PURGATION:
                   OB

   THE BRANDRETHM METHOD
                   OF
TREATING DISEASES AND CURING THEM « ,
                  WITH
     ONE AND THE SAME UNIVERSAL MEDICINE,

  THE EFFICACY OF WHICH HAS BEEN'FULLY TESTED,
              BEYOND THE POWER OF

       MALICE OR MISREPRESENTATION

                TO DISPUTE,

WITH AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE CAUSE AND ORIGIN

                   or

            ALL DISEASES.
BY BENJAMIN BRANDRETH, M. D.



       iMtowor*:
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
           1840. 

PIERCV & REED'S POWER Press
._____________9 Spruce-Street.'
V 
INTRODUCTION.
  The greatest obstacle to the advancement of true medical knowledge and  the pre-
vention of disease, has been the confusion  into which  medical men, of  all ages and
countries have  fallen, in their constant attempts to surround and barricade the profession
with hard-soundnig words, frequently of doubtful import, and the fatal ignorance almost
universally displayed, even by those who are in favor of purgation, touching the proper-
ties of those medicines, with which practitioners vainly seek to relieve nature, when she
is groaning under an oppressive load of humors.   They administer cathartics, which
certainly produce downward evacuations, but do not disengage the intestines from their
viscous, phlegmy and glairous matters ; wholesome purgatives, on the contrary, cleanse
and purify, until they finally produce new fluids, which, ciiculating freely,  give life and
pleasure to the whole machine—promote digestion and  excite the appetite.
  He can know little of nature's loveliness  who but casts a careless glance around as
he hurries along the beaten path.   He only appreciates, who pauses to mark the variable
light and shadow—who sees the wild flower in the grass under his feet—who listens to
the song of the wind among  the trees—and who  links with the objects  around some
charm of association or of sentiment.
  The comparison I am about to draw, may, at first, seem inappropriate, if not altgcther
preposterous : but a moment's reflection will prove that it is neither an extravagant nor
an injudicious one.  Salts, Castor-oil, Calomel,  and all the train  of hurtful  remedies
with which our modern Esculapian sages stuff the bodies of their patients, resemble in
every respect, the unobservant traveller, who, whilst passing through nature's beautiful
domains, has no other object in view, but to reach  the end of his journey, in the shortest
possible space of time.  They  neither search nor cure ;  they skim over superficially and
mechanically, driving off nothing but the slops which have been swallowed to assist the
operation ; and when the work of evacuation is completed, all the burning acrimonious
humors are found assembled in one focus, and the patient is a prey to costiveness, piles,
fistula, etc., which by dispersing malign putrid fumes and mesentery into all parts of the
body, occasion head-aches, fevers, loss of appetite, and  disturbance of the  assimulating
process, producing such misery only known  to the dyspeptic invalid.
  We will suppose the frame of an ordinary  sized person to  weigh one hundred and
twenty-five pounds ; this one hundred and twenty-five, pounds, according to Dr. Hunter,
is composed of bones twenty-five, blood  twenty-five, and the other  seventy-five pounds
constitute the soft parts, of which, the greatest portion are fluids.
  By the continual  action of the fluids on the solids, a certain portion is,  each moment
of pur existence, separated from the solids and carried into the mass of  the circulation.
These separations, or particles of worn-out muscles, nerve, etc., have to be evacuated
from the system by divers outlets :  hence arises the want of  daily food  to regain the
losses of the solids  and fluids.   Thus the  bodies of all  created  beings are perpetually 
4
undergoing a species of revolutionary change; and it is precisely this change or renewal
which preserves them from putrefaction, and from its natural consequence—death-
   It is therefore evident, that in order to facilitate this periodical change and renewal,
the natural outlets of the body must be kept in  a  proper condition ; for if the noxious
humors are allowed to sojourn too long in the body, they become excessively sharp and
corrosive, occasioning the most terrible and fatal disorders—such as hemorrhages, dys-
entery, and all prostrating diseases, which frequently entail years of suffering  and  an-
guish.
   As purging medicines,  which do not  thoroughly celanse  and  purify,  rather tend to
increase than remove  the evil, it is my purpose to introduce the subject before the pub-
lic in a series of Pamphlets, showing the importance of the vegetable system of purgation
in all its ramifications, and the applicability of its principles to every species of disease
that can, under any circumstances, afflict  the human frame.
   Meanwhile as there  are persons, who, being afflicted withcdisease, may wish to know by
experience, the benefit to be derived from the use of vegetable purgatives, I would  con-
scientiously recommend to such, the immediate use of the Brandreth. Pills—a medicine
which has attained its present standard of usefulness, solely from its exceeding salutary
properties.  These Pills, being in truth nothing more than an assistant of nature, causing
her to do that which is required to produce a healthy condition of the body.  Such being
the case, it is evident, that they can be administered with  safety to advanced age as
well as to  helpless infancy, and invariably with  the same beneficial results, and utter
absence of all hazard.   The same rule is  also applicable to females, who may use these
Pills with  unfailing certainty of success in all the various shades and gradations of de-
rangement of system to which their delicate frames are subject.
   Vomiting may be considered as belonging to  the same principle as purging,  it being
merely  the act of cleansing the body, by the  upper passages of the  stomach instead
of the lower.   When therefore that delicate  organ is too nauseated to retain  the Pills
in their original form,  four or six may, on such occasions, be dissolved in a Utile catnip,
balm, or camomile tea; and after being taken, the patient should then swallow as much
of either of the liquids above named as the stomach will bear.   The stomach having, by
these  means, evacuated all those irritating humors which had caused  nausea, the pills
should then be used in such doses as the  symptoms of the disease may require, to carry
out the grand system  of purgation.
   It is my intention to prepare a fluid medicine for such patients as  mav require this
sort of treatment, which,  while retaining the  same properties as the pills, will not be so
unpleasant to the palate as when they are dissolved.  The necessary directions will be
given when the medicine is ready for sale.
   I would embrace this opportunity again to request the public, as they value their health,
never, under any consideration or circumstances  whatever, to purchase Brandtelh's Pills
of Druggists, as  these men universally sell  an  injurious counterfeit of that  valuable
medicine.  A list of my  offices for the exclusive sale of Brandreth's  Vegetable Pills
will be found on  the cover of this pamphlet.
                              %     The Public's Servant,
                                                      B.  BRANDRETH. 
PURGATION, &C.
                         SECTION I.

