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CARIOSITIES OF  COMMON WATER 
 
          CURIOSITIES
                     OF

COMMON   WAT E  R:
                     OK,
          THE ADVANTAGES THEREOF IN-

   PREVENTING AND CURING MANY DISEASES.
                 GATHERED FROM
1HK WRITINGS OF  SEVERAL  EMINENT PHYSICIANS, AND ALSO
      FROM MORE THAN FORTY YEARS'^EXPERIENCE.
BY JOHN S^IITH, C. M
TO WHICH ARK ADDED
Some EttUs for flrcsennwj £}ealtl) bt> EDi*t.
Tuat's the bent physic which doth cure our ill*
Without the charge of 'potheniries' bills.
    FROM THE FIFTH LONDON EDITION, 1723,

      WITH ADDITIONS BY JOEL SHEW, )I.D. en/'^,
                                     %
             STEREOTYPE D.         ,J

            NEW  YORK:
FOWLERS AND WELLS, 131 NASSAU STREET.
              LONDON:
    C. DONOVAN. 7 KING WILLIAM STREET.
                 185 1. 
\AiZ
 230

  I85|
F>'/^   £j»#f
in
       Entered, neeonling to Act of Congress, in the yenr 1813,

              13V FOWLERS  AND WELLS,

the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern DWtrict ot New York.
    BASER k PALMER, STERKOTYFKRJ,
i.01 Willi .m street, coruer of Frankfort, W. Y. 
PREFACE,
  It is sometimes  said by objectors to the modern water-cure,
that the system is no new thing;  that water has always been re-
garded as one of the best of all remedial agents ; and that therefore
it is a fallacy to set  up a claim for a new system, the great reme-
dial agent of which is as old as any other known.   But it need
only be remarked in  reference to this  pretended objection, that
every advocate of the modern  water-treatment claims for  water
antiquity in Us use.   The objection, therefore, has no weight.
  The following  work,  copied  from the fifth  London  edition, of
1723, is a proof that the virtues of simple water were better known
at that period than  at a much later date.   The work is n valuable
one, and in the hands of our energetic publishers, will be the means
of doing at least some  good, which is more than can be said of a
majority of books now-a-days published.
   The additions we have made are included in brackets, and may
thus be easily distinguished from the body of the original work.
   With the full belief that this work will prove useful  to many
who are personally  interested in the subject of health, it is given to
the American public.
                                                    J  S.
   New York, 1849. 
 
1
                  THE

CURIOSITIES  OF  COMMON WATER,
  For the benefit of mankind in general, I have taken
pains  to  give  the world  an  account of what I have
found written in  the works of the most eminent physi-
cians, concerning the good that mankind may receive
from the  use of common water;  and of the information
I have had concerning the benefits thereof from others
by word  of mouth ;  and of what I have discovered by
my own experience, from frequent  trials during  a time
that hath intervened from that of thirty to seventy-four
years of  age ;  which is sufficient to confirm the stupen-
dous effects  thereof in many particulars, that shall be
mentioned as  my own  discovery with respect  to this
excellent remedy, which will  perform cures with very
little trouble, and without any charge, and is also to be
had wherever  there  are any  habitations, which is what
can hardly be said of any other thing.  So that in some
sense, water may be truly styled an  universal remedy,
since the diseases it either prevents or cures may have
this remedy applied  to all persons,  and in all  places
where men do inhabit.

               EXCELLENCY OF WATER.
  The first  commendation of common water that  I
shall mention, is  that which is written concerning it by
Dr. Manwaring,  in his Method and Means of enjoying 
H
BENEFITS IKOM WATER DRINKING.
Health, wherein he saith, that water  is a  wholesome
drink, or rather the most wholesome, being appointed
for man in his best state ; which doth strongly argue
that  drink  to  be the most suitable  for  human nature,
answering  all the intentions  of common drinks, for  it
cools, moistens, and  quencheth thirst; it is  clear, thin,
and fit to convey the nourishment through the  smallest
vessels of the  body, and is a drink that is a rule  to  it-
self,  and requires  little caution in  the use  of  it, since
none will  be tempted  to drink of it more  than needs;
and that in the primitive ages of the world, water-drink-
ers, he says, were the  longest livers by some hundreds
of years, nor  so often sick and complaining as we are.
   Dr. Keill, when he treats concerning the stomach, in
his Abridgment of the Anatomy of Human Bodies, saith,
that water seems the fittest to promote digestion of the
food which we eat;  all spirituous liquors having a pro-
perty by which they hurt rather than help digestion,
the  sad effects of which  they are  sensible  of,  he saith,
who, by a long use thereof, have  lost their appetites,
hardly ever to be restored without drinking water, which
seldom faileth of procuring a good appetite and a strong
digestion.  With which Dr. Baynard does agree in that
affirmation, " that water liquefies and concocts  our food
better than any  fomented liquor whatever."—Hist, of
 Cold Bathing, p. 440.
   Dr. Prat, in his Treatise of Mineral Waters, shows it
 to be his judgment, that if people would accustom them-
 selves  to  drink water, they  would  be more free from
 many diseases, such as tremblings, palsies, apoplexies,
 giddiness, pains in the head, gout, stone, dropsy, rheu-
 matism, piles, and such like; which diseases  are most
 common  among  them that  drink  strong  drinks, and 
COOLING OF  THB BLOOU.
9
which  water generally would prevent.  Moreover, he
also saith, that  water plentifully drank, strengthens the
stomach,  causeth  an   appetite,  preserves  the  sight,
maketh the senses  lively, and cleanseth all the passages
of the  body, especially those of the kidneys and bladder.
   It is also said by Dr. Duncan, in his Treatise of Hot
Liquors,  that  when  men contented  themselves  with
water  they had more health and strength ; and that at
this day those who drink nothing but water are  more
healthy, and  live  longer  than those who drink strong
liquors, which  raises the heat  of the stomach to excess,
whereas water keeps it in a due temper.  And he adds
in another part of the  book, that by  hot liquor the  blood
is inflamed ;  and such whose  blood is inflamed live not
so long as those who  are of a cooler temper.  A hot
blood  being  commonly the cause of fluxes, rheums, ill
dige^ion, pains in the limbs, headache, dimness of sight,
and especially  of  hysteric vapors.   He also imputes
the cause of uloers to  a hot blood, and declares, that if
men kept their blood cool  and sweet  by  a moderate
and cooling  diet, they would never  be  troubled  with
ulcers or  other breakings-out.  Which coolness of the
blood  will be well performed by  drinking a large draught
of water in the morning, which  will  carry off the bilioua
and salt recrements by urine.   And if water  is  drank
also after dinner, it will cool a hot stomach, and prevent
the rising of  those  fermentations  which cause  winds
and belching after meat, so that if persons who are lia-
ble to these  disorders, will  leave off strong liquors and
a hot  diet, and drink water, they  will  procure better
health to  themselves than they had  before.
   Sir  John Floyer, also, in  his  Treatise of  Cold Baths,
does affirm  (p. 109,  edition 5), that water-drinkers are 
10
WATER GOOD  FOR GOUT.
temperate in their actions, prudent, and ingenious ; they
live safe from those diseases which affect the head ; such
as apoplexies,  palsies, pain,  blindness, deafness,  gout,
convulsions, trembling, madness ; and the  drinking of
water  cures  the  hiccough, fcetor of the  mouth, and of
the whole body;  it resists putrefaction, and cools burn-
ing heats and thirsts, and after dinner it helps digestion.
And if the virtues of cold water were seriously consid-
ered, all persons  would value  it as a great  medicine, in
preventing the stone, asthma, and hysteric  fits; and to
the use of this  children ought to be  bred up from their
cradles.  And in  page 434 he saith, that  as water is in
chief the universal  drink of the  world, so it is  the best
and  most salubrious.  And in  page 437, that  he hath
known where a regular  drinking of spring water hath
done considerable cures, by washing off the acrid, scor-
butic salts from the blood, and strengthening the^oats
and fibres of the stomach and bowels, and hath brought
on a good appetite and strong digestion:
  [Sir  John FJoyer also says : " That good  pure water
has a  balsamic and healing quality in it, I could give
many instances, as well externally in curing wounds, as
internally in ulcers, excoriations, etc., for I once knew a
gentleman of plentiful fortune, who by  some  accident
fell to  decay, and,  having  a numerous family  of small
children, while the  father was a prisoner at the King's
Bench, his family was reduced almost  to want, his wife
and children living  on little other than bread and water.
But I never saw such a change in six months,  as  I  did
in this  unhappy family; for the children that  were al-
ways ailing and  valetudinary,  as with  coughs, king's  «
evil, etc., were recovered to a miracle, looked fresh,
well colored, and lusty, their flesh hard and plump."] 
         WATER STRENGTHENS THE STOMACH.       11

  Having read over an  old  book, written by one Sir
Thomas Elliot, entitled The Castle of Health, he there
declared from his own experience, that in the county of
Cornwall, though it was a very cold quarter, the poorer
sort, which in his  time did never, or but very seldom,
drink any other drinks but water, were strong of body
and lived to a very great age ; to which relation that of
Sir Henry Blount is very agreeable, who affirmed in his
book  of  Travels  into  the  Levant (where,  under the
Turkish government, the use  of wine  was forbid, and
where the common drink is water),  that he then had  a
better stomach to  his food, and digested it more  kindly
than he ever did before or since.
   And in  the Treatise  of the  Vanity of Philosophy,
written by Dr. Gideon  Harvey, it  is affirmed by him,
that it is not  heat that causeth a  good digestion, but a
proper ferment, or liquor, provided by nature, to dissolve
the food into a substance like unto pap made with fine
flour, which dissolvent, he saith, is much depraved by hot
spirituous liquors; and therefore  he commends water
above all other drinks to promote digestion.
   [Hahn, a German physician, says : " Water does not,
 as some suppose, weaken the stomach, but  increases the
appetite, as may be seen by the  larger quantity of food
taken at mea%  Those who make this assertion contra-
 dict themselves ; for a debilitant stomach requires a less,
 and not a larger quantity of food.   Others imagine that
 by drinking water they lose their color and flesh.  Even
 if this were  the case, and they did become a little paler
 and thinner, such  a loss is not to be compared with the
 general improvement of health which is obtained there-
 by.  It yet remains to be shown, whether a protuberant
 stomach, with swollen, flabby, puffed-out cheeks, is to be 
12
WATER rilOMOVlYE  OF HEALTH.
 preferred to a more slender shape, and a  thinner face ;
 or whether the rude country glow  of health, with rosy
 cheeks, is not to be preferred to that pale and sickly hue
 so much  admired by  people  of fashion.   But  water-
 drinkers  generally retain their flesh  and  healthy color.
 A few, however, who had swollen, flabby, or spongy
 flesh, and therefore unhealthy, have  in appearance be-
 come thinner, and lost their puffiness,  having exchanged
 it for a firm and compact flesh, therefore healthy.  Those
 who, from the use of ardent spirits and thick, glutinous
 beverages, as beer, brandy, etc., have  got reddened, vio-
 let copper-colored faces, have not by drinking water be-
 come pale, but have exchanged  their violet or  purple
 redness for a more natural color.  Every  man, I think,
 ought to  be satisfied with such  a change."
  Dr. Cbevne, of  Dublin, says: "I had once the  oppor-
 tunity of inquiring into the  habits of  the workmen of a
large glass  factory.   They generally wrought from
 twenty-four to thirty-six hours at a time, according as
 the furnace continued in a proper state, and I found dur-
 ing this time,  which was  technically called  a  journey,
that  to supply the waste  caused by perspiration, they
drank a large quantity of water, in  the quality of which
they  were very curious; it was  the  puryt and  softest
 water in  the district, and was  brought from  a  distance
of two miles.  There were three men out  of more than
one  hundred, that drank nothing but water;  the rest
drank porter or ardent spirits.   The three  water-drink-
ers appeared to be of their proper age, while the rest,
with  scarcely an exception, seemed ten or twelve years
older than they proved to be."
  The  editor of the  London Lancet, about four years
 since, said:  " If we  could  always peisuade a  patient 
ZIMMERMAN.
13
who consults us for the first fit of the gout, to annk wa-
ter for the rest of his  life, to take exercise, and to di-
minish  by half the amount of animal  food he is in the
habit of taking, there  would be bwt little chance  of a
return of the attack."
   Zimmerman, the author of the well-known  work on
Solitude, and physician to Frederick  the Great, king of
Prussia, strongly recommended water.   " Water," says
he, ''does not chill the ardor of genius."   He instances
Demosthenes, whose sole drink was water.   '• Pure soft
water is the most suitable drink for man."]

        GOUT AND HYPOCHONDRIAC  MELANCHOLY

   Water-drinking is also  said by Dr. Allen to be gcod
to prevent two deplorable distempers;  the gout and the
hypochondriac  melancholy.  For, says he, the gout is
generally caused  by the too great drinking of fermented
liquors, and is never said to have assaulted any drinker
of water; and he saith also, that melancholy hypochon-
dria is  kept off longest by drinking water instead of
strong drink.  To which  let me add, that I once knew
a gouty gentleman, who, to avoid his drinking compan-
ions in London, retired to  New  Brentford, where I then
lived ; in which town,  by  a very temperate diet of one
meal a day, and drinking only water, he lived two whole
years free from pain.   But being visited by one who
came that way, and invited to drink  but  one bottle of
claret between  them, he fell next day into a terrible  fit
of the gout, which held above a month  after; of which
being recovered, he, by the same course, continued well
till I left the place, which  was about  a  year and a half
after. 
14       WATER FOR  THE CUKE OF GRAVEL.
           WATER PREVENTS THE GRAVEL.

  The good properties of water are further manifested
in preventing the breeding of gravel in the kidneys ; for
Zechias, in Consult. 17, as  he is quoted  by Salmon, af-
firms, that nothing does so much abate the heat of the
kidneys, and  free them  from those recrements which
cause pain in  the back, one great sign of gravel, as wa-
ter does ; but he adviseth  to drink  it warm, by the use
of which, he saith, the unnatural heat jn time will be so
extinguished, that no more of that matter causing gravel
will be produced in the body.  Which assertion by ex-
perience I have found to be  true ; for observing much
gravel to be voided by me, as also abundance of matter
floating in the urine like bran, with a great number of
recrements like cuttings of  hair, some above  an inch
long, which substances were  found in all the water that
I  made in above twelve months, for which I could get
no remedy, I was advised  to  drink  water, which in
about half a year did  entirely free me from those svmp-
toms, which some out of ignorance imputed to witch-
craft, so that from that time to this present I never have
been troubled with it.

               STONE IN THE BLADDER.

  Water also is commended  as efficacious to  prevent
the breeding of the stone in the bladder, for it hath been
observed that in some who have been cut for the stone,
that  new stones have been engendered, so  that  some
young persons  have  been cut several times.   Now to
prevent this, the drinking of water hath been advised with
success; for  by this that intemperate heat in the body 
WATER A CURE  FOR  STONE.
15
was abated, which did  occasion the distemper.  Some
have advised  to drink it warm, and others cold, and in
particular, Van Heydon, a physician of Ghent, in Flan-
ders, in his book, entitled "Help for the Rich and Poor;"
which, he saith. in p. 49, is  sufficiently insinuated by
Piso and Alexander, who do assure us, that the taking
a draught of  cold water  in the morning  hath  done so
much good, that  several! after the voiding of a stone,
never had ar^ more stones grow in them.
   Which experiment may give light to the discovery of
a  way to cure the  stone  without cutting;  for if the
growing of new  stones can be prevented by drinking
water, let it be hot or cold, it may prevent a stone  from
growing bigger when begun; and if the adding matter
to increase a  stone new begun, can  be prevented, na-
ture in time may  waste that which is begun, especially
if some drops of sweet  spirit of nitre be added to all the
water drank, which will  powerfully  help to cool, and  is
known to be  an admirable mover or  provoker of urine,
and will waste a stone, and make it crumble like fuller's
earth, if applied  to a stone taken from the  body.  Or
the water may be sweetened with honey, which is now
much in use among the gentry, as I  am informed by an
ingenious apothecary;  who told  me that among them
at present, pump-water and honey was in great repute
to give ease  in gravel: and there is  so near an affinity
 between gravel  and the stone, that what is proper for
one will be suitable to  both, and will prevent the grow-
 ing of both. 
16
WATER DURING PREGNANCY.
         WATER  BENEFICIAL  IN CHILD-BEARING.

