PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE
 
 V 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 " I yield it just," said Adam, "and submit. 
 But is there yet no other way, besides 
 These painful passages, how we may come 
 To death, and mix with our connatural dust ? " 
 
 " There is," said Michael, " if thou well observe 
 The rule of Not too much, by temperance taught 
 In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from thence 
 Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight, 
 Till many years over thy head return. 
 So may'st thou live, till, like ripe fruit, thou drop 
 Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease 
 Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature." 
 
 Paradise Lost, Book XL
 
 PLEA 
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE S. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P.E. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 1897 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 PLEA FOR A SIMPLER FAITH. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, price 2s. 6d. 
 (LONDON : KEGAN PAUL & Co.) 
 
 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN. 
 
 BEING A SEQUEL TO ' PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE/ 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 Published September 1895. 
 
 Reprinted October 1895, November 1895, ist February 18 
 i-zth February 1896, August 1896, March 1897.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN the following pages I have made state- 
 ments reflecting on the teaching and practice 
 of medicine at the present day, and to these 
 I must adhere. I do not, however, call in 
 question the good faith either of the teachers 
 or of the practitioners. The former teach 
 what they have been taught and believe 
 to be true ; the latter naturally follow their 
 teachers. Nor do I call in question the 
 value of much that is taught, and of much 
 that is done by the bedside, and in the labora- 
 tory, or by those who ransack all nature's 
 products in air, land, and water to discover 
 means by which human suffering may be 
 alleviated. The value of even a discovered 
 
 2017757
 
 vi PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE 
 
 truth may lie for a long time unknown, till 
 some further discovery brings it into notice 
 and use. True seekers after truth always 
 have their reward, though it may be delayed ; 
 but somehow in this world things get 
 occasionally into a rut from which extrica- 
 tion is difficult. There is an inertia in the 
 mind as well as in physics, and it may re- 
 quire a strong force to overcome it. 
 
 What I have proposed to myself in the 
 following pages is to point out some of the 
 evils that have arisen from opposite lines 
 of thought which have much affected the 
 practice of medicine during this century. 
 
 The change from a severe system of 
 treating disease by depletion in all its modes 
 came in with a great social change, especially 
 as regards the upbringing of the young. In 
 my young days this was rather trying. Home 
 discipline, as well as that in the schools, was 
 harsh, even with the upper classes. The
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 boy must do as he was bid without delay 
 and without protest, or it was the worse for 
 him. What are now necessaries were then 
 luxuries. Pleasure for its own sake was 
 at a discount. In Scotland, at least, the 
 extreme doctrines of Calvin held sway, and 
 a severe sway it was. Reaction came at 
 last, and along with other changes came 
 that of the treatment of disease, first by 
 modifying the old methods, and very soon 
 by adopting others at the opposite pole. 
 The change fell in with the spirit of the 
 times, and, I fear, goes with it still. The 
 difficulty of modifying it may therefore be 
 great ; and my efforts in that direction may 
 avail little. But I have said what I have 
 long wished to say. If any good follows 
 I shall be rewarded ; and if not, I shall at 
 least enjoy an easier mind. 
 
 I have been subjected to so much opposi- 
 tion in my daily life and work that more
 
 viii PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE 
 
 public criticism can touch me but little. My 
 feeling on this is pretty well expressed in 
 a somewhat defiant family motto which may 
 be seen on the entrance hall of Marischal 
 College, Aberdeen : * Thay haif said : Quhat 
 say thay : Lat thame say.' 
 
 G. S. K. 
 
 CURRIE, MIDLOTHIAN, 
 July 1895.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE simpler life for which I plead in the 
 following pages is very different from that 
 usually recommended by the profession, and 
 followed when possible by the public. I am 
 thus called upon to give some reasons which 
 have led me to adopt it for myself, and for 
 those who have come under my care, and 
 were willing to follow my guidance for them- 
 selves and their families. I must also show 
 how, from circumstances, I have had special 
 advantages which have given me an open 
 mind in considering various important 
 questions, while most of the medical men of 
 the day, especially the younger men, have 
 more or less implicitly followed the teach-
 
 2 PLEA FOR 
 
 ing of the schools without doubt or hesi- 
 tation. 
 
 It is easier for most men to be guided 
 by authority than to think for themselves. 
 There is much more free-thinking outside 
 the profession than within it. In the pro- 
 fession I have had but few followers, although 
 these are by no means wanting. With out- 
 siders I have been much more fortunate. 
 For thirty-five years I had more clients than 
 I could do justice to without assistance, and 
 many of them were of first-class ability and 
 position. It is with the hope that this 
 little volume may reach some, both in the 
 profession and out of it, who would adopt a 
 better system if they but knew it, that I 
 offer it to the public. I have frequently 
 been asked by professional and other friends 
 to publish my views, but from various 
 reasons which I need not mention I have 
 hitherto refrained from doing so. The delay 
 has at least given me abundant time to recon- 
 sider them, and, after being for fifteen years
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 3 
 
 in a great measure outside the profession, I 
 feel less inclined to modify them than ever. 
 
 I have long been convinced that the 
 present system of medical teaching and 
 practice is wrong. As to the former, it is 
 .so complex and multiform that the most 
 industrious and capable student has to load 
 his memory with a mass of ' notions ' which 
 he soon finds are for all practical purposes 
 useless, and which he soon forgets, most of 
 them never to be recalled, or, if wanted, to 
 be found at any time in a few books of 
 reference. Each professor, of course, on the 
 1 nothing-like-leather ' principle, thinks his 
 own branch the most important. In this 
 respect the teaching of medicine has got 
 much worse in recent years, and seems to be 
 still on the down grade. But for the plan of 
 consecutive examinations, which allows the 
 student to confine his attention to a limited 
 number of subjects at one time, the present 
 system would certainly break down. 
 