  Among the various  subjects which engage the attention of man-
kind, I apprehend all my  readers  will agree with me in opinion,
that the preservation of human life,  and the increase of human en-
joyment, claim universal pre-eminence.  Yet it is an extraordinary
fact, that those principles and those pursuits  which  usually  impel
the actions of all the rational portions of our species, as individuals,
should  be altogether lost sight of in a collective point of view.
  Whilst we glory in  the " march of intellect" which characterises
the present period  of  the world, and proudly exult in the downfall
of barbarism, ignorance and  superstition—in  the elevation  of the
peasant and the laborer to the  rank of rational beings ; and the pro-
gression of  the higher orders of society towards perfection in mental
acquirements ; we  cannot avoid being astonished that so little effort
is made to preserve health,—that state of our corporeal frame which
alone fits us to enjoy the independence of wealth, the  splendor of
station, the gratification of command, and the  power of knowledge.
We observe man struggling to obtain these possessions  ;—suffering
willingly fatigue and toil, anxiety and care, privations and hardships,
and, without repining,  submitting to press a restless  pillow,  in  the
hope of an imaginary enjoyment from the acquirement;  but, never-
theless, forgetting that the  very means by which the object of his
desires is to be attained, undermine his constitution, and render him
unable to enjoy the possession, were it actually within his grasp.  It
is true that the light which  has beamed upon us, has shed its rays
also upon the art of healing,  in  common with every other branch of
knowledge ;—that disease is more easily  detected, better understood,
and more  effectually cured, than it ever was ; but it is no less true,
that diseases are as numerous, and of as frequent occurrence as they 
6
 ever were ; and that the means of  preventing their  approach  are
 equally despised by the patient, and neglected by the physician.
   Moliere makes one of his characters declare that " he knows not
 a pleasanter farce than that of  one man attempting to cure another;
 and truly, looking at the history of the art from the time of the
 Assyrians, down almost to the year of grace in which I am writing,
 and from which, it  clearly appears, that mankind, during that long
 interval, have lived either wholly without medical advice, or  died,
 dividing their confidence between theorizing pedants and blind em-
 pyrics,—the perusal  will go  very near  to  make me of the same
 opinion.
  Systems have changed—methods of cure have flourished and decay-
 ed—the  most opposite and conflicting remedies have been employed,
 and men have boasted of  their success ; but science has continued
 uninterruptedly its mill-horse circle,  covering the same two grains of
idea with two bushels of words, and changing only its language from
 century to century, as if in fear, lest men, becoming  familiarized
 with the terms,  should detect  their emptiness  of  all meaning, and
 " throw physic to the dogs."   The occasion is tempting for the  de-
 livery of a lay sermon, if the readers of this pamphlet  would only
 bear with it : but if they  be  part and parcel of  mankind, I  know
 they would rather die, like their forefathers, in the faith and  fear of
physic as it is, than take the trouble of thinking for themselves, and
I forbear accordingly.
  As a matter of  whim, however, or as Jeremy Diddler says,  "Just
by way of curiosity," I  would  ask what the state of medicine is,
not in the history  of the past, but now in  the noon-day blaze of  the
nineteenth century,  as  every body knows  it to be, between the
homaeopathic administrators of  quintillionth doses, the antipathic
composers of eight ounce mixtures, and the Mesmerite mystics, not
forgetting the charlatanism of the  scarifiers, and the unreasoning
follow-my-leader-ism of the third and  fourth rate prescribers, who
form the mass of  every-dav practitioners ?
  The plain truth of the matter is, that physic is merely the youno-er
 sister of Theology ; and that- there is as utter,  and  as general an
incapacity among the patients to give a reason for the  faith that is
within them in the one faculty as in the other.   The early physicians
were professedly,  at once, divines, enchanters, and apothecaries ;
witness the Plulus of Aristophanes, and the history  of the impostor
Apollonius, by Lucian : even still, traces exist of this union of the 
7
natural and the supernatural, in the remnants of judicial  astrology
among the old-lady herbalists, in the superstition of not  cutting the
nails on a Friday, etc.   Quo semel imbuta.   It is indisputably true,
that in latter years, this association has been somewhat severed, and
that, since the dissemination of the Baconian philosophy, physiol-
ogy, the only solid basis of medical reasoning, has made great strides.
The physicians of  the present age, when they happen  to  possess
common sense, may now argue upon something like established fact.
They see and observe with  greater accuracy,  and draw sounder
conclusions from their  premises ; but  still,  as far as mere theory is
concerned,  the vis  dormitiva is the highest flight to which medical
philosophy has attained.   If the  men of art have done  good and
praise-worthy service,  in their recent attempts to  throw off mysti-
cism, and, like the stem of the seedling plant, to seek the light, they
would have been far more successful,  had they not been impeded by
the ignorance and  the credulity of the public, who think nothing ad-
mirable but what they do not understand.   Among the best educat-
ed classes are to be found a numerous body of miracle-seekers  and
mystery-mongers,  who run after the medical  jumpers and shakers,
and who will  only be  spoken to in an unknown  tongue.  Nothing
that is simple, natural, or intelligible pleases ;  why then  should phy-
sicians, who, like other men, must live by bread, lay aside humbug?
Accordingly, the Charlatans among the regulars, far out number the
honest practitioners ; and their forms are as various as those of the in-
tellects to which they respectively address themselves.   Until public
education shall be conducted on better principles, this will ever be
the case ; and Charlatans of ail calibres, whether hidden under the
court-dress of the  state physician, or in the humbler disguise of him,
of the " one horse shay" will continue, quemlibet occidere popular-
iter, to their own profit, and to the greater efficacy of the preventive
check on a superabundant population.
  I have been led into this train of reflection by observing the effects
of bigoted  adherence to long cherished errors, upon  those  around
me, of every age,  and  rank, and  condition.   But merely to reflect
upon an evil, and to moralize upon its  consequences, without en-
deavoring to avert  them, is both an idle and ungracious occupation  ;
I have, therefore, determined to lay before the public,  in a more en-
during shape, than that of a single advertisement, my own opinion,
and the opinion of  some of the most distinguished  sages, that this
or any other age have produced, relative to the salutary influence 
8
of  purgation  upon health, and to point out what I conceive  to
be injurious to life, in the various medical systems which are  pur-
sued and advocated in opposition to my simple method of thorough-
ly extirpating disease of any kind.   In performing this task,  I am
not sanguine enough to  anticipate from my labors a  reformation in
the prejudices of that portion of mankind, called the medical  pro-
fession ; for as well might I attempt to change the hue of the Ethi-
opian ;  but I  shall enjoy the gratification of having performed a
duty, and of holding up the mirror of truth, so as to display Folly
in all her nakedness and deformity.  I am  well aware that there are
individuals who  derive a malevolent and secret delight from throwing
a false covering  over the motives, however rational and unpresuming,
of any one who attempts to rectify abuses ;  but if I attack errors
which are entrenched behind  long established custom,  it must be
allowed, that I have long since given a fair summons of surrender,
and proved the necessity for their dislodgement. 
SECTION II.
  There are things in the world of spirits, about which our  ideas
are very dark and confused :  the  principles  of life  and animation
may be said to be among these : for notwithstanding all  the  light
which has been thrown upon the subject by the profound inquiries of
the illustrious  Bacon, and the learned disquisitions of his followers,
this great secret is yet in the  hands of Him whose ways are as  in-
scrutable as the mysteries of a world to come.  It must be  evident
to all dispassionate observers, however, that as every being is in the
highest state of health when the blood is in the most perfect and free
circulation, it must be, when the most rapid movements of the blood
from one part of the body to the other take place,—or, in other words,
when the greatest amount of friction has been produced.  Friction is
the cause of heat, and is produced by the circulation of the air; and, as
there is great similitude between life and heat, we may safely con-
clude that the principle of life is produced and kept in full vigor
by the powerful velocity of the circulation which produces this heat,
or rather, is the actual and positive cause of it.
   We  all know,  that if the circulation of the blood be stopped only
for a moment, animation ceases instanter.
   But this continual heat, also causes continual corruptibility, which
unless it be eradicated in time, is not only fatal to the individual him-
self, but eventually proves a source of suffering and misery to hun-
dreds of yet uncreated beings;  for the child receives at once the prin-
ciple of life, and of destruction from his parents, and when of age
transmits them to his.posterity.
   There is between the principle of life  and the principle of destruc-
tion a point of contact, in order that the principle of destruction may
finally overpower that of life.  This has been wisely ordained by the
all-ruling Power ; and nothing more forcibly impresses on us  a fore-
knowledge of his existence, or more strongly exhibits his supremacy
than the Immutability of those laws which  direct the  movements of
every thing in nature.  The lines of the world are fixed ;  therefore, 
10
it is not irrational to suppose that to prevent excess of population, the
principle of death was  implanted.
  It being evident that the principle of life and  that of corruption
both inhabit the same region, man, in order to arrive at that period of
life called old age, has only to be careful to preserve  a perfect bal-
ance in his physical  organization.   This, in  some  constitutions, is
natural enough; and happy is that man,  in whom the consequences
of innate corruption  remain in a steady, fixed and invariable state !
  But this innate corruption—this  primeval cause  of all disease, is
subject to the influence of occasional causes of vitiation ; and if by
the effect of this influence the first cause should become aggravated
—if its progress be accelerated by  inattention, and the  result  be a
putrid fermentation, the disease then appears with increased malig-
nity and virulence, and in consequence of the progress, which in the
commencement might have  been   stayed  by  effectual  purgation,
death takes place  before the individual has reached that  age, which,
according to the principle of life originally within him, he ought cer-
tainly to have  attained.
  This premature termination of existence is unnatural,  and  might
easily be avoided.  Natural death is the result of old age, or in other
words, when the digestive organs can  no longer assimilate  the food
for the purpose of  supplying the daily waste of the body ; extinction,
then, takes place, and on exactly the same principle that a tree dies,
when the root  becomes too rigid to absorb moisture.  As  the mois-
ture of a tree in that condition becomes sap, so is the food of man con-
verted into blood.   The same causes are conducive to the same effects
in both—they  either  prolong life, or accelerate death; but  neither
can have too much of that which tends  to the prolongation of life :
the ,tree never dies from too great a quantity of sap—and I defy any
physician to produce a  single case where human life was sacrificed
in consequence of the system being surfeited with blood !   Although
an opinion has long been prevalent, that such instances are of frequent
occurrence : an opinion founded  on the worst prejudices that ever
were set afloat for the destruction of mankind, and rendered in some
degrees, popular,—not, by plausible demonstration, or logical deduc-
tion, but by the sophistical reasoning of learned pedants, for whose
express convenience this antiquated theory was first invented, that all
professional believers in the same faith, might continue  to feed upon
the vitals of society  unmolested, and  carry on their extortions and
depredations without exciting either suspicion or disgust. 
11
  That which is the cause of life, never produces  death—there are
no contrarieties in nature.  Wise, conceited man alone, has sought
to make opposite principles produce a similar effect.  But no good
has ever yet resulted from the adoption of absurdities !   Witness the
destructive  tendencies of  mercury and bleeding ;  which neverthe-
less continue to be resorted to  as remedies for diseases !
  Itris a remarkable and incontrovertible fact, that not one person in
a thousand dies  of  old age.  In the whole course of my experience
and close observation, I have known but three cases, where this de-
sirable consummation has come to pass.   Premature  death in nine
hundred and ninety nine cases  out of  a thousand is the consequence
of disease being allowed to progress unchecked in the body, whereas,
by timely purgation it  might have been successfully nipped in the
bud, and finally removed.  How many valuable members of society
—how  many industrious fathers, affectionate  mothers,  and sweet
interesting children,—the hopes and pride  of their friends, have been
cut off in the spring and summer of their  existence, to the irrepara-
ble loss of their disconsolate families,  who  might  have  lived, and
might be living now, to bless with their presence, and  diffuse happi-
ness on those  around  them, had the method of curing diseases by
purgation been adopted in preference to bleeding,  calomel, opium,
and other pernicious paliatives,  which, instead of curing, only tend to
hurl the poor patient into an untimely grave, or  to render  him  pros-
trate, miserable and useless fdr the sad remainder of his cankered
existence.    Who,   therefore,   shall   waver  after  this  in  their
choice of remedies  ?  Which is the best?  that which effectually and
entirely removes the cause of all disease, or that which merely tends
to allay, in order the more surely to destroy ?   The  Brandrethian
Method, unattended as it is with evil consequences, is the only buh
ivark against the early inroads of corruption and decay! 
                        SECTION  III.

   It might be affirmed that man is born in a state of perfect'health ;
although  an  hereditary  predisposition  renders some  individuals
more susceptible  than  others to peculiar diseases, yet, when the cor-
poreal organization is complete, and the degree of vitality sufficient to
actuate the machinery of the human frame, an infant thus constituted
and endowed cannot be regarded in any other state than that of health.
   If it be the intention of Providence, as there is every reason to
believe, that the  animal body should be capable of resisting with
impunity, the impressions of heat,  cold,  light, air, and all the other
external agents of the world into which it is ushered at birth, it may
be demanded, why this  primitive state of health cannot be maintained ?
The cause is  obvious—the artificial circumstances  in which society
has placed the human race :—and  as mankind is acquainted with no
state of existence in which these circumstances do not  operate, rea-
son teaches  that  means  should be  taken  to obviate their baneful
influence.   But instead of listening to  the dictates of reason,—rather
than make himself  acquainted with the  nature of his constitution,
and study to  preserve  it  in health  and vigor—man, too  often yields
himself up to the government of ignorance  and presumption : the
first moment  even in which he draws breath  sees him placed under
the control of individuals totally'inadequate to the important charge
of preserving the infant constitution in its original  state, and aiding
its progress to maturity.  In support  of this general remark, many
thousand  cases might be  adduced ; but  the  sequel  will furnish
sufficient proof of the  correctness  of  my position  and the accuracy
of my views.
   Human  beings  are not  only the  most perfect of all  organized
bodies, but have been  endowed  with  a much greater proportion of
the vital principle than is awarded to  the other  species.  Yet  from
not living in that state  of primitive simplicity and  purity,  supposed
to have been designed  by a bountiful  Creator, they are more subject
to occasional derangements of the system, than any other  portion of 
13
the animal family.   This is not to be wondered at when we content"
plate the manner in which we live ',—when we reflect, that thousands
are pent up in a space where there ought not to be  hundreds ; and
hundreds frequently occupy a wretched locality, which can barely
furnish convenient accommodation for  one-tenth of  their number.
How can corruptibility be avoided under such  lamentable  circum-
stances ?
   It is true that health may be secured, by  adopting  the  practice
recommended  in this work ; but it is  not the same  kind of health
we should enjoy in the open country, while inhaling the freshness of
the passing gale, and, breathing the unpolluted air of heaven. Hence
 it is that the  chances in favor of restoration to health, when disease
 has shaken the human frame, and undermined the physical constitution
 of man, are so much greater  in the country, than in the town ;  for
 half the amount of medicine, which would be deemed indispensable
in the city, will suffice to effect a perfect cure under the auspices of
 a clear country sky.   Impure  air is  the cause of corruption  ;—
 Corruption, by destroying the healthful functions of the blood, is the
 sure precursor of death.  It would, perhaps  have been more proper
 to say, that, as confined air becomes corrupt,  as soon as it is absorbed
 into the body, it adds to, instead  of taking away the corrupt particles.
   I would not have my readers suppose, that I belong to those  en-
 thusiasts who worship nature in  her wildest and most deformed state
 —who compare the habits of civilized  man with those of the human
 savage ; and see no perfection in any  of the customs of life which
 do not approach to those of  that period of primeval felicity, when
 men were only
              ■J-------" richer in the skins they  wore,
              And saw more heaps of acorns in their store."

