was either gone or hardly perceptible. The impression of light is no longer painful; the eye rather courts than avoids it. The ear has received a corresponding benefit. Sounds had become oppressive to him; the noises of children had in particular become irksome. But this morbid feeling has wholly vanished. He is much more patient of the changes of the atmosphere, but particularly the cold. He had been clothed both in summer and winter in flannels. But he has been enabled to quit them without injury. Flannel drawers, and flannel linings to the coat sleeves, during the winter months, is all that he has retained. Wet clothes or wet feet are no longer objects of terror. They cause no injury worth regarding.

About the same time the burning heat of the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet went away. The skin, which had been parched and dry, became moist and perspirable. The tongue, which had been habitually foul, became clean. The saliva lost all clamminess and viscidity; and the secretion by the kidneys was much increased, though the quantity of watery fluids taken into the stomach was, at the same time, greatly diminished.

The hypochondriacal symptoms continued to be occasionally very oppressive during the second year, particularly during the earlier part of it; but they afterward very suddenly declined, and at present he enjoys more uniform and regular spirits than he had done for many years upon mixed diet.

From the whole of these facts it follows, that all the organs, and, indeed, every fibre of the body is simultaneously affected by the matters habitually conveyed into the stomach; and that it is the incongruity of these matters to the system which gradually forms that morbid diathesis, which exists alike both in apparent health and in disease. I might illustrate this fact still more minutely by observations on the teeth, on the hair, and on the skin. I might show that, by a steady attention to regimen, the skin of the palms of the hand, or between the toes, becomes of a firmer and stronger texture; that even a corn upon the toe, which had for twenty years and upward been growing more fixed, firm, and deep, had first its habitudes altered, and finally was softened and disappeared; but perhaps enough has been said already to give a pretty clear idea both of the kind of change introduced into the habit by diet, and of the extent to which it may be carried.

I proceed, therefore, to relate some new phenomena which took place during the course of this regimen, which are both curious in themselves, and lead to important conclusions.

I have said that, at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, the subject of this case was liable to sudden lamenesses, which were thought by a gentleman much experienced in gout, from having been himself a great sufferer, to portend that disease. These lamenesses disappeared and were no more thought of, certainly before the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh year. Neither did any thing like a gouty affection of the limbs appear, when the stomach and bowels were so much relieved by the use of the pure water. But he had not confined himself to vegetables for two months before he began to have slight pains in the feet. In the course of the year these pains much increased; they became strong and beating, but of short duration, and unattended by any swelling or discoloration. Toward the close of the second year (1807), the determination to the feet was still stronger; there were about that time frequent violent pains through the ankles and metatarsal bones; they were internal but sudden, like the infliction of a blow; he used to say, it was as if his feet had been struck with a sledge-hammer; there were also sudden twinges through the toes, so sharp as to oblige him suddenly to raise his foot from the ground. In the course of the third year he became lame in one of his feet for two or three months. He was accustomed to awake in the morning without any lameness, but before he could dress himself the lameness would come on, and remain for an hour or two, after which it went off, and he could walk perfectly well for the rest of the day. There was redness and slight tumefaction upon the upper part of the foot, over the seat of the disease. During the whole of the succeeding winter, though the beating pains of the feet were much diminished in violence, the gouty affection was more firmly settled in the feet. One of the little toes was so constantly painful, that for many months of this winter and the ensuing spring, the pressure even of the bedclothes was painful. For a year and a half longer he had almost constantly some gouty pains of the toes, and frequent fits of lameness. The last time that this occurred was in August, 1810, when, for one evening, he was so lame as not to be able to walk freely without support.

This happened when he had continued the vegetable regimen four years and a half. Here again, then, let us pause for a moment and consider the obvious deductions from these facts.

I shall confine myself to four observations:

1st. It is clear that these pains of the extremities were essentially the same affection as had appeared in the early part

of life. The cause of their disappearing about the twentyseventh or twenty-eighth year must have been the shifting or concentration of diseased action upon the internal and more important organs, the stomach and the brain. When these became relieved by the vegetable regimen, the extremities became again affected. Disease, therefore, though seated in different organs, may be the same in kind; and we may conclude that it is the property of this regimen, and in particular of the vegetable diet, to transfer diseased action from the viscera to the exterior parts of the body, from the central parts of the system to the periphery. Vegetable diet has often been charged with causing cutaneous diseases; in common language, they are, in these cases, said to proceed from poorness of blood. In a degree the charge is probably just; and the observation I have just made may give us some insight into the cause of it. But this charge, instead of being a just cause of reproach, is a proof of the superior salubrity of vegetable diet. Cutaneous eruptions appear, because disease is translated from the internal organs to the skin.

