Elements of Myology (Elementorum Myologiae Specimen)

well for us, how well for the entire human race, our ancestors would have provided if those who spent their whole lives in anatomical exercises had handed down to posterity only certainties. Our knowledge would be less broad, but also less dangerous; and if Medicine, resting upon these certain principles, did not take away the pains of the sick, it would not add new ones to them. Today we possess most vast volumes of Anatomy and Medicine; nonetheless, we drag our miserable soul through a thousand torments, we tend toward death through a thousand agonies—even through a dry death—and, which is our greatest unhappiness, we often do the most harm when we believe we are helping. While I explain the cause of this common misery by lamenting it, I do not promise any remedy from myself; I hope it will be found by others in time. And why should it not be permitted to hope for great things if Anatomy were reduced to such a state that reason would rest only in certain experience and only in demonstrated proofs—that is, if Anatomy would swear by the words of Mathematics? But for others, who are more capable in mind and hand,