   I have no design to  reduce the species again to so low a degree ;
 on the contrary, I can neither forget the artificial character into which
 the  advancement of civilization and the progress of society have
 necessarily moulded man, nor  have I any wish to deprive him of
 those sympathies which the refinements of education have implanted
 in his bosom.  Neither do I hope to be regarded as belonging to that
 class of ascetics, whose acerbity has curdled the few drops of the
 milk of human kindness with which Providence had endowed them,
 and who delight in finding fault with everything, without  knowing
 why or wherefore. I am well aware that sickness will manifest itself 
14
 in the country as well as in the city—among savages, as well as
 among civilized beings—among young people  as well as among old-
   The truth is,  that young people, who are the most robust in ap-
 pearance, whose countenances display the most delightful carnation,
 are frequently more subject to disease than the spare, the pale, and
 the weakly.  It is true that the former possess  a greater share of the
 principle of vitality, but in exactly the same ratio is the principle of
 corruption and decay  imbedded within  them.  By what  process,
 therefore, are those valuable physical advantages, which have accrued
 to them from their birth,  to be  retained ?  I  answer—by  constant
 purgation whenever the least symptom of sickness exhibits itself.—-
 The health of the patient will thereby,  not only be immediately re-
 stored, but  considerably improved.  Parents, whose children have
 succumbed under the desolating ravages of consumption, at that try-
 ing age when the intellect is springing from adolescence into maturity,
 have only their own folly and carelessness to blame :  for had an effi-
 cient purgative been administered, when sickness was first manifested
 in any shape, Consumption would have been prevented, and the evil
 rooted  out branch and  all.   Let those who  are  disposed to doubt
 every thing, except their own self-sufficiency, peruse with due atten-
 tion  the following brief narrative of one of the most extraordinary
 cases that ever came within the scope of medical observation, and
judge whether I have overrated the  efficacy of purgation on  the hu-
 man constitution.
  I was once called to attend upon a very young boy, to whom I was
 nearly related, and who, from his cradle almost,  had been  used to
 purgative  medicine,  after  the Brandrethian  Method, of course.—
 Bodily infirmity seemed to have  been his natural  birth-right, for he
 had never known one healthy hour since he first breathed the breath
 of life;  his  nurse, without the knowledge  of  his parents, had fre-
 quently administered to him cordials, opiates, and all the inch-killing
 remedies with which these mischievous guardians of infancy are wontto
 beguile away the  fretfulness or ill-humor of their helpless charges.
 As soon as I discovered how the little sufferer had been mismanaged,
 I took him under my especial care ;  and for the space of three long
 months I never quitted his  side for two hours at a time. My task was
 one  of extreme difficulty ; for the child was subject to frequent convul-
 sive fits. I gave him the pills daily—sometimes as many as ten pills in
 twenty-four hours.   For the first three months, the disease seemed
 to have taken such strong hold of the vital parts, as to baffle all my 
15
attempts to dislodge it; and many of my friends, who were physicians
of the old school, declared, that  if I saved the boy, they would then
believe  in the efficacy of repeated purgation.
  As to my own belief in the efficacy of purgation, it was as firm then
as it has been ever since; nor would my strong faith have been shaken
even if the child had not been saved : for I was well aware, that,
from some peculiar cause or other, his fluids were degenerated, and
his blood  in an extremely bad and  corrupt  state.  I  thought it not
improbable that the virus used for the purpose of inoculation, might
have been the cause of the disorder, for I had not then, finally made
up my mind  on  that  subject.   One  thing, however, was certain,
that the  child lay  in a dangerous condition, and  that  his  sick-
ness was the result of incapacity on the  part of the natural outlets to
discharge the  corrupt particles as fast as they  were generated in his
body.  I  felt also equally certain, that unless  I  assisted his natural
functions, to discharge said particles, with  purging medicine, the
principle  of corruption would soon predominate, and death speedily
put a period to the boy's sufferings.
   Acting upon this knowledge,  I persevered  in my purpose.  His
appetite was extremely low—a little biscuit soaked in milk, broth,  or
weak tea, was all that he could take ; but he would swallow the pills
without trouble, and always appeared lively and without pain, after
they had operated.  In twelve hours, however, a complete revulsion
for the  worse would  again take place, when the dose was repeated
and sometimes increased.
   At last, after a  protracted trial of three months, by thus persevering
in administering nothing but purgative medicine, one morning, after
a dose of only six pills, the boy ejected a slimy mass, about four inches
in length,  almost black, and horribly putrid.  From that moment his
constitution underwent a complete change.  And although for three
years afterwards, it was found necessary to make frequent use of the
pills, yet his health continued to improve,  and he is now a fine robust
boy, nine years old—a living proof of the efficacy of the Brandrethi-
ian Method of curing diseases.
   When  we  see so many valuable lives sacrificed at the shrine of
avarice and cupidity, which might have been saved by a similar pro-
cess to that which I have described above—when we see so many
bereaved  families, deprived of the protecting  arm of a father, a bro-
ther, or a son, through ignorance of that which is most conducive to
health—we could almost be tempted  to question the advantages of
civilization on mankind. 
SECTION IV.
  Of all the authorities  to which men can be called upon to submit,
the " wisdom of our ancestors" is the most absurd ; we are an older
generation  than  they were, and since experience is the consequence
of age,  we must necessarily be wiser.   They, in their successive
generations, laid aside absurdities which had descended to them from
their fathers ; that was  a piece  of wisdom on  their part which we
might imitate with advantage.  Our great grandfathers believed that
the  earth was a broad platter on the back of  a tortoise : our grandfa-
thers threw overboard that blessed specimen of hereditary wisdom,
and declared the earth to be a ball, round which the sun and planets
revolved; our fathers made a second change, their theory drove the
earth from  a state of quietude, and sent it spinning through infinite
space, while the sun, which had hitherto capered with amazing velo-
city from one end of heaven to the other, was destined for the future
to repose quietly in the centre of the system.  Each of these altera-
tions has been styled atheism, and the authors threatened with cruci-
fixion by the  clergy, or with  St. Stephen's fate  by an ignorant mob.
No improvement of importance has ever  been proposed, which was
not at the first onset denounced as blasphemous, treasonable  and
absurd.
  It is precisely the same with physics ;  and he who has thecourage
and good sense  to communicate a new idea—to propose a salutary
innovation—or to extirpate a long-rooted prejudice, is assailed by the
owls and bats of the learned faculty, who are forever looking to the
things that  are past, with a fatal purblindness as  to things that are to
come, and is proclaimed, by the plenitude of their wisdom, a quack, a
knave, or a  fool!  Well may it be said, that Custom is the veriest God-
dess of semblance and of  shade. She is in every featurejike her sister
Fashion, which builds  her temple  in the capital of some mighty
empire, and having selected four or five hundred of the silliest people
it contains, she  dubs them with the magnificent and imposing title of
THE WORLD. 
17
   All  men are apt to have a high conceit of 'heir own understand-
ings, and to be tenacious of the opinion tbeyPr°fess ; and yet almost
all men are guided by the understanding rf' others, not by their own;
and  he may be said more truly to adept than to beget their opinions.
Nurses, parents, pedagogues, and^ltf* them all, and above them all,
that universal pedagogue Custom, rill the mind with notions which
it has  no share in framing—vhi'h  it receives as passively as it re-
ceives the impression of ouw^d objects ; and which, left to itself,
it never would have frame* perhaps, or would have  examined after-
wards.  Thus prejudices a--e established by education,, and habits by
Custom.   We are taughHo think what others think, not how to think
for ourselves •  and Tvhi'st the memory is loaded, the understanding
remains  unexercised,  or exercised in such trammels as constrain its
motions  and  di--ecrits pace, till that which is artificial becomes, in
some sort   na'ursi, and the mind can go no  further.   It may sound
oddly, but i' i? true, in many cases, to say,  that if men had learned
less their wa/ to knowledge would be shorter and easier.  It is in-
deed shorter and easier to proceed from ignorance to knowledge, than
from error.  They who  are in the  last, must unlearn, before they
can fearn to any good purpose ; and the first part of this double task
is .not,  in many respects, the  least difficult; for which reason it  is
seldom undertaken.
   Wkoever, therefore, is desirous of promulgating a doctrine not  in
unipon with the  pre-conceived  opinions or prejudices of the world,
mast first himself  be satisfied of its truth ; without this conviction,
he can never assume that commanding deportment which is requisite
to withstand those attacks that self-love,  and many feelings deeply
rooted by education,  fostered by vanity, and strengthened by habit,
always oppose to every  innovation.   He should also be prepared  to
prove that his opinions are not the  offspring of mere speculation, the
flashes of a kindled imagination, but the result of observation guided
by knowledge and  confirmed by experience ; and lastly, he must not
only arm himself with  patience to  hear every objection, and  to
examine its merits impartially, but with candoralways to acknowledge
error, and with generosity to avow a defeat.
   I  have thought it proper to lay these axioms before my readers,  to
demonstrate that I am fully aware of the  importance of the charac-
ter which I have assumed :—that I have not inconsiderately invested
myself with the robe of the teacher—nor proffered myself unprepared
to maintain the truth  of my precepts.   I have been the more anxious
to do this, to guard myself against the possibility  of being confounded
                                2 
18
 with the promiscuous crowd of medicine venders,  that  infect our
 streets  ; for I am well tWare,  that generally speaking the remedies
 puffed often into notice, dcno\ deserve the confidence of the afflicted,
 nor the countenance of an enlightened public ; and that they are all
 subject to censure.  But  thiscai^ot be said of BrandretWs Pills:
 their  long established reputation for  efficacy in removing  every
 symptom of disease, when all them&mSj that the  " legitimate pro-
 fessors" of the healing art could tevue, had failed, has frequently
 inspired with confidence even  the moit sceptical—the fact,  that for
 nearly a whole century, during which th»Se fills  have been in general
 use throughout Europe, not a  single caseVas ever occurred of their
 having been attended with fatal consequence:., ourht to be  a sufficient
 plea to  entitle the projector to the respect ol hit. fellow creatures,
 and to screen him from the attacks of presumption, ignorance  and
 envy.   For my own part,  I can  conscientiously sry f^at  were I not
 thoroughly convinced of the truth of what I have uttered  relative  to
 the innate properties of my pills, I would shut  up my establishment
 to-morrow, and retire from the field for ever.
   In  a country  so  subject as  this is to  sudden changes in the
 temperature of the atmosphere, these pills  are, indeed, the only kind
 of medicine which can  counteract the insalubrious effects of rhe
 climate on health.  We have only to consider how soon putrefaction
 destroys life after it has once commenced,  and  all  aversion to the
 vigorous adoption of  purgative medicine will cease.  Would tint the
 interest of the "  family physician" would  allow him to comprehend
 the principles upon which the  restoration of health depends, society
 would not be overrun as it is now with desolate widows and helpless
 orphans.  But it is a singular fact, and no less strange than true, how
 little  reflection  there  is  on the  part of those,  who repose  blind
 confidence—I had almost said,  a culpable confidence—on that lover of
 sinecure, known as the  "family physician."  One would suppose that
people were too busy to think,  were it not that the idle are ever the
 most thoughtless  !
  The profound and philosophic  mind  of Dr.  Benjamin Franklin,
 understood  full  well  the  salutary  effects of  purgative medicine!
 What he says, in relation  to purging in  all  cases of yellow fever, is
 entitled to our deepest consideration—"It must be remarked that this
 evacuation,  (meaning by purges) is more  necessary in  this than in
 most other fevers.  The abdominal viscera are  the parts  principally
 affected in this disease, but by this timely evacuation, their feculent
 corruptible contents are discharged before  they corrupt and produce
 any ill effects, and their various emunctories, and secreting vessels are 
19
 set open, so as to allow a free discharge of their contents, and conse-
 quently a  security to the parts fflemselves, during the course of the
 disease. By this evacuation tfc very minera of the disease, proceed-
 ing from the putrid masmafermenting with the salivary, bilious and
 other corrupt humors of-ne body,  is  always eradicated  by timely
 emptying the abdominal viscera  on which it first fixes, after which a
 gentle  sweat does rf it  were nip in its bud.   When  the primoe
 vice, but especialb the  stomach, is loaded with an offensive matter,
 or contracted, ar-t convulsed with the irritation of this stimulus, there
 is no procuringa laudable sweat, till that is removed ; after which a
 necessary quantity of  sweat breaks  out of  its  own accord, these
 parts promoing it, when by a purgative medicine, they are eased of
 the  burde* °r stimulus which oppresses them."
   " All nese acute putrid fevers, ever require some evacuation to
 bring t-lem  to a perfect crisis and solution, and that even by stools,
 whicl must be promoted by art, when nature does not do the business
 her'elf-   On this account, an  ill-timed scrupulousness about the
 wakness of the  body  is  of bad  consequence   in  those  urging
 circumstances ; for it is that which seems chiefly to make evacuations
necessary, which nature ever attempts, after the  humors  are fit  to
be expelled, but  is not able to accomplish for the most part in this
disease  ; and  I  can  affirm, that I have given a purge in this case,
when the pulse has been so low that  it could hardly be felt, and the
debility extreme,  yet both one and the other have been restored by it.''''
  I find the above opinion of Dr. Benjamin Franklin in a work entitled
" Medical Inquiries and Observations,  by  Dr.  Benjamin Rush,"
Philadelphia,  1796.  The papers of Dr. Franklin bear the date cf
1741—Just ninety-nine years ago; so that the system of exclusive
purging for the cure of disease, is not of so late a date as some people
have been disposed to assert.                 *
  Dr. Rush gives the above as the first and principal  reason of his
mind being directed to inquire into the effect of purging medicines ;
and after having examined the subjectinall its variousbearings,phrases,
and ramifications,  he  gives it as his opinion,  that there is no more
danger from the yellow  fever, provided purging is  adopted with vigor
at the commencement, than from a common cold ; and that he uni-
versally found the following results  from adopting  that system  in
his practice.
  1st.  " It raised the pulse when low, and reduced  it when it  was
preternaturally tense or  full.
  2nd.  " It revived and strengthened the patient.   This was evident 
20
in many cases—in the facility with which a patient, who had stag-
gered to a close-stool, walked back again to their beds, after a copious
evacuation.  Dr.  Sydenham takes notice of  a similar increase of
strength after a plentiful sweat in the pkaue.   They both  acted by
abstracting excess of stimulus, and thereby removing indirect debility.
   3rd. " It abated the paroxysm of the fevei   Hence arose the ad-
vantage of giving a purge, in some cases, in h**  evening,  when an
attack of the fever was expected in the course of he night.
  4th. " It frequently produced copious and univb-sal  sweats when
given on the first or second day of the fever, after th> most  powerful
sudorifics had been taken to no purpose.
  5th. "It sometimes checked that vomiting which occ^-s in the be-
ginning of the disorder; and it always assisted  in preventing the more
alarming occurrence of that symptom, about the fourth or ffth day.
  6th.  " It removed obstructions in the  lympathic system.  I as-
cribe it wholly to  this action, that in no instance did any of the glan-
dular swellings, which I  formerly mentioned,  terminate in a supi-
nation.
  7th.  " By discharging the bile through the bowels as  soon an*
as fast as it was secreted, it prevented in most eases a yellowness of
the skin."
  Who can read the above quoted passages, and not see at  once, that
if purgation is productive of such beneficial effects in cases ©f yellow
fever, that the same important advantages must  be derived from
purging in all other diseases ?  It is an ascertained  fact, that purging
produces its effects on the  body in nearly the same manner at one
time that it does at an other, and that similar results are universally
experienced.  We may imagine sometimes, that more benefit has
been experienced in one instance, than in another, but this is owing
to the state of the body not being always in the same condition.  But
it is my opinion that we always receive the same relative amount of
benefit from a purge, though we may not be conscious of the fact at
the time, and that consequently, even in cases where health may be
supposed  to exist, not only our feelings, but our  intellects will be
benefited and improved by the experiment.
   But I ask again, can it be believed that the above quoted extract,
is the opinion of a physician of eminence, who wrote forty-six years
ago, and the medical profession not open to conviction, but still de-
termined to pursue the same crooked paths, in stern defiance of the
laws of humanity, and in purblind opposition to all the principles of
reasoning and deduction ?  If so revered a sage as Benjamin Frank-
lin—if a man of such high standard of intellect and professional skill 
21
as the late Dr. Rush, have failed to convince mankind of the efficacy
of purgative medicine in all diseases, how can / hope to enforce be-
lief of that fact, who have only the faith that  is within me as my
prima facie  evidence,  and the millions of cures that have been ef-
fected, as my witnesses ?   Still let us not forget the instructive fable
of the lion and the mouse  !s
   Dr. Rush observes further in answer to some  objections started by
the medical profession,  "  It is not an easy thing to affect life, or even
subsequent health, by copious or frequent purging.  Dr. Kirkland
mentions a memorable case of a gentleman who was cured of a rheu-