 As to the main principles which guide the
 
 4 PLEA FOR 
 
 Practice of the day, they differ toto ccelo 
 from those taught sixty years ago when I 
 began my medical studies. Most of the 
 common diseases were then ascribed to 
 overaction of some sort, and the remedies 
 were bleeding, vomiting, purging, sweating, 
 etc. ; in short, depletion was the order of the 
 day. I still retain my silver lancet case 
 given me by a 'grateful patient' in 1845. 
 About this time the tide turned, and I 
 wonder how many physicians carry a lancet 
 case now ! The change came quickly, very 
 much from the teaching of an eminent and 
 popular physician in London, who taught 
 that disease as a general rule depended on a 
 weakened action of the functions, and re- 
 quired ' setting up ' ; the means being stim- 
 ulating and tonic medicines, and plenty of 
 good food and drink. 1 A history of the 
 transition from the one method to the other 
 would be very instructive, but on this I 
 
 1 It is instructive to note that the physician alluded to died 
 comparatively young from disease of the liver.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 5 
 
 cannot enter. Some excuse was necessary 
 to explain the change. This was found in a 
 supposed alteration in the human body, 
 which rendered it less able to bear lowering 
 measures than formerly. My friend, Dr. J. 
 Hughes Bennett, was a strong exponent of 
 this idea, but I and others never could 
 see it. 1 
 
 The new system of treatment reached its 
 full maturity in a very short period, passing 
 from one extreme to the other, with little or 
 no resting at any intermediate point. The 
 question naturally occurs Are we to have a 
 backward movement to the old depletory 
 practice, or are we to have a forward rush 
 sooner or later, it may be to a better, it may 
 be to a worse fashion of the day ? Or may 
 we hope for a reaction from the extreme 
 doctrines of to-day which may happily come 
 to a stop before it reaches the opposite 
 extreme ? And here also the old adage may 
 
 1 Dr. Bennett did much good work in Edinburgh ; I will only 
 mention the introduction of the use of cod-liver oil in phthisis.
 
 6 PLEA FOR 
 
 be found good, medio tutissimus ibis. It 
 is to the realisation of this last idea that I 
 would fain lend a helping hand ; and there 
 are some advantages that have accrued to 
 me in the course of my long observation of 
 medical science and practice which may help 
 me in the task. 
 
 I began my medical studies in 1836 and 
 took my degree of M.D. in 1841. I have 
 been a Fellow of the Edinburgh College of 
 Physicians since 1845, an< ^ now there are 
 but two members senior to me. 
 
 I was one of the last of the Edinburgh 
 apprentices, one of several. Our master 
 took much pains with us, gave us much 
 practical aid,- and long before I was an M.D. 
 I had seen and attended large numbers of 
 sick as a dispensary pupil. This enabled me 
 to derive real benefit from a full course of 
 attendance at the Edinburgh Infirmary. 
 Owing to the illness of my father there, 
 I spent most of the winter of 1839-40 
 in Pesth. There I attended closely the
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 7 
 
 clinique of Professor Schoepf Merei, director 
 of one of the three hospitals for children 
 then in existence, and editor of the only 
 Hungarian medical journal. I spent the 
 winter of 1841-42 in the hospitals of Paris, 
 and the 1 classes of the 6cole de Medecine. 
 After this I was assistant to Professor, after- 
 wards Sir James, Simpson, who was then at 
 the commencement of his brilliant career. 
 This occupied me very fully for a year. I 
 then went to Rome for a season, intending 
 to practice there for a time, but owing to the 
 prevalence of homeopathic ideas which I 
 could not adopt, I had no encouragement to 
 return. In the wards of the Santo Spiritu 
 Hospital I witnessed the ' Hippocratic 
 succussion,' the only physical diagnosis I 
 saw practised there, though now it is very 
 different. The rest of the year I spent 
 travelling in the East, mostly in Palestine 
 and Syria, where our dragoman, who had 
 never been with a real * hakim ' before, 
 kept me rather too fully occupied with a
 
 8 PLEA FOR 
 
 varied clientele, from Turkish pashas and 
 Arab sheiks down to the poorest inhabit- 
 ants of the country in their tents or 
 more wretched villages. In 1845 Professor 
 Simpson asked me to join him as colleague. 
 After five years I left him and continued 
 to practise in Edinburgh till 1880. 
 
 From the above short history it will be 
 seen that early in my professional life I had 
 a varied experience of the different modes 
 of treating disease at different schools and in 
 different parts of the world. There was but 
 little scientific treatment in those days ; it 
 was mostly empirical, and the remedies were 
 comparatively few. Bleeding was in full 
 swing in Edinburgh in the Thirties, and in 
 1842 Bouillaud was still carrying out his 
 plan of venesection coup sur coup, which 
 was perhaps the greatest extreme to which 
 depletion was ever carried. 
 
 But there were signs of change. Ma- 
 jendie in Paris, and Sir John Forbes in 
 London, had come to the conclusion that
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 9 
 
 strong measures were of no use in such 
 severe diseases as pneumonia, and found 
 that the patients did quite as well when 
 simply kept in bed and let alone. On the 
 other hand, Hahnemann and his followers 
 were trying to prove that infinitesimal doses 
 of medicine 1 had stronger effects on the sys- 
 tem than the large doses hitherto employed. 
 The Rev. Dr. Stewart of Erskine greatly 
 changed the treatment of consumption by 
 stopping the plan of depletion and starving, 
 and putting his patients on a more generous 
 diet. Amongst others he cured a daughter 
 of Lord Blantyre, who afterwards became his 
 wife and the mother of my worthy old friend, 
 the late well-known Dr. P. Stewart of 
 London. 
 
 A good specimen of the mode of treating 
 chest cases in those days, and one which 
 naturally impressed me most, was the case 
 of my father, a very powerful man of forty- 
 four years of age, who in the year 1834 was
 
 io PLEA FOR 
 
 treated for a smart attack of pneumonia or 
 pleuro-pneumonia. He was well bled, blis- 
 tered, and generally depleted. On recover- 
 ing he went to Deeside for change of air, 
 and was almost restored to health when, 
 from his bedroom window being accidentally 
 left open, he caught cold. He consulted the 
 two then most famous physicians in Aber- 
 deen, father and son, who told him he was 
 threatened with consumption ; ulcers of the 
 lungs were mentioned, I remember. He 
 was ordered to go home, keep in two rooms 
 at a temperature of 60 during the winter 
 which was then approaching, put on a most 
 restricted diet, and for a time to have blood 
 taken from his chest by cupping twice a week. 
 After six months of this treatment, as may 
 be imagined, he was reduced to so low a con- 
 dition that his friends who saw him off in 
 the early summer for a change of air never 
 expected to see him again. But with the 
 change of air and the stoppage of all treat- 
 ment he very soon rallied ; and though more
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE n 
 
 or less an invalid for the rest of his days, and 
 never able to resume regular work, he lived 
 till the good age of eighty- nine, and he 
 never to my knowledge showed any sign of 
 lung disease whatever. He was, in fact, till 
 treated in the above fashion a very healthy 
 and powerful man of 6 feet 2 inches. His 
 ordinary walk was at the rate of 5 miles 
 an hour, and this he had on occasion kept up 
 for 70 miles ; and his lungs were remarkably 
 large and healthy. 
 
