mach was no longer loaded and oppressed with flatulence, and the bowels performed their regular functions without the aid of medicine.

Regularly in the month of October he had been subject, for some years, to severe attacks of pain in the jaws; so much that he used to take sixty, eighty, or even one hundred drops of tincture of opium to gain relief. This kind of attack recurred the first year after the use of distilled water with its accustomed violence. But since that time it has ceased entirely.

At the end of eight months, that is to say in the beginning of 1804, he had a relapse of the inflammation of the bowels, ushered in with exactly the same symptoms as in the year 1799, and with equal severity of pain. But in this instance it subsided in the course of two or three days without bleeding, and after a week or nine days it was entirely gone, without leaving any trace of uneasiness after it.

Before he adopted the use of pure water, the linen over the right shoulder was constantly stained with blood, from the breaking of a succession of pimples upon the subjacent parts. This ceased by its use, as did the tenderness of the abdomen upon exposure to the damps of the evening.

All these changes showed that the whole habit of body was affected by this simple change. It appeared to pervade and affect every organ. But its effects were most evident upon the mouth, tongue, and palate. The tongue was less foul, the feelings of all the parts more comfortable, and the teeth became very much divested of the dark and foul matter with which they were soiled.

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Another appearance was very striking. He had observed years that the skin of the neck contracted a black stain, which he in vain attempted to remove by washing. It was either indelible, or was quickly renewed after it had been removed. But this foulness, like that upon the teeth, was taken away almost entirely by the same process. It is evident, therefore, that this blackness, which may be observed on many persons, and which is that which soils the linen in contact with the neck, proceeds from the body itself. It must be a taint of the mucus of the skin; and as the black summits of coagulated mucus which may be pressed out of the skin (which are vulgarly called grubs) are discolored only where they have been exposed to the atmosphere, it seems that the matter is colorless when excreted; but it is blackened by the action of the atmosphere.

The whole skin also became less tender. Thus he could

bear shaving, even with cold water, without pain; the great tenderness of the forehead diminished, so that he became able to bear the moderate pressure of a hat upon the old cicatrix on the forehead without inconvenience. The number of pimples much diminished, and those which appeared did not so readily run into suppuration.

Observing these things, he cannot be surprised even at this time, that, not suspecting any other evident cause of mischief, and seeing that the one which he had detected was of itself adequate to account for the premature and violent dissolution of the body, he should have thought that no other precaution than attention to the purity of the fluids introduced into the body, with an observance of the common rules of temperance and moderation, was requisite to the preservation of the health. Ought it to be a reproach to him, that, at this period, with regard to the nature of the food, he was of the same opinion as the bulk of the community and the great body of the profession, and that he had not adopted sentiments, which are by the majority, at this moment, deemed indefensible?

But his own personal experience, united to the observations he made upon others, proved to him the insufficiency of this precaution alone. During the whole of 1804 he enjoyed an improved state of health. Nor did he notice any thing in particular, except it was occasionally an uneasiness over the head, particularly after dinner. In the course of 1805, he first felt pains over the head frequently occurring. They were quite different from sick headaches; they were of the kind rather which would be called tensive, affecting the whole cranium, and much depressing the spirits. The hypochondriacal feelings and lowness of spirits increased. After dinner, the propensity to sleep was frequently irresistible, even in company. Besides this, he found the eyesight permanently injured. Every object at which he attempted to look with steadiness had a vibratory motion. This was more particularly evident when examining pictures at a little distance. The hands and feet were always parched and hot, the skin dry, and there was a tendency to emaciation. At times he found it almost impossible to fix the mind to any thing which demanded study and reflection.

Toward the close of this year, and the very beginning of the next, the pains of the head increased much in severity, so that he was obliged during the attack to lie upon the bed, and he began to loath his food. He resolved, therefore, finally, to execute what he had been contemplating some time-to abandon animal food altogether, and every thing analogous to it, and to

confine himself wholly to vegetable food. This determination he put in execution the second week of February, 1806, and he has adhered to it with perfect regularity to the present time. His only subject of repentance with regard to it has been, that it had not been adopted much earlier in life.

He never found the smallest real ill consequence from this change. He neither sunk in strength, flesh, nor spirits. He was at all times of a very thin and slender habit, and so he has continued to be; but upon the whole he has rather gained than lost flesh. He has experienced neither indigestion nor flatulence, even from the sort of vegetables which are commonly experienced to be the most oppressive and windy, as beans, peas, peas-soup, etc. Nor has the stomach suffered from any vegetable matter though unchanged by culinary art, or uncorrected by condiments. These results, so opposite to common experience, and even to his own in the former part of his life, can be accounted for only by considering the changes introduced into the state of the digesting organs by the previous use of the purified water. The only unpleasant consequence of the change was a sense of emptiness of the stomach, which continued many months. In about a year, however, he became fully reconciled to the new habit; and felt as well satisfied with his vegetable meal, as he had been formerly with his dinner of flesh.