  Water is also  styled in Sennertus's works, the balsam
of children, the drinking of it by the mother being one
of those things whereby children may be  strengthened
in the womb, and will prevent  those injuries that are
done them by drinking strong liquors ; which Sampson's
mother was not allowed to do, for she was commanded
not to drink wine or strong drink.—Judg^ii. 4.   But I
will not say, if all women should  do  this, their children
shall be as strong as Sampson was ; yet this I will say,
if they would  do this, they would find their children
more free from diseases and frowardness,  and so  much
more easy to nurse and  bring up, and be less liable to
an immature death; the want of which abstinence from
strong drinks is the cause why so many rich people find
it hard to bring  up children, in  comparison to what is
done by the poor ; for these last are born  of mothers
who not only are prevented from being gluttons by their
want of dainties, which are deceitful meat (Prov. xxiii. 3),
but they seldom taste wine or strong drink ; whereas,
the rich not only feed high,  but  they also  drink strong
drinks, which in  most  constitutions do overheat and cor-
rupt the humors of the body, and that blood by which
their children arc nourished during pregnancy.  Which
injury to unborn infants  would  be  prevented,  if  the
mother would  be temperate in diet, and drink water, es-
pecially at meals, by which the blood of the mother would
be kept cool  and  clean ; which must needs  communicate
a healthful substance to the child within her, and prevent
all  those distempers which infants do bring with them
into the world. 
WATER FOR THE  HUNGRY.
17
         WATER INCREASES MILK  IN  WOMEN.

  And here it may be proper to add, what by divers
experiments hath been found  to be true, that the drink-
ing water by nurses  while they give suck to children,
will wonderfully increase milk in those that want  it, as
every one will find, who can be persuaded to make use
thereof.  I have advised  many to make use of it, who
have found that by drinking a large draught of water at
bed-lime, they have  been supplied with milk sufficient
for that night, when before, they wanted it  and  could
not be supplied by any other  means: and besides, they
who have found their children restless, by reason of too
much  heat in their milk, do find  them much more quiet
after their milk is cooled by water-drinking.

                WATER STAYS HUNGER.

   By drinking water  also, the want  of food for a time
may be suffered without  starving; for I have  been in-
formed by a credible friend, who was an officer at sea,
that being sent  down to Stafford to take  care to see
some men conveyed on shipboard, that had been pressed
by act of  Parliament for the sea-service, he  found  in
the prison where  they were  kept, a lusty fellow, who
had declared he would starve himself rather than go to
sea ;  and taking particular notice thereof, he found upon
due inquiry, that for twenty days he had refused to ,3at
any manner of food, only he drank each day about three
pints or two quarts of water, hoping thereby to get him-
self discharged : but when he found  his pretensions  to
be in vain, and that  in about two days they should all
march for London, he condescended to eat some food,
             2* 
18         WATER A PREVENTION OF MANIA.

beginning with a little, and in the march  he was ob-
served to travel as well  as the best man.  I find  also
an account in Dr. Car's letters, of a certain crack-brained
man, who, at Leyden, when the doctor resided in  that
university, pretended he could fast as long as Christ did ;
and it was found that he held  out the time of forty days
without eating any food, only he drank water and smoked
tobacco.   And I once had a sad complaint from a poor
old woman of  the greatness of her want, affirming  that
oftentimes she had not eaten any food for two or three
days ; upon which I asked her, if she did not then suffer
much uneasiness in her stomach ?  She said  she did ;
but found a way at last to assuage her hunger by drink-
ing water, which did satisfy her appetite.
  [The living body may be compared to a perpetual fur-
nace, which has a tendency constantly, by evaporation,
to become dry.  Its natural temperature internally, 98°
Fahrenheit, is  much above that of  the surrounding ob-
jects of nature, and hence this result.   If all  food  and
water are for a length of time withheld from the animal,
he becomes parched and  feverish ; in a few  days,  at
most, delirium  supervenes, and if the experiment be con-
tinued any considerable time,  death is the inevitable re-
sult.   A human being dies in about  three weeks without
food or water;  but  if the indication of thirst is an-
swered by a free supply of pure soft water, the individ-
ual lives more than twice that length of time.
  In the "Transactions  of the Albany Institute," for
1830, Dr. McNaughton relates the case  of one Reuben
Kelsey, a religious maniac, twenty-seven years of  age,
who lived on water alone for fifty-three days.   The
first  six weeks he was able to walk out every day, and
sometimes spent a great part of the day in the woods. 
WATER FOR CHILDREN.
19
His walk was said to be steady and firm, and his friends
even remarked  that his step had an unusual elasticity.
He shaved himself until about a week before his death,
and was  able to sit up in  bed to the last day.  And in
the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Dec. 13, 1848,
Dr. W. V. Edmonson, of East New Market, Md., gives
an account of a gentleman of that  vicin"ty, aged eighty-
five years, who had lived, eschewing  all nourishment
except air and water, for forty-three days and five hours.
His bowels were moved the first twenty days, once ; the
next fifteen days, twice; the remaining eight days, three
times.  He had been indisposed some ten days prior to
the  period of  fasting.  He was  a man  of industrious
habits, frugal, and temperate.]

         WATER STRENGTHENS  WEAK  CHILDREN.

   Water is also of great use  to  strengthen weak chil-
dren, for we are informed by Dr.  Joseph  Browne, in his
treatise of cures performed by cold baths,  that the Welsh
women do preserve their children from  the rickets, by
washing them night and  morning  in cold water, till they
are three quarters of a year old (p. 79).  And it is said by
Sir John Floyer, in his treatise of cold baths, that a lady
in Scotland, who  had  lost several  children through
weakness, did,  by the advice of a highland beggar wo-
man, preserve those  she  had afterward,  by washing
them daily in  cold water.  And  I myself did  advise a
neighbor, whose child began to be rickety, to  treat the
 child in the same manner;  but she, instead of washing,
 dipped it over head and ears every morning, it being
 then in  the summer time: the event of which was, the
 child  became  strong, and had  a good countenance, 
20               CURE  FOR  RICKETS.
though before, it was in  the  face  very pale  and wan.
Which shows how great the  power of water is, when
used outwardly to invigorate  the spirits, and strengthen
nature.
  [Sir John Floyer says : "It is a Welsh  saying, 'that
no child has the rickets unless it has a dirty slut for a
71U?'SC.' "
  Sudden cold  immersions, in cases of infants and  chil
dren suffering from  rickets, was long a favorite remedy
with the English.   Dr. Baynard wrote, in 170G, as fol-
lows, concerning the causes of rickets :  " As to the  rick-
ets, it was a distemper in England  almost worn out, but
now it begins  to come in play again.   But in the time
of King Charles I.,  it was almost epidemical, few fami-
lies escaping it; especially those that were rich and op-
ulent, and put their children out to nurse ; where, through
unnatural usage, and vicious, disagreeable milk, the infant
was soon spoiled by contracting from the drunken nurse,
cacocymious juices; hence,  with  the growing infant,
grew up  the boot fashion for the men, and long coats  for
the women ; for they were so ashamed at  their crooked
bgs, that they  wore boots to hide them.  And this be-
ginning at court (among  the gentry), the straight-legged
fools must follow the fashion, and  wear boots too, with
great boot-hose tops of fine linen, laced, etc., and jingling
spur:?, which gave  occasion  to the then witty Spanish
ambassador at  his return home, to jest upon our follies ;
for being asked by  his master, the  Spanish king, if Lon-
don were a populous city ? he answered it was.  ' Was !'
replied the king; 'why, is it not so now?' 'No,'quoth the
ambassador,' I believe they are  gone ere  this, for they
were all booted before I  came out of town.'
   "These nurses spoil and destroy, through neglect and 
                 CARE OF CHILDREN.              21

want of (true mother) tenderness, two thirds of the poor
infants committed to their care.  A very pious and good
man, minister at this time of a certain town not far from
London, on the banks of  the river of Thames, told  me,
with a great deal of sorrow and concern, that it was the
greatest trouble he had in the world  to see, even in his
own parish, how many children were sacrificed yearly
to the barbarous treatment and  ill usage of their nurses,
what with bad milk of their own, and feeding the young
infant with mixed meats  and drinks, as yeasty new ale,
or stale beer, etc., which  makes it puke, or gives it the
gripes, from  green, porraceous bile, etc.   Then it has
the worms, forsooth, and  must be physicked the nurse's
way, by some neighboring drunken old  woman, or fa-
vorite quack or apothecary, who vouches for the nurse's
care, that its  time was  come,  and  no more could be
done;  and this dismal alarm  is posted  to the  parents
two hours after it is dead, to haste down, the child being
suddenly taken very ill, and that usually when it  is over-
laid, or choaked with hard bandage, etc.  Down comes
madam, the mother, furbelowed, with an  erected rump
(crying and  bellowing), and running about half mad, like
a cow stung with a gad-fly, and  with her maid laden
with pots, glasses, Venice-treacle, goody Kent's powder,
goat-stone,  black-cherry-water, etc.   And   after  her,
Easie, her husband, with a coach-and-four, and perhaps
a braee of doctors, or some  famous child's apothecary,
etc.  And thus the parents are kept in the dark, and tho
murder of  their children stifled, when all  this might
have  been avoided, by bringing the child up by hand,
at  home, under  the  mother's eye, if through  weakness,
or want of milk or good  nipples, yhe could not  nurse it
herself."] 
22
WATER A CURE FOR  BRUISES.
              SWELLINGS FROM  BRUISES.

  It is  also a known  custom, to prevent  the swellings
that follow bruises  in  the faces of children, by  immedi-
ately applying thereunto a linen cloth, four or six times
double, dipped in cold water, and new dipping it  as it
begins to  grow warm; for the cold repels or prevents
the flowing  of humors to  the part,  which otherwise
would  cause  great swelling, and  after  turn  blackish.
And if, upon neglecting* to do so, a swelling should suc-
ceed, it may be discussed by fomenting night and morn-
ing, for an hour at a time, with water as  hot as can be
endured ;  for that will give vent to the humors  to trans-
pire through the skin, or dissolve them, so as to  make
them capable of returning back.


  SICKNESS AT  THE STOMACH  AND VOMITING  BY  WATER.

   Moreover, by means of water all sickness at the
 stomach  may be cured, which  is done thus : Take four
quarts of water, make it as hot over the fire as you can
 drink it; of which water let a quart be taken  down at
 several draughts ; then wrap a rag round a small piece
 of stick, till it  is about the bigness of a  man's thumb;
 tie- it fast with some thread ; and with this, by endeavor-
 ing gently to put it a little  way down your throat, pro-
 voke yourself to  vomit up again most  of the water;
 then drink another quart and vomit up that, and repeat
 the same the third and fourth time.   You may also pro-
 voke vomiting by tickling your throat with your finger,
 or the feather-end of a goose-quill; but the cloth  round
 a skewer maketh one vomit with most  ease, which is 
RELIEF FOR STOMACH SICKNESS.
23
done with no trouble when the stomach is full. And by
this way of vomiting, which will be all performed in an
hour's time, that vicious and ropy phlegm in the stomach,
which causeth  the sickness, will be cast  up, so that the
party in that time will  be free  from all that inward
disturbance, if  you use  the remedy at first;  but  if the
sickness hath continued  for a time, it will require the
same course once  or twice more, which may be done in
three or four hours, one after another, without any other
inconvenience, besides that of being a little sore in the
breast the  next day, which will soon go off by the force
of nature.   Which remedy, by forty  years' experience,
I look upon to be infallible in all sickness at the stomach,
from what cause  soever, and for all pains in the belly
which  seem to be  above  the navel; for these are all in
the stomach, as by long experience I have found : which
pains are generally counted the colic; but it is not so; for
true colics are always below the navel,  in the large in-
testine, or  colon.  And by this means  I have eased very
great pains, caused by eating muscles that were poison-
ous ; and it is also a certain cure for all  surfeits or dis-
orders that follow after much eating ;  so that the lives of
multitudes might be saved by this means, who, for want
of expelling what offends, do often die in misery.  For,
by thus cleansing the stomach at the first, the  root of
diseases proceeding  from  surfeiting, or unwholesome
food, or any vicious  humors from a  bad digestion, are
 prevented ; the stomach  being the place in which all dis-
tempers do at  first begin.  No man was more subject to
sickness than  myself before thirty  years of age; but
since I found out the way of vomiting with water, which
is now  above forty years, I never have been sick for
two days  together;  for  when I find myself ill  to any 
21     WARM  WATER DRINKING IN  THE MORNING.

great degree, I betake myself to this way of vomiting,
which in an hour's time restores me to ease, and perfect-
ly removes my illness.  And the same  benefit all my
family find in it, as do others also, whom I can persuade
to try the  experiment; which is such, that no physician
whatever  can advise a better to the king himself, should
he fall sick.  For, in the first  place, it is not a nauseous
remedy—it does not make the patient sick, as the  best
of all other vomits do ;  and then it is  a  vomit which is
at our own command, since we can leave off when we
please; and it infallibly  works a cure  to all sick stom-
achs.
   Some few, indeed, pretend they are not able to vomit
by this means.  Now, if they  cannot  vomit, let  them
take a pint of water, when they find themselves ill from
eating, and do  so every three or lour hours, eating no
more till they are hungry ; and they will find the water
digest and carry off what was offensive.  The ingenious
Dr.  Cheyne, in his Treatise of the Gout,  doth affirm,
that warm water drank freely in a  morning fasting, and
at meals (and I say cold  water is  as  good),  hath been
a  sovereign  remedy  for restoring lost appetites, and
strengthening weak digestions, when other more  pomp-
ous medicines have failed.  And he adviseth gouty per-
sons, after excess either in meat or drink, to swill down
as much fair water as their stomachs will  bear, before
they go to  bed, whereby they will reap  these advan-
tages—either the contents of the stomach will be thrown
up, or both  meat and drink will  be much diluted, and
the labor and expense of spirits in digestion much saved.
And indeed I have found, by long experience, that no-
thing causeth so good a digestion as fair  water; but
this requires time to free us from the uneasiness that an 
WATER-VOMITING.
25
ill digestion causeth, whereas vomiting  is an immediate
remedy, and frees a man from it upon the spot.*


  * Ai sea, on our homeward  passage from  England, ship Switzerland,
Captain  K.  Knight, November 29th,  1846,  1  was infurmed that Mrs.
W----, a worthy English woman,  with a young  infant  at the breast,
\vi>hi'tl niu to see her iu the  steerage.   I found  her writhing and  groan-
ing with  cramp in the stomach ; the  extremeties were cold and the sur-
face pale.  She could not lie, but was in a sitting posture, held by assist-
ants.   The wind was howling through the shrouds, and thi motion of the
ve-*el  mi great  that one was compelled to  lay hold of any thing near in
order  to stand.   I inquired  whether  Mrs. W----had been eating any
thiiiK that disagreed, when I was told that her bowels had been  out of
order  for some days.  She  had lately taken her meals irregularly, and
ihisday, particularly, her food had gone badly.  She ate about  evening,
and this had made her worse ;  then,  in about an hour, a kind-hearted old
gentleman prepared a nice  dish  of coffee, with spices in it, which he
thought would do her good.  This, of course, only made her the worse.
  The treatment in such cases is simple and easily understood.  Accord-
ing to  the old mode of practice, some would adopt the plan of giving an
emetic, tartarized antimony,  ipecac, the sulphates of copper or zinc, flour
of mustard, or perhaps, what would  be least harmful and  most efficient
of all these, lobelia inflata.   By such means the patient may often  be re-
lieved  ; but it is always at the expense of injury to the stomach—an evil,
greater or less, which should, if possible, be avoided.  If the patient is a
short, thick-necked, fat person, and something advanced in years,  bleed-
ing would be practiced before giving  the emetic, with the view of pre-
venting apoplexy.  Otheia, again, would give large doses of some opiate,
aolid opium, or, what would act more quickly, laudanum in very large doses,
as forty, fifty, or even sixty drops, often repeated till the effect is produc-
ed.   Those who have undergone any of these (to us terrible modes), and
have also tested the effects of water-treatment iu like cases, can  judge as
to which are best.
  I told Mrs. W----I should  treat  her differently from what  she had
been accustomed to, but would do  precisely as if myself were in her
case.   I at once ordered an  abundance of water, about blood-wartn, to
make it as mawkish as  might be.  She then drank, at my direction, as
quickly as possible, a number of tumblers, and instantly copious vomiting
took place.  A large amount of acid  and undigested matters was thrown
off.   She drank and vomited again  and again, till the  stomach became
thoroughly cleansed. The pain subsided, and she went to rest;  the feet
were rubbed, and  a bottle of moderately warm water was placed  to them,
and she 9oon slept.  Next day she nearly fasted, taking only a little wa
ter-gruel.  She had no pain, grew  stronger, and iu every respect better.
                 3 
20               SHORTNESS OF BREATH.

