecent Liberty with a Faculty he has the Honour to be a Member of. If the Satyr may appear directed at any particular Person, 'tis at such only as are presum'd to be engag'd in Dishonourable Confederacies for mean and mercenary Ends, against the Dignity of their own Profession. But if there be no such, then these Characters are but imagi-