 From my varied medical education and 
 experience it need not be wondered at that 
 I gradually lost faith in the ordinary medical 
 dogmas of the day, and especially in the 
 depleting and drugging system as then prac- 
 tised and considered orthodox. I had a 
 strong conviction that homeopathy how- 
 ever wrong in its own dogmas would at 
 least show the absurdity of the orthodox 
 system of drugging. The doses were then 
 really infinitesimal, and they were coming to 
 be used by non-professionals, especially by
 
 12 PLEA FOR 
 
 ladies, many of whom had their book and their 
 box of globules and tinctures, and treated 
 not only their own families but all others 
 who would consult them ; some who had 
 done this for years have told me it was no 
 use to say there was nothing in homeopathy, 
 for the change in the health of their families 
 had been most manifestly better since adopt- 
 ing it ; and among them were women far 
 above the average in power of observation 
 and common sense. I had no doubt what- 
 ever of the good faith of those ladies, many 
 of whom were personal friends and relatives ; 
 and to me the only possible way of account- 
 ing for the phenomena was that the benefit 
 
 derived was not from the infinitesimals, but 
 
 
 
 from the absolute withdrawal of all drugs 
 whatever, and from greater attention to 
 simple methods. 
 
 One of my most intelligent lady friends, 
 wife of a Highland chieftain, treated her own 
 family and those of most or all her tenants 
 with great success for a period of four years.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 13 
 
 She told me that she then came to the con- 
 clusion that the benefit was entirely negative, 
 so far as drugs were concerned ; and she 
 found that the same common complaints did 
 just as well without any medicine at all. By 
 and by, from whatever reason, the profes- 
 sional homeopaths began to use powerful 
 remedies, but in very small bulk, and now it 
 is by no means safe for everybody to use 
 these remedies ; and, so far as I understand, 
 the book and box have fallen more or less 
 into disuse. Certainly, the effect I had hoped 
 for has not arrived, and drugs are now much 
 more numerous and much more used than 
 ever. 
 
 I was further induced to look with distrust 
 on the plan of perpetual and varied drugging 
 by noticing the practice of some of the most 
 eminent of the older practitioners of the time, 
 who used very few and very simple remedies. 
 I need only mention Dr. Abercrombie and 
 Mr. Syme, both of Edinburgh. The former, 
 who was a great friend of my father, was
 
 i 4 PLEA FOR 
 
 very kind to me as a student, but I only met 
 him once in consultation. The patient was 
 an old lady in George Square, Edinburgh ; 
 she was suffering from a smart feverish 
 attack, and the doctor was much pleased to 
 find that she was getting no medicine, and 
 for food only a small quantity of milk and 
 lime-water, a very favourite prescription with 
 him. Mr. Syme used to say that doctors 
 were of no use, and that if anything was 
 really wrong they must come to the sur- 
 geons. Certainly, I never heard of him 
 giving beyond a small dose of rhubarb and 
 soda, unless it was minute doses of bichloride 
 of mercury, and this with the view of elim- 
 inating from the system other forms of mer- 
 cury, for which he always had a great dislike. 
 He was himself a very abstemious liver. He 
 gave excellent dinners to small parties of 
 eight or ten, at which I often ' assisted,' and 
 they were the pleasantest I ever knew. But 
 he was heard to say that after soup and fish 
 he considered he had dined, and anything
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 15 
 
 further he only played with. He enjoyed, 
 however, a glass of good sherry, and to this, 
 probably, were owing the attacks of gout to 
 which late in life he was liable. 
 
 There were other old physicians and 
 surgeons who were by no means so sparing 
 in their use of drugs, and from whom I got 
 practical lessons in an opposite direction. 
 Two cases which I saw with Professor Alison 
 made a lasting impression on me. One was 
 that of a poor old woman whom I was asked 
 to see, as Dr. Alison, who was one of the 
 kindest of men and had been visiting her 
 regularly, was laid up with illness. She was 
 suffering very much from a collection of 
 biliary calculi in the gall-bladder, and was 
 reduced to the utmost degree of emaciation. 
 She had been treated very actively, especially 
 with strong mercurial remedies, but with no 
 good result ; and to keep up her strength 
 she was getting all the little luxuries in meat 
 and drink that could be thought of by the wife 
 of the Rev. Dr. Hunter of the Tron Church,
 
 16 PLEA FOR 
 
 who asked me to see her. The case seemed 
 hopeless, the day of removing such calculi 
 by the knife not having yet arrived ; but, in 
 the hope of an easier death for the poor 
 woman, I stopped all treatment and put her 
 on small quantities of milk and lime-water. 
 The effect was wonderful, and she was mak- 
 ing great progress to at least a temporary 
 recovery, when the worthy professor again 
 took her in charge. The old remedies were 
 resumed, and the old suffering was soon 
 ended by death. 
 
 The other case I saw along with Professor 
 Simpson. It was that of a child from the 
 country with serious head symptoms. There 
 was a doubt whether they were from an 
 organic or from a merely functional cause. 
 Professor Alison decided that it was safest 
 to take the serious view of the case, and he 
 recommended very active measures. After 
 he left, and after some further consideration, 
 Simpson decided for the simple view ; the 
 child got the benefit of the doubt, and soon
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 17 
 
 was quite well without any active treatment 
 whatever. 
 
 My own personal experience gave me also 
 a dislike to drugs from a child. I was con- 
 sidered the weakly one of the family, and 
 therefore was the most dosed. Calomel was in 
 fashion, and the day after getting some grains 
 of this I suffered so horribly that I resolved, 
 if I ever should be a doctor, I never would 
 give a child a dose of it ; and I never have. 
 
