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T. F. Newton, Esq., aged 48, became subject to asthmatic attacks at a very early period of life. The first seizure was when he was seven years old, in one of the islands of the West Indies. Soon afterward, he removed to England, and suffered only occasionally from this cause till he went to Oxford. During the whole time that he was at Christ Church College, he had repeated attacks of it, and in the night, at least, it was constantly upon him; in so much that he looked with pleasure to his return to the West Indies, in hopes of relief from the voyage. But in this he was disappointed, as from that period he was more affected, as well in the West Indian Islands as in North America, in various parts of the continent of Europe, and afterward in England.

The attacks usually continued from one week to three, during which he could not lie down in his bed, but was obliged, night after night, to rest inclined upon a table. He was not without considerable intervals of ease, and had occasionally a respite of some months; but it very seldom extended beyond three; and even during these intervals there was a constant sensation of uneasiness at the breast upon inspiration.

During the years 1804 and 1805, Mr. Newton lived in Herefordshire, and he was never more indisposed than during those years. The complaint seemed very much to increase upon him; especially in the violence of the spasmodic motion, with which, during the paroxysms, the head was precipitated to the table, on which he used to lean, whether during the day or the night. Sometimes for a week together he did not venture to lie down in bed, from apprehension of suffocation; and I am persuaded, from my own observations, that no example of this disease, not in its very last stages, could be more severe, attended with more stricture on the respiration, and turgescence about the head.

In this last year (1805), my relation, Dr. Blount, of Hereford, put into his hands my book on the Origin of Constitutional Diseases, and recommended him to adopt the use of distilled instead of common water. He never was a greater sufferer than at the time he made this change; but he found it to be immediately beneficial. The general state of health improved, and during the first two years and a half he had but twice any returns of asthma. These attacks were sharp, but of very short duration.

Mr. Newton was fully convinced that this attention alone would be enough to preserve his health; and hoped that in time the disposition to asthma would, without any other pre

caution, wear off. But I had seen enough of the fallacy of these expectations to indulge in such hopes. I assured him repeatedly that unless he attended strictly to the whole of the regimen he would be ultimately disappointed.

Therefore, at length, after many scruples, and no small apprehension of injury, he resolved to join to his attention to the fluids a strict vegetable regimen. The immediate motive to this was, I believe, a respect and confidence in my opinion; though I apprehend that a feeling and consciousness that his health was not in a firm state concurred in determining his resolution. He began greatly to diminish the quantity of animal food toward the close of 1807, and became very strict about the beginning of the following summer (1808).

For three years and upward after this, Mr. Newton had very little asthma. Three or four paroxysms came on which were, for the time they lasted, as severe as any he ever suffered; but they passed off very quickly, causing a confinement of two or three days only.

But the health was at this time in a very precarious and even critical state. The pulse was commonly very rapid, sometimes rising even to 120 strokes in the minute. There was frequently great quickness of respiration, with copious mucous defluxions; and through the first and second winters he kept himself principally within doors, being afraid to expose himself to the cold, and particularly to the damps of the evening. But though often indisposed, and in a valetudinary condition, the health gradually and progressively amended under the vegetable regi

nen.

Toward the end of May, 1811, Mr. Newton began to feel indisposed; the lungs became loaded with phlegm; there was a sensation of heaviness about the head, and excessive itching about the eyes. Going up stairs caused great breathliness and uneasiness. After two or three uneasy nights he experienced a very severe attack of asthma, which began on the 2d of June. The head was drawn spasmodically forward, as in the former paroxysms, the pulse was so quick as scarcely to be counted, the feet swelled, and at night there was a disposition to idle talking, which must be deemed a species of mild delirium, though he was in a measure conscious of it. The stricture on the breath was great, but the respiration was more free than in the former severe fits. He could not, however, enter a bed for six nights. Then the paroxysm appeared to be fast declining. But it returned again with nearly as much violence as at first. greater part of another fortnight he passed his nights

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in a chair, or leaning on a pillow placed on a table. The pulse continued accelerated, and the ankles swelled, the eyes inflamed, and the whole habit appeared extremely turgescent. Walking ten yards caused much fatigue, and brought on shortness of breath. But about the 21st or 22d of the month the expectoration became free and copious, a mild diarrhoea supervened, and all the symptoms subsided. He continued in a weak but convalescent state for a month or six weeks, when he was restored to health.

An attack of this kind, after having submitted to the most rigid abstemiousness upward of three years, was enough to shake the confidence of any man who had not the most firm conviction that he was doing the only thing that gave him a chance of ever enjoying health. But Mr. Newton was conscious of having received great benefit from his abstinence. He argued also from the state of his children, and said “That regimen must be the best which produces such health and strength as are visible in them.” He therefore persevered in his habits with unabated zeal, and I am happy to say he has received the due reward of his confidence and perseverance; for though he appeared thin and meagre, he had for ten months very good health; and, as I heard him say, now for the first time during twenty years he passed a winter wholly free from his old disorder. He was not only without asthmatic paroxysms, but without any material difficulty of respiration.