matism by a purge, which gave him between forty and fifty stools.
This patient had been  previously affected  by  his  disorder sixteen
or eighteen weeks.  Dr. Mosely not only proves the safety, but es-
tablishes the efficacy of numerous and copious stools in  the yellow
fever.  Dr. Jay probably  owes his life to  three and twenty stools,
procured by a dose of  calomel and gamboge, taken by my advice.
Dr. Redman was purged  until he  fainted,  by  a dose  of the same
medicine."
   The last mentioned1 gentleman was  over seventy years old, and
yet  he recovered from the yellow fever,  which cure  was, beyond
doubt, effected by the efficacy of simple  purgation.  But  hear Dr.
Rush again:
   " But who can  suppose that a dozen or twenty stools  in a day
could endanger life, that  has  seen a diarrhoea  continued for several
months, attended  with  fifteen or twenty  stools every day, without
making  even a material breach in the constitution ?   Hence Dr. Hil-
lary has justly remarked  that 'it rarely or  never  happens that the
purging in this disease, though violent, takes the patient off, but the
fever and inflammation  of the  bowels.'  "
   Dr. Clarke in like manner remarks  " that evacuations do not des-
troy life in the dysentery, but the fever with the emaciation or morti-
fication  which attend and follow the disease."
   Condorcet has shrewdly observed, that mankind persevere in their
 errors long after the necessary truths for overthrowing them  have
 been established.   This  is especially applicable to popular errors
 regarding medicine. For notwithstanding the mass of convincing
 evidence I have just quoted,  to prove the absurdity and the sinful-
 ness of  attacking any kind of disease, and much  less remittent and
 typhoid fevers with opium and phlebotomy, the murderous practice
 continues to be as much  in vogue as#,ever, and  there is in fact a
 greater mass of medical  ignorances and prejudices still afloat among 
22
 us, than perhaps among any other of  the civilized communities on
 earth.  In no country is quackery more barefaced—in no country
 do the classes falsely called educated exhibit a more absurd creduli-
 ty, and that too respecting impositions at war not  merely with the
 first elements of  science, but with self-evident and intuitive truths.
   Fever has been described as a disease in which  the body is vio-
 lently heated, and the pulse quickened, or in  which  heat and cold
 prevail by turns.   Among the obscure causes which operate to pro-
 duce this evil, are the  variations of temperature ; for it is at least
 an universally allowed fact, that  the majority of diseases,  those  at
 least which  are  termed functional, are  excited  by atmospherical
 changes acting upon the surface of the body. In all cases  of this sort,
 whether the fever be remittent, or of that class too generally confound-
 ed by practitioners with the contagious disorder of the same name un-
 der the term typhus, I would say in the language of Lord Bacon, "Let
 the physician apply himself more to purgation than to alteration,
because the offence is in quantity."
   This  is a question which involves  the very  existence  of entire
communities  in many of our southern  states, and is especially wor-
 thy of the most mature consideration, in the formation of new settle-
ments by those wrho are induced to emigrate from their native soil.  It
is true that the degree of mortality attached to very many  specific dis-
 eases has been materially reduced in the South since the unfailing effi-
cacy of my pills has forced down  the principal barriers of prejudice,
and the  celebrity they have acquired has travelled far and near, sub-
duing all diseases, and staying dire contagion in the midst of its de-
vastating progress.  But still a certain degree of irrational hostility is
yet afloat;  and it behooves men of all classes and degrees, to beware
how they are led to reject a cheap and a safe remedy within their
reach, lest by so doing they should wilfully throw away a life, which
they ought to consecrate to the  support of their families,  and the
worship of their God.  The subject indeed might of itself command
consideration, were men as deliberate  and thoughtful regarding the  '
preservation of health as of fortune ; or were they as anxious to fly
from sickness as from poverty.   And yet to quote the language of the
great moralist of  the last century,  "Such is the power of  health,
that without  its co-operation every other  comfort is torpid and life-
less, as the powers of vegetation without the sun." 
SECTION V,
  I have already shown that man not only suffers from sudden vari-
ations of temperature—forced and violent exertions—deprivation of
natural exercise, cold, damp, imperfect nutrition, etc.,  the effects of
which a systematic use  of purgative medicine might  successfully
have controlled; but that he is exposed to other diseases  resulting
from the modes of life consequent on civilization, and the exercise of
certain arts, trades, or  manufactures,  to which it  gives rise.   He
dwells in close, low, and shut up situations—he inhabits  crowded
cities—he inhales  an atmosphere thickened  with  smoke and dust,
and rendered irritating by the presence of noxious vapors, or foreign
substances  in a minute state of division—he  frequents  thronged as-
semblies and  over-heated rooms—he exerts  himself in a  " wordy
warfare," straining his lungs, and imposing upon his respiratory sys-
tem, efforts of  which it  is incapable—he hurries away excited and
over-wrought—bathed in perspiration—he  faces the cutting blast,
or the driving sleet—attending only to the storm which still rages with-
in, he disregards  that from without, or, concentrated on some great
intellectual effort,  he neglects the precautions necessary for keeping
the corporeal instrument in repair.  The flush of excitement is suc-
ceeded by  the  hectic glow, and the  triumph of the mind entails the
destruction of the body:—
            " The fiery spirit, working out its way,
             Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
             And o'er-informed its tenement of clay."
  The influence of different occupations in  producing  phthisis, has
been universally admitted, and it is greatly to the honor of humanity,
that a  practitioner  of  so  much  eminence   as  the celebrated
Dr. Lombard, of Geneva, whose excellent contributions to the " An-
nates and  Hygiene Puplique"  have created such  an extraordinary
sensation throughout Europe, has had the  moral courage to shuffle
off the inglorious  trammels with which  his  fellow-laborers in the 
24
 cause of medical science, have so long misled mankind, and publicly
 avowed his conviction that " those  trades in which the wrorkmen is
 obliged to  breathe an atmosphere loaded with a fine dust, which, pen-
 etrating with the air into his lungs,  becomes lodged on the surface
 of the very sensitive lining membrane of the passages, and constantly
 accumulating, acts as a never-ceasing cause of irritation.  Vegetable
 purgatives, from the power they possess of diffusing life,  strength
 and hilarity to the constitution, are the only efficient remedies  for
 counteracting the destructive tendencies of such an atmosphere, and
 for effectually destroying whatever symptoms of decay might already
 have manifested themselves,  in cases where the  evil had not*been
 warded off by an early application of the  system recommended."
   Of  the  numerous  trades which  tend  more or less directly to the
 production of this disease, bakers, hair powder makers, and workers
 in feather stores, may be said to be peculiarly exposed to its attacks.
 Such trades generally present a much larger number of weakly, white-
 faced and unhealthy looking individuals, with soft, flabby flesh, and a ten-
 dency to a short teazing cough.  In stone cutting, the particles con-
veyed being sharp spiculse, of higher mechanical powrers of irritation,
 their effects are, proportionally,  more violent, and ulcerations of the
membrane, with perforations of small vessels, and consequent spit-
ting of blood, are often in them the first warnings of impending dan-
ger.  The  pointing of needles has been  distinguished for its  great
fatality to  those employed;  and though in this particular instance,
scientific humanity has suggested a preservation  in the employment
 of magnetic mouth-pieces, which  should attract the fine  metallic
particles on their approach to the lungs, I understand that their use
has actually been rejected by workmen to whom it was proposed,
on the ground that if the danger were diminished, the number who
went to the trade would be greater, and the wages consequently less!
Employments that tend much  to induce a stooping  and contracted
position of the chest are also among the causes that induces this dis-
ease, by preventing the free dilatation of the lungs. There are numer-
 ous other causes to which the narrow limits of  a pamphlet do not
even permit me an allusion ; but all these  may be guarded  against
by the indispensable precautions prescribed above.
  The rapid progress which  medical science has made during the
last fifty years, has thrown considerable light on the history and pa-
thology of all those maladies which are known, and have been des-
cribed under the term scrofula, tuberculous disease, and consumption; 
25
and yet neither rational  practice or  more correct views have as yet
been  the  natural results.  The most enlightened physicians look
almost in despair on the  slightest symptoms of the disease ; and,
hopeless of rescuing from death, think only of those alleviating and
palliative  means, which may serve  to " gently  smooth the way."
The humid and sulphurous air of Vesuvius  has been recommended
by physicians,  even as far back as the days of Galen, but with very
little or no success ; others have been equally unfortunate with an
air pure and dry ; the atmosphere of a cow-house has been tried as
well as the habitation on the sea-shore.  Oxygen was resorted to by
Toureroy, and  carbonic acid by Withering, Perceval and  Miihry.
Baglivi recommended standing  over freshly  turned-up  earth, and
Laenne thought there was virtue in  strewing a room with sea-weed.
Inhalation, although consonant with the obvious principle of  apply-
ing the remedy to the seat of the disease, has been  tried under the
most felicitous circumstances in vain ; and the important attempt has
been made by numberless practitioners, and with almost every spe-
cies of vapor or gas.   Mead failed to establish a character for the
vapors of frankincense and gum styrax. Tar fumigation is a specific
tried by Sir Alexander Crichton without  success.  Finally,  prussic
acid is the suggestion of some; chlorine and  iodine  are the  ingen-
ious resorts of others ; and yet,  notwithstanding all  the wise rules
that have been laid down, both for the prevention and the extirpation of
the disease, the destruction of human life by  the  extensive  class of
tuberculous diseases, continues to the same  enormous  amount, as
heretofore.  The period previous to the enlargement, the softening
and the discharge of the tubercles being commonly allowed to pass
without the application of purgative medicines, consumption in one
or other of its forms, is soon established, and runs through its several
stages with more or less rapidity, until death puts an end to the mul-
tiplied miseries of the patient.  Is it not therefore of the highest con-
sequence to call the public attention to the important fact, that it is
only by a  constant use of purgative  medicines, during the pre-exist-
ing condition of the system, that much can be accomplished towards
either prevention or cure ?   Still, in a great many instances, by strong
and repeated doses of vegetable medicine, a cure has been effected,
even after the tubercles had suppurated and opened for themselves a
way into the bronchial passages.
  " In the long catalogue of human infirmities," (justly observes Dr.
Clark,) "tuberculous diseases are  undoubtedly the most deserving 
26
the study of the physician, whether we  regard their frequency  or
mortality.   Confined to no country,  age, sex, or condition  of  life,
they destroy a larger portion of mankind in temperate climates  than
all other chronic diseases taken together.   In this country, and  over
the whole temperate region of Europe and America, tuberculous dis-
ease of the lungs causes probably a fifth part of the whole mortality;
and in some districts,  and  even in whole countries, the proportion is
much  larger.   It has been calculated by the  late Dr. Young, Dr.
Wollcombe and others, from the best data which the bills  of mortal-
ity afford, that in Great Britain and Ireland, consumption causes  one-
fourth part of the deaths that occur from disease.  If we add to  con-
sumption, tuberculous disease of the glandular and nervous systems,
of the large joints, of the spiral column, etc., and deduct the mortal-
ity which occurs during the first months of life, I shall probably be
within the  truth in stating that a third part of  the mortality of this
country arises from tuberculous diseases.  If to this frightful  des-
truction of mankind, we add  the  numerous  crippled and  disfigured
sufferers whom we daily meet  with, and couple these results  with
the painful reflection that the  predisposition to tuberculous diseases
is transmitted from the parent to the offspring,  it will surely be un-
necessary to press upon medical practitioners the claim which this
class of diseases, above all others, has upon their earnest considera-
tion."
  But tubercles are not confined to the  human species.   The  lion,
the dromedary, and many  other orders of  the mammalia,  both  car-
niverous  and herbiverous,  as well as various birds, reptiles, and  even
insects have been found to die consumptive.  Most of the monkeys
and apes which die in our menageries fall victims to true consumptive
disease, and these  bodies  may be  seen studding their lungs, liver,
spleen, and several other organs.   M. Boyer  Collard, in opening the
body of a lion that had died  at the  Tardia des Plantes,  in Paris,
found the lungs to contain numerous tubercles.  Their existence is
not at all unusual in horses.   In the hog, they pretty  frequently oc-
cur, and  may be found in various parts of the body, as well as in the
lungs, often mixed with the hydatids, or  transparent vesicles ; the
development of which in these animals, is known by the common de-
nomination of measles.  Their existence  in  rabbits is a  matter  of
daily  observation ; and as these unfortunate animals have supplied
subjects  for experiment in numerous other  physiological and patho-
logical questions, so have  they been extensively used in this, and 
27
the result of such experiments, I believe, has  been, that it is in our
power, by a certain course of regimen, to generate these productions
in the textures of a rabbit to all  appearance perfectly healthy previ-
ous to being placed under artifical circumstances.
   Now it is proper to observe, that in the cases referred to, the ani-
mals have either been  transported from  a hot  to a cold climate,
where they are deprived of liberty and exercise, as in the case with
monkeys and parrots, or confined in damp  places, without sun and
almost without air, as cows,  pigs, and house-rabbits, or exposed to
constant alternations of cold and heat, or violent and constrained  ex-
ercise, as the horse.  But these animals are never known,  in their
wildest state, to evince any symptoms of the disease ;  therefore  we
have a certain number of causes clearly marked  as capable of pro-
ducing it.  It is remarkable that the dog, though  more under the in-
fluence  of human control than any  of the above-mentioned animals,
and more completely subdued to an artificial mode of existence, has
never, as far as I know,  been found affected with tubercles.  This
can only be accounted for by the fact that they have the instinct to
find  and eat those herbs which open their bowels and purify their
fluids.   The rest are all more  or less confined, checked, and placed
under the influence of depressing circumstances,  the effect of which
is to produce those primary changes in the  constitution of the blood,
from which  I  have shown the deposition  of tubercles to result.
   From all the facts stated above, it must appear obvious even to  the
most superficial inquirer, that, as a perfect   and continuous  state of
health can only exist in that condition of life, where all actions proper
to the human body, are  performed in the  most  perfect and unre-
strained manner, whatever occupation or pursuit  has the  least ten-
dency to impair that freedom of exercise which the limbs are wont
to indulge in, in a primitive state of existence, must generate cer-
tain acrimonious humors, which by impeding the  process of diges-
tion, destroy all those pleasurable sensations that organized bodies in
a perfect, healthy state, universally experience, and are the sure ba-
sis of those fatal diseases with which the human race is every where
afflicted.  Whether exercise  be conducive  to  the cure as well  as
prevention of diseases, it is evident, that when the necessary quan-
tity cannot be taken, the  deficiency must be supplied  by  purgative
medicine, which  by detaching  and loosening the  tenacious  humors
attached to our fibres,  gives new strength to the body,—composure
and energy to the mind.   The subject  possesses an acknowledged 
28
interest for all  classes of society, and especially for those who have
been compelled to witness the most  promising intellect,  and the
loveliest forms  of beauty withering under the fatal  influence of
phthisical and tuberculous diseases.   When the large  and compre-
hensive views which Franklin, Rush, and Pelgas* have taken of all
bodily diseases, prior even to the adoption of the  vegetable system
of purgation, by the  late  Dr.  William  Brandreth, are more fully
known and acted on in practice, mortality from  consumption will
materially decrease among all ranks.  When the principles  which
are endeavored to be inculcated in this pamphlet are comprehended
to their full extent and received and  valued as  they deserve, public
health must every where improve.
   Then the occupation of the physician  will necessarily give place
to that of the surgeon, whose province will be reduced to the  origi-
nal vocation of setting limbs, binding up  wounds,  and  all that is in-
cumbent on a*legitimate exercise  of the surgical art.  The  great
principles upon which health depends will be understood by all men
without distinction of caste, rank  or degree—consumption will be
unknown, as  all the evils tending to  it will have been eradicated by
purgatives from the constitution long before consumption  can have
assumed a decided form.  The errors  and diversities  of opinion
which at present cause so much division among medical men, will
have no power in misleading mankind, and the public will then cease
to suffer from boasting quackery or miserable pretenders.
  It is because men of intelligence and character in the medical profes-
sion haves ystematically sunk their character as citizens in that of at-
tendants upon the sick—it is because the richest and highest of them
have too frequently, even to the end of their servile career, continued
to be menials—it is because throughout their whole  lives they have
been deterred by the fear of losing a single dollar,  from coming for-
ward and manfully engaging in public questions which lay within their
province, thathumandiseases are still sought to be cured with mercury,
antimonial powders, bleeding, or opiates, which only deaden sensi-
bility—lull the patient into a dangerous repose, and entail days of
suffering and infirmity not only on himself, but on his progeny.