 But the medicines then used were all 
 nauseous, and no doubt this in a great measure 
 prevented their use to the same extent as 
 now, when they are made up (as a general 
 rule) so as to cause no immediate disgust. 
 Pills were only coming into use. The 
 most common was Dr. Gregory's or colocynth 
 pill, easily swallowed, but often causing much 
 suffering afterwards. What proved a very 
 favourite ' dinner pill,' the first I remember 
 of a now numerous progeny, was ' Thomson's 
 antibilious pill'; Thomson being the Rev. Dr. 
 Andrew Thomson of St. George's Church,
 
 1 8 PLEA FOR 
 
 Edinburgh, one of the most brilliant preachers 
 and debaters of his day. He was a great 
 diner-out, and no doubt his pill helped 
 him to dispose of many a good dinner ; but 
 he died of apoplexy when a comparatively 
 young man. His was a simple aloetic pill ; 
 Gregory's was aloes and colocynth. The 
 irritating effect of the latter was soon lessened 
 by adding henbane, and the aloes-and-hen- 
 bane pill became a great favourite. Some- 
 what later, Sir Charles Bell got much credit 
 for advising that all such pills should be taken 
 after a meal or with a light one, as at tea-time, 
 dinner being then taken at a comparatively 
 early hour, and tea a few hours afterwards. 
 His reason was, that the action is thus so 
 much milder that, as a surgeon, he could 
 recommend aloetic pills without the risk of 
 bringing on haemorrhoids, a common result if 
 aloes be taken on an empty stomach. The 
 amount of ingenuity expended since these 
 days in rendering medicines palatable is some- 
 thing wonderful. Perhaps the amount of
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 19 
 
 money spent in advertising new medicines, 
 many of them worthless, some of them for- 
 tunately innocuous, is more wonderful still. 
 
 To complete my own personal experience 
 with drugs. Having involuntarily begun the 
 habit of using aperients (and with no fixed 
 ideas as to food, for I never was taught any), 
 I continued their use as I thought I required 
 them up to the age of thirty-five. I had 
 abundance of hard work, and very little re- 
 creation. I no doubt made grave errors in 
 diet, both as to quantity and quality, as I 
 perpetually suffered from so-called bilious 
 attacks, lasting for two or three days. With 
 them I had intense headache, aggravated no 
 doubt by the remains of malarial fever, which 
 I contracted in Syria, where I spent five 
 months of the spring and summer of 1844, 
 living in tent, exposed to all weathers, and 
 sleeping often on the ground with only a rug 
 to lie on. Already I was treating my patients 
 with very little medicine ; and I began to find 
 that instead of doing me good, an aperient gave
 
 20 PLEA FOR 
 
 me no relief, even temporary; and I quite gave 
 it up. For full forty years I do not remember 
 having once taken an aperient. I still suffered 
 however much as before, and soon resolved 
 to give up work, and to move to some warmer 
 climate, as my attacks usually commenced 
 with a chill, and I found the climate of Edin- 
 burgh very trying. Fortunately I wrote of 
 my intention to my old friend, Dr. Merei of 
 Pesth, then a Hungarian exile and settled as 
 a physician in Manchester. He strongly 
 advised me before taking so serious a step to 
 give up butcher's meat, reduce my tea and 
 coffee by a half, and of wine to take only 
 a little light claret to dinner, if I found 
 it to suit me. He had written on the diet 
 proper to different temperaments. He knew 
 that mine was very strongly nervous, and he 
 considered that red-meat diet rendered the 
 blood too irritating for my excitable nerves. 
 I had the sense to act on his advice, and soon 
 found that I was in the right direction ; and 
 though I still suffered more or less for many
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 21 
 
 years, I was able to continue work for 
 twenty-five years longer, and then it was 
 not my stomach that failed me. That is 
 now fifteen years ago. I had still something 
 to learn as to diet, but, with rest and com- 
 parative freedom from anxiety, I now enjoy 
 such health as few can boast of after an active 
 and anxious life of more than three-quarters 
 of a century. 
 
 I have spoken hitherto of aperient medi- 
 cines, these being far most commonly used 
 by the profession, and still more by the laity. 
 In England, so far as I can judge, they have 
 been and still are more used than in Scotland. 
 It may not be so much the case now, but 
 when my patients had occasion to consult a 
 first-class London physician, the prescription 
 was almost always an aperient and a tonic, 
 either singly or together. A single mutton 
 chop, lightly cooked, with bread and a glass 
 of sherry for lunch was a very favourite pre- 
 scription, but this did not necessarily interfere 
 with a moderate but more varied dinner after-
 
 22 PLEA FOR 
 
 wards. Frequently food was not mentioned, 
 and a worthy old friend of mine, a well-known 
 physician nearer home, used to tell his patients 
 that if at forty they had not learned what was 
 best for their stomachs, he could not help them. 
 Of the innumerable new remedies that 
 have come into notice in recent years I need 
 say little. Some of them, as the various 
 anaesthetics and antiseptics, are most valuable. 
 They have revolutionised surgery, but have 
 not done very much for medicine. Of the 
 new chemical remedies the number is so great 
 that it is impossible for the ordinary medical 
 man to give them a fair trial, and they add 
 enormously to his already too numerous tools. 
 If they do all that is said of them, nature will 
 have less chance still of showing what she 
 can do without them, and we will have 
 specialists of drugs as well as of diseases. 
 Of the older remedies the ultimate effects 
 on the system are very imperfectly known; 
 some, as sarsaparilla, have been proved to be 
 inert ; and of others, as digitalis and alcohol,
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 23 
 
 the effect has been shown to be the very 
 opposite of what they were supposed to be 
 until a recent period. 
 