  We are told by Sir John Floyer, in his  Treatise of
Bath  and Mineral  Springs, that vomiting  with water is
very  useful in the  gout, sciatica, flatulency, shortness of
breath, hypochondriac melancholy, and falling sickness ;
which distempers  are usually derived  from  evil  matter
contained in the stomach, as is likewise giddiness in the
head, and  apoplexies, with which myself once  seemed
to be threatened ;  for, after  eating a plentiful dinner, I
was seized with giddiness, and the sight of my eyes be-
came so  depraved, that  things  seemed  double, which
was accompanied  by a strange consternation of spirit;
and  having  read  that apoplexies generally  seize  after
eating,  I immediately called for  water, and  not  daring
to stay till it was  warmed, I drank it  cold, and  by the
help of my finger  provoked vomiting, upon  which  I did
immediately overcome the evils I was threatened with ;
the symptoms before mentioned  being the same as did
precede the  fit  of an apoplexy  in another  person,  as
himself afterward  told me, who  died of it the third fit,
about a year after,

           WATER   IN SHORTNESS  OF BREATH.
  As for  people  who  are troubled  with shortness of
She omitted tea and coffee, and was careful in diet, exercised on deck in
the open air, and thus grew better and better the whole passage.
  In some cases of this  kind it is necessary, besides the vomiting,  to give
injections.  There is no danger of vomiting and purging too much, pro-
vided the water is pure, and used neither  too cold nor hot.  Quart after
quart of lukewarm injections may be given, until the  alimentary canal is
thoroughly cleansed, and the pain removed.  Frictions upon the bowels,
woolen cloths, or towels, wrung out of warm water, and the like,  may be
resorted to.  I have never, in one instance, failed soon to bring relief in
these cases.  Once in a hundred, spasm may be so severe that the wet
Bheet will be needed before complete relief can be obtained.  Mark well
the very small amount only of food allowable for some days after attacks
of this kind.— Water-Cure Manual, by Joel Shew, M.  D. 
VOMITING AND  CHOLERA MORBUS.
27
breath, it is certain from experience, that vomiting with
warm water three or four times will afford certain  re-
lief.   And the same may be prevented by drinking  no-
thing but water afterward, either cold, or warmed with
a toast; for upon doing this, the difficulty of breathing
will apparently abate;  which water, if you please, may
be boiled  with honey.  And I  knew one who, by  this
means, as lie was advised  by me, lived comfortably in
this city two or three  winters;  but, having undertaken
business which did occasion drinking strong drinks, was
the next winter carried off by the distemper; wine,  ale,
and  brandy, being as bad as poison to people troubled
with  shortness of breath.   So that nothing  but water
ought to be drank in that distemper.

   WATER PREVENTS  VOMITING AND CHOLERA  MORBUS.

   Some people  are taken  with violent vomiting,  and
 the excess thereof in some hath been so  great as to en-
 danger their  lives—yea, cause death:  in  which  case
 water will be very helpful;  for if a pint of  it  warmed
 be drank  after every vomit, it will prevent that violent
 straining, wherein Iieth the danger of all vomiting, be-
 cause to strain violently, when  but little will come up,
 does endanger the  breaking  of  some  inward vessel.
 And besides this, the  offending matter  will be sooner
 loosened  from the internal part of that bowel, the stom-
 ach, and  cast out, upon which  the vomiting will sooner
 cease.  For after this manner  the famous Sydenham, a
 most honest writer,  did  overcome the cholera morbus,
 or vomiting and looseness, so common in his time, and
 was found by the weekly bill to kill more than now die
 of convulsions;  for his way  was to boil a chicken in 
28
BLOODY FLUX.
four  gallons of water,  which made a broth not much
differing from water, of which he ordered large draughts
to be given, and some of it to be taken by clyster, till
the whole quantity was spent, if the vomiting did not
stop before; which did so take off the sharpness of the
matter offending, and wash  it out, that the  party in a
little time became well.   And the same was the prac-
tice of Sigismundus Grasius, who commends pure water,
in a vomiting and looseness, to be drank in large quanti-
ties ; for thereby, he  saith, the corrosive and sham hu-
mors will  be so weakened, that  they will  no more
offend.   And, he saith, it may be drank cold, if the pa-
tient be strong; otherwise let it be warmed.

                       FLUXES.

   And in common  fluxes without vomiting, a quart or
more of  warm  water drank,  will so weaken the sharp-
ness whereby the distemper  is caused, that it will soon
be overcome, and the gripings eased ;  and in the bloody
flux, which is the most dangerous of all fluxes, the inge-
nious Cornelius Celsus  adviseth a large drinking of cold
water as the best of remedies: but then no other  sub-
stance must be  taken  till the disease is cured.   And
another  great  physician, by name  Lusitanus, affirms
(Cent. I. Obser. 46), "that he knew one, who, being in
the summer time afflicted with the bloody flux, did drink
a large quantity of cold water, and did thereby recover.
This large quantity of water, therefore, in  these fluxes,
doth so correct the sharpness of the humor offending, thai
it can have no  power to cause pain, or corrode  the ves-
sels, and cause bloody digestions or stools." 
CONSUMPTION  AND ERUPTIONS.
29
              WATER IN  CONSUMPTION.

  Water.also is a drink that conduceth above all things
to cure consumptive  people, for the digestion  being
weakened, is the cause of producing a hot fretting nour-
ishment, which is injurious to the tender substance of
the lungs, and which constringes and stops ifp the lym-
phatic  vessels  through  which  the  nourishment is to
pass to all the  parts ; so that by degrees the body, for
want of due supplies, consumes : which obstructions, and
that acrimony which causeth them, will  be opened  and
sweetened by the plentiful use of water, if taken before
the lungs  become ulcerous.   Which cure of consump-
tions by water is recommended in  the  writings of Dr.
Couch, who, in his "Praxis Catholica," tells us, that he
knew a man  cured  very soon by drinking pure water.
And it is said  by another, that some  have been cured of
consumptions by drinking no  other  drink but water,
avoiding all malt liquors and sharp wines : for wine or
any other strong liquor is pernicious in this distemper,
whose original is affirmed by Dr. Coward to be always
in the  stomach.
   [But real consumption, in its advanced stages, is sel-
dom cured by any means whatever.   Water is the best
remedy to palliate, but a cure can very seldom  happen.]

              HOT FLUSHES AND ERUPTIONS.

   Some there are who are much troubled with flushing
heat in the face, and others with a heat  in the  back ; in
both which cases, water used as a common drink is the
best remedy, with a spare, cooling diet.   And  it is also
excellent for  such as  have red blotches in  their faces, 
30
COLD WATER IN COLIC.
which proceeds from  a hot fretting blood,  which, by
water-drinking and a moderate diet, will be kept under.
For, as Dr. Duncan,  before quoted, doth affirm, those
who keep their blood cool and clean are never troubled
with  breakings-out,  like  many  others, who  may be
known to be drinkers of hot drinks, and use a  hot full
diet, by their faces being full of blotches.

                       COLIC

  Water  is also commended  by the  learned  for the
colic;  thus Riverius  affirms, that in the colic large
drinking of water hath  been found to be  an excellent
remedy.   And  it is said  by Fortis, that when he prac-
ticed at Venice, he often gave cold water in the colic
with good success.  With whom an English physician.
Dr. Wainwright, in his Mechanical Account of the Six
Non-naturals, concurs ; for he saith, that  water-drink-
ers  are  never troubled with the colic, and  lhat  many
thereby have been cured when all other remedies failed.
  [Professor Elliotson, of London, in  "principles and
Practice of Medicine," says  of this  disease,  "When
every thing else has failed, I have  known this affection
of the bowels overcome, by taking the patient  out of
bed, and dashing two or three  pails of  cold water upon
the  abdomen."
  Cold water suitably employed, is always favorable in
relieving spasms of whatever kind.   A person with the
real spasmodic  colic,  could hardly be injured  by water,
however vigorous the application.] 
WATER  N SMALL-POX.
31
                     SMALL-POX.

  And in the small-pox, water hath also been proved
to be an excellent drink.  Salmon, in his Synopsis Med-
icine, saith, that in this distemper  you may safely  give
the  sick fair water, of  which, says he, they  may  drink
liberally to quench thirst; the want of which plenty of
drink  hath been the death of many a patient.  Which
opinion of his was right, as by experience I  have  found
in two of my own children when sick of this distemper,
to whom, after I had  given a  gentle vomit of emetic
tartar, I gave no other drink but  water, and they both
recovered safely, and were not in the least light-headed,
as two others before  were in the same distemper, when
treated otherwise.  And I remember that one Dr. Betts
being consulted  in a case where  the eruption did not
come  out kindly, did  order two quarts of cold water to
be drank as soon  as could be; upon which they came
out  according to expectation, and the party did well.
  [Dr. Baynard (1706) gives  the  following  facts con-
cerning the treatment of small-pox: Dr. Yarborough
told me that his kinsman, Sir Thomas Yarborough, sent
him a letter from Rome, wherein  he gave him an ac-
count of a footman  of his, who, when delirious in the
small-pox, got from his bed, and in his shirt ran  into a
grotto of a cardinal's where there was water, in which
he  plunged himself,  but was  presently got  out; the
small-pox seemed  to be sunk  and struck in, but  upon
his going to bed they came out very kindly, and he safe-
ly recovered.
  But my worthy and  learned friend, Dr. Cole, showed
me  an account from  an apothecary in Worcestershire, 
32               SMALL-POX  CASES.
whose name (I think) was Mr. Matthews; the substance
of which was, that a young man, delirious in the small-
pox, when his nurse was asleep, jumped out  of bed, ran
down stairs, and went into a pond. The noise awakened
the nurse, who followed with an outcry, which  outcry
raised the posse of the family, who surrounded the pond ;
but he parlied with them, and told them that  if any body
came in he  would certainly drown  them, and  that  he
would come out when  he saw his own time ; and ac-
cordingly did so, and walked up stairs, and sat in his
wet  shirt, upon a chest by the  bed-side; in  which  pos-
ture Mr. Matthews  found him  when he came into the
chamber.  Note here, that the apothecary  lived three
or four miles from  the  place, and  he was in the water
and on the chest all the while  in his wet shirt that the
messenger was gone for him.  This apothecary, Mr.
Matthews (for  so I take his name), asked him how  he
did?  He answered pretty well.   He  asked him if he
would have a  clean shirt, and go into bed?  He said
by-and-by he would ; which accordingly he did.  When
in bed, he asked the apothecary if he had nothing good
in his pocket, for he was a little faintish?  He said that
he had a cordial, of which he drank a good  draught, so
went to sleep, and awaked very well, and in  a little time
recovered.   Now,  as  Dr. Cole observed very well, a
man, quoth  he, would  not advise his patients in such a
case to go  into cold water,  though  this man escaped
without  injury ; but it gives a good  occasion to reflect
on the many mischiefs that attend the  small-pox in the
hot regimen, since such extravagant and intense cold
does so little or n<t> harm.
  Dr. Dover, of Bristol, told me of a vintner's drawer in
Oxford, who in the small-pox went into a great tub of 
SMALL-POX CASRS.
33
water, and there sat at least two hours, and yet the fel-
low recovered, and did well.
  A  gentleman,  delirious  in  the small-pox,  ran  in his
shirt, in the snow, at least a mile, and knocked  them up
in the  house where he went, they being all in bed ; ihe
small-pox sunk, yet by the benefit of a looseness  he re-
covered.
  I remember about two years  since, a learned gentle-
man, a divine, told me, that in  the country where he
was  beneficed, in a small town not far from  him, many
died  of a malignant  small-pox.   A certain boy,  a  far-
mer's son, was seized  with a pain in his head and  back,
vomited, was feverish, etc., and  had all the  symptoms
of the small-pox.  This youth had promised some of his
comrades to go a swimming with them that day, which
notwithstanding  his illness, he was resolved  to do, and
did so, but never heard more of his small-pox.  Within
three or four days, the father was seized just as the son
was, and  he was resolved  to take Jack's  remedy; his
wife  dissuaded him  from it, but  he was resolved upon
it. and did immerge in cold water, and was after it very
well.   The worthy gentleman that told me  this  story,
promised  to  give  me it in writing, with the persons
names and place; but I neglecting of it, he went  out of
town in two or three  days, so I  lost the opportunity of
being better informed.
  Mr. Lambert, brother to my  worthy friend,  Mr. Ed-
mond Lambert, of Boyton, in the county  of Wilts, told
me. that when he was at school  in Dorsetshire, at least
thirty or more of the  boys, one after  another, fell sick
of the small-pox.  and  that the nurse  gave them nothing
else but milk  and apples in the whole course, and they
all recovered.  There was but one dissenting hoy from 
34
WATER IN FEVERS.
that method, who, by command from his parents, went
another course, and he had like to have died ;  nay, with
very great difficulty they saved his life.]

                  BURNING FEVERS.

  It is also certain, that in what we call burning fevers,
water is found to be  a safe and effectual remedy.  It is
said by Dr. Primrose, in his Popular  Errors, that many
great physicians have  commended  the drinking cold
water  in  diseases, and  they  attribute  to  it the  chief
place in fevers, where the sick must drink  largely ;  for
thus taken, it will quench  all heat  (page 374).  And
Galen  is said by an  English author, to  reprove Crasti-
stratus for denying cold water in burning  fevers ; and
says, that this is a remedy for  any fever, provided  it be
drank in great abundance.  With which opinion I find
Dr. Oliver to agree, who, in his Essay on Fevers,  says,
that in fevers we must drink oftcner than thirst calls  for
it, and such draughts as are plentiful ; and  the drink he
prescribes, is cither  cold water  or barley-water.   Dr.
Wainwright affirms also, that  water is proper in fevers,
and that the ancients gave as  much of it as the patient
could drink.   And by another  it is said, that if you give
the  patient nothing but water for three days, that in  the
third day the fever will  be cured generally ; but if it is
not, give for food a little barley broth, and  the fever will
not  exceed the seventh day.  And by  another we  are
informed, how one in a fever, that was past hope, being
forbidden to drink water, which he greatly desired,  did
find means, in the absence of  his nurse, to  get a  large
pot-full, which  he drank off, and lay  down  ao-;»in, being
well cooled,  after which  he fMI  info u swent. n:i'!  so 
WATER IN FEVERS.
35
was cured.  And I find that  Dr. Cook, of Warwick, in
his book of Observations on  English Bodies, does pre-
scribe, for the cure of fevers, first a vomit, and after-
ward  as much cold water as the patient can drink; and
he saith, that if  he  sweat upon  it, the sweat must be
continued as long as can be.  And it is said by another,
that it is an excellent remedy in fevers, to drink a quart
of hot water, and sweat upon it, being covered warm.
There is also one Dr. Quinton, who, in his book of Ob-
servations, writes,  that to one  in  a  malignant fever,
whose pulse was so low it could scarcely  be  felt, there
were  three quarts of water given at several draughts, to
make him vomit; but it did  not  operate that way,  yet
the event  was this: that it did refresh him, much raised
his pulse,  brought him into a  breathing sweat, and pass-
ed off by urine  ; which lowness  of the pulse my own
experience hath  often found  to  be  raised by drinking
water plentifully.  And I  know a woman, who, though
she in a fever had the advice of two doctors, yet became
distracted.  I bid the nurse give her a pint of cold wa-
ter, which she drank up, and in three  or  four  minutes
came to her  right senses ;  and desiring to drink more,
she recovered.  And I have observed, that when, in
fevers, the patient can relish no other  drink, yet water
is always drank with pleasure, as  it  will always be after
eating sweet things, that spoil the relish of other drinks,
which  is  one excellence peculiar to water, and shows
it to  be  most  agreeable  to the nature  of mankind,
though now so much slighted.  And besides this, it  is  a
drink that will not turn  sour  in the stomach  as all  fer-
mented drinks will do, to the increase  of distempers
already begun there.
   [Dr.  Baynard. that  singular writer, gives a case thus: 
36
FEVER  AND GOUT.
" A Turk (a servant to a gentleman), falliig sick of a
fever, some  one of the tribe  of treacle-conners  being
called in, whether apothecary or piiysician, I can't tell,
but (according  to  custom),  what between blister and
bolus, they soon made him mad.   A countryman of his,
that came to visit him, seeing  him in the broiling con-
dition, said nothing, but in the night-time, by some con-
federate  help, got  him down  to the Thames-side, and
soundly ducked him.   The fellow came home sensible,
and went to bed ;  and the next day he was perfectly
well.  This story was attested to by two or three gen-
tlemen of undoubted integrity  and worth ; and  I  doubt
it not, but believe it from  the  greater  probability ; for
I'll hold  ten to  one on the Thames-side against  treacle,
snake-root, and  all  that hot regimen which inflames and
exalts the blood, breaks its  globules, and  destroys the
man.  And then, forsooth, the doctor sneaks away  like a
dog that has lost his tail, and cries, it was a pestilential,
malignant fever, that nobody could cure; and to show
his care of the remainder,  bids them open the windows,
air the  bed-clothes, and  perfume the rooms for fear of
infection; and  if he  be of the right whining, canting,
prick-eared stamp, concludes, as they do at Tyburn, with
a mournful ditty, a psalm, or a preservative prayer for
the rest of the family.  So exit Prig, with his starched,
formal chops, ebony cane, fringed gloves, etc."   Thus
much for Dr. Baynard  and his criticisms on doctors.]

                       GOUT.