  * It may be proper to  observe, however, that in Dr. Benjamin Brandreth's
opinion, his late grandfather, and projector of  the vegetable pills, was utterly
unconscious of any thing having been written on the subject, by the  above
named gentlemen, but honestly believed to have been himself the inventor of
the vegetable system of purgation. 
SECTION  VI.
  The preservation of public health in great cities is an object no
less of paramount importance to the citizen, than of curious inquiry
to the philosopher ;  and it is truly surprising to reflect how little se-
rious consideration has been given to the subject.  In the continental
countries of Europe, the means of conserving the public health,—of
disarming the malignity of epidemic diseases, and of preventing their
too frequent recurrence, are investigated by the philosophical physi-
cian—carried into practical operation by a code of senatory law, and
sedulously watched over as one of their most sacred and  important
 public duties by the government and the country. With us, and prin-
cipally in our southern  states,  the  health,  which is the life of the
great mass of the population, is not considered worth a  thought, ex-
cept at times of impending danger, when thought is vain—when the
pestilence rages in the midst of us, we run wildly about in search
of relief;  when having completed its  ravages,  it finally disappears
from our towns and  our cities,  we are too happy  to dismiss  also
from our thoughts, and forget all inquiries as to the means of preven-
tion for the future, in congratulation on our preservation  for the pres-
ent. Our Boards of Health, hastily and crudely organized in the hour
of difficulty and danger, when the danger and difficulty,  by the mer-
cy of Divine Providence, have been got over, are immediately dis-
persed—the contests between the contagionists and  the non-conta-
gionists are contagious no longer—the advocates of tar water and the
advocates of hot water lay down their arms—specifics, and all the
people who recommended specifics are alike forgotten—cajeput oil
is a drug in the market, and brandy is no  longer consumed under
false pretences.
  The pestilence is over, but the danger is not.  That which has
been may be again, and the best time to escape a danger, is surely
that when  our  judgment is unclouded by the prospect  of imminent
risk, and we as yet contemplate the danger at a distance. 
30
   But the danger never is at a distance.  There exists in great cities
 an under-current of pestilence at all times and in  all seasons.   Ty-
 phus, for example, is ever at  work among us.  It is true, at work
 obscurely, because its ravages are among the obscure—among those
 who live precariously from day to day, in low,  unventilated, and
 densely populated neighborhoods,  where bad drainage, bad air, bad
 water  and bad smells perpetuate the epidemics they originate, and
 whose miserable inhabitants form the never-failing and ever-dying
 population of our fever hospitals.   It is impossible to  calculate how
 much human life might be prolonged—not only prolonged, indeed,
 but what is of still greater importance, how much the condition of
 humanity might be improved  in great cities, if more attention was
 paid to the system of prevention, both by legislative bodies, and the
 public.   It is melancholy to  reflect how little  has in this respect
 been done !   As far  as regards individual prevention, the remedy is
 simple ;  so simple indeed, that he who runs may read !
   For whenever any of the causes of contagion exist, there is no further
 precaution required,  but to use  the Brandreth Pills in such doses as
may be found necessary to counteract those atmospheric influences
which, when unheeded, universally produce costiveness, and its op-
posite evil, dysentery, and all  those fatal derangements of the sys-
tem, which are the infallible harbingers of the direct and most con-
tagious diseases.
   Natural death, as I have stated before, is the consequence  of the
principle of corruption, remaining  in a steady, fixed  and tranquil
state, until the functions of vitality, by  their continued use, are no
longer able to supply the daily waste of the body.
   The cause of premature, or unnatural death, is the effect of aux-
iliary corruption, either  from  impure air,  improper food,  irregular
habits,  etc., which tend to overthrow the  equilibrium of the humors,
thus adding  to the first principle or root of corruption,  which is the
sure inheritance of every man that is born to die.
   The occasional causes of the humors becoming depraved, are—
coming in contact with infectious or impure air—the consequence of
exhalations from swamps, subterraneous places, common sewers, and
from all vegetable or animal matter, in a state of putrefaction  or de-
composition.
   Long protracted dry and hot weather is generally  the cause of
much sickness, especially to those residing in the vicinity of marshy
grounds ;  for there,  the atmosphere pumps out, as it were, and ab- 
31
sorbs the putrefactive particles,  and canies them into  the  air :  so
that when this air is imbibed by any person at all predisposed to dis-
ease, whose humors happen already to be in a depraved state, it will
occasion the most malignant and deadly fevers.
  There is a certain combination, however, which is essential to  the
production of  a contagious miasma.   It is the combination of mois-
ture  with heat.  For where the heat is so intense as immediately to
dissipate moisture, no contagion  can exist.   Hence, I have no hesi-
tation in declaring my firm conviction,  that the beautiful meadows
and lawns  which skirt the banks of many of our rivers  afford a ni-
dus for the production and  propagation of a numerous class of fevers,
which  are usually ascribed to any other but the  real sources—the
ditches of stagnant waters, and the disengagement of gaseous mat-
ter from vegetable putrefaction.
  It does not  appear, from the researches of the most learned wri-
ters  on the  subject, that any  satisfactory experiments  have as  yet
been made, either by European philosophers or ourselves, as to the
specific gaseous matter which constitutes malaria.  That it varies in
no slight degree, according to the particular climate  of the soil,  and
the more or less profusion of vegetable matter, can scarcely admit of
any  doubt.  It is also equally obvious,  that a certain elevation of
temperature is necessary, in order to give activity to this aerial poi-
son, for various sections in our own country which are visited by
this  pestilence in the summer and autumnal months, are compara-
tively  exempt during winter and spring  ;   all the circumstances
being similar, it is also found  that the malignity of  its influence is
pretty constantly in the  same ratio as the  elevated temperature of
the district in which it prevails.   In a sanitary point  of view, it is
perhaps of little importance to determine the precise chemical prop-
erties of the gases which constitute malaria.   It is  sufficient  to as-
certain that its influence on the vital functions is of a deleterious na-
ture, producing, invariably, the class  of intermittent  or remittent fe-
vers, subject,  of course,  to considerable modifications in individuals.
  How important therefore,  how indispensable is it for those who
live  in situations exposed to  atmospherical contingencies to be al-
ways provided with a supply  of Brandreth Pills !  One dose, taken
when the least symptom  of  sickness or dizziness has been felt, in
consequence of exposure to the action of the miasma, has frequently
been the means of  preventing weeks and months of severe illness,
and  in  many instances of warding off death.   The  observations
which are  made on the vaiious causes of disease, are generally more
interesting than useful, as the principal  object to  be attained, is to 
32
know and understand how to cure ourselves when we are sick.  What
earthly possession, or accumulation of wealth, can  be compared to
the value of a knowledge so all-important as this ?
   Of all  the numerous causes of disease to which the human species
is liable in warm climates, those which I am about to  consider are
the most important; but they would require an investigation,  full in
proportion to the extent and variety of the effects which they produce.
When the  obvious  and intimate  relations subsisting between the
earth's surface and the human species, for whom its beauties and its
depravities are destined by Providence,—between  man and the soil
on which he moves, the productions of the earth which surround and
feed him, and the air  which he is constantly inhaling into his body,
the conditions of these agents, as far as  they can be recognized by
sensible  properties, or inferred from their manifest effects,  become
matters of immense interest in medical  science, and of  surpassing
importance in philosophical, civil and political points  of view.   The
conditions of the atmosphere  resulting from the states of, and the
changes  taking place  within and  upon the soil covering the torrid
and temperate zones of the globe, are not only the chief and imme-
diate sources, on the one hand, of the strength and perfection  of the
mental and corporeal constitution of man, and on the other,  of the
diseases  which harass him, stunting his physical and moral growth,
or sweeping him from among living animals,  of which he  is  the head
and master; but are also the most productive, although the  more re-
mote causes of natural  character—of advancement in  all the arts
sciences  and refinements of life in some countries,  and  of moral and
physical  debasement in  others.  In one, their beneficent operation
may be traced in the freedom,  prosperity and greatness of its  inhab-
itants, in another, their noxious influences are manifest in  the degen-
erate and debased condition of the species, whose wants,  habits en-
joyments and desires, seldom surpass  those of  the higher  animals.
In short, the constitutions of the atmosphere  derived from soil and
situation, according to their nature, are not only the productive sour-
ces of the disease, but also the chief spring of the perfection  of the
human race, and of its degeneracy—the influential  causes of the va-
rious degrees  of human science presented to  us in  the  different
kingdoms of the world—of the freedom and greatness of nations, and
of their enslaved and degraded conditions—of the rise and  downfall
of empires.
   It should be recollected, however, that the diseases of warm cli-
mates very  nearly approximate to  those of  cold climates during 
33
 warm seasons, and during occasional atmospheric vicissitudes, and only
 differ from them in subordinate  circumstances, which I have not
 space at present to elucidate ;  this is more particularly the case in
 situations, the nature of which approaches to that generally observa-
 ble within the tropics ;  they are, in short, the prevalent diseases of
 other climates, rendered more intense by more powerful causes, and
 the more continued in their  action, and much  more prolonged, and
 hence their effects become more marked than elsewhere.
   That these derangements of the human frame are more frequently
 met with in warm climates,  and less  so in  temperate countries, is
 merely the result of  the general order of nature as regards the ani-
 mal economy, and the human economy more particularly.  The finer
 shades of conformation and constitution, it should be further remark-
 ed are such as to adapt man to the circumstances and vicissitudes of
 the country in which Providence has ordained  him to  exist.   This
 conformation is chiefly the result of the influences which have contin-
 ued to operate on the parents ;  and the effect at last becomes confor-
 mable with the general character of the causes producing it.  The Eu-
 ropean is constituted  in a manner the best suited to the climate which
 he inhabits, and a similar conformation of the system of man  to the
 circumstances of the country, may be traced  in every part of the globe.
   When, therefore, man migrates  from the climate which contribut-
 ed to generate the peculiarities of his frame, to one which is remark-
 ably different from that to which he is assimilated, then disorders of
 various kinds and grades may be expected, which,  unless  counter-
 acted by proper purgative medicine, soon  spread and reach the
 heart, stomach, and  the  whole  system becomes in a state of fer-
 mentation ; for those  organs which changes and peculiarities of cli-
 mate chiefly affect, soon become deranged in  their functions, and
 when they continue  disordered for any time, additional disease  is
 generated in many of the  other organs of the frame,  especially in
 those which are more intimately allied in function to them.
   What is here inferred a priori, is evident in practice, particularly
 upon an intimate  view of the succession of the phenomena of disease.
 But the climate, and  the circumstances more intimately connected
with the climate and the  soil, or vicissitudes  of temperature and of
 season, are not to be  considered as the sole causes of disorder, for
diseased actions proceed  not always from those  ; and when they do
apparently derive their origin from thence, other causes frequently
co-operate  with them  in producing the effect.  The modes of living,
                               3 
34
 the diet and regimen of the individual, whose frame and constitution
 are unassimilated to the country, are generally as  fertile causes  of
 disease as those which relate to the climate, inasmuch  as  they are
 but ill-adapted to the nature of the change which he has experienced,
 and to the peculiarities of his system,  under the circumstances  in
 which he has been recently placed ;  and these latter  combine with
 the former class of causes in producing diseases which, but for this
 combination, might have never been  occasioned.
   The individual, who is, as it were, transplanted from  the air and
 soil from which he has been in a manner formed,  and in which he
 has longer vegetated, into those with respect to which he is quite an
 exotic—instead of adopting the  diet and regimen suited to  the  new
 circumstances into which he is placed, more generallylpursues both
 one and the  other, according as  the custom  of those around  him,  or
his own morbid appetites seduce  him.  Although  continually ope-
rated upon by causes, of whose influence his system is the more sus-
ceptible, the more recently he has undergone the change ;  although
even the air which he breathes tends, at the same  time that it ani-
mates, to modify his constitution to the new circumstances in which
he is placed, and to generate disease in the process of transforma-
tion which is being effected ; yet he more generally lives on as  if he
were entirely independent both of it and of the substances which he
receives into his stomach, and instead of adapting in some degree his
diet and regimen to the climate in which he is placed, he is seduced