But the following June, 1812, brought back at the very same period a relapse of the disorder. The general features of the paroxysm very nearly resembled that of the preceding year, and its duration was about as long. But it was by no means so violent at its access, and he recovered from it with much more facility. As soon as the disease had passed through its usual stages, he felt well. It was also preceded by little or no indisposition. During this attack the pulse was much accelerated; at one time it mounted to 118 strokes in the minute, and was rather strong and full.

Another respite as perfect as the former succeeded, in which for eleven months Mr. Newton enjoyed perfectly good health, free from asthma and other serious illness; and he adhered to his regimen with greater strictness, if possible, than ever. Often has he made his dinner on a little fruit, dried raisins, bread, and three or four potatoes; and upon this strict course of abstinence has found no defect of strength or nutrition. On the contrary, the symptoms with which he has been occasionally affected have been accompanied with marks of plenitude and oppression.

The same month of June, both in 1813 and 1814, and very nearly the same day, brought back the asthmatic paroxysms. But that of 1813 was very mild. Though the disease hung upon him for a month, the confinement to the house was not above five days. He had again an interval of eleven months of very good health. In the paroxysm of 1814 I did not see him, Mr. Newton having quitted London. But from the account he sent me of it, it was more severe than during either of the two former years. It lasted also five weeks. Since that time he has been, and is, comfortable in health.

I would observe, as a point of pathology, that the swelling of the legs in this case has not been an anasarcous or dropsical swelling. The whole tumefaction has been tense and elastic, not yielding or pitting.

It is necessary, in order to form a fair judgment of this case, to pass in review its most striking points. They are shortly these. Mr. Newton began to use distilled water in 1805, and adopted the complete regimen in 1808. From this period of 1805 to June, 1811, he had, upon the whole, very little asthma, hardly a singular regular fit of any duration; and we were persuaded that the disease was in a manner eradicated. But to our disappointment, and in a certain degree to our mortification, there has been, now for four years, an annual paroxysm, declining upon the whole, but not quite uniformly, in severity. It has regularly come on in the month of June, which whole month it occupies, and encroaches a little upon July. Such is its present habit, and such we may suppose that for the present it will continue. I shall briefly attempt to explain these phe

nomena.

First, it must be allowed, that the great freedom from asthma, for near six years, was not entirely due to his regimen. Diseases we know will change their forms. Asthma will end in consumption, hydrothorax, dropsy, disease of the heart, or other fatal maladies. It is obvious from the delicacy of Mr. Newton's frame, and the great severity of his disease, that he is not formed, under common habits, for long life. I am therefore satisfied that there was, about the time that Mr. Newton adopted a change of habit, some secret constitutional change which concurred with his diet to keep off the asthmatic paroxysms.

The records of medicine are full of such examples, which, gave occasion to much fallacy and false experience. I shall mention one which lately came under my own observation. An elderly gentlewoman was seized, in the month of June, 1814,

with a paralytic disorder. She informed me that she had been subject for a great many winters to a cough, attended with copious expectoration. But during the preceding winter, though the most rigid that had been experienced for many years, she was wholly without her cough. It would be easy to collect numerous analogous facts, which indicate a change to have taken place in the habits of the constitution, unaccompanied by active disease, or any evident external signs.

Now, secondly, we have seen in the first case which has been related that gout, which had been many years latent, and, as it were, dormant in the constitution, became active and evident, producing its proper symptoms of pains and lameness, as the first effect of the vegetable regimen. I am, therefore, further satisfied that in Mr. Newton's case something similar, though less obvious, took place, and that the first effect of the vegetable regimen was to re-establish the asthmatic paroxysms. Whatever is a person's habitual disease, is to that person, relatively, a state of health; and such disease cannot disappear without an evidently sufficient cause, without a suspicion that it will be followed by something worse. If therefore the hypothesis be just, it must follow that this re-establishment of the regular asthmatic paroxysms was the sign of an improved state of the constitution.

If it be asked, finally, what this gentleman has really gained by his strict course of temperance and abstinence, I answer that, 1st. Life has been prolonged, and that, probably, several years. If I am right in supposing that there was a constitutional change about the year 1805, we may calculate that there have been five or six years, at least, already gained. It is impossible, however, to demonstrate this, and therefore I shall not dwell upon it. 2d. Instead of being an habitual invalid, Mr. Newton has enjoyed several years of relative comfort and good health, using much exercise, and walking occasionally several miles in the day. His frame is delicate; his pulse habitually too rapid. He furnishes another example of its being impossible to reduce the pulse to its natural standard by regimen. 3d. Instead of being the constant victim of asthma, rarely escaping a paroxysm for three months, Mr. Newton has had but one annual paroxysm for the last four years, besides the interval of almost total cessation for five previously. Those advantages he deems an abundant compensation for all the deprivations which sensualists may suppose he has imposed upon himself.

I cannot withhold offering in this place a conjecture with

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