Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Nomenclature, Gas Chemistry, Disease, Scientific Practitioners, Religious Authority, History of Science

    Observes that in the days of Humphrey Ditton and William Whiston, 'hypothetical chemistry' spoke of 'phlogiston', and fevers and tumours 'were set down to "humours"'. Adds that science had other words whose senses have been 'divested' by 'researches exact', and that 'the Sages of Nature have had their ontology / To revise'. Concludes by pointing out that the 'old Schoolmen's expressions of "Substance" and "Person"' were once imposed upon mankind but now 'contain no idea for kernel'.