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the different surfaces or membranes of the body, and the substances which are habitually applied to them. Uneasiness is occasioned when this harmony is disturbed by a change of the properties of the substances applied. We may see, therefore, from this example, how inconsequently we reason when we suppose that a change is unwholesome or improper because it may at first excite uneasy sensation.

This may be applied to the food and the drink we apply to the stomach, as much as to the air applied to the lungs. The very change may excite uneasy feeling, though the new habit may be much more salubrious than the old one.

If it be asked what proof the case just related affords of the utility of the distilled water, it must be granted that it affords none which is direct, for there was certainly no perceptible advantage from the first change of regimen. But the fact of the cure (for such it may very fairly be called) is a sufficient proof of its utility, since there can be no doubt that vegetable diet alone would not have effected it. Mr. P. had received the common advice, to be sparing of vegetables, and to avoid all fruit, salads, etc. I ventured to give the very opposite advice to this, and no detriment whatever has been observed from the use of matters of this kind.

16th December, 1814.-I have great pleasure in stating that this gentleman continues in greatly improved health, and without asthma. It may be said that, according to all appearance, this most painful and dangerous disease has, in this instance, been fairly subdued. He is still affected, occasionally, with pains of the side, and the bowels are not quite free. But the health is, upon the whole, good, and the general appearance very much improved.

CASE IX.

Paralysis.

23d September, 1813.-Mrs. O, a married lady, aged about forty-seven, of a plethoric habit of body, was attacked in the spring of 1809 with a palsy of the left eye and cheek. She could not close the eyelids of that side, and the mouth was drawn considerably awry on the opposite side. She had also frequent vertigo, so that she was under continual apprehensions

of a fresh attack. She was bled, cupped, and frequently purged copiously, and put upon a vegetable diet. But by this plan she felt her strength impaired, but the disease showed no disposition to yield. The eyes were so susceptible of the light that she was obliged to wear a shade. Besides this, the spirits were so low that she was the prey to a constant melancholy. The mus cular strength was entire.

As she found no benefit from low living, she had resumed the common diet. But, at my suggestion, she returned to her vegetable regimen in the summer of that year, and she united with it the use of distilled water. By this method she felt no sinking of the strength. In about two months she began to regain some power of closing the eyelids, and in a twelvemonth it was completely restored. But during the whole of the first year she continued in a wretched state of low spirits, looked extremely ill, and continued under constant apprehensions of a fresh attack.

After this time the amendment of the general health became more evident. She regained her looks, from having been pallid she became florid, and was able to amuse herself and to attend to her domestic occupations. The painful impression of light upon the sensorium was removed, so that the shade over her eyes was no longer necessary, the vertigo in a great measure disappeared, and her great lowness of spirits was removed. But the affection of the sensorium was not removed, it was only alleviated. Frequent pains of the head recurred, for which she had often recourse to cupping.

And in this condition she has continued nearly ever since, the general health rather improving than otherwise, enjoying a state that is comparatively very comfortable, though by no means restored to that in which she was previous to the attack.

This lady has neither lost flesh nor color by abstaining from animal food. But her muscular strength is certainly diminished. It is, however, to be considered that she was probably morbidly strong at the time of this attack. It is, indeed, evident that a person may have too much strength, as well as too little. In such cases, to have this unnatural and morbid strength removed, cannot, with any appearance of reason, be deemed injurious.

What I wish particularly to call the attention of the reader to, in the present case, is the phenomena of the eye, since they afford an ocular demonstration of the effect of the septic poison of water on the system, and of the consequent beneficial effects of the distilled water. Palsy is one of the diseases which I

have seen ascribed to the sudden discontinuance of animal food, by writers who either reason at random, or who draw hasty inferences from a partial view of facts. The charge is so obviously groundless, that it is not worth while to enter into a formal refutation of it. Nothing, however, is more certain than that palsies have taken place in persons who were living on a vegetable diet. Besides the common experience of the poor, who can claim no exemption from these diseases, direct evidence has been given of this fact, by persons who have adopted a diet of this kind. For example, Dr. Desaguliers is recorded to have had a paralytic attack, after he had used a vegetable diet for ten months. And I have seen myself, in the course of the present year (1813), a woman affected very nearly as the subject of the present case, that is to say, with the cheek paralytic, and unable to close the eyelids of the same side. This woman, from the necessity of her circumstances, did not use animal food above once a week; and her palsy therefore could, with no degree of probability, be ascribed to it. We must look then to other causes of these diseases.