by the sensations of his palate and his  pleasures, which, when indulg-
ed in, occasion that condition of the system  which,  if not amounting
to actual disease, is generally productive of  it, under the most favor-
 able  circumstances  of  climate, and  more  especially during warm
 states of the atmosphere, and when it is loaded by  moisture, terres-
trial effluvia, and other causes of disorder.
  How widely Malaria, in the present  state of medicine,  and utter
 neglect of the system  of prevention  by purgatives, is a cause  of
 death will be apparent almost on a moment's consideration, when we
 recollect, that in all the warmer, and hence more populous countries
 nearly the entire mortality is the produce of fevers, and these fevers the
 produce of Malaria !   I have said, elsewhere, that it has been  esti-
 mated to produce one half of the entire destruction of the human race
 nor do I think that this computation, made by physicians of care and
 consideration, has been exaggerated.   " Can we forget," observes
 once more the intelligent writer last quoted, " that we also suffer
 with Italy and with Greece, with_Africa and the West and East In- 
35
dies !   As travellers, as residents, as warriors, as colonists, we par-
take with all.  If the sword hath slain its thousands, malaria hath
slain its tens of thousands.   It  is disease,  not the field of action
which  digs the graves  of armies."   The truth of these observations
requires no farther proof than the dispatches from the brave British ar-
my, engaged in the late Burmese war, and the annual mortality in
the West Indies, and on the dreadful coast of Africa.
   If in our northern and more fortunate climate, Malaria is less de-
structive than in some others, it is  far  more so, however, than is
commonly imagined ; for I  verily believe that if all the deaths pro-
duced by fevers in our own city were carefully examined,  it would be
found that Malaria, in connection with the depravity of  the humors
has caused, nineteen out of every twenty that take place. Is itnotthen
of the greatest  consequence that the causes producing these effects
should be generally understood ? so  that by the early application of
purgative medicine, the only certain means of cure, this large amount
of human suffering may be prevented ?
   Among  the  obscure causes which operate to produce  Malaria in
cities and large towns, public sewers or drains are perhaps the most
prominent.  As one proof among many  others, of the class of inter-
mittent fevers originating  from  the  malaria generated in sewers,  I
may mention the anomalous fever which prevailed to such an alarm-
ing extent, about fifteen years since, in  the penitentiary at Milbank,
near London, which had its origin  in  the Malaria of the swamps,
which surround that  edifice : the prisoners, on  being remove'd to
the more  salubrious district of the Regent's Park,  speedily became
convalescent.   I have  reason to  believe,  however,  that  not  only
marshy districts and lower levels are periodically subject to malaria,
but that in places hitherto unsuspected it prevails to a considerable
extent.   It is a popular notion, for instance, that the rushy pools and
petty swamps so common in high moorlands, are innocent, or inca-
pable of producing Malaria.   I know not why they should be exempt
more than other marshy places,  unless under  a very high elevation,
or a cold'climate ;  and that the fact is not so, has been proved to my
conviction, by the occurrence of intermittents in Wales,  at conside-
rable elevations, from these  unquestionable causes.  In one instance,
among many others, a considerable body of laborers were employed
in excavating a pond on a moor  of this nature, situate about a thou-
sand feet above the level of  the  sea :  and in the course of the work
within a very short time, nearly one half were incapacitated by th 
36
 ague.   And  if  such rushy spots can 'produce an extensive effect of
 this kind, there will be always cause for suspicion, even in the small-
 est quantity of such wet land, be the character what it may.
   Dr. Benjamin Rush had occasion to remark, that a quantity of da-
 maged coffee having been exposed at a time (July the 24th) and in
 a situation (on a wharf and in a dock) which favored its putrefaction
 and exhalation ;  its smell became so highly putrid and offensive, that
 the inhabitants of the  houses in Wrater and  Front streets who were
 near it, were obliged in the hottest weather to exclude it, by shutting
 their doors and windows.  " Even persons who only walked along
 those streets," continues the Doctor, "complained of an intolerable
 foetor,  which, upon  inquiring, was  constantly traced to the putrid
 coffee."   It  should not surprise us, that this seed, so inoffensive in
 its natural state,  should produce, after its putrefaction, a violent fever.
 The records  of  medicine furnish instances  of similar fevers being
 produced, by the putrefaction of many other vegetable substances.
 Fourteen men out of sixteen perished by a malignant fever, a few
 years  ago, at the island of Tortola,  from  the effluvia generated by
 some putrefied potatoes, which  were taken out of the hold of a Liv-
 erpool vessel.  " The effluvia,"  says Dr. Zimmerman, "from a lit-
 tle heap of flax, has been known to occasion a malignant fever which
 proved fatal  to the family in which it first began, and afterwards
 spread its contagion through a whole  country."
  " Dr. Rogers,  in his treatise upon  the diseases of Cork, mentions
 a malignant fever which swept away a great number of the students
 of Wadham College, in Oxford.  " The  singularity of the  cause,"
 (adds the  doctor,) "engaged all the gentlemen of the faculty, in 'a
 serious inquiry into the causes of so remarkable  an effect,  and all
 agreed that the contagious infection arose from the putrefaction of a
 vast quantity of  cabbages thrown into a heap out of the several gar-
dens near the college."  Lancissi relates that one end of the city of
 Rome  was nearly desolated by  the effluvia  of  some rotted hemp,
which  lay in the neighborhood  of the city.   The same author re-
marks, that " Fevers often prevail at  Constantinople, which owe
their origin to the hemp which is brought  from Cairo,  and which
 is put  wet into  the  public granaries,  and suffered to ferment du-
 ring the summer.   It  is afterwards  sold,  and  the  seeds of those
 diseases are  afterwards spread among the people."   Many other
 facts might be adduced  of  radishes,  turnips,  garlic,  and  sundry
 other vegetables, generating by putrefaction, fevers similar to those
 which have been mentioned. 
37
   " Dr. Clarke  mentions a contagious malignant fever from marsh
miasma, which  prevailed at  Prince's Island, in the year 1771,
and which afterwards infected the crew of the  Grenville  India-
man.   The contagious pestilential fever in France,  so accurately
described by  Riverius, was  produced  by an  exhalation from pu-
trid vegetables,  particularly  hemp  and flax.   Even intermittents,
the most  frequent and  the  most  numerous  of marsh exhalation,
are contagious.   Of this there are many proofs in practical authors.
Bianchi describes an intermittent which was highly contagious, at
Wolfenbuttle, in the year 1666.  Dr.  Clarke mentions a number
of cases in which  this mild species of  fever was  propagated by
contagion.   Dr.  Cleghorn has  established the contagious nature of
intermittents by  many  facts.   After mentioning numerous instan-
ces of their having spread in this way, he says,—" These tertians
have  as good a  right to be called contagious  as the measles, small
pox, or any  other  disease."
   " The United  States, in common with other countries, have in
many places  established  proofs of the "contagious nature of fevers,
produced by putrid vegetable  exhalations.  The yellow fever, which
the citizens of  New York  wisely  admit to  have been generated
in their city from  vegetable putrefaction in the year 1791, spread
by contagion.  The bilious  fever, which prevailed in Philadelphia,
in the year 1778,  was evidently  contagious ;  so were the bilious
fevers which  prevailed during the last  autumn in  Weathersfield,
Harrisburgh,  and on the south branch of the Potomac."
   At  the  battle  of Leipsic,  the number  of dead bodies  left upon
the field were so numerous  that it was  found impossible to bury
them  before  the  frost set  in; which made the ground so hard that
the graves could not be  dug,  and they were left under the snow,
until the following  March,  when  they were  interred.  The air,
meanwhile, had  become  so  poisoned   by the putrid exhalations,
that a nervous fever raged with much violence in the  immediate vi-
cinity, and carried  off great  numbers,  especially on  the  third  day
after the attack.   It was calculated  that more than twenty thousand
persons died of that fever.  All travelling through  that region, as
well as  the operations of commerce, were entirely suspended.
   From all the facts above stated, it is evident  that the vicinity  of
swamps, lakes, ponds, and indeed any place where there  is muddy
or stagnant water, or any ingredients of a putrefactive tendency, are
situations to be avoided, as being susceptible of carrying corruption 
38
into the humors.  Living in a damp place, or in  one deprived of a
free circulation of air—resting upon muddy and filthy  ground, may
be an occasional cause of corruption, and generally speaking, as of-
ten as a free or concentrated air is charged with corrupt exhalations,
it may, and must carry corruption into the mass of humors of those
who breathe a sufficient quantity, and in case of the  fluids  having
been depraved sufficiently before, it is sure to prove contagious.
   Observation has also proved that in countries where there  are to
be found large quantities of caterpillars, sickness has always been
prevalent, which is no  doubt owing to  the impure air  which favors
the generation of these insects.
   As the limits of this pamphlet will not permit me to go more at
length into the different circumstances and localities which I might
demonstrate as having a very perceptible influence on the aggregate
amount of human disease, I shall complete the discussion as  to pur-
poses of utility, by repeating what I have already  satisfactorily prov-
ed,—that the sources of Malaria  are far more widely diffused than
have generally been supposed;—that they can often be truly  proved
to have been the  actual causes of fever, when that has been attrib-
uted to fallacious 01 imaginary  ones : and that this poison is probably
always the real cause of the disorders, known by the terms of yellow
fever—intermittent fever—bilious fever,  and typhus.  Enough has
been said to prove that the danger never is at a distance,—that the
primal essentials to human existence,  in crowded cities,  are,  pure
water, pure air,  thorough  drainage,  thorough ventilation, and last,
by no means least in importance, the facility of taking exercise with-
in a convenient distance,—that in short, one  of the first, one  of the
surest, one of the most practical methods of avoiding epidemic infec-
tions, is to keep the body free from acrimonious humors, and all pre-
disposing tendencies to disease, in which case, Malaria will have as
little influence on the constitution, as the raging tempest and  the fu-
rious hurricane, generally have, on the stoutly built and safely man-
ned vessels, that have so often weathered the direst and most  threat-
ening storms.
   Notwithstanding all I have said relative to the cause of Malaria,
and other diseases, and the manner in which these causes affect
health;  yet I would  have my readers  to entertain this  assurance,
that however deranged the functions of life may happen to be, if the
all-important application of the principle of purgation be commenced
in time, there is no fear but that health,  and all its happy concomi- 
39
tants, such as cheerfulness, buoyancy of spirits, clear-headedness,
and appetite, will speedily be restored ;  for, as health can never be
affected without something being in the body in diametrical opposi-
tion  to  all the healthy principles, it is obvious, that purging,  by
removing that something without injury  to the  stomach or bowels, or
producing any other effects but  such as are beneficial to the system,
that health is the natural result.
  Prevention, however, particularly among Southerners, is the grand
principle which I would wish to inculcate, for  no man has ever been
known to catch those infections peculiar to certain climates and sea-
sons, whose body was not already in  a diseased state with regard to
the humors, so that the contagious air, like  a  piece of leaven to the
flour, is only the means of setting them in fermentation.
  " In infection and contagion from body to body," observes Lord
Bacon, "as the plague and the like,  the infection is received many
times by the body passive ; but yet is, by the  strength and good dis-
position thereof, repulsed."   Thus we perceive that the surest  and
the only way to guarantee against disease or  contagion, is to extir-
pate from the body the only matter on which disease or contagion can
act;  and when this is done in time, in accordance with the principle
of prevention, that is to say, when the body  is  kept free horn predis-
posing humors,—the blood pure, and vigorous, by periodical applica-
tions of vegetable  purgatives,  the  individual possesses then a shield
of defence against all  attacks of contagion—he  may  then visit the
habitation  of the sick  without dread  of catching the disorders  that
surround  him ;—and those scenes so revolting to humanity, and so
frequently enacted in tropical climates, where the  bugbear contagion,
is allowed by the ignorance of practitioners, to place an insurmount-
able barrier between those whom the bonds of affection, parentage
or duty should have kept united—to  create dismay and  suspicion,
when consolation and assistance is most needed—would never again
be heard of.
  It is much to be regretted,  that in the medical profession, the  stu-
dent finds so many causes  operating to divert his mind from the love
and pursuit of truth !   At one time he finds the  authority of some
great name raising its oracular voice  to crush inquiry :—at another,
he finds the intolerance of sect,  or party,  attempting to stifle honest
and manly thought:—again, he finds  the love of distinction tempting
to the promulgation of some brilliant theory,  which, however false
and dangerous, may yet gain for its  author  the distinction of a tem-
porary notoriety.   It is thus that truth has ever been obscured,  and
error rendered perennial in the profession. 
INDEX.
                            SECTION I.   PAGE 5.
   A retrospective glance at the  various and  conflicting systems of medicine.—Man
 Struggling to obtain wealth and worldly distinctions, yet neglecting the means  for pre-
 serving health.—The progress of medical science retarded by the cupidity of professional
 men.—Remarkable 6aying of Moliere.

