John Cotta

degree in 1603, and then took up residence at Northampton, where, through the patronage and influence of Sir William Tate, he acquired a considerable professional practice.

[5] Cotta wrote extensively about quack doctors, and exposed several in his book Ignorant Practisers of Physicke (1612).

[6] With his medical colleague James Hart from Northampton, he argued the case for learned medicine (the early modern tradition descending from Galen) and the requirement of a university degree for its effective use.

He begins his book The Triall of Witch-craft (1616) by stating that these phenomena were beyond human knowledge, and that only by conjecture and inference is it possible to understand these events.

Cotta did still agree with others like Reginald Scot that magic was clearly a factor in day-to-day life because many diseases displayed symptoms they could not understand, or did not respond to standard remedies.

"A True Discovery of the Empericke with the Fugitive Physition and Quacksalver, who Display their Banners upon Posts." Title page, published 1617