  And as for  the  gout, which Dr. Harris saith,  in his
anti-empiric, is  gotten either by high feeding, or  drink-
ing much wine, or other strong drink, it may be cured, 
WATER IN GOUT.
37
as that  author  doth  affirm, by a very spare  diet,  and
drinking water; according to what is said also by Sir
Theodore  Mavbern, who,  in his  medicinal  counsels,
adviseth to leave off all  strong  drinks in this disease,
and  drink only water : and Van Heydon  saith also, in
his treatise of "Help for the Rich and Poor,"  that there
not any greater remedy  for the gout than drinking wa-
ter, not only  by young, but old men ; many of whom, he
saith, have drank cold water  for many weeks, which
hath succeeded so well, though they were far gone in
years, that they found great  ease  thereby, without that
offence to the stomach, or hindrance of digestion which
some did seem to fear.  And  he  also commends the
 large drinking of water in the sciatica, or hip-gout, he
 having often cured this distemper  by this  means, in less
 time than could reasonably be expected ;  and the same
 myseif have  found to be effectual in  a pain in the shoul-
 der, which  had continued very bad for three months.
 For, being taken with a  fever, I drank in one day about
 four quarts of water, which, though it did not make  me
 sweat, because I lay not in my  bed, yet it cured me so
 that I slept well that night;  and in the morning when I
 rose, I did find that the pain in  my shoulder was  not
 felt, neither did it ever return.  And the same success
 I have had in the pains of other parts, whereby I judge,
 that in all  pains whatever, the  drinking of water is
 proper, as well as in  the gout; and accordingly  I find
 cold water advised to be drank largely for the cure of
 the headache  from  hard drinking, that pain  proceeding
 from the same cause the gout does, namely, from heat,
 as all pains do that are not from bruises.
              4 
38
INFLAMMATORY DISEASE.*.
              INFLAMMATORY  DISEASES.

  It is said also  by Dr. Wainwright, that  in the  itch,
scurvy, leprosy, and in all hot inflammatory distempers,
such as  pleurisies, rheumatisms, and St. Anthony's fire,
water is  a proper  remedy ;  but he adviseth to drink it
hot in some cases, as doubtless it  ought  to  be  done in
pleurisies.  He also saith, that water is proper in head-
aches, catarrhs, vapors, falling sickness, dullness of sight,
melancholy, shortness of breath,  scurvy in  the  mouth,
and windiness in the stomach : and for wind in the stom-
ach, I by long experience have found  it the best  rem-
edy, who, in the former part of my life, through a disor-
derly diet,  and drinking strong drink  like others, Was
never free from windy  belchings,  and sometimes very
sickish qualms after meals; from which at length I was
delivered, by drinking only  water at meals, so that for
above forty years  I have been seldom troubled ;  and if
)  find myself troubled, a. pint or more of cold water in
less  than half an hour will set me  free, by drinking of it.

                   HARD DRINKING.

   And that water is the best remedy for the mischiefs
that come by hard drinking, experience teacheth  ; there
being nothing that so effectually  frees from' those nau-
seating and retching qualms the  next morning, as the
drinking of a pint or more of fair  water ; which  effect-
ually allays the inflammation of the bowels, occasioned
by strong or hot drink,  which spoils  the  strength of the
stomach, as it doth the strength of all other parts ;  noth-
ing  being a greater enemy to  the vigor of the  nerves
and sinews, sinee by much drinking  men  make them- 
HARD DRINKINO, AND  COLDS.
39
selves unable to stand or go: which effect would never
follow, if liquors that abound with spirits were strength-
ening ; and if they Were strengthening, the fibres of the
stomach  would not be so weakened after drinking strong
drinks, as to make  men sick;  which sickness will  soon
be recovered by the drinking cold water, this being also
the best remedy, if taken largely, for that  heat of urine
which is  often occasioned  by hard drinking.

                       COLDS.

  In  colds, water  is the best of all drinks  to prevent
floods of rheum from the nose and mouth,  as my long
experience testifies, and the drinking therefore will pre-
vent coughs, for a cough will seldom succeed a cold, if
water is  used from the first as a common drink;  and if
through  neglect, a cough should become troublesome,
the use of water, avoiding all wine or strong drink, will
contribute  much to the cure.  Some order the water to
be drank warm, but others say that the drinking it cold
vastly excels the using it hot in a cough.  It is said by
Van Ileydon, that some may think it strange to  advise
water in  such diseases,  which most  do account  to pro-
ceed  from  crudity or indigestion ; but he says,  that in
any disease where the case is dangerous, the use of wa-
ter is the only friend  to nature; cold water being a pre-
venter rather than a  cause of crudity, since by all expe-
rience, it is proved to be  a  promoter of a good  diges-
tion :  and at this time, J know a woman seventy-eight
years of  age, who, for this  ten years  past,  hath had a
great cough, and  spit much tough phlegm, that  this
present winter.  1722, hath been persuaded to leave off
all strong and small  fermemted  liquor, and  drink  only 
40      STRONG  DRINKS  HURTFUL TO CHILDREN.

water at meals, and sometimes a dish or two of tea, and
hath found herself much less subject  to cough than be-
fore, and scarce  coughs  at all in bed, though subject be-
fore to cough very much in the night; she  also drinks
at bed-time half a pint of cold water, and the same quan-
tity first  in the  morning, and  finds herself more com-
forted by it at so great  an  age, than  wine hath at any
time afforded.

         STRONG DRINKS  HURTFUL TO CHILDREN.

  It is generally the  opinion of most physicians, that
wine and strong drinks are not proper for children, and
that the smaller  and cooler their drink is, the better it
will be with them; and  that nothing conduceth more to
the  health of  children than drinking  water, which will
prevent the foundation of those diseases that are caused
in many  by strong drink, and do  show themselves in
their more advanced age, wherein  many also do suffer
much by the mother's ill custom of making  them glut-
tons, by constantly cramming their stomachs with food,
many being  thereby destroyed  among the children of
the  rich before they come to  years of maturity ; when
the  children  of  poor country people, who fare  hard,
stand their ground till full grown.   For  fewer children
die  in the country than in  great cities, where luxury in
diet doth  more  abound which is one reason why so
few housekeepers in London were  born  in  it, the  great
supply of inhabitants being from  the country, children
being brought up more hardy there than in London,
where great  numbers are killed by over-pleasing their
palates.  Which mischief would be in a great measure
prevented by  their being accustomed to eat less and 
         PURE WATER BETTER  THAN MINERAL.       41

drink  water ; which, by experience, is found to make
young children  free  from that  frowardness which is
commonly caused by a sharp and hot, or feverish blood,
which engcndereth wind and causeth  pain  and gripes.
lor there is no pain  but is the consequence of heat, or
inward as well as outward inflammations.
  To what hath  been said, may. be added this consider-
ation, that when the  best physicians are baffled by some
diseases, they advise their patients to  use the water of
some mineral spring ; tacitly  acknowledging thereby,
that  all  their prescriptions may be excelled  by water.
They pretend, indeed, to ascribe its effects to some  min-
erals with which  the waters  are tinctured.  But  Dr.
Baynard, in page 438 of Sir John  Floyer's Cold Bath-
ing,  tells of a certain person who used to frequent Tun-
bridge,  by  which he  found much benefit; but being hin-
dered from going thither one season, did drink the same
quantity of water taken from  the pump of a spring in
his own yard, which  did  him  as much service ;  where-
upon he wrote thus on his pump:

                " The steel is a cheat;
                 'Tis water does the feat."
   And, indeed, if we consider how many  diseases  and
pains proceed from  a  sizy thick blood, which cannot
pass  as it ought to do through the finest pipes that con-
vey the blood to the parts, pure water, without miner-
als, drank to the quantity  of a  quart or three pints  in  a
morning, will attenuate or thin the blood  sufficiently—
nothing, as  Boerhaave  affirms, being a greater diluter
of thick blood, than warm  water drank in great quantity ;
which to thin the blood may be best, though to strength-
en the stomach  it is  best drank cold  ; having the same
              4* 
42
BURNS AND SCALDS.
effect inwardly, in some cases, as cold bathing hath out*
wardly ; its use outwardly being also great.

                  BURNS AND SCALDS.
  Water, I have found by long experience, to be of ex-
cellent use  in  burns and scalds ; for in  all  burns and
scalds that  are slight, if the part is plunged immediately
into cold water, the  colder the better, the pain will  in-
stantly be taken off; and it will fetch out  the fire, if con-
tinued  so long as will be required to do it by any other
remedy.  And if  the burn be so considerable that other
remedies must be applied, none of which will take off the
smart of themselves in  less  than two or three hours, yet
if you apply cold water presently after other applications
are made to the  part,  the  pain will  immediately cense,
till the remedy becomes effectual; so that the ease water
will give in such  cases, makes it of good use.  Which
remedy, as  it hath not been discovered till now, appears
to  transcend all other remedies in this case ; because, in
a moment the great smart will  be eased, if the water is
cold, and will  be  felt no  more if the part afflicted be
kept immersed  in it till the fire is extinguished, either
by the water, or the medicine applied.   Besides, it is a
remedy every where ready at  hand, which cannot be
said of  any other ;  which generally requires so much
time to get it ready, that much pain will  be endured, if
blisters do  not arise, which do much increase the trou-
ble.   If  the part  burnt or scalded cannot be dipped  in
water, you may apply water to it with  double linen
cloths  dipped  therein, and new dipped  as  they  grow
warm ; by which means I have cured burns and  scalds
in the  face without blistering, when applied immediately
before blisters did arise. 
SCALDS AND  BURNS.
43
  [In the Water-Cure Journal of July 1st, 1846, we pub-
lished the following cases, illustrative of the truly won-
derful  effects of water in  the treatment of scalds and
burns :
  " A few weeks since we  were sent for in great haste,
to visit the infant child of Mrs. Campbell, a sempstress
of this city, whose case of child-birth was some time
since given in the  Journal.  The  message was, that the
child was very severely scalded.   We hastened to the-
woman's residence, and there learned the following par-
ticulars : The little fellow (being  ten months old, and a
cold-water child, so called) was, as usual, running about
the room, playfully, when he drew down  upon himself,
from a bench, or  low table, a  large pitcher full of hot
water.   The fluid  passed upon  his neck, shoulder, down
the arm, upon  the  side, abdomen, over about  one  third
of the  back, and upon one foot.  The  whole  extent of
these parts was scalded, and in places blisters rose, ap-
parently as thick as one's finger.  In consequence of the
wonderful effects of water which the  mother had her-
self experienced before  the birth of her infant, as well
as at that time and subsequently,  and what she had wit-
nessed in rearing,  thus  far, the child-—he  never having
had an hour's sickness from  the first, or taken a single
particle of medicine—she had very naturally the greatest
confidence in the new treatment.  She preferred, in fact,
rather to treat the case herself, than have a physician of
the ordinary practice—such a one having  been called,
through  mistake of the messenger, and  arriving very
soon after the  accident.  The  mother said  there was  a
mistake—he was not the right doctor ;  so he took a look
at the  little patient, well wrapped up in a wet sheet (it
being,  no doubt, the first time he had ever witnessed the 
44
SCALDS AND  BURNS.
'bug-bear' application), and  then turned upon  his heel
and left.
  " Immediately after the accident, the little sufferer be-
gan to collapse, as the term is ;  he grew pale and cold,
and had a severe chill.  The mother instantly wrapped
him in a folded wet sheet; but his appearing to  be cold,
led her quickly to place about, him an abundance of
warm blankets, outside the sheet.   It was not long be-
fore what is called, in  such cases, reaction, began to
take place;  the circulation and  heat increased, and, at
the same time, the pain.  All these symptoms  were in
themselves favorable, but demanded, at  the  same time,
the most prompt treatment.   The mother  had already,
before we arrived, very properly commenced  cooling
the affected parts, by frequently changing the wet cloths.
We directed her  to  have the child held over a tub of
water, and  to  pour cold water constantly upon  the
cloths, these remaining upon the scalded parts, and to
continue this process as long as  the pain  remained.  She
kept on thus cooling the  scalded  surface, until  her  suf-
fering  child  ceased  his piteous moaning and  went to
sleep.  This must have  taken  place between two  and
three hours  after  the accident.  He slept awhile,  and
awoke apparently as bright as usual.  Still, so much of
the surface  was  either  blistered or abraded,  that  he
could scarcely move without  causing  much distress.
Those parts  were directed to be kept constantly cover-
ed with fine  linen  cloths, wet, and these to be  covered
with dry ones, so that the system might  not become too
much chilled.   The  child was to have  as much water
as he chose  to drink, to be fed  very sparingly,  and the
windows were  to be left open  both night and  day, for
the admission of fresh air.   The mother  followed the 
                 SCALDS AND BURNS.               45

directions faithfully, and, in a very short time, the parts
were perfectly healed.  During the first afternoon, every
trace  of the inflammation, where the surface  was not
actually  destroyed, was removed.  The fire,  as some
would say, was completely drawn  out.
   " This cure  may be  properly divided into two more
prominent parts:  first, the cooling  means used until the
abnormal heat was removed ;  and secondly, the sooth-
ing or poultice effect  of the  moist applications  that
were continued until the healing of the  parts was  fully
accomplished.  What is there that  will at all  compare
with  the pure element  in causing animal as well as vege-
table growth?   Throughout all nature, in both vegeta-
ble and animal bodies, water is the great fluid through
which the vital processes are carried on.
   " We think the  medical  friend who saw this case, in
 connection with us, will agree that burns of apparently
 not more than one third the severity of this, frequently
 cause death in a few hours."
   We published  also, in the same number, the following
 facts from an Ohio paper, which came to us on authority
 that  may be fully relied on as being correct.   The  nar-
 rator gives them as follows:

   "In the 12th month of 1843, as I was going to Piqua,
 I met a wagon with a sick man in it, lying upon a bed.
 lie seemed to be traveling in much pain. I inquired the
 cause of his suffering, and was told that he was scalded
 by the bursting of steam  works in a tan-yard near Pi-
 qua, about fourteen days  before; that he  was an ap-
 prentice to  Mr.  McTurnahan, a  tanner, and that Mc-
 Turnahan was also scalded, with  two of his sons.  But
 the old man, who was the most scalded of any, jumped 
46
SCALDS AND  BURNS.
 immediately into the pool,  which  was slightly frozen
 over, and came out entirely well.
   "This tale appeared so marvelous, that I concluded to
 call at the residence of McTurnahan, and make further
 inquiries.   I did so; and was informed by the old man,
 that he, his two sons, and apprentice, were standing near
 the boiler of heating water when it burst.   He  stood in
 such a position as to take the strongest current of water
 and steam.  This is the  only  evidence  he has  that he
 was scalded as  the others, for  he  jumped immediately
 into the pool, and directed the  boys to follow him.   On
 coming out, and feeling  the pain  continue, he  went in
 again.   The skin pealed off a little from the lower part
 of his arms, and a little from his breast.  This was all  the
 mark he had upon him, and it had not hindered him from
 his work at  all.  He supposes he was not in  the water
 more than five minutes.
   "His oldest son came  to  the  brink of the  pool, and
 stepped in about half way up  to his  knees.  He then
 stopped to unbutton his clothes, and see  how badly he
 was hurt.   Finding the skin peel off with  his clothes, as
 he took them down, he concluded to go into  the house
 and send for the doctor.   It was within  three  or four
 days of six months before he was able to go about ao-ain.
 But so  far as he went into the pool,  there  was no mark
of hot water upon him.  The youngest son was  scalded
only upon  his legs.   He went immediately into the pool,
 as his father had directed.  The only mark  left upon
 him was a small  sore on one of his heels.
  " The apprentice went  into the house, and  was doc-
tored according  to custom.  It was two  weeks  before
he could be taken home upon a  bed, and four months be-
fore he could go about. 
ULCERS.
47
  "I have called several  times at McTurnahan's, once
in company with Samuel Jay and Walter D. Jay. mem-
bers of the society  of  Friends, who lived  in  Miami
county.  The  statement  he makes  is uniform, and  I
think may be relied upon.
         " Thine, etc.,        Augustus Wattles."
  "Mercer Co., O., 5th month, 1st, 1846."

  To those who have never witnessed the effects of cold
water  in scalds or burns, statements like the  above ap-
pear like mere idle fiction ; but those who have witness-
ed such effects, recognize, at once, upon the face of such
narrations, their truth.]

                      ULCERS.

  I once knew a large ulcer in  the  foot, made by the
running of melted brass  into the shoe, that was kept in
hand by a surgeon nine weeks, without any probability
of healing, because of the  great inflammation  that at-
tended it;  but the party  being a lover of angling, was
persuaded  to  go with some  others to Hackney river.
Some  of them went bare-legged into the  water, to come
at a certain hole where much fish was sometimes found.
The sport was so good that the lame man, having pulled
off his stockings and plasters, went  in also, where  he
staid above two hours, and, coming out again, he found
the ulcer, which appeared very red and angry  when he
went  in, did  look pale.   He put on his  dressings and
came home, and in less than a fortnight his ulcer healed
up; which doubtless was occasioned by the  abating of
the inflammation by the  coldness of the water.  And I
have had an account also from an acquaintance, that 
48
SPRAINS.
was surgeon to a merchant ship, that their gunner, at a
time when  the  captain treated some friends on board,
going to charge a gun that just before had been fired off,
the cartridge he was ramming down took fire, whereby
he was blown  into the water, and had  some of his fin-
gers torn off, and it was an hour before a bout could be
got to take him up.   But  they found that the coldness
of the water had almost stopped  he bleeding, and the
cure was effected so speedily, that other surgeons won-
dered at it; which he imputed to the water, which kept
back the humors, by  its coldness, from  flowing to the
part at the first; so that there was no impediment from
inflammation to hinder  healing; for the chief impedi-
ment to healing is inflammation, in wounds or  ulcers.