17th December, 1814.—I understand that this lady continues in improved health; but I have not been able to see her for some months.

CASE X.

Tumor of the Arm.

23d November, 1814.-A medical gentleman, aged thirtyseven, has had for a number of years a tumor on one of his fore-arms, which had caused great uneasiness. It was at first not larger than a pin's head, but gradually, in the course of years, has increased to the size of a small pea, and was so exquisitely painful that he could not bear it to be touched. There was also much shooting, and other uneasiness through it, independent of external violence. It appeared after he had grown up, but while he was a very young man.

This gentleman adopted this regimen, but from other motives, in the year 1809. His health improved very greatly under it; but for the whole first year, there was no sensible change in the sensations of the tumor. It was equally sensible to the touch, and had the same shooting pains. But at the expiration

of the twelvemonth, or thereabouts, it became greatly soothed, and finally it ceased to give pain, except very trifling, occasionally, and it became much less tender to the touch.

In its appearance, this little tumor remains unchanged. He thinks it has increased a little in size; but so little, that perhaps he is mistaken. It is still no larger than a pea.

Though this little highly painful and irritable tumor is well known to the surgeons, and occasionally extirpated, I cannot find that they give it any specific name, which must be my apology for the general appellation given to this case.

This gentleman adopted the regimen for the sake of his health, which had been very considerably deranged for some years. I shall only say, in general, that it has very much improved in consequence. But I do not think the symptoms sufficiently definite to make it proper to relate them minutely.

On this subject, I have heard him assert that for two years before he changed his diet, his spirits were so low that he was unable to smile. It is no new observation, that vegetable diet has been useful in melancholic disorders. A case is given by Dr. Lobb, of a gouty pain of the stomach, with flatulency and melancholia, cured by vegetable diet. The disorder yielded in a few months, but the regimen had been continued fifteen years.

He has also been in the habit of illustrating the superiority of this regimen by saying, that the difference of comfort, experienced between it and the common mode of life, is quite as great as what persons experience between the common mode of life and directly riotous living. At the same time he acknowledges that, for the pleasure of the palate, the common mode of living bears the palm. It may however be doubted whether this be not the mere consequence of habit.

SOME REMARKS ON SCROFULA.

THE observations I have been enabled to make on this disease are not numerous. Diseases termed scrofulous are for the most part external, and fall principally under the care of surgeons. The more common form of the disease, marked by tumors or ulcers about the throat, however disagreeable or tormenting, is

not a dangerous complaint. The stamina in such a disease may be strong; the disease often subsides entirely; and the patient may live healthy for many years. On this account, such subjects can bear animal food and fermented liquors; and the current of prejudice is too strong in favor of this practice to afford any chance at present of a successful resistance to it. Of the more serious affections, terminating in death or mutilation, and which are the fit objects of this regimen, I have not obtained any proper examples.

Scrofula frequently takes place in children who are confined nearly to vegetable food. It is, therefore, one of the evils. charged by superficial observers upon this species of food. In order not to withhold from my reader some of the most confident assertions which I have met with on this subject, I shall here insert an extract from a work of Dr. Beddoes, which, I suspect, has had no small influence in forming the present state of public opinion.

"When children are fed," says Dr. Beddoes, “ on vegetables, with little or no admixture of animal food, they die in great numbers of scrofulous affections. In the families of the poor, who cannot command better aliment, this is one principal cause of mortality; and in the families of the rich, who in consequence of the erroneous medical notions, sometimes will not allow a proper proportion of animal food, scrofula often takes place (though in a slighter degree, for it is checked by other circumstances), and the foundation of consumption is laid. There are (as a writer of superior merit on the king's evil observes), among the higher classes, some who keep their children to the fifth, or even the seventh year, upon a strict vegetable and milk diet, believing that they thus render the constitution signal service. I have, however, frequently pointed out to parents, whom I have heard boasting of the advantages of this management, either an enlarged abdomen, or some other sign of an incipient scrofulous indisposition, which has convinced them that their children were far from being so healthy as they supposed. In our temperate latitudes, a diet of this kind is certainly not proper after the age of two years. Where a feeble constitution coincides with hereditary disposition to scrofula, or rickets, tender meat and soups are particularly serviceable. Dr. Weikard perfectly agrees with me in opinion. He observes, that children brought up according to the fashion of the great (without animal food) are particularly liable to rickets. Kuempf attests, that by animal diet he has restored a great variety of children, who had been dreadfully reduced by

Dr.

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