 It must not be supposed that, while con- 
 demning the abuse of medicines, I do not 
 know and acknowledge the real value of some 
 of them, when used in the proper cases, and 
 in the proper manner. Iodide of potassium is 
 an admirable remedy for eliminating some 
 deleterious matters from the body. In 
 syphilitic cases no one doubts its efficiency. 
 I have used it infinitely more frequently in 
 cases where from overfeeding mostly the 
 system had got loaded up, and a peculiar 
 sallow look and ill-health indicated some 
 general derangement. In most of those 
 cases aperients and tonics had been used, 
 often for a long period, with the object of 
 helping digestion. There was usually some 
 lowness of spirits, or irritability, or both, 
 and always a want of strength. If the iodide 
 is used in this condition the relief to the 
 patient is often very remarkable, and, if
 
 24 PLEA FOR 
 
 accompanied and followed by a fitting change 
 of diet, it is usually permanent. But it also 
 may be abused if taken with the view of 
 letting the full diet be continued with more 
 comfort. From sixty to one hundred grains 
 in small doses usually sufficed to give the 
 patient a good start, but in one perhaps 
 unique case a middle-aged lady took close 
 on ten thousand grains in the course of five 
 years. For all the warnings I gave her she 
 would not give up her Bass and her beef; her 
 excuse being, that without these she could 
 not do her duty to an old lady she looked 
 after, and who certainly was rather exacting; 
 and she could not take them comfortably 
 without her medicine. For two years her 
 health was - better than before, then it began 
 to fail, and three years later she died. Her 
 general symptoms were those of phthisis, 
 but without the distinctive physical signs. 
 
 Another most valuable medicine is quinine, 
 especially for malarial fever ; but it too may 
 be used in a wrong way.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 25 
 
 Mrs. A. returned from India with fever. 
 I had long been the doctor of her family, but 
 the husband's friends would not hear of the 
 ' starving doctor ' being called in. After six 
 months she was no better, but worse, and I 
 was asked to take charge of her. I found 
 her in a wretched condition, extremely weak 
 and emaciated, and having severe attacks of 
 fever every second day. She was encouraged 
 to get out of bed on her free day, but was 
 getting unable to do so. It was a case, if 
 ever any was, for stopping the fever and 
 getting up the strength ; but how was this 
 to be done ? Quinine, arsenic, and iron had 
 failed, as had wine and all sorts of rich tempt- 
 ing food, but for want of better these were 
 still being pushed. The internal congestion 
 was such that quinine could not keep off the 
 shiver, the first stage of the fever, and it took 
 a long and severe hot stage to restore the 
 balance of the circulation, and this, followed 
 by a drenching perspiration, left the poor 
 lady so exhausted that any attack might have
 
 26 PLEA FOR 
 
 carried her off. I had now a perfectly free 
 hand. All medicine was stopped, and all 
 stimulants ; for food she had the well-tried 
 milk, lime-water, and white of egg, in very 
 small quantity ; and she was kept con- 
 stantly in bed, and mustard poultices freely 
 used. The fever came every second day as 
 before, but after ten or twelve days her con- 
 dition otherwise was so much improved that 
 I ventured to give the quinine again in full 
 dose. It at once checked the fever, and it 
 did not return. She could soon take a 
 reasonable amount of light food, her strength 
 slowly returned, and in a wonderfully short 
 time she was enjoying very fair health, and 
 returned to India. 
 
 Howis it that thecommonermedicines still 
 hold their place so universally if, as I believe, 
 they are mostly useless, and often injurious ? 
 One reason no doubt is that patients have 
 not much patience, and wish for some im- 
 mediate relief. In some cases, where it is 
 clearly impossible or may be unsafe to give
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 27 
 
 this relief, a placebo may be of use. I have 
 always had too much respect for my patients 
 and for myself to have recourse to this as an 
 ordinary practice ; but I once got more credit 
 for prescribing a box of bread pills than per- 
 haps I ever got from giving a stronger 
 medicine. Another reason why medicine is 
 still so much used arises from carrying into 
 practice the well-known aphorism of Hippo- 
 crates : ' Melius remedium dubium quam 
 nullum ' Better a doubtful remedy than 
 none. There is an old saying of the Rev. 
 Dr. Chalmers : ' No one can tell what evils 
 may result from the enunciation of a wrong 
 principle.' I know no wrong principle from 
 which so much evil has resulted as that 
 enunciated in the above axiom. The fallacy 
 lies in the word remedium. It implies that 
 the doubtful means employed is a remedy, 
 though it may not act as such in the case in 
 hand. The idea that it may hurt is left out. 
 It is a strong measure to correct Hippocrates, 
 but for his axiom I would substitute the
 
 28 PLEA FOR 
 
 following : ' Melius medicamentum nullum 
 quam dubium ' Better no medicine than a 
 doubtful one. The new word implies a doubt, 
 an uncertainty of good or evil, and from this 
 the inversion of the rest of the sentence natur- 
 ally follows. When a doctor is called in he 
 is expected to do something, and, the course 
 of the disease being so very uncertain, it is 
 not easy for the patient, nor for the doctor 
 either, to know, should improvement follow, 
 what share in this the medicine may have 
 had ; and, vice versa, if the symptoms become 
 aggravated, this may be in spite of the means 
 used, and altogether from the disease. The 
 Hippocratic maxim is no doubt a great source 
 of comfort to the doctor ; and so long as he 
 knows that he has followed the teaching of 
 the experts of the profession, and gives the 
 remedies indicated by the symptoms of the 
 case is thoroughly orthodox, in fact, he 
 may keep an easy mind. If his patient dies, 
 he gets credit for having done all that was 
 possible. But a very serious ' evil ' arises
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 29 
 
 from always acting on the principle which 
 the maxim so clearly ' enunciates.' He can 
 never know what is the natural course of the 
 disease for which he has used the doubtful 
 medicine, and he may go on during a whole life- 
 time obstructing nature instead of helping her. 
 I will give here only one disease where 
 the usual treatment is, I am sure, in many 
 cases, most injurious ; and simply because it 
 interferes with nature's processes. In a case 
 of scarlet fever it is the almost universal 
 practice to give at once a dose of aperient 
 medicine. Now, when the doctor is called in 
 in this case the disease has already reached 
 its second stage. The first step is the absorp- 
 tion of the poison and its effecting a lodgment 
 in the system, and this is seldom attended 
 with any marked symptoms. These are 
 produced by the reaction of the system to 
 throw off the poison, and unfortunately it is 
 these which we are apt to look upon as the 
 disease itself, and therefore to combat. In 
 an ordinary case of scarlet fever the poison
 