                      SPRAINS.

  And as for strains and sprains in  the joints, cold wa-
ter affords  the  best and most speedy remedy, as Van
Heydon affirms; who saith, that by  bathing in cold wa-
ter all harm so received may, by this remedy, be cured
more safely and more speedily than  by any other, with-
out loss of time, cost, or trouble ;  for no more is to be
done, as I have often found, than, as soon as can be, to
put the part into a vessel of cold  water for about  two
hours, which wili prevent  all  swelling and pain, by re-
pelling or keeping back the humors that otherwise would
flow to the part.  And if it should  be the shoulder, or
any other  part, which is  so  hurt, that  cannot well be
immersed in water after this manner, water may be ap-
plied, by dipping towels  folded  up into it, and laying
them to the part, as is done, in effect, to the wrenched
joints of horses, about which, if you wind oftentimes a 
             WEAK  JOINTS AND HEADACHE.          49

thick rope made of hay, and  then  cast upon  it divers
times a pail of cold water, the wrench will  be cured ;
which experiment is now commonly practiced  by those
concerned about horses.

              WEAKNESS IN  THE JOINTS.

   Bathing in cold water hath also  been  found to be a
good remedy  to  strengthen  weakness in the joints, as
Sir John  Floyer, in his Treatise of Cold  Bathing, hath
shown; and which  by experience I found to be true in
a  certain  woman, who  complained of great weakness
and  pain in her ankles.  I advised her to dip  the part in
cold water every morning for a quarter of an hour, and
do the same at night; and in about twenty days she be-
came as strong in  that part as she was in the other.
And Sir John tells us of a boy who could not stand, his
limbs were so weak, that by bathing in cold  water per-
fectly recovered his strength in a little time.


                 TAIN IN  THE HEAD.

   Great pain in the head hath been also  cured by this
means; for we are  told by Van Heydon, that  one Sir
Toby Matthews  had  for twenty  years  been  troubled
with great pain in one side of the head, and a great de-
fluxion  of rheum from  his nose;  but he at last was
cured, by applying cold water to the part every day for
about a quarter of  an hour; upon reading of  which, I
tried the experiment upon myself, who for a long time
had been troubled with the running of much clear  wa-
ter from my  nose,  with great spitting of thin  rheum ;
for I let a  water-cock run upon the mould of my head
             5 
50            sLELTLLSSNl^S li\  FEVERS.

every  morning, by which, in about six weeks' time, 1
was cosed of my trouble.  And since that I had a cred-
ible information of a certain  servant-maid, who was af-
flicted  greatly  with a rheumatism, and  an  intolerable
pain in the head, who, being put into St. Thomas's Hos-
pital, her nurse was ordered by the doctor to apply to
her head towels four times double, dipped in cold water,
changing them  as they became warm, which she was to
continue doing four or  five  hours ;  in which time she
was freed from that pain in the head, and was after-
ward cured of the rheumatism by other means.

             WANT OF SLEEP IN FEVERS.

  The  want of sleep  in fevers may be cured likewise
by the application of cold  water.  For to  a near rela-
tion in a fever, who could  not sleep for three days and
three nights, I ordered a towel to be several times fold-
ed up, and then  to be dipped in wa'er, and a little wrung
out, and so laid  upon her forehead, and to be new dipped
as it grew hot; which in about two hours' time so cool-
ed her head, that she fell into a sleep, and continued in it
five  hours.  And I ordered the same  to be  done the
next night, with the same success.   And we find that
Dr. Cockburn, in his Treatise of Sea Diseases, did order,
for the want of sleep in fevers, to dip a towel, four times
doubled, in oxycrat, which is six parts water and one
part vinegar, to be bound about the  head and temples;
which, he saith, will cause sleep with wonderful success.
But cold water only will have the same effect, as I often
have proved. 
SW00NINGS
AND NOSE-BLEEO.
51
                    SWOON1NGS.

  And that the use of cold water in swoonings is of
great effect, common experience teachcth ;  for, if a dish
or cup of cold water is thrown strongly upon the face,
the person in  an instant will recover,  though for a time
he seemeth dead, and perhaps might not have recover-
ed in some  cases, if cold water had not been so applied ;
such faintings being sometimes deadly, which proceed
from poisonous vapors  ascending  up  to the brain from
a foul stomach ; for such  effects there are, as I have
found by experience, who in my young days did swoon
away twice ;  at both which times I  was sensible of a
collection of  wind  in my stomach, from whence I plain-
ly felt a fume or vapor ascend to my head, that in an
instant deprived me of  all sense.   But being both times
in the company of a person who had seen the thing tried,
he dashed some cold water against my face, which I re-
member  made me start, as if I had been suddenly awak-
ed.  And I am apt to think that some die in such a fit,
when none arc near to  help them ; and especially when
so taken  in their  sleep, which I believe none  need  fear
who live temperately, or that eat no suppers ;  none who
have  refrained from suppers having been ever found to
die in sleep.

               BLEEDINGS AT  THE NOSE.

   Dangerous bleedings at the  nose have also been cured
with cold water largely drank, syringing cold-  water up
their  nostrils, and applying towels round their necks
dipped in  cold water, changing  them as  they grow
warm ; for it is said by a good writer, that this will so 
52                BITE  OF MAD  DOG.

cool the  heat  of the blood, and  by the coldness of the
water syringed up the nose, so contract the mouths of
the veins which bleed, that it will put a stop to the bleed-
ing.   Such bleedings have also been stopped by dashing
cold water often into the face, as a French writer hath
affirmed,  whose name  was Flamand ; and the same,
also, is affirmed by Cook, in his  Marrow of Surgery.

                    SMALL CUTS.

  Cold water is an absolute cure for all small cuts in the
fingers, or  other parts ;  for if, when  cut, you close the
cut up with the thumb of your other hand, keeping  it so
closed for a quarter or half an hour, this will infallibly
stop the bleeding;  after  which, if you  double up a linen
rag five or six times, dip it in  cold water, and apply it
to the part, binding it on, this, by preventing inflamma-
tion and a flux of humors, will give nature time soon to
heal it without any other  application, as is seen in the
common  practice  of surgeons  when  they let a  man
bleed ; for all  the  application they make to the vein so
cut,  is a  pledget  of linen dipped in  cold water, and
bound on with a fillet; for all  wounds without  loss  of
substance will heal of themselves, if inflammation be pre-
vented, and the lips of the wound  are kept close together.

               BITINGS  OF  A  MAD  DOG.

  We also are told by Van  Heydon, that in his  time
some were of  an  opinion, that a person bit by a  mad
dog might be preserved from that symptom called the
fear  of water, which generally follows, and proves  so
mortal, by applying cold water to the place bitten.   And 
FALLING SICKNESS.
53
this, he says, they conceive to be no  unlikely thing, if
there is any credit to be given to what Cornelius Celsus
writes, who saith, that the only remedy in this case is to
throw the party who is  in  this condition, or  hath  the
fear of water upon him, into a pond or river, and when
plunged over  head and ears, to  Keep him  in the  water
(ill  filled  with it, whether he will or no ; and by  this
means both his thirst and dread of water will be cured.
For if this immersion be of use when the party is so far
gone, why should it not be of greater force in  preserv-
ing  from  it, if speedily applied and repeated?  Now,
though this is  mentioned by him  as  a probable opinion,
yet experience in our days shows, that the plunging  the
patient into the salt water either of the river Thames
about Gravcsend, or in  the salt springs in Cheshire, is
the best means to prevent any evil succeeding the  bite
of a mad dog.  They must indeed be dipped so often as
to be almost drowned before the danger is over.   But
it is a  question whether the saltness of the water con-
tributes any  thing to this cure, since  Boerhaave,  the
present professor at  Ley den, affirms, that when men
bitten  by  a  mad  dog are  arrived  to the fear of water,
called  an  hydrophobia,  they may be cured  by  blinding
the patient's eyes, and throwing of him  into a  pond of
water often, till he seems not to be  afraid of it, or but
very little, and then force  him to  drink large quantities.

                  FALLING SICKNESS.

  And we are told  by Dr. Edward Browne, that a pet
son troubled with the falling  sickness, by happening to
fall into a  cold  spring (I suppose  it was  in the time of
his fit), was freed from  his distemper all his life after;
             5* 
54
MADNESS  AND MELANCHOLY.
and he saith there is no need of preparing the body for
it in this, as in some other cases.  But the patient, when
plunged into a cold bath, ought to continue in the bath
each time about three or four minutes ;  for in plunging
over head and ears at his first entrance into a cold bath,
the brain will be  so  sensibly affected, as to be relieved
from the distemper, which is a kind of convulsion pro-
ceeding from an inflammation, or some other cause : but
we want  more experiments to  confirm this  notion;
which notion may be worth noting, that  tne thing  may
be tried in others, to see whether it will succeed as it did
in this  person.   For it is said by  the ingenious Dr. Pit-
cairn, a Scotchman, some time professor  at Leyden, that
there is no such thing as the art of curing, but only the
practice—that remedies were found out  by chance (p.
264 of his works); for when remedies thus happen to be
discovered, and prove often to be  effectual, the remem-
bering  that remedy, to apply it in a like case in practice,
brings reputation to the prescriber;  but  if it fails, some
other experiment must be tried, which, were  physic an
art, need not  be done, because the rules  of art are cer-
tain, and men depend upon them as  such.

             MADNESS AND  MELANCHOLY.         '

  It is also said  by the same Dr. Browne, that madness
and melancholy, with all  their retinue, may find better
effects from the use of bathing in  cold water,  than from
other violent methods, with  which people so afflicted are
now treated ;  for, says he, that which will make a drunk-
en man sober in a minute, will certainly go a great way
toward the cure of a madman in a month.   Now it is
most certain, to  my own  knowledge, that if  a drunken 
                      MADNESS.                   55

man be plunged over head and ears in cold water, he will
come out of it perfectly sober.  And some I have known,
that in such cases have been recovered by barely wash-
ing their heads in  cold  water.   Which fore-mentioned
opinion of Dr. Browne is confirmed by the practice of
Dr. Blair, who, in a letter to Dr. Baynard, declares, that
he cured a man raving mad, who being bound in a cart,
stripped of his clothes, and  blindfolded, that the surprise
might be the  greater, he on a sudden had a great fall of
water let down upon him  from the  height of twenty
feet, under which he continued  so long as his  strength
would permit; and after his return home,  he fell into a
sleep, and slept twenty-nine hours, and awakened in as
quiet a state  of mind as ever, and so had  continued to
the  time  of   writing that  letter,  which  was twelve
months.  Distraction also in fevers, of which there are
divers instances in the History of Cold Baths, has been
cured by being plunged  in cold  water.
  Which relation  seems to make that a more probable
truth, which was related in a letter from Sir John Floyer
to Dr. Browne, and  printed by  that doctor; wherein it
is said, that,  in Normandy, they immerse fools, or dip
them in cold  water, to cure  them : a hot brain being the
cause, perhaps, of several  disorders  in the understand-
ing, and is in  great  part found to be  true, in the ridicu-
lous behavior of some drunken  men,  which, when their
heads arc become cool, abhor what they before did  do
or say.   Now if such dipping would  cure fools among
us, great  numbers might be made more happy than they
are by being  so dipped. 
56
king's evil, etc.
                    king's  evil.

  Dr. Browne, in  his Discourse of Cold  Baths, affirms
likewise, that to bathe in cold water, hath been found to
be the  quickest, safest, and pleasantest cure  for  the
king's evil; and he tells us (in p. 85) of a Yorkshire
gentleman, who was grievously afflicted  with  this dis-
temper,  having great  ulcers in the glands of his  neck,
which were  so much  inflamed as  to  bring him very
low; but being advised by Dr.  Baynard to bathe in  the
cold  bath,  he in a  month's  time was perfectly  cured,
his ulcers being healed up, contrary to the opinion of
the most learned physicians.

                      jaundice.

  We also find mention, in the  description of the  Scot-
tish islands, of an odd  remedy,  commonly made use of
there for the cure of the jaundice; which is this:  They
strip the party naked, lay  him upon  the  ground,  on
his belly, and pour, unawares, upon his back a pail of
cold water.

                  painful  joints.

  And also pains in the joints, as Dr. Curtis tells us, will
be cured,  by holding the part under the stream of a
pump or cock ; and fomenting with  cold  water is com-
mended, as good to assuage  hot swellings.

                  INFLAMED EYES.

  And I know a person who had often  been subject to
blood-shot or  inflamed eyes, who afterward, upon  the 
            COLD WATER FOR THE  EYES.           57

beginning of the same distemper, took, by advice, a ball
of linen rags, dipped  them in cold  water, and applied
them to the part, cooling  them by new dipping as oft as
they grew hot: which application was continued three
hours, in which time  the humor was so repelled, as to
be troublesome no more ; for the party, to my knowl-
edge, hath  had no sign of that distemper since, though
the same had been very troublesome many times before.

             COLD WATER FOR THE  EYES.

   It is also advised, by Dr. Gideon Harvey, to wash the
eyes well, twice a day in cold water, as the best remedy
to  prevent defluxions on them, and preserve  the  eye-
sight, which it greatly comforts. And this I have found
true for many years, my eyes being often apt to be dim
and stiff, so that I could scarce open  my eye-lids ;  which,
upon washing  for a minute  with fair water, hath  been
felt no more  for  a good while after.  Besides  which
benefit to the eyes, authors  say it is also good to pre-
serve  the  memory,  if the whole forehead be  washed
twice  a day ;  which also is  a certain cure for itching in
the eyes, as authors tell us.   And, indeed, washing with
 water will free mankind from a troublesome itching in
any other part of the body, let it be never so private, as
Cook, in his Observations on English Bodies, doth ex-
 pressly declare from  experience.

               CALLOSITIES OF THE  FEET.

   Some people are troubled  with a callosity, or hardness
 of the bottoms of their feet, which is so troublesome, as
 l., be a hindrance to  their  easy walking: for which a 
58              SCURVY AND ASTHMA.

cure is  prescribed by  Dr.  Cook, that is, to soak them
well in  warm water, till the  hardness  is softened, and
then scrape it off with the  edge of a knife: and if the
feet  burn with any unnatural heat, the bathing often  in
hot water will cool them, by giving vent to what offends.
[But cold water is the better remedy.]

                      SCURVY.

  And the plentiful drinking of water is commended  in
the scurvy, whether hot or  cold, by Dr. Pitcairn, to dis-
solve the scorbutic salts, and carry them out by urine,
whether they are acids or alkalies ; and myself having
formerly been extremely troubled with the scurvy, which
often made me faint and weak,  and my pulse so low  as
scarcely to be felt, did  find  at last that the  pulse would
infallibly rise upon drinking a pint or more of cold wa-
ter, and in a little time I should  again become brisk and
strong: for I have often observed, that upon a disorder
of the stomach, the strength of the bodily members soon
would fail, and as easily be  recovered when the disorder
of the stomach was removed ;  yea, by long experience,
I have found that  nothing conduceth so much to bodily
strength as a stomach in  right  order, which requires
temperance  and cooling diet to  bring it into order, when
distempered.

                      ASTHMA.

   To what hath  been already said, I will  add  an  ac-
count, taken from  a credible person, of a man in  the  pa-
rish of Shoreditch, wh© was desperately ill of an asthma,
or shortness of breath, and  deep consumption, for which 
COUGH AND STRANGURY.
59
he had tried  many remedies to no purpose.  At length
he was advised by a physician, being poor, to drink  no
other drink but water, and eat no other food but water-
gruel, without salt or sugar ; which course of diet  he
continued for three months, finding himself at first to be
somewhat better, and at the three months' end he was
perfectly cured : but, for security sake, he continued in
that diet a month longer, and grew strong and fat upon
it. But his diet he had  no mind to, till he was thorough-
ly hungry, and then  he ate it with  pleasure;  in which,
perhaps, consisted the best part of his cure, it being an
advantage  to health  never to eat till hunger calls  for
food.
                      COUGH.

   And I remember a young woman, a  burnisher of  sil-
ver,  who had  a  desperate  cough,  for which she  had
taken many things of an  apothecary to no purpose; at
length the journeyman told her, his master said he could
do no more; but, said  the fellow, I  would advise  you
every morning to wash behind your ears, and  upon your
temples, and  on the mould of your  head with cold wa-
ter ;  which she told me she did, and was perfectly cured
of her cough by that means.

            DIFFICULTY IN  MAKING  WATER.