2d. There was an interval of fifteen or sixteen years from the disappearance of these pains, in consequence of the gradual changes introduced into the system by the use of animal food, and their being brought back again by the vegetable regimen. Now, during all this number of years, there was neither inflammation, pain, tenderness, nor any other external sign of there being any disease of these extremities. But from the changes which took place, as soon as the vegetable regimen was adopted, it is clear that they were really diseased at this period, and had been so during the whole interval of fifteen or sixteen years. Disease should be considered, therefore, not so much as an obvious change in the texture of parts, which is either visible or tangible, as a change in the inherent powers, which belong to the part as a living substance. The more palpable changes, which constitute the symptoms of disease, are the consequence of the previous and imperceptible changes which have taken place in the vital powers of the part. The inherent vitality of the part, that which distinguishes every portion of the living body from dead matter, may be, and often is, nearly extinguished, when there is no such change of structure as can be readily detected by the senses.

3d. As, in the affection of the head, paroxysms, the very same in kind, but differing in intensity, continued to recur, even years after animal food had been discontinued, it must follow that whatever was the proximate cause of the paroxysms,

for

under the mixed regimen, the same continued to be the proximate cause under the vegetable regimen. If, therefore, there was increased vascular action in the brain, or in its appendages, when these paroxysms first took place, and forming the foundation of them, the same increased action, that is to say, the same in kind, but not in degree, has continued for a course of many years under a diet of vegetables alone. We see, then, how ill-founded is the notion that inanition and loss of power is induced by a vegetable diet. In fact, all the observations that have been made, have shown the very reverse to be the truth. Symptoms of plenitude and oppression have continued in considerable force for at least five years. And the consequence of this peculiar regimen has been an increase of strength and power, and not a diminution. In the subject of this case, the pulse, which may be deemed, perhaps, the best index to the condition of all the other functions, is at present much more full and strong than under the use of animal food. It is also perfectly calm and regular.

4th. We may, from the circumstances of this case, form something like an estimate of the time during which the obvious effects of animal diet will remain in the system. In the instance before us, there was a gouty affection of strength or intensity, sufficient to produce lameness, after the animal food and every other matter which co-operates to produce such a disease had been discontinued four years and a half. I said therefore to myself, if this degree of disease can remain four years and a half, supposing the intensity of the diseased condition to continue uniformly to decline at the same rate, we ought still to expect some slight vestiges of the original affection at double the distance of time, or at the end of nine years. It is obviously improper to transfer this precise result to any other case whatever; every one must be judged by its own proper and peculiar circumstances. But a similar mode of reasoning, and a probable anticipation of future events, may, I conceive, be applied to any case whatever, according to the phenomena which it presents.

To finish, therefore, this long account: After four years and a half, the gouty affection still continued, but its strength became so much diminished, that the lameness never again appeared. Sometimes there has been a slight stiffness of the heel; sometimes pains of the toes, with redness and soreness of them all. Through the whole of the seventh year (1812), there was a stiffness and some pain of the left knee. But finally, in the eighth year, the whole of these external pains have dis

appeared, with the exception of that trifling affection of the head, which has been mentioned.

Nor has this gouty disorder been the only external disease which may be said to have been induced by the vegetable regimen. Formerly he hardly knew (as has been said) what it was to have a cough or a cold; the stomach or bowels were on all occasions of exposure the principal sufferers. But at the end of the second year of the vegetable regimen, he had angina, infinitely more severe than he had ever suffered before. The attempt to swallow was perfect agony. He has since had many severe coughs and colds, attended with much defluxion. There has also been much itching on the surface of the body, particularly on the head, the hams, and the legs. But to compensate for these trifling evils, now the stomach and bowels never suffer.,

And as to the general state of health, it has uniformly and regularly improved, and more obviously since the fifth year than before that time. During the first five years there were many threatenings of the return of his former disorders, but which came to nothing. In particular, in the spring of the fourth year (1810), he looked thin and ill, had great agitation and restless nights; the bowels became tense; and once he threw up his food. But all this passed off without any real illness; and he can say in general that, with the exception of the attack of angina, which kept him within doors for three or four days, he has not now for the space of seven years suffered the confinement of a single hour.

With regard to fermented liquors, his experience is shortly as follows. He was at all times habitually sober—a habit to which, in this instance, he attaches no personal merit—since he never liked wine, and it occasioned heat and uneasiness. He, therefore, till near thirty years old, confined himself to a single glass of wine daily, as his constant habit when not in company. But after that time, he felt compelled in a manner to use more wine; he felt chilly and uneasy, and found that by the use of about three glasses of wine daily, he was warmer, was more cheerful and active, and had in every respect less uneasy feeling. But by the use of the pure water, he found these uneasy sensations greatly diminished, and the necessity for wine appeared removed. He was, therefore, enabled gradually to leave it off entirely; and at present he finds fermented liquor of any kind obviously injurious.

These observations instructed him how substances may introduce into the system a quantity of agreeable sensation, or