 30 PLEA FOR 
 
 is thrown out by the skin and the mucous 
 surfaces of the throat and pharynx. In some 
 cases, perhaps from some previous errors in 
 diet, there is diarrhoea, or irritation of the 
 stomach and vomiting ; and these cases often 
 do badly. It seems natural to suppose that a 
 dose of aperient medicine will, by causing 
 more or less bowel irritation, interfere with 
 the natural action of the skin and throat, and 
 may turn a simple case into a severe one ; 
 and this I have found to occur in practice. 
 I have often read of cases where this evi- 
 dently happened, and I have met with it in 
 cases I have seen with others. From almost 
 the beginning of my practice I have never 
 given a dose even of the simplest kind. In 
 a very small proportion of cases the poison 
 is so strong that it kills in twenty-four hours, 
 or little more. In these there is no room 
 for treatment. In old times Dr. Armstrong 
 recommended bleeding to relieve the great 
 internal congestion, and it is possible that 
 this treatment might be attended with
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 31 
 
 success ; nowadays I fear that if the patient 
 died it would be said that he was murdered. 
 I have met with one such case. In a few 
 others which proved very rapidly fatal, the 
 insanitary condition of the house was a 
 sufficient cause ; and in one of a strong 
 boy, who had eaten butcher's meat three 
 times on Christmas Day when he took ill a 
 moderate degree of scarlet fever, which must 
 have been approaching the stage of erup- 
 tion, was accompanied with persistent bilious 
 vomiting, which went on till he died. Two 
 other members of the family had at the same 
 time the disease in a moderate form. In 
 ordinary cases of scarlet fever the bowels 
 usually move of themselves in two or three 
 days ; but I have known this not to happen 
 for a week, and on one occasion only after 
 nine days, and the motion then has, whenever 
 I have ascertained the fact, been perfectly 
 natural. I believe that this was one 
 main reason why I rarely lost a case of 
 scarlet fever, even though severe ; and some
 
 32 PLEA FOR 
 
 few friends who have followed my example 
 have had the same experience. I may men- 
 tion one in Edinburgh who has a large family 
 practice, and with whom thirty years ago I 
 saw some very bad cases. He then always 
 began the treatment with a dose of aperient 
 medicine, and he was astonished when I 
 told him my suspicion of this being mainly 
 the cause of his bad results. Six months 
 after giving this up he told me that the 
 change was very beneficial ; he had some 
 severe cases, two of which he said should 
 have died, but they did not. Lately I saw 
 him, when he told me that now he seldom 
 loses a case. I have told many of my 
 experience, but few, I fear, have taken my 
 advice. Some years ago, in the British 
 Medical Journal, an English doctor published 
 a letter strongly recommending giving no 
 aperient in scarlet fever ; but his letter was 
 immediately followed by two from other 
 doctors giving directly the opposite advice, 
 and the question dropped.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 33 
 
 My colleague and successor in Edin- 
 burgh, who has always for twenty years 
 avoided aperients in scarlet fever, is equally 
 convinced of the great advantage of following 
 this course. He also, as I did, seldom meets 
 with a case of albuminuria after scarlet 
 fever ; but our young patients have been in 
 some measure properly fed when well, and 
 get nothing stronger than milk for at least 
 three weeks after the fever shows itself. 
 
 But equally important with drugs as 
 remedies are stimulating drinks and foods ; 
 the same remarks apply to both of these as 
 to the first-named. They are both in fashion 
 just now, when the great object of medical 
 treatment, in a large majority of cases, is to 
 ' keep up the strength.' But is this really 
 their invariable, or even their ordinary, action in 
 states of disease? I am convinced that it is not. 
 
 First, as to Drinks. I believe, from ob- 
 servations on myself and on others, that Sir 
 B. W. Richardson is quite right in his 
 
 3
 
 34 PLEA FOR 
 
 conclusions, come to from strictly scientific 
 investigation, that alcohol, in every form, 
 lowers the strength both of man and beast. 
 For long I have looked on alcoholic stimulants 
 as I do on a whip or a spur to a horse. They 
 may bring out more force at the moment, but 
 theeffect isvery transient,and is attended with 
 a decided loss of power. They may possibly 
 be of use in the rare occasions where a 
 temporary stimulus is all that is wanted, but 
 even for this there must be already some 
 stock of force, capable of being called out at 
 the moment, and also sufficient to carry on 
 the necessary actions of the system after- 
 wards. If this demand on the potential 
 strength of the victim is called for by 
 repeated doses of the stimulant, the ultimate 
 effect must be exhaustion. The conclusion 
 then is the absurd one : that when stimulants 
 are given to * support the system,' or to ' keep 
 up the strength,' the force must be there 
 already, or the stimulant can have no action 
 whatever.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 35 
 
 The last of the remedies to be mentioned 
 is Food, and this must be placed in the same 
 category as the other two doubtfuls when 
 we come to consider its value in disease. 
 All food, in the widest sense of the word, is 
 taken for the purpose of nourishing the body, 
 and rendering it fit for its daily work. In the 
 healthy conditions of the digestive organs 
 this is done automatically, and all that is 
 wanted is a regular and moderate supply of 
 what is proper food under the circumstances. 
 But in disease the organs of digestion are 
 not in a healthy condition. In a very large 
 proportion of cases they lose more or less 
 their power of digesting food at all, or they 
 do it in a very imperfect manner. Even 
 when there is no structural change to be 
 noted, the nervous force necessary to perfect 
 digestion is wanting, and to take any food 
 into the stomach can only do harm. Nature 
 in most cases provides against this by stop- 
 ping all appetite for food, while usually the 
 desire for water remains, or is even increased ;
 
 36 PLEA FOR 
 
 but water undergoes no change in the body, 
 and requires no digestion. Besides this, 
 nature provides in the human body a store 
 of food which has been already digested, and 
 requires absorption only to fit it for carrying 
 on all the more necessary functions, supply- 
 ing as it does the heat of the body, and 
 also the force which keeps the heart and 
 the muscles of respiration going, and any 
 other muscular movements that are called 
 for. We now know better than formerly 
 that this reserve of food suffices to support 
 life for days and weeks, with no addition 
 except that of water, which is much more 
 essential than food. Dr. Tanner and his 
 followers have proved this, and perhaps more 
 fully than was necessary. The doctor has 
 done a good work. I have often thought 
 that he had been worried as I myself have 
 been times without number by the friends of 
 his patients insisting on his giving them food, 
 when he knew it could do nothing but evil ; 
 and he wished to show how utterly baseless
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 37 
 
 were their fears. It would seem that not 
 only the friends but often the doctors also 
 forget, or at least ignore, this store provided 
 by nature. A healthy man when he takes no 
 food loses in weight at first about a pound a 
 day, which is gradually lessened to half a 
 pound if the abstinence is prolonged. If no 
 food is taken by a person suffering from 
 disease, the amount lost seems to depend in 
 a considerable degree on the amount of fever 
 present, which causes a more rapid con- 
 sumption of material, or burning. I am not 
 aware that this has been accurately worked 
 out, but I have often suspected that the daily 
 loss is greater when t'he patient is induced 
 to take food ; and it is needless to point out 
 how this should be so. This I am convinced 
 of, that in almost every case disease is aggra- 
 vated by food taken when it cannot be 
 properly digested, and that the suffering 
 to the patient is enormously increased. I 
 know this above all from personal experience ; 
 for when ill I have often taken food as a duty
 