   There are divers other cases wherein the use of wa-
ter hath done  much good.   I knew an ancient practicer
in physic, who told me, that in many difficulties of mak-
ing water, he had advised  the party to put his  private
member mlo water, as  hot as he could endure it, which,
in a minute, did cause him to  make wafer: and  that 
60
STRANGURY.
women have had the same benefit by sitting over hot
water.  And he often had advised them who were cos-
tive, and went to stool with great difficulty, to sit over
a pot with hot  water in it; which soon was attended
with an easy dejection, or stool, the  body drawing  up
the vapor, which did provoke  expulsion of the excre-
ments without much straining.
   [Injections of water, cold, if the person is not extreme-
ly weak, are excellent in constipation.  So, also, Priess-
nitz's wet  girdle and the hip-bath.   In strangury, cold
water is far better than hot or warm ; but the use  of
warm water is far better than none at all.   Cold water,
however, is the  great thing.   Putting the  feet upon a
cold floor, or in cold water, or holding the hands in cold
water, are well known to cause a disposition  to void
urine.  But the cold hip-bath, and the general ablutions
in cold water, are the more effectual means.]
  And it  hath been observed, that  froward children
have  been made much more  quiet, by washing their
lower parts every morning with water, to wash off the
salts of their urine, which usually stick in the pores  of
the skin, and are fretful  and uneasy, and  nothing cures
their soreness about those parts like  it.   Nor is there
any thing  more  effectual to cure men, who are galled
with riding, than to wash themselves  well, when  they
go  to bed,  with cold water;  and washing  the  bare
breast every morning with cold  water, will make those
hardy who before were  apt at every turn  to  take cold.
To which I will  add this, that  Sir Theodore Mayhem
affirms, in his Medicinal Counsels, that, in most diseases
of the head, there is nothing better than to bathe it with
cold water, which, in a desperate pain  in the ears, upon
taking cold, I have found to be true; for the pain seemed 
WATER THE  BEST DRINK.
61
to vanish upon applying to it about thirty minutes, a towel
doubled up often, and wet in cold water; and though it
returned again  some hours after, yet ease was obtained
the same way, and  the cure perfected in four times do-
ing: which cure of a pain gotten with cold, by a cold
application, will not seem  so strange, when  we consider
that in the northern countries, mortifications from cold
are no ways to be cured but by applying cold snow.
   In short, water when rightly made use of, doth appear
from  the accounts before mentioned, very effectual to
prevent and cure  many  diseases, but more especially
the inward use thereof;  for, to use the words of the in-
genious Dr. Curtis, in his Essay for  the  Preservation
and Recovery  of Health, the  habitual use of water for
 common drink,  preserves the native  ferment of  the
 stomach  in  due order, keeps  the blood  temperate, and
 helps to spin out the thread of life to the longest extent
 of nature; it makes the rest at night more  quiet and re-
 freshing, the reason and  understanding  more clear, the
 passions less disorderly; and in case of eating too much, a
 large draught of cold water vastly exceeds any other cor-
 dial to cause digestion, water being not so  cold and life-
 less, as many do imagine.  Besides which commendation
 of it by this doctor, it is certainly a drink  that will not
 ferment in the stomach, nor turn sour, as wine and strong
 malt drinks will do, to the hindering of a good digestion,
 which all acidity in the stomach certainly  doth, when it
 abounds there;  and is best corrected by weakening or
 making it less sour, by drinking good store of water, as
 the experience of above forty years' practice hath assured
 myself and many others.  For though water is account-
 ed a contemptible drink, yet  by beginning to make use
 of it at about  thirty years of age. before which  I was
               6 
62
WINE  IS A  MOCKER.
often  out  of order, and  continuing the  use  of it ever
since, drinking  very little wine or strong drink, I have
attained to the  age of seventy-four years ; when  thou-
sands, in the meantime, who delighted only in drinking
strong beer, wine, and brandy, have  not lived half so
long; which makes good that saying in  the Scriptures,
that " wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging, and
he who is deceived thereby is not wise" (Prov. xx. 1),
since  it no ways contributes to long life ;  for it is certain
that thousands in the world live as long who  drink no
strong drink, as  any drinkers of it do.   Some, indeed,
from an extraordinary strength of nature, have been ha., d
drinkers, and yet die old ; but for one who does this, per-
haps  an hundred are destroyed by it before  they  come
to half the time of life ;  and generally we shall find that
veiy  strong and healthy constitutions, at the  long run,
are ruined  by  riot and  excess, there  being  no certain
safety in  any way of living, but that of temperance and
moderation. Nature, in some, may a  long  time with-
stand the abuses offered to it, but  at last it will yield  to
its  enemies ; and those who live the longest in  an intem-
perate course,  might, from  the strength of their consti-
tution, have lived  much longer had  they eat less, and
used  themselves to drink more water; which drink, as
it is most friendly, and  will preserve longest the life  of
a strong constitution, so it is absolutely necessary  for
those that are weak and sickly, and are naturally sub-
ject to the gout, the stone, shortness of breath, wind,  ill-
 digestion, and  such like. 
WATER TO PREVENT VOMITING.
63
            WATER USEFUL  IN  VOMITING.

  But the chief use of water in preserving of health, is
by using of it  as a vomit, as before was shown, which
is an infallible and the most speedy remedy that ever
was found out for any stomach-sickness or pain there ;
for to vomit with warm water will effectually remove
it in one hour, and be a means to prevent great fits of
sickness, and  preserve the  lives of many thousands  to
old age, by cleansing  the  stomach from that tough,
slimy, or corrupt  matter that offends,  and is  the cause
of all mortal diseases; especially of an apoplexy, which
though  counted a disease of the head, yet hath its origi-
nal from a foul stomach, which nothing doth so effect-
ually cleanse as vomits : according to that of Dr. Cur-
tis, who saith, that vomiting with  warm water or car-
duus tea, is very beneficial  to bring up that which fluc-
tuates  in the  stomach,  and that tough,  ropy phlegm,
which sticks fast to the wrinkles and folds of that bowel,
and  which purges do often pass over, and  cannot re-
move.    Which way of  vomiting with warm water  is
ten times more easy and pleasant than that which is ef-
fected  by the  use of a nauseous tea made of carduus,
which physicians do sometimes advise ;  and it is also
such as can do no harm  by violence, as  other vomits
made from  antimony sometimes do, for want of drink-
ing after each vomit a  pint or more of water-gruel, or
warm water, since you  may stop when you  please, by
forbearing to"drink more warm water, when you vomit
with water.
   And  here it may not  be  amiss to relate what I some
vears ago discovered, in order to men's freeing them-
selves from  sickness that may happen after eating; for 
64
GRIPINGS.
being invited  to  dine  at  a  certain table, where there
were several good dishes  of meat, I was over-persuad-
ed to eat more than I should do, and in a little time after
dinner found myself begin to be sick.  I went out, and
in a private place attempted to vomit, by tickling  my
throat with my finger, but  could not vomit as I designed
to do; only by this means  I  raised  up two  or three
mouthfuls of thick, tough  phlegm, upon which I found
myself better, and my sick qualm went off.  I took  the
hint it gave me, and have done the same several times
since, and  find that by getting up the  phlegm, which,
like  yeast  upon  beer, works  up to the  mouth of the
stomach, a man  may free himself from some kinds of
sickness  after eating.  And I remember  it is an advice
given by one Vaughan, in a book long since printed, en-
titled Directions for Health, for men who feed high, to
put  their finger in their  throat when they rise in the
morning, to make themselves puke, or avoid the phlegm
which can  be raised, as  an excellent way to preserve
health ; and it is said also  to bean absolute preservative
from the gout.

                      GRIPINGS.
   I  will  conclude with this note, that in such  distem-
pers, where water-drinking  will be  available for a cure,
the same must not be drank sparingly, but plentifully, as
(for instance) to ease the gripings in a looseness or flux;
for if but a pint of water should be  drank, ease would
hardly succeed ;  but drinking in about an hour's time a
quart or three pints, the  sharpness and evil quality of
the  humor offending will  be so far diluted or weakened,
that immediate ease will follow.   If the season be too cold
to drink  cold water, you  may warm it a little upon the 
GRIEF AND  FRIGHT.
65
fire, or put a hot toast of bread into every pint;  and the
same is true in fevers, or in pains from gravel or the
colic.   A small quantity will not be  effectual in these
cases, for in the colic a quart is necessary, which ought
to be carefully noted ; and  in a fever a little water will
rather increase the burning, which large draughts, often
drank, will soon take off.   Rest, fasting, and drinking
much water, after a vomit or two, is a course that never
yet hath failed  to cure  fevers, by clearing the stomach
of that sordid  filthine5-s which causeth the distemper;
for a  happy issue will  *.ertainly follow such  a course, if
the fever is simple, ani  not  complicated with such other
distempers, which will resist all remedies;  for in many
cases nothing can prevent mortality, as is evident by the
death of the best physicians  themselves, and by the death
of many who consulted with them for  a cure, since many
die under the hands of  the  most able  doctors as well as
quacks.

                  GRIEF AND  FRIGHT.

   I will add to what hath been said one experiment more
that is very material;  and that is, being very hypochon-
driacal, and of a melancholy  temper, I have often been
 strangely dejected in  mind, when under grief  for some
 misfortunes, which sometimes have been so great as to
 threaten danger to life ; in which fits of grief I always
 found the parts within my breast very uneasy, and some-
 times continued long; but now I have found a good
 remedy, for upon  drinking a pint or more of cold water,
 I find ease  in  two or three minutes, so that  no grief
 seems  to afflict.  Which experience I discover for  the
 sake of others in  the same  circumstances, being  verily
              0* 
66
HYSTERIA.
persuaded that the stomach sympathized with the mind,
and this becomes the cause of that uneasy sensation and
pain perceived  there;  for  which,  cold water  I  have
found to be  the best remedy in myself, and I  believe
others  may find the same benefit, who will  make use
thereof  upon the like occasion; and it  gives also relief
to people under frights.

                VAPORS, OR HYSTERICS.

  There is also another experi  lent  that I have  often
seen of good effect;  and  that   ', if persons  subject to
what is  called vapors, or that are afflicted with fits, com-
monly called  the fits of the mother, will but drink water
when they find  their fits approach, it  will immediately
yield relief.   There is in  this case a mealy julep pre-
scribed  by Dr.  Bates, which is, to take a spoonfull  of
fine wheat flour, an ounce of fine sugar, and a  pint of
water,  brew  them together, and  drink it off.   This is
pleasanter than water alone ; but water of itself will be
as effectual, or rather better, as hath  been often  proved
upon persons in those fits.

          HOW  TO DISTINGUISH GOOD WATER.

  Some persons may  desire to know how to distinguish
good from bad water; and the way to do this is by the
taste and scent; for if it have  no taste nor smell, being
purely fresh, not salt, nor  sweetish, nor ill-scented, it is
good, provided  it be pure  and clear;  of which  kind is
the common water used in London, when  well  settled,
or in fair weather.  As for those who  are curious, and
will be at the charge,  they  may procure the bpst wato~ 
PAINri OF THE  STOMACH.
67
for  drink by distillation, either  in an  alembic, or in a
cold still used in drawing any cold water  from herbs ;
for  no earthy  or metallic substance, nor  any kind of
salt, will rise in distillation ; so that the water so distilled
will be pure and admirable to drink when cold, and will
keep as  long from stinking  as any of  the  cold distilled
water in the  apothecaries' shops, according to what Dr.
Quincy hath affirmed about it in his  dispensatory.
  Those who have not the convenience of distillation,
may boil it a little, as they do  for tea;  for  then, when
kept a while after it  is cold, it will  become more  fine,
by  suffering  any mixture contained in it to settle to the
bottom of the  vessel wherein it is  contained, and that
will render it still more pure.   In short, all water that
will make a good lather  with soap,  is wholesome  to
drink without boiling, and none else.
   [Rain-water, when obtained pure, is excellent for both
cooking and drinking.  It  can easily be filtered if need
be  ; and  every family may have it  in abundance, at  a
comparatively small expense, in erecting  cisterns, etc.,
for retaining it.]

                PAINS IN  THE STOMACH.

   Since the  collecting  together the fore-mentioned ac-
counts, I have met  with  a book written  by Dr. Boer-
haave, the present  professor of physic at Leyden, in
Holland, who  affirms, that drinking water, made  very
warm, is a good remedy to pacify griping pains in the
stomach ; and that it is proper to bathe wounds  in the
face with it, when they come to be just healed, so that
the place  be kept continually wet. which  I conceive  is
best done by applying often linen cloths wet, and bind- 
68
DR.  HANCOCK  ON FEVERS.
ing them on till they begin to dry, for  this will prevent
scars.   And he saith, that warm water is better to at-
tenuate, or thin the blood, than  cold water.
   [Boerhaave, the greatest physician  of  his time,  pro-
mulgated  the  theory tnat  fever is  caused by  a lentor
(something cold) in the  blood.  Hence  his recommenda-
tion of warm water.  It was through Boerhaave's  doc-
trines that  the  heating  treatment in fevers and inflam-
matory diseases became adopted, and to the destruction
of thousands upon thousands within the last  century.
So much harm the mistake of an honest man may do.]

                       FEVERS.

   There is also published lately a book of experiments
made with  water, by Dr. Hancock, a divine, called Feb-
rifugum  Mangum  ;  wherein he saith, that drinking a
pint or a quart of cold water in bed, will raise a copious
sweat, and  cure all burning fevers, which at once taking
hath done the  business.   It will  raise  a sweat without
much more covering than ordinary.  And  he further
affirms, that the same taken at the beginning of the  cold
fit of an ague, and sweating  upon it, at  two  or three
times taking will cure that distemper.   A large  quantity
of hot water, I know, hath been advised to take off the
cold fit of agues, but the party was not ordered to sweat.
Which discovery of the reverend  doctor about fevers,
is  confirmed by the following accounts, which  I receiv-
ed from a worthy gentleman,  Mr. Ralph  Thoresby,
F. R. S.,* to whom they were transmitted by Mr. Lucas,

  * Author of Ducatus Leediensis, or Topography of Leeds, which the
learned Bishop of Lincoln, in his preface to the new edition of Camden's
Britannia, styles an useful and accurate treatise. 
WATER IN  FEVERS.
69
,  a pious and learned gentleman  of Leeds, in  Yorkshire,
  who says:
    "One Captain Rosier fell into a violent fever, which,
  as soon as  he perceived, he said he must have  some
  cold water.   The gentlewoman at whose house he lodg-
  ed, not thinking that proper, boiled the water (unknown
  to him) and put some spirits therein, and sent it up cold ;
  but he  smelt  it before it came to his  head, and refused
  to drink it, saying, he knew what he did, for he had sev-
  eral times tried it.  Afterward some clear water being
  brought, he drank it,  sweat  profusely, and was well the
  next day.
    " Another captain of a ship also took the same  meth-
  od, when he, or any. of his men, fell  into a fever; which
  had the desired success."
    Mr.  Lucas adds, in another letter to the same gentle-
  man, " that his own  wife  fell  very ill of a fever; she
  drank  water, sweat  very much, and thereby recover-
  ed."
    All which instances corroborate the new way of cur-
  ing fevers, so lately discovered in this city, by Dr. Han-
  cock ;  who  also saith, he has had long experience in
  curing common colds with cold water ;  and  this is done
  by drinking a large draught of water at going to bed,
  another in the night, and another in the morning ;  which,
  he saith,  will soon thicken, and sweeten, and digest that
  thin, sharp rheum, that provokes coughing to no purpose ;
  for the rheum, when  thin, is hard to  be brought up, but
  when thickened, it will come up easily, and the  cough
  will  soon go  off.  Which agrees  with what I  before
  affirmed  from my own long experience.
    He also affirms from  Irs  own experience, that using
  sometimes  to take a walk of eight  or ten  miles in a 
70
RHEUMATISM.
morning, he found that water gave twice as good breath
for that purpose as wine or ale;  and if it would do this
for  a man who had no  asthma, he doubts  not but it
would do the same in one troubled  with one.  And he
also affirms water to be the best remedy for a. surfeit,
to the truth of which I can testify by long experience.
                    RHEUMATISM.