He can truly say that since he has acted upon this resolution, no year has passed in which he has not enjoyed better health than in that which preceded it. But he has found that the changes introduced into the body by a vegetable regimen take place with extreme slowness; that it is in vain to expect any considerable amendment in successive weeks, or in successive months; we are to look rather to the intervals of half years, or years.

But a perceptible benefit was very soon obtained. The severity of the pain became quickly mitigated, so that it never once, from the time at which he made this change, forced him to take to his bed. But it recurred again and again for three or four years, at irregular but no very distant periods; perhaps a week rarely passed without one or two paroxysms. And for three years at least he constantly awoke with pain in the back of the neck, near the insertion of the muscles of the neck into the occipital bone, and from thence spreading over the whole head. So much was the sensorium affected, that repeatedly, while walking through the streets during the first year, he was insensible of the weight of his body, and could not feel the pressure

of his feet upon the pavement. He presumes that this sensation, or rather this want of sensation, must approach nearly to the state of those who suffer apoplectic attacks. This very unpleasant state continued recurring for near twelve months. Since that time it has never been experienced.

When this symptom disappeared, the paroxysms of uneasiness over the head were accompanied with a more evident sensation of fullness and oppression; and these continued to recur as the former paroxysms had done. It was evident, therefore, that the morbid changes which were attended with a temporary abolition of sensibility, in an inferior degree of intensity, produced the sense of local fullness and oppression. This continued to be considerably oppressive, even during the fifth year of this course (1810).

In the autumn of the preceding year (1809), he was exposed during a journey to the joltings of a stage coach. The common asperities of the road did not affect the head, but a violent jolt gave the sense of a deep internal pain in the interior of the brain.

And-to bring into one point of view this part of the case-even now, during the eighth year of this mode of living, these pains recur very nearly in the same manner as they have for the last three or four years. Sometimes two or three times in the week, occasionally not above once in a fortnight, he awakes (having been restless the preceding night) with a pain at the back of the neck, and some uneasiness over the head; it continues sometimes ten minutes, very rarely half an hour, and then subsides, with perhaps a trifling depression of strength. It will happen, though very rarely, that it continues to be felt, but in a very trifling degree, during the whole of the day. But the sense of fullness and oppression is completely gone, and the whole is so trifling as not to deserve the name of disease, nor even of inconvenience, since it does not in any degree interfere with the common duties and occupations of life.

All these circumstances sufficiently demonstrate that there was formed in this case deep-seated disease of the substance of the brain, and it appears very evident that this disease was proceeding with a rapid pace toward an apoplectic or paralytic attack. What sets this beyond dispute is, that in the worst of these pains of the head, the tongue has been so affected that he could not speak with perfect freedom. The effect of the vegetable regimen, even during seven years and a half, has not been enough wholly to subdue the disease. But it has regularly and progressively diminished its intensity. The paroxysms have

returned nearly in the same manner during the last year as during the first; but in each successive year the strength or intensity of them has been uniformly diminished.

And granting the representation of facts to be correct, and the nature of this case to be justly determined, I must be permitted to ask, what other method than that which has been adopted would have produced the same benefit ? If such methods exist, I confess my own ignorance of them. Bleeding, either general or topical, is that which is most resorted to, and is that which gives the greatest relief to urgent symptoms. But it can do no more than this; the morbid diathesis of the system, that which exists equally during the paroxysms of disease and during the intervals, remains unchanged. All the symptoms of oppression of the brain will persist, and gradually increase, though the patient be cupped repeatedly and regularly, as I have myself frequently witnessed.

If it be thought that if a cure were possible by this method of treatment, it ought surely to be effected in the long period of seven years and a half; let it, on the other hand, be considered how long there had been signs of the formation of this disease before it had arrived at that degree of severity which enforces attention, and excites apprehension. I have shown, from the tenderness of the forehead, that there existed a morbid predisposition in these parts in the eighth or ninth year of life. It is clear enough, likewise, from the dizziness and heat about the head, which I have mentioned, that some morbid change had taken place nine or ten years before these pains came on. It cannot be thought strange or unnatural if it should be proved, that wholly to eradicate these symptoms requires some such time as from the appearance of the first unequivocal signs of disease having taken place.

But though these pains still recur in a trifling degree, the relief given to the brain in general has been decided and most essential. It has appeared in an increased sensibility of all the organs, particularly of the senses-the touch, the taste, and the sight-in greater muscular activity, in greater freedom and strength of respiration, greater freedom of all the secretions, and in increased intellectual power. It has been extended

to the night as much as to the day. The sleep is more tranquil, less disturbed by dreams, and more refreshing. Less sleep upon the whole appears to be required. But the loss of quantity is more than compensated by its being sound and uninterrupted.

In about three years that vibratory motion of visible objects