                           SECTION  II.  PAGE 9.
   The principles of life and death.—Innate corruption easily modified by effectual pur-
 gation.—Premature death caused by inattention to  primeval causes of disease.—Fatal
 errors of practitioners regarding the hsman constitution.—Remarkable scarcity of deaths
 Caused by old age.—Brandreth's  Universal Vegetable  Pills  the only  remedy
 against those  early inroads of corruption and decay of which premature death is invaria-
 bly the consequence.

                           SECTION III.  PAGE 12.
   Primitive state of health incompatible with the present state of society.—Purgation
 necessary to counteract the influence of artificial existence.—Strange mismanagement of
 infants.—Corruptibility in the body produced  by lack of ventilation.—Physical advanta-
 ges only to be retained by purgation.—The efficacy of the Brandrethian method op
 curing all diseases strikingly illustrated in  the cure of a boy by purgation, who had
 been grossly mismanaged by the regular practitioners, and the restoration of his health
 pronounced beyond the reach of the medical art.

                          SECTION IV.  PAGE 16.
  Absurdity of the "wisdom of our ancestors."—The follies of custom.—The way to
 knowledge  obstructed  by  superabundance of learning.—The  efficacy of  Brandreth's
Pills established  by  nearly a hundred years of experience.—Dangerous susceptibility of
the American climate to sudden changes of atmosphere.—Dr. Benjamin Franklin's opin-
ion of purgative  medicine.—Dr. Rush's evidence  of the  efficacy  of  purgation in pre-
venting disease.—Purgatives always productive of the same sahiiary  effects.—The ne-
cessity of purgation further enforced by the authority of  Lord Bacon.—Extraordinary
decrease of mortality  since the dissemination of the Brandrethian system for curing
all diseases.
                          SECTION V.   PAGE 23.
  A full  exposition  of the different causes which  produce derangement of the physical
economy.—Opinion of  Dr.Lombardof Geneva, concerning Vegetable purgatives.—Gen-
eral ignorance of practitioners as regards the origin of phthisics and tuberculous diseases
—preposterous treatment  of the same.—Vegetable medicine the only effective remedv,
both as regards the ultimate cure and prevention.— Dr.Clark's account of the ravages of
Consumption—Tuberculous diseases common amongst animals in a state of subjection
—exception in favor of dogs and cats.—Summary of the beneficial results which would
accrue to mankind from a universal adoption of the Brandrethian System.

