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"You are perfectly correct in the idea that the vegetable diet was irksome and uneasy to my stomach before I had united with it the use of distilled water. I thought at first, that the benefit of distilled water must be a mere fancy, and I even ridiculed it as trifling and absurd; but I am now, by experience, thoroughly persuaded that it is of the greatest importance. I felt an immediate benefit, my stomach was easy and light, and I did not experience the slightest sense of weakness, but a gradual increase of strength. I am convinced that the use of distilled water greatly assists the stomach in the digestion of vegetable substances."

Mr. Fordham, I must add, is a young man, under thirty years of age.

CASE XXIII.

Disposition to Pulmonary Consumption.

Feb. 20, 1815.-Having received the appointment of physician to the General Dispensary, Aldersgate-street, in the year 1810, it has given me the opportunity of making more numerous trials of what can be done by regimen than I before possessed. It is obvious, however, that the description of persons, who apply to these institutions, is not such as can, in general, be wholly depended upon, either for regularity of conduct, or for veracity. But, I believe, that in the examples I shall select, due attention was paid to the regulations enjoined.

J. U., aged about twenty-seven, applied to the dispensary, about Christmas, 1810, for a severe, dry, rending cough. I thought the man, from his habit and appearance, was becoming consumptive. He was thin, and rather emaciated. He had been troubled with the cough only during the winter, but he said, that for three or four years he had found his breath fail. He could not take exercise so well as formerly, nor go up stairs. I advised him, therefore, in conjunction with the medicines suited to his case, to adopt the regimen, with which he declared himself perfectly willing to comply.

He soon lost his cough; which, however, I do not attribute to this change. He informed me, moreover, that he found immediate relief from it. He found his respiration strengthened,

and, in no long time, he became as equal to exercise as in the former part of his life.

I saw this man occasionally for three years, during which time he continued in improved health; but he remained thin and meagre; and he had some returns of cough, but of no great violence, the two following winters. I remained, therefore, of the opinion I first adopted, that he had been really on the verge of consumption. It is, however, impossible to prove this to the complete satisfaction of others. In internal diseases, we must content ourselves with probable conjectures. After this time he changed his residence, and I have lost sight of him.

This man kept a ham and beef shop; and he cooked his meat by steam. He found it easy, then, to prepare his distilled water by a part of the apparatus which he employed in his business. I was satisfied, on this account, that he really, in this respect, followed the directions given him.

CASE XXIV.

Chronic Pains of the Bowels, Bloody Discharges, and Constipation.

J. K., aged eleven, had, in the beginning of the summer of 1810, the scarlatina. On recovering, it was observed that the abdomen was too hard; he complained of pains of the bowels, and had often bloody stools. He took a good deal of medicine without benefit, and continuing ill, became my patient at the General Dispensary, in February, 1811.

He complained of severe pains of the bowels, apparently like colic, attacking him two or three times in the course of the day. The abdomen was so hard, that it would not yield to the pressure of the hand, and strangely protuberant, irregular, and deformed. He was in a decaying state of health; but the pulse was regular and natural. The bowels were irregular, but commonly bound.

As I thought there was little probability of this boy being cured by medicines alone, I proposed to his mother to join the regimen to the use of such remedies as he appeared to require; to which she gave her consent. He began about the middle of February, 1811.

The pains of the abdomen continued to recur with just the

same violence for about half a year. Hardly a day passed without his being obliged to go to bed in consequence of them. About August, they remitted for three or four weeks, but they then recurred with great severity. Toward the end of September they became much less severe, and he was able to go to school, and to follow the common occupations of his years.

For the remainder of the year, he continued in improved health. The pains of the belly were either gone or very trifling; the bowels were nearly regular.

But though this, as a constitutional disease, was nearly cured, as a local disease it continued with very little change. The abdomen was not quite so hard, but it still continued tumid, and with much irregular deformity of shape.

After he had been a patient of the dispensary a twelvemonth, he ceased to attend, and I have since lost sight of him.

CASE XXV.

Leucorrhoea, Fluor Albos, or the Whites.