  He also affirms, that drinking cold water hath been
found good in rheumatisms, and that to one so afflicted
he had advised to drink it as  he lay in his bed, and it
took off the fit.   But if hot water attenuates the blood
most, as Boerhaave affirms, it is then best to drink of it
warm daily to a good quantity ; for, as Pitcairn observes,
it is then the best  dissolver of all kinds of salts in  the
body, which it will carry off in the urine, if drank plen-
tifully ; for by urine, salts  are  evacuated, as is evident
by the taste.
  [Warm water drank very freely is much better than
none at all; but cold water is the best, provided no vio-
lence is done with  it.  Those who are feeble, and have
long been  accustomed to hot drinks,  may commence
with warm water,  gradually coming to the cold, which
will not require a  long time.   There are multitudes of
dyspeptic, nervous persons, in our country, who would,
in a few  months, experience  an  amount of benefit far
exceeding  their most sanguine hopes, if  they would
but  take  resolutely to water, excluding every  other
drink.] 
GOUT OF  THE STOMACH.
71
GOUT  in  run  STOMACH.
  And it is his opinion, from the long experience he hath
had of  the effect of water in keeping the stomach  in
order, and making it tight and strong to perform its ope-
rations, and digest all humors, that it will cure the gout
in the stomach ;  and perhaps  it may do it better than
wine, which I have known to fail.  And I do  not won-
der that the same liquor which is the prii cipal cause of
the gout in other parts, should not be a help in  that part,
but rather kill,  as  it often is found to do,  though  the
strongest  wine is drank.
   In short, he affirms, and that with great reason, that
sweating  in fevers  by drinking cold water, is  more na-
tural than to do it with hot  sudorifics, which often do
harm in the  beginning  of fevers, except good store of
cooling, moistening liquors are drank with them, they
 being more apt  to inflame that cool and quench heat in
 the body ; and  for that reason sweating hath not been
 often advised by physicians, because they were ignorant
 of this way  of sweating to cure fevers, by drinking  cold
 water.
    Whicn cure,  he said, did succeed in one who was his
 relation,  at the  fifth day after  his falling sick; to whom
 he o-ave a dose of water after he was in  bed, and he
 sweated  profusely for twenty-four hours, and thereby
  was cured.   Half a pint, he saith, is enough for a grown
 child : a pint to a man or woman, though if  they drink
  a quart,  it will  be better.  And in scarlet fevers, small-
  pox, or measles, though  the water will not cause sweat,
  yet it  will so quell and  keep under the fever, that the
  eruptions will  come out more kindly;  which  is a con-
  firmation of what before was said  about Dr.  Betts'  pre- 
72
THE  PLAGUE.
scribing  two quarts of water, when the  small-pox  did
not come out kindly ;  the water aftording matter to fill
them  up, according to what  the  author  observes of a
certain person, in the History of Cold Bathing (p. 347),
that he could give an hundred instances where people
of all ages have been lost  by being denied drink in  the
small-pox; for it hinders the  filling of the pustules.

                      PLAGUE.

  And Dr. Hancock sets down an account of the  au-
thor of the Free  Thinker, concerning a woman, who, in
the last  great plague, fell ill of that distemper, who got
her husband to fetch her a pitcher of water from Lamb's
conduit: she drank plentifully of it, but did not avoid
the cold, and so did not sweat; however, she was cured.
And he  gives us another  relation  of an Englishman,
formerly resident at Morocco, that fell ill of the plague
at that place, and getting water to drink, fell into a vio-
lent sweat, and recovered : from  whence he concludes,
that water is good in  the plague; agreeable to what is
related in Sir John Floyer's Book  of Cold  Baths, where-
in it is  said, that but two died of the  plague who lived
over the water upon London  Bridge (p. 223),  the cool-
aess of the air  being supposed to  contribute to their
health, who inhabited on the water in that manner, their
blood being cooler than others : it is said, also, that wa-
termen escaped better than others.
   I will here add to what  the doctor hath said  before
concerning the cure of  fevers, that if the fever be  ac-
companied in the beginning with any great illness at  the
stomach, nauseating or  vomiting, it will  be the surest
and safest practice to clear  the stomach first, by vomit- 
CONCLUSION.
73
ing with warm water, as before hath been directed ; for
I cannot believe it possible for the stomach to be cleared
from  foul humors by sweating:  it  may do, if no great
sense of disorder is  perceived there, but it will certainly
be safest to cleanse the stomach first, which is the placo
where all diseases are originally begun ; for then sweat-
ing with cold water afterward  may turn to good ac-
count.  Indeed I have not made any trial of it since the
doctor's  book was published, but I have a very  good
opinion of  his account therein given concerning the be-
 nefit of water, having had so much experience thereof
 in  my own practice for above  forty years;  for so long
 it is  since I first  began to collect those accounts, and
 make those experiments, which are herein made public
 for the benefit of all.
   And thus, for the common  good  of mankind, of all
 ranks and  degrees, I have gathered together all the ac-
 counts I have observed in physic  books relating to the
 use of common water in preventing and curing diseases;
 to which I have added some experiments of  my own,
 which by  numerous trials I can  warrant as  sure and
 certain,  especially  that of curing any sickness in the
 stomach upon the spot, by vomiting with warm water:
 which is an experiment, that, if  put into common  prac-
 tice, would prevent many thousand fits of sickness in a
 year among mankind, and also a great number of un-
 timely deaths; for it takes away the cause of  all  stom-
 ach sickness, which is the root or first beginning of most
 of the evils that afflict the body.
              7 
74                 ESSAY ON  DIET.
SOME RULES FOR PRESERVING HEALTH BY DIET, COLLECTED
              FROM  AUTHORS  OF PHYSIC.

  In a  little treatise, entitled, Kitchen Physic, written
by Dr. Cook, the author declares, he can hardly be told
of any disease which  he  cannot relieve  or cure by a
proper diet (p. 39).  And in the same book we find  his
opinion  to be this: that all tender, sickly people, and all
aged and decrepit persons, ought to  eat often, and but
a little at a time, because  weak  and wasted bodies are
to be restored  by little and little ;  and by moist and
liquid food also, rather than by solid, because moist and
liquid diet does nourish soonest, and digest easiest.
  Those, he saith, that eat much, and get little  strength
by eating, show that they have  used  themselves to too
full a diet; and  the  more you  cram  such bodies, the
less they thrive by it, but rathe*" grow  worse and worse :
because, by much feeding, you do but add to  the bad
humors  wherewith the body is already  filled,  which
should rather be wasted  by purging,  and using a spare
diet.
  And a spare  diet  he describes to be this:  that  we
never eat at  once till the appetite is  fully  satisfied, and
never to eat till  we have  an appetite; and men never
nave a true appetite till they can eat any ordinary food :
and he  adviseth to keep constantly to a plain diet;  for
those, he says, enjoy most  health, and live longest, that
avoid curiosity and variety of meats  and drinks, which
only serve to entice to gluttony, and so work our ruin.
  Another faith, that the  less  food the sick person eats,
the sooner he will recover; for it is  a true saying, the
more you fill foul bodies, the more you hurt them.  The
stomach being the place  where diseases  begin,  when 
EFFECTS OF DIET.
75
that  part therefore is weak, and out of order, and  can-
not make a good  digestion when much is eaten, raw or
crude humors then must needs be bred, and bad humors
cannot produce good blood.
   All men do find by experience, that in the morning
before they have eaten,  they are light and  pleasantly
easy in their bodies,  but  after they have indulged  their
appetites with plenty of food, they find themselves heavy
and  dull, and often sleepy : which sufficiently shows that
those full  meals are prejudicial to the  welfare of the
body ; for a moderate meal  would have continued  the
ease and lightsomeness they before found in themselves,
and  would  have refreshed any faintness that emptiness
might occasion.  And he certainly, who useth the most
simple meats and drinks, avoideth  the snare of provok-
ing  his appetite beyond the necessities of nature ; where-
as variety enticeth to a fresh desire of every dainty, till
at last the stomach is gorged, and made uncapable of
 performing a good digestion ;  and this produceth  those
crudities, which  are the  cause  of all diseases, and of so
 many sudden deaths.
   It is generally observed, that the most unhealthy are
 found among those  who feed high upon the most deli-
 cious dainties, and drink nothing  but the strongest  and
 most spirituous liquors ;  whereas, others who want this
 delicate fare, are seldom sick, except they have  such
 unsatiable  appetites as  to eat too much, which a man
 may do of the*  plainest diet, whose belly is his god, as
 an  apostle  expresses it.  But though  men  may glut
 themselves with coarse food, yet coarse food and long
 life  are very consistent, as  appears  by John Bill, men-
 tioned in the History of Cold Baths (p. 408), whose food
 was bread, cheese,  and butter ; and drink, whey, butter- 
7G
FASTING RECOMMENDED.
milk or water ; and yet he lived one hundred and thirty-
three  years, was a strong, straight, upright man.  And
the food of John Bailes, whose age amounted..to one
hundred and twenty-eight, was for  the most part brown
bread and  cheese, and his drink water, or  small beer
and milk (p. 416).   He  had buried the whole town of
Northampton twenty times over, except  three  or four,
and said strong drink killed them all.
  Dr. Pratt adviseth to sup sparingly ; for to sup spar-
ingly, he saith, is most  healthful, because  of the experi-
ence of an infinite number of persons who  have received
the greatest benefit from  light suppers.  For the stom-
ach being  not over-burdened, the  sleep is  more pleas-
ant ; and from  sparing  suppers the breeding of  those
humors  are prevented, which  cause defluxions, rheuma-
tisms, gouts, dropsies, giddiness, and  corruption in the
mouth from the scurvy ; and  from  light suppers a free-
dom from  sickness and  retching in the morning is ob-
tained, and concoction is made  perfect, which prevents
obstructions.
  Another  saith, it is well-known  that many indisposi-
tions  are  cured by fasting, or a very spare diet;  for
what  is  taken into the stomach being no more than can
be well  digested, the chylous  juice, so rightly prepared,
is conveyed  into the lacteal vessels,  and from thence
into the blood:  so that nature being duly supplied with
well-concocted nourishment, the corrupted blood will
free itself from that corruption in  time, by throwing it
out, through  the pores of the skin, in perspiration, and
supply itself with the  purer  juices;  and  in this.way,
consumptions and scurvies, and other chronical distem-
pers,  will be overcome;  which way of curing  diseases
by fasting, swine  do naturally betake themselves to, 
               FASTING RECOMMENDED.             77

who, when sick, will  eat nothing till they recover,  as
they always do after they injure themselves  by over-
eating ;  in which they are imitated by all who delight in
gormandizing or gluttony, though not in using  the same
means of recovery.
  That  men in health may prevent  diseases, it was ad-
vised that one meal  should  not  be eaten  till the other,
which was eaten before, was passed  off clean out of the
stomach, which never is  done till the appetite of hun-
ger  is found  to call  for another supply: by means of
which constant observation, the food will be converted
into good chyle, and  from good  chyle, which is a milky
substance, good blood will be bred, and from good blood
generous spirits will be produced, out of which a healthy
constitution will ensue ;  but, on the  contrary, too great
a quantity of  food being taken for pleasure  only, which
the  stomach cannot well digest, the chyle will be raw
and corrupt, which will foul the blood, and render the
body disorderly and unhealthful.
   Others say  that abstinence and  sobriety free from
most diseases, especially catarrhs,  coughs, wheezings,
giddiness, pain in the head and  stomach, sudden  death,
lethargies, gout, and  sciatica, an ill digestion  being  the
cause of all these; it also prevents  pain in the spleen,
stone, and gravel,  and a dry itch ;  it makes the body
 vigorous and  nimble, maintains the five senses in a good
 state,  preserveth  the memory, quickens the wit, and
quencheth all  undue  lust  in  mankind ;  and, in short, all
 misers  who eat and drink but little,  live long.
   Two  meals a day  is said to be sufficient for all per-
 sons after fifty years of age, and all weak  people ; and
 the omitting of suppers does  always conduce  much  to
 health  of the weak  and aged, since if no supper be
               7* 
78
THREE  MEALS A DAY.
eaten, the stomach will soon free  itself from all tough,
slimy humors wherewith it is slabbered over on the in-
side, and thereby the appetite will  be renewed, and di-
gestion  made  more strong  and vigorous.  Moreover,
all that are troubled with sweating in  the night, any ill
taste in their mouths, belching and  troublesome dreams,
must avoid suppers ; for in sleep the fibres of the stom-
ach relax, and  are not able  to contract themselves so
strongly as when awake, to  embrace the  food, and by
trituration reduce it into a pap fit  to pass out into the
other bowels, called the guts, out of which the nourish-
ment is sent to other parts.
  [Three meals a  day, in proper  quantity, are  doubt-
less better than  two.   If those persons who eat but
twice per day, would divide the same amount of food
into three parts, taking the meals as nearly as might be
at six, twelve, and six of the day, they will find it a bet-
ter mode.  But it must  be acknowledged  there is  here
a greater liability to take too much  food.
  Some persons  have  adopted the plan of eating but
once in twenty-four hours, and are said to  enjoy good
health from such  a practice.   But we cannot regard
this as a good  one, for the most healthy desire food as
often as  three times a day.  Three times a day, we have
come  to the conclusion from  study and  experiment, is
the best general rule.]
  It was said by Dr. Curtis, that though those who use
a spare diet cannot well bear long  labor, yet such  peo-
ple, when their exercise is suitable  to their strength, do
live longer than those of a robust constitution, that think
large  feeding adds strength ;  especially such  as  Dcing
strong, use no exercise proportionable to it,  to consume
the superfluities which a full feeding doth  occasion ; so 
(.AUSE OF RICKETS.               79
that the only way for those to live long who have much
wealth, and  need not  labor for a  livelihood, is  to  live
temperately; and this temperance  doth  consist in not
letting the common  custom of meals invite you to eat,
except your appetite concur with those times.  We must
not indulge the cravings of a depraved appetite, as those
do who eat to please their  fancy, and not the necessities
of nature; and when we do eat, we must not think that
the more plentifully  we eat, we shall be  more strength-
ened, for it will not prove  so ;  a little well digested will
make  the  body stronger,  than the  being glutted with
superfluity, most of which  will be turned  into a  corrupt
juice, and must be cast out by physic, or else sickness
will ensue, and the easiest  physic is  that  which the Ger-
mans call the hunger-cure, if continued a due time.
   It is  the opinion  of learned men, that the  early dis-
temper of the bodies of children, called the rickets, pro-
ceeds from the fault of their mothers, in making them
gluttons from their cradles, gorging them with food till
they loath it, out of a mistaken opinion  that this is the
way to make them thrive  and grow strong; which ex-
cess is not only the cause  of this disease, but of the im-
mature death of many ; and iu others it lays the foun-
dation of many distempers,  which afflict those  after-
 ward who live to the years of maturity ; and  as  they
 gorge  them with food, so they vainly think to cherish
 them with strong drink, than which nothing can  be more
 pernicious to the health of children, whose diet should
 be little and often, and their  drink  cooling.  As it also
 should  be when men arrive  at the time of becoming
 children again in old age ; that is, in an helpless state,
 which should be prevented as much as can  be, by a
 cooling, moistening  diet, in  opposition to the hot,  and 
80                   SPARE DIET.
dry, and withered state of age; for it is heat and dry-
ness that are the  cause of most old men's miseries, es-
pecially the wasting of the substance that fills the parts
with moisture, and  keeps  the body plump and smooth;
they who style wine  the old man's milk, being greatly
mistaken, for milk cools, and wine  heats.
  It was the opinion of Dr. Pitt, who was formerly phy-
sician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, that  fasting, rest,
and drinking w7ater, would cure  most diseases ; and there
seemeth to be a great  deal of reason in what he asserted.
For fasting will give time to the  stomach to unload it-
self of the cause of distempers,  the cause of all diseases
being begun in  that bowel only ; to which cleansing, the
drinking of water plentifully will much contribute, which
also will keep the action of the stomach upon the hinges,
by  filling of it when empty, at which time there will be
need of rest, for  thereby  the body will be  less fit for
business:  though the mere  drinking  of water,  which
affords  nourishment sufficient for  the growth and "sup-
port of all  vegetables, will, in some measure, supply the
want of food, as hath  been shown in the example of two,
who were supported  a long  time  by nothing else.  In
short, the best  way for a  sick man to recover, is to eat
little or no food  till he finds an appetite, according to
that saying,

           " Spare diet will the most diseases cure,
             If a due time yorJ can the same endure."

And fasting from food may be continued long enough to
be  a remedy for  many diseases, with the assistance of
common water:  by  drinking of which warm, in a due
quantity, without a total fasting, two persons, I  am in-
formed, were recovered out of consumptions, with which 
                    SPARE DIET.                  81

they were extremely  weakened, and that in  about six
weeks' time ; as was another by drinking milk and whey,
equal parts, made blood-hot, without using any  other
diet, which is thought to be far more effectual than asses'
milk, whose virtue consists in being thinner than other
milk.
   But  besides  a  spare diet,  cool, dry air is  also  very
helpful to preserve men in health, who are not sick, for
it mixes  with the blood, and without it the motion of the
blood and spirits  can never be preserved, as appears by
divino- vessels, in which men cannot live when the air
therein is  made  hot  by  their own body  and breath:
and is proved, also, by an experiment of Dr. Croone's,
who stifled a chicken, till  it seemed quite dead ; and yet
by blowing cool  air into the  lungs, with a small pair of
bellows, it revived.  Hence it appears, that the common
custom of managing sick people is very pernicious, and
 so far from helping them to  recover, that it is sufficient
 to make a healthy person sick ;  for were a person, who
 was not sick, confined for three or four weeks in a room,
 made  hot like a stove, and kept  in his bed, with the cur-
 tains  drawn, and all the windows  close shut, and the
 room  made unpleasant with  the nauseous fumes of phy-
 sic, and a close stool, which will almost  make  a fresh
 man sick when he just enters into it; we can never think
 that this is  the  way to recover  one that really is sick,
 and wants the fresh  air  and reviving  scents to cherish
 his blood ;  a fresh, open, sweet air  being one principal
 means to strengthen the body, make  a good  appetite
 and digestion, and  render  the spirits brisk and  lively:
 which advantage should be allowed to all but child-bed
  women, and those who are afflicted with the  small-pox;
  for the fresh air can be  prejudicial to no other, whose 
82
COOL AIR IN FEVER.
 bodies are clothed warm, either in  bed, or sitting in a
 chair in their chamber.
   Some  years  since a neighbor became very feverish,
 and his wife persuaded  him to go to bed ; and  hearing
 of it  soon after, I gave  him a visit, where I found the
 windows  close  shut, the curtains of the bed drawn, and
 the room  very  hot, for it  was  in July : he was  burning
 hot, and  complained for  want of breath.   I  drew open
 the curtains, covered  him  warm, and then opened the
 windows, and the wind blew into the room ; upon which
 he soon told me, his shortness of breath had left him.
 I persuaded him  to drink some water, which he found
 did much refresh  him ;  and after I had taken my leave
 of him, he called for more water: and while  he  had the
 cup in his hand, an apothecary came in, whom his wife
 had sent  for, who, finding him about to drink the water,
 told him, if he did it he was a dead man ; but instead of
 forbearing, he drank it up in his  presence: upon which
 the other  took his leave, and told him, he would say no
 more  to  him.   However, before night, the person got
 up, went abroad, and was cured of his fever; which is
 one instance, among many  others that might be given,
 of the benefit of fresh air  to a person  who is kept warm
 in his  bed ; for thereby his body was cooled inwardly,
 and his breathing made more free, by the air which was
 drawn into his  lungs to refresh and  comfort the blood
 as it passed through them.
  I shall  only add, that  by keeping  the blood  cool as
 well  as clean, is to be understood, not only moderation
in diet, but to feed most on  cooling food made of wheat,
barley, oatmeal, rice, and ripe  apples, as also on milk;
which, joined with oatmeal, is the chief food of those
lusty and strong men, the Highlanders of Scotland, who 
                     MILK DIET.                   83

abound in  children, as Dr. Cheyne tells us, in his Trea-
tise of the  Gout (p. 108, edit, iv.), which demonstrates
milk and oatmeal to be a most  strengthening food, and
such as keeps the blood in due order; so that therewith
men may subsist, though  they abstain from  beef, pork,
and  venison, and  all other meats hard to  digest, and
drink water as the Highlanders do: of the efficacy of
which cooling milk  diet, the said Dr. Cheyne gives a no-
table instance in a doctor that lived at Croyden (p. 103),
who had long been afflicted with the falling-evil; for, by
flow observation, he found the lighter  his meals were,
the lighter  were his fits.   At last he also cast off all li-
quids but water, and found  his  fits weaker, and the in-
tervals longer; and finding his disease mend, ns its fuel
was withdrawn, he took to vegetable  food and  water
only, which put an entire period to his  fits without any
relapse:  but finding that food windy to him, he took to
milk, of which he eat a pint for breakfast, a quart at din-
ner, and a pint for  supper, without fish, flesh, bread, or
any strong or spirituous  liquor, or any drink but water,
with which  he lived afterward for fourteen years,  with-
out the least interruption in his health, strength, or vig-
or, but died afterward of a pleurisy.  Which is a con-
firmation of what Dr. Cook did affirm, of the possibility
of curing diseases  by diet only that is  temperate and
cooling.
  In short,  temperance or a spare  diet, void of dainties,
never  was  injurious to the strongest constitution, and
without it, such as are weak and sickly cannot long sub-
sist ; for the more such persons eat and  drink, the  more
weak and disordered they will  still find themselves to
be: so that if the  strong despise temperance, yet the
comfort of weak, sickly, and pining people, docs depend 
84                  TEMPERANCE.

entirely upon their constantly observing it; which, when
they are accustomed to  it, will  be easy to do:  so that
they will deny  all intemperate  desires with as  great
pleasure, as they before  did delight in what is falsely
styled  good eating and drinking; for nothing of that ia
good which is injurious to health; it is custom only that
makes  men hanker after gluttony and drunkenness, and
a contrary custom  will  make  men abhor  it as  much.
And therefore it is a wonder the rich do not strive to
attain to it, for

          " A fatal error 'tis, in men of wealth,
           To feed so high as will destroy their health."

Temperance being that which  will enable them to live
most at ease, and enjoy their wealth  the  longest; this,
and water-drinking, being the surest way to bring men
to old  age, though it hath not power to make the aged
young. 
INNUTRITIOUS
MATTER IN  FOOD.
85
APPENDIX
INNUTRITIOUS  MATTER IN FOOD NECESSARY TO HEALTH.

  It is a well  ascertained law of the animal economy,
that  food, to be healthy, must contain a considerable
portion of matter that is wholly indigestible and innutri-
tious.  Thus,  Magendie, the physiologist, found that
dogs, fed upon sugar, gum  arabic, butter, olive oil, and
some other articles of rich or concentrated nature, each
given to the animals separately  with  pure water, they
very soon lost their  appetites, began to droop, became
emaciated, were attacked with ulcers, and died, invaria-
bly,  within the space of four or five weeks.  Fed upon
superfine  flour-bread and water, they lived uniformly
about seven weeks, varying only a day or two.   When
fed  upon coarse  or military bread, such as contained
either the whole or a considerable portion of the bran,
the  dogs  thrived perfectly  well, and  were found in no
respect to suffer.   The same truth has often been illus-
trated upon ship-board at  sea.   In many cases, where
the  hay and  straw were swept overboard, it has been
found that the animals, in  a few days, famished, unless
some innutritious  substance, as  the shavings of wood,
was  mixed  with  the grain given them.   The animals
have been observed  to gnaw at  the spars and timbers,
or whatever wood they could lay hold of; and thus  the
idea was suggested,  that the grain alone was of too rich
a nature for their sustenance.
   The  same  principle holds good in  reference  to  the
health of the  human body, and  as a general fact, food,
              8 
86          lNNUTKHTOUS  .MATTER  IN  FOOD.

in civilized  life, is of too  concentrated a quality.  This
is particularly true in those parts of the world where an
abundance  can  be  had ;  in other words,  in  the  more
civilized and enlightened parts of the world.  A host of
diseases, both acute and  chronic, are  either caused or
greatly aggravated  by concentration  in food.  Indiges-
tion, with its  immense train of evils, constipation, loss
of flesh, corpulency, nervous and  general  debility, tor-
por, and  sluggishness of the general system,  arc the
principal  roots of all  disease in the human family, and
these are among the difficulties  caused  by too  great
richness in food.  Children are often injured in this way.
Mothers, in their kindness, think nothing  too good  for
their little ones.   In  many parts of our country, the in-
fant at the  breast is taught to suck at  its piece of pork,
or other fat  meat.  Sugar, sugar candy, sweetened milk,
superfine bread, and rich  pastries, are all given for the
same reason, by mothers and  nurses in their mistaken
kindness.  Children  reared in this way can never be
healthy for  any considerable  length  of  time, arc gene-
rally very puny and weak, and often  die within two or
three years of birth.  Scrofulous and other ulcers  are
frequently thus caused, and so also those derangements
of  the stomach  and  bowels, which so often, in  spite of
the  best remedial  means, sweep these  little sufferers
from their  earthly existence, and  this at  the very time
when  their  growing mind begins to gladden the parent's
 heart.   There is great and prevailing error upon this
subject, and happy are those  parents who take it upon
themselves to gain wisdom in this most important mat-
 ter of food.
   Sedentary and studious persons, and especially young
 ladies at seminaries  and boarding-schools, suffer much 
INNUTRITIOUS  MATTER  IN  FOOD.
87
from the effects of superfine bread, and other forms of
concentrated  food.  Constipation, which  is always  at-
tended with unpleasant results, is very common among
this class of persons, one of the greatest causes of that
Btate of health being too great richness in food.
  The effects of superfine  flour were strikingly illus-
trated  in the  case of a  crew of seamen belonging to
Providence, It. I.  The  narrative we quote  from Gra-
ham's Science of Human Life, and is as follows :
  "Captain Benjamin Dexter, of the ship Isis, belonging
to Providence, R. I., arrived from China, in  December,
1804.  He had been about one hundred and ninety days
on the passage.   The sea-bread, which constituted  the
principal article  of food  for his hands, was made of  the
best of superfine flour.   He had not been  long at  sea,
before the  men  began to complain  of languor, loss of
appetite, and  debility.   These difficulties  continued to
increase  during the whole  voyage, and  several  of  the
men died on the passage, of debility and inanition.  The
ship was obliged to come to anchor  about thirty miles
below Providence; and such was  the  debility of  the
hands on board, that they were  not able to get the  ship
under way again ; and the owners were  under the  ne-
cessity of  sending men  down from  the city of  Provi-
dence to work her up.   When she arrived, the owners
asked  Capt. Dexter what was the cause of  the sickness
of  his men, to which he answered, 'The bread is  too
good.' "
   Cases of a similar kind have elsewhere been known
to occur.   Sailors,  the  world  over,  are  generally fur-
nished with brown sea-bread, much to  the advantage
of this useful  class of men, did  they but know it;  and
their health is proverbially good while  they are away 
88              POTATOES  IN  SCURVY.

from the temptations upon land.  These hardy, weather-
beaten men are subjected to many healthful  influences
other than the use of coarse bread, but, on the whole,
their dietetic and other hygienic habits need  greatly to
be improved ; still, compared with the mass of mankind,
they are remarkably healthy.
  Every one who is aware of the importance of a cer-
tain  degree  of innutritiousness  in  food,  must  lament
many of the so-called  improvements of modern times.
Who can  think of the good dishes  our  New England
mothers used  to prepare, homely and plain, as the fas-
tidious would  now consider them to be, and  not desire
earnestly that such days of simplicity might  again re-
turn to us ?   As things  are, if a person  travels from
home, or visits among friends, almost every dish that is
set before him is of a form so concentrated as  to  be pos-
itively injurious.  At the best hotels and boarding-houses,
upon the floating palaces that  glide upon our  waters,
and in our splendid  ships that traverse the seas, the evil
we speak  of is generally prevalent.

   POTATOES  A PREVENTIVE AND CURE  FOR SCURVY.

  Much has  been said of late, in France and England,
of the value of this vegetable in the prevention and cure
of scorbutic  disease, administered  several  times a day
in its raw  state, but  scraped sufficiently fine to  make it
digestible.  It seems to have been  amply tested among
the seamen of the French navy.  In the  United States
army, this is no new remedy in scorbutus.   Thus, in the
first  quarter of 1821, there were sixteen cases reported
at Fort  Crawford, Prairie du Chien, of which two ter-
minated fatally.   The medical officer, in his report, ac- 
POTATO  DIET.                  89
cording to the "statistics of the United States Army,"
speaking of the employment of " raw potatoes and vine-
gar," says : " I selected  four or five of the worst cases,
which  had received no alleviation from the use  of the
nitre and vinegar, and directed each one to eat, per day,
a common  soup-plate full of the potato, sliced down in
a sufficient quantity of vinegar.  It had an immediate
effect on the stomach, which recovered its  natural vig-
or ; the bowels became regular, the  pains abated, the
stricture of the tendons was overcome, the ulcers put
on a healthy aspect, and* in a few days the patient found
himself in a happy state of convalescence."—The New
York Journal of Medicine for July, edited by S. Forry,
M.D.

 POTATOES  AS A DIET--EXPERIMENTS  AT THE  GLASGOW
                BRIDEWELL, IN  1840.

   Breakfast.—Eight ounces of oatmeal made into poi-
ridge,  with a pint of buttermilk.
   Dinner.—Three  pounds of boiled potatoes with salt.
   Supper.—Five ounces of oatmeal made into porridge,
with half a pint of buttermilk.
   Ten  prisoners, five men  and  five boys, were  placed
upon this diet, having been previously examined relative
to their health, and weighed.  They were employed  in
light work, and under  sentence of confinement for two
months.  At  the  beginning of the experiment, eight
were in good  health, and two in indifferent health ;  at
the end, all were  in good health, and  they had, on an
average, gained more than four pounds each in weight,
only one prisoner, a man, having lost in weight. The
greatest gain was  nine pounds four  ounces, and was
made  by one of the men; the prisoner who was  re-
              8* 
90
LIVING ON POTATOES.
duced in weight had lost five pounds two ounces.  Cost,
including cooking, 2|d.  It  was found  by experiment,
that baked potatoes were far less nourishing than boiled,
the prisoners losing, on an average, U pounds weight,
instead of gaining, though in all other respects the diet
was the same as in the former experiment.  The addi-
tion of a quarter of a pound  of meat to the diet did  not
add to their weight; on the  contrary, the prisoners lost,
on an average, 14  pounds.   The results were not more
satisfactory when  the quantity of meat was increased
to half a pound at  dinner.  In an experiment  upon  the
same number of persons, the diet consisted as follows:
   Breakfast.—Two pounds of potatoes boiled.
   Dinner.—Three pounds of potatoes boiled.
   Supper.—One pound of potatoes  boiled.
   At the  beginning of the experiment, eight  were in
good health, and two  in  indifferent health; at the end,
the eight  continued in good  health,  and  the  two who
 had been in  indifferent health  had  improved.  There
 was, on an average, a gain in weight of nearly 34 pounds
 per prisoner,  the greatest gain being 8i pounds. Only
 two lost in weight, and  the quantity  in each  case  was
 trifling.  The prisoners all  expressed themselves satis-
 fied with this diet, and regretted the change back again
 to the ordinary diet.  On the whole, these experiments
 prove that prisoners may be kept  in good condition at
 a very moderate expense, the cost not exceeding 6d. per
 day, when fed as above.  Indeed, we know, from an
 experiment conducted on a still larger scale in Ireland,
 that potatoes and milk, with a little oatmeal, are  suffi-
 cient for healthy nutrition.—Fifth  Report of the Inspec-
 tors of Prisons in Scotland, by Frederick Hill, 1840. 
INDEX.
                                                      PAGE.
Asthma..........58
Bladder, Stone in the.......14
Bruises, Swellings from.......22
Bloody Flux  ....         ....    28
Burns and Scalds     .......  42
Childbirth, Water in    .......    11
Children, Weakness of.......19
          Rickets of.......20
Cholera morbus........27
Consumption .........    29
Colic..........30
Colds..........39
Callosities of the Feet.......57
Cough..........59
Cuts'...........52
Diet, Rules of........74
   '•  of Potatoes......          .89
Eruptions and Hot Flushes......29
Eyes, Inflamed......  .     .     .56
   "  Cold  Water for.......57
Epilepsy, or Falling Sickness    ......  53
Flushes and Eruptions.......29
Fevers.........34-63
Fever, Curious case of  .     .         ....    36
Fright and Grief               ......65
Feet, Callosities of          ......57
Falling Sickness          .......  53
Fainting or Swooning        ......51
Fasting recommended     .......  75
Food, Iniratritious matter necessary in  ....    85
Gout and Melancholy.......13
   "  of Stomach........71
Gravel, Water prevents it......14
Gouty Persons, directions for.....24
Gripings..........61
Grief and  Fright........62
[lunger prevented by Water......17
Hard Drinking........38
Hysterics or Vapors      .......  66
Hydrophobia........52
Inflammatory diseases     .     .         ....  38 
92                          INDEX.
                                                          PAOK.
    Jaundice.........56
    Joints, Painful  .........  56
      "    Weakness of     .......    49
    King's Evil or Scrofula    .......  56
    Milk in Women increased by Water-drinking     .  "  .    17
    Mineral Water not so good as the Pure   .     .    .    .41
    Mad Dog, Bite of........52
    Madness and Melancholy  .......  54
    Nausea, Vomiting in     .......    22
    Nose bleed     .     .    .    .    .     .     .    .    .51
    Pregnancy.........1G
    Plague, Cure of.........72
    Potato Diet.........39
    Rickets in Children........20
       "    How caused    .     .    .     .    .    .     .    21
    Rheumatism.........  70
    Stone in the Bladder.......14
    Swellings from Bruises.......22
    Stomach, Sickness of        ......22
       "      pains of    ........  67
     Spasms of Stomach,  Case  of  .    .     .    .    .     .    25
    Shortness of Breath........26
    Small-Pox,.........31
              Cases of.......32-33
     Strong Drink hurtful to Children.....40
     Scalds..........42
     Scrofula or King's Evil.......56
     Scurvy    ..........   58
     Strangury, or Difficulty of voiding Urine     ...     59
     Sleeplessness in Fevers   .......   50
     Swoonings or Faintings .     .    .    .    .         •     51
     Sprains..........48
     Urinary Difficulty........59
     Ulcers..........47
     Vomiting by Water—when good.....22
       "     for Spasms of Stomach.....25
       "     and Cholera Morbus.....27
       "     Water useful in.......63
     Vapors or Hysterics    .......    «G
     Water, Excellency of.......?
       "    to prevent Gravel......^ 4
       "    Living on........18
             for Weak Children......I9
       "    Good, How to distinguish   ....      66
       "    the best Drink.......61
        "    Difficulty of voiding.....      59 
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