                          SECTION VI.  PAGE 29.
  Preservation of public health.—Lamentable neglect of the principles of prevention —
 Causes winch produce  pestilence in great cities.-Origin of typhus and other contagious
fevers.—Recapitulation of the principles of corruption.—Natural and premature death —
 The meadows and  lawns whxh skirt the  banks of rivers favorable to the propagation
of fevers.-What commutes malaria.-Irnportance of being always supplied with  Dr:
 Brandreth s Pills.-Causes of d.sease  to  which the human species  is liable in warm
 cliraates.-Ph.losophical  investigation of the ultimate relations subsisting between the
 earth s surface and the human  species—Similarity  of those diseases which prevail in
 warm and cold climates-same mode of treatment.—Triumph gfBrandreth'sVegeta-
 ble Universal Pills  over all contingencies of climate, both as regards prevention  and
 the utter extirpation of disease, etc. etc. 
CO
I
PURGATION:
THE  BRANDRETHIAN   METHOD
.TREATING  DISEASES.
BY BENJAMIN BRANDBMH, XI. D.
                           <« We're not ourselves,
              When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind
              To suflfer with the body."
  This is a truism conceived by the master mind of Shakspeare, which neither sophistry
nor argument can refute.   To all those who are suffering from bilious attacks, indigestion,
and flatulency,  we  would, in all sincerity, recommend, as a# never failing remedy,
Brandreth's Pills.  The testimonials we have had  submitted to us, in favor of this
valuable medicine, fully justify our speaking of these Pills in termsof the highest praise."
                                                    London Free Press.

  Brandreth's Pills are a medicine which their own intense worth will always secure
for them a large and ready sale.  They have deservedly a high reputation ; and as a
family and anti-bilious remedy, it would be difficult to equal them among all the patent
medicines of the present day.   I                 •     New York Evening Star.

  Brandreth's Pills have been used among many of our friends, and in our own family
we have used them for nearly four years, when we required medicine: in that period, no
Doctor, save  Dr. Brandreth, has crossed our threshold, and no medicine besides the
Doctor's Pills, used.  Our belief is, " keep your bowels and blood pure," and every kind
of disease will be prevented or cured.  The Brandreth Pills are eminently calculated to
do this, and thereby much lessen the sum of human misery.        New  York Sun.
I
PUBLISHED BY  THE  AUTHOR
                    1840.
 
 
9                                                                                |

|                             CAUTION!!                             4


a •                                 —                                  i
^    Public opinion,  from whose decision there is no appeal, has been so often and so
^ loudly manifested in  favor of  BRANDRETH'S  VEGETABLE  UNIVERSAL
5| PILLS,  that it  is  not surprising  there should be found in almost every city,  town
^ and  village  of the  United States,  persons, so depraved at heart, and so utterly un-
A, biased by principles of moral rectitude,  as to manufacture a spurious article, and palm
g it off upon the unsuspecting public as the genuine medicine, from the use  of which so
k many. happy results have already accrued to humanity.   It is painful to  think that an
«& inestimable good, should be productive of direct and immediate evil, but so it is.

 •     The very excellence of Brandreth's  Vegetable Universal  Pills has  in some

8/J
^ consequence of this imposition and fraud—druggists continue to carry on their illicit and ih
M revolting traffic ; and counterfeits are as numerous and as varied in the market as if no «0
|j? denunciations had ever been made, and public indignation never been expressed.        |«
^    Since, however, this  destructive evil still  exists, and neither the fear of God, nor of |§
   earthly punishment can entirely put it down, it becomes my imperative duty again and




                                                                                  I
 1'  are universally base counterfeits, highly injurious to health.

$j    Established Agents for the genuine Brandreth's  Vegetable Universal Pills
^  are invariably furnished with an engraved Certificate, signed B. BRANDRETH, M.D. ff

£s  in my own hand-writing. This Certificate is renewed every year, and when over twelve «y«

^  months old,  it no longer guarantees the genuineness of the Medicine.   It would be well ^
^  therefore for purchasers carefully to examine the Certificate, the seal of which is neatly  f
^  embossed on the paper, in order, at leaf t, that this  safeguard against imposition may not W
4v,  be susceptible of imitation.                                                       §g

^                                                    B. BRANDRETH, M.  D.    SS
      PRINCIPAL  OFFICE,

241  BROADWAY, opposite the Citv Hall.
aarlesto
RETAIL OFFICES—No. 185 Hudson street, and 276 Bowery, N. Y.

                Philadelphia—8 North Eighth street.

                                  Pittsburg, Pa.—126 Wood street,
                                  Cincinnati—Third street,
                                  Louisville, Ky.—9fl Fourth street,
                                  New Orleans—3 Old Levee,
                                  Richmond, Va.—195 Maine street.
Nk  Bofl^P—19 Hanover street,
Sg  Charleston, S. C—70 Meeting street,
'%£  Baltimore, corner of Light & Mercer sts.
ZJN  St. Louis, Mo.—56J Market street,
 ,   Montreal—98 Notre Dame street,


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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
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