ANOTHER patient of the General Dispensary afforded me strong evidence how much the sense of weakness, which is so much complained of under the vegetable regimen, is produced by the use of common water. This patient, E. F., aged sixty, was afflicted with leucorrhœa; but do not think it worth while to relate the particulars of her case. I was induced to recommend her to use the regimen, from some circumstances in her general health; and she used it four or five months with evident advantage. Some short time afterward she came to me, at my own house, complaining much of weakness. Upon inquiry, I found that she had quitted London for about a month, to keep a house at Hornsey; that there she had continued the vegetable regimen, but had not used the distilled water, thinking it unnecessary in the country. I explained to her what I thought the cause of her weakness; and she found what I said to be correct. Upon returning to the use of the distilled water, the sense of weakness vanished.

This woman was at a time of life at which people are very apprehensive of permanent injury, from relinquishing animal food. But she certainly experienced much benefit, as was evident from her improved health, and even from her improved looks. She became stronger, and rather gained flesh.

CASE XXVI.

Feebleness of Strength.

THOUGH it is indisputable that animal food most commonly excites and increases the muscular power, yet even this does not appear to be universally true.* There are habits in which obviously, while it impairs the sensibility, it likewise diminishes the muscular strength. A lady somewhat more than thirty years old gave a striking proof of this fact. She had been an invalid some years, complaining principally of weakness, unable on this account to take proper exercise, and pallid. There is, perhaps, at the bottom of these ailments, some uterine complaint; but the symptoms are not very definite. During the year 1812, she adhered to the regimen of distilled water and vegetable diet. In consequence she became less pallid; the countenance expanded and became more animated, and she gained strength. These changes must have been occasioned by the relinquishment of animal food; for she had previously been in the habit of using the distilled water, with little influence on her health.

Notwithstanding such evident advantage, I was not a little surprised to find that, at the end of the year, this lady thought proper to abandon the system and return to the use of animal food. The immediate motive to this I could not exactly learn; but suspect that the wish to avoid singularity had a predominant influence on her resolution.

CASE XXVII.

Hypochondriasis, Nervous Weakness, and Constipation.

Feb. 20, 1815.-Mr. P- -e, aged now thirty-one, a respectable tradesman, consulted me at the end of the year 1811, under great agitation of mind, He had been ill between three and four years; had frequent uneasiness and oppression of the head, for which he had been repeatedly cupped. From this he had received benefit, but it was only temporary; but, besides, he

I am of the opinion that Dr. Lambe had not at the time he wrote duly considered this subject. For a great variety of facts in proof that animal food is not most conducive to physical power, I refer the reader to Graham's Science of Human Life.-S.

obviously labored under the highest degree of nervous irritation. He labored under great depression of spirits; constant anxiety of mind; he could not talk of his complaints with any calmness; and was constantly uneasy and walking about. Going to a fire oppressed his breath so as not to be bearable. The bowels were habitually bound.

He informed me that till the age of twenty-three, he had lived principally on vegetable and farinaceous food; that about this time he began to live much upon a fuller diet of animal food, eating it twice a day, and at the same time became more sedentary; that in consequence he grew fatter, but his health became worse, and he gradually fell into the condition I have described. He had heard of some good having been done by the regimen in a case which he thought similar to his own, and on that account was anxious to try it.

I encouraged him to so, ordering him at the same time a few laxative medicines, which I thought he required. He began at that time, and, as he informs me, has adhered to it ever since. I advised him also to use much exercise on foot.

For a few months the symptoms of this disease continued in full force, but then all his sufferings became alleviated; and during the second year he was quite a different man. He regained his spirits, could attend regularly to his business, and his complaints, though not wholly gone, were comparatively quite trifling. He had lost flesh very much, a loss he found no occasion to regret.

He seems at present in perfect health, subject only to such trifling ailments as happen to every body. Latterly he has gained flesh.

I do not know that this disease was tending to death, or attended with any immediate danger. But the mental sufferings which the patient underwent, were, in my opinion, more severe and harassing than the symptoms of many fatal diseases.

CASE XXVIII.

Difficult Urination, Falling of the Womb, and Constipation. February 20, 1815.-M. J., aged twenty-five, applied to the dispensary in October, 1812. The uterus was prolapsed; she complained of great irritation in making water, and, besides, had obstinate constipation of the bowels, with tumefaction and

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