 38 PLEA FOR 
 
 when I had no desire for it, and I know now 
 that I only prolonged my illness, and my 
 misery as well. I have been careful to say 
 that, in the conditions indicated, food is not 
 to be taken as a general rule. In acute cases 
 much prolonged, and in chronic cases, much 
 must be left to the prudent practitioner as to 
 the propriety of giving and withholding food, 
 so much depending on the condition of the 
 digestive organs ; but he should always have 
 a salutary dread of giving too much, as well 
 as of giving too little ; and he should act on 
 the amended aphorism and not on the 
 original. By doing so he may have fewer 
 diseases to treat, an'd they may be more 
 easily cured ; but he will, I am convinced, 
 have more clients, as their lives will be 
 longer. I could give many cases to show 
 the long period food may be abstained from 
 in acute attacks of illness. I will only 
 mention that of a lady suffering from a 
 large fibroid of the uterus, from which she 
 died. In the course of her illness, and when
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 39 
 
 already greatly pulled down, she had a 
 severe attack of pleurisy. She suffered much 
 from breathlessness, and very nearly died. 
 For full three weeks she literally took nothing 
 beyond occasionally sucking an orange ; and 
 she thanked me afterwards for not troubling 
 her with food or stimulants ; had I done so 
 she felt sure she would have died. So far as 
 the pleurisy was concerned she made a good 
 recovery. 
 
 We have seen that in sickness neither 
 medicine nor alcoholic stimulants nor food are 
 necessary as a general rule, but, on the con- 
 trary, are often absolutely injurious ; and 
 the only conclusion we can come to is that 
 the sick are in most cases to be left to 
 nature's methods, and to these only. Now, 
 what are these ? When one falls ill, in 
 the first place he usually loses all appetite 
 for food. He thus tends to give Rest to 
 the stomach : tends, I say, for often the 
 stomach has a long period of work before it
 
 40 PLEA FOR 
 
 gets rid of its contents in the first place, and 
 then of the secretions which come into it, 
 chiefly from the liver by regurgitation, and 
 from the blood. If the illness has been 
 brought on by taking any poisonous or 
 deleterious matter into the stomach, or even 
 by taking too much of the proper food, the 
 cure may be speedy, and there may be no 
 occasion to fall back on the stored-up food of 
 the body ; and here no one would dream of 
 fresh food being taken. But if the poison is 
 of a slow - working character, and a long 
 period for its elimination is required, or if 
 some (it may be reparatory) process of inflam- 
 mation is going on, which upsets all the 
 nervous functions of the body, so that the 
 nervous energy of the stomach so necessary 
 for the digestion of food is wanting if time 
 runs on, and still no food is demanded by the 
 patient the friends begin to get anxious, 
 and the dread of ' letting the patient get too 
 low ' comes strongly to the front. It is well 
 for the doctor if he is of the same mind, and
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 41 
 
 as I know to my cost it is bad for him if he 
 is not. If the case is a simple one, as 
 fortunately is the rule, recovery comes about, 
 although there may have been considerable 
 errors in giving food too soon, or in too large 
 quantities ; but there can be no doubt that a 
 simple and short case is often converted into 
 a severe and long one by giving food when 
 it is not wanted, and when it can be of 
 no use. 
 
 The other means which nature employs is 
 giving Rest to the whole body by sending 
 the invalid to bed. In a cold climate this is 
 of special value. Warmth is of great use in 
 many cases, both in preventing chills, and in 
 saving the bodily heat and thus rendering 
 heat-making food less necessary. It is thus 
 a means of ' keeping up the strength ' so 
 much desired by the friends, but one which, I 
 fear, they rarely think of. In certain cases of 
 high temperature, the use of cold is now 
 much more appreciated ; but in these, rest in 
 bed is still essential, and the application of
 
 42 PLEA FOR 
 
 cold, when indicated, is usually very accept- 
 able to the patient. 
 
 An abundant supply of fresh air and of 
 good water is essential in most states of dis- 
 ease, but the value of these is generally fully 
 appreciated ; at any rate the doctor has 
 usually little difficulty in getting his wishes 
 carried out in regard to them, if, as is by no 
 means always the case, they are to be had in 
 their natural abundance and purity. 
 
 A most valuable method of employing heat 
 and water in sickness is by combining them. 
 I have long looked on hot water as the most 
 real stimulant that we have. It supplies 
 ready made the heat which is, in health, the 
 product of the chemistry of the body acting 
 on all carbonaceous food. In most states of 
 disease we do not look for any building up 
 of the body, which is the main duty of nitro- 
 genous aliments; but when the system is 
 really in a low condition, and then only a 
 stimulant is wanted, we need a supply of heat, 
 which, being convertible into all other forms
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 43 
 
 of force, keeps up the temperature of the 
 body, and the absolutely necessary move- 
 ments of the heart and lungs, and the func- 
 tions of the nervous system. 
 
 Another element in the cure of disease is 
 Time, and chiefly for this reason, that if the 
 patient, though apparently well, tries to get 
 too soon up and back to his ordinary work 
 and food, before he has got a sufficient stock 
 of nervous energy, the chemistry of digestion 
 at once goes wrong, and he falls back to his 
 old condition ; and he must again rest both 
 body and stomach, perhaps for even a longer 
 time than before. The best tonic is a little 
 wholesome abstinence. 
 
 To sum up : the doubtful remedies which, 
 according to the new axiom, are as a rule to 
 be avoided in states of disease are medicines 
 of all kinds, alcoholic stimulants, and food ; 
 and nature's methods which we advise to be 
 substituted for them, or rather to be allowed 
 full play without them, are rest, not forgetting 
 rest to the stomach ; warmth, or in rare cases,
 
 44 PLEA FOR 
 
 cold ; a free supply, usually of water, and 
 always of fresh air ; and sufficient time for 
 the organs to recover their ordinary working 
 powers, and especially for the nervous sys- 
 tem to make up its wasted energy. In short, 
 we must fall back on the old and much for- 
 gotten vis medicatrix natures. 
 
 I have heard of old men who never had 
 taken medicine, nor consulted a doctor, and 
 who, if they felt unwell, at once stopped all 
 food ; if this was not enough they went to 
 bed, and remained there till they were better. 
 The first rule I have followed for forty years, 
 the last for fifteen, since I have been able to 
 do so, and it has very rarely been necessary ; 
 and I do not intend to do anything more in 
 the future. My friends can see the difference 
 in my health, and I feel it. Many of my 
 younger medical friends, who worked on very 
 opposite lines, used to laugh at me as a very 
 poor specimen of the mode of living I allowed 
 myself and recommended to others. One 
 told me if I would daily take a good beef-
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 45 
 
 steak and a pint of Burgundy, as he did, I 
 would be equally strong and well. Another 
 recommended his three B's beef, beer, and 
 bread ; another honestly said he would not 
 live as I did he would rather die ; that he 
 went in for a short life and a merry one. 
 When at last I got the long-needed rest, I 
 resolved to give myself all possible fairplay, 
 with the object of proving to these men and 
 others that there was some good in my 
 methods after all. But the element of Time 
 was a great one in my case, and now, when 
 I am not ashamed to offer myself as a good 
 specimen of an old man who lives a most 
 simple life, I have no one left of the old 
 scoffing friends whom I was most anxious to 
 appeal to. They have all had the short life, 
 but not, I fear, the merry one. In most in- 
 stances one severe illness carried them off 
 when at the height of their work and pros- 
 perity. It is a sad recollection. 
 
 It may be asked If the present system 
 of treating the sick be so hurtful, how do so
 
 46 PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE 
 
 many recover under it ? I answer by asking 
 another question. How is it that so few 
 reach the age of fourscore, which, from the 
 time of Jacob, has been considered an 
 extreme old age ? May not this bad treat- 
 ment of the sick be one large cause of the 
 shortened life, as is the bad treatment of 
 themselves by the healthy, on the ' short 
 life and a merry ' principle ? The human 
 body is, or at least we consider it, the highest 
 work of the Creator, and it can stand a great 
 deal of bad treatment at one's hands. My 
 wonder is that it stands it so well. Or I 
 might give a shorter answer by asking, How 
 did any of the sick treated on the old plan re- 
 cover at all ? I would be glad to have an 
 answer to this question from the advocates of 
 the new.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I HAVE endeavoured in the former chapter 
 to show how little can be done by drugs and 
 stimulants and food to combat disease, and I 
 have mentioned some cases where their use 
 is positively injurious. Is there any general 
 rule that can guide us as to when we are 
 justified in not interfering at all, and in leav- 
 ing the case to the simple methods followed 
 by nature ? 
 
 Perhaps no absolute rule can be given, 
 but our action should be guided mainly by 
 this consideration, that diseases, as we are 
 called to treat them, or, in other words, the 
 abnormal phenomena presented to us by the 
 sick, are not the essential elements of the 
 case, but are signs of processes set up in the
 
 48 PLEA FOR 
 
 body in order to relieve itself of some dis- 
 turbing influence threatening to interfere with 
 its functions, or (it may be) to destroy them 
 altogether. 
 
 In a large number of cases there is no 
 difficulty. The cause of the illness may be 
 obvious, or may be readily discovered, and 
 any needful treatment may be at once had 
 recourse to in order to remove the disturbing 
 cause. But the disturbing cause may be 
 doubtful, and, any * remedies ' that may be 
 thought of being (as we have seen) also 
 doubtful, we have a double reason for exer- 
 cising a wise forbearance, and for leaving 
 the case alone so far as any other means 
 are concerned than those demanded by 
 nature. 
 
 I think I will best serve my purpose by 
 restricting this chapter mainly to cases which 
 illustrate the evils that arise from interference 
 with nature in carrying out her own methods, 
 and the benefits which accrue to the sick from 
 leaving them alone, or from using only the
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 49 
 
 simplest means to aid nature in her work of 
 reparation. 
 
 The science of surgery is a very different 
 one from that of medicine, and its advance 
 during the last fifty years has been enormous. 
 The practice of surgery has kept pace with 
 the science. The surgeon in a great majority 
 of cases knows what he is about, and the 
 patient knows what he is suffering from. An 
 injury is manifest to the eye or to the trained 
 touch in far the larger number of cases, 
 and any doubt as to the cause or the nature 
 of the ailment is excluded. In a certain 
 number of cases, even in surgery, this does 
 not hold, and in these the prudent surgeon may 
 have to act on the principle of letting alone, 
 as in doubtful medical cases. But the advance 
 in the means of diagnosis renders even these 
 cases much less common than formerly. Also 
 in the methods used the surgeon has great 
 advantage over the physician. He can much 
 more easily discover if he is doing good to 
 his patient or the reverse and can at once
 
 50 PLEA FOR 
 
 alter his treatment ; and he can also know 
 much more certainly if the case be hopeless 
 and any treatment unnecessary. It is well 
 to notice that in most cases, even in surgery, 
 the best measures are those which ensure 
 rest to the injured part, and this kept up till 
 time is given for the restorative process of 
 nature to effect a cure. 
 
 Many cases of internal injuries must be 
 included in the common domain of the surgeon 
 and the physician, as in injuries to the head, 
 where there may be fracture of the base of 
 the skull, with rupture of blood-vessels and 
 internal haemorrhage. As a physician, I have 
 had more to do with cases of apoplexy from 
 rupture of an artery in the substance of the 
 brain. Here all we can do is to prevent if 
 possible the further escape of blood, and to 
 encourage if we can its absorption. The old 
 method was of course to bleed the patient with 
 the view of lessening the pressure on the 
 cerebral vessels, and perhaps there was some 
 sense in this, though much might be said on
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 51 
 
 the subject perhaps to little purpose. Now, 
 various medicines are often given, adminis- 
 tered by the mouth if swallowing is possible, 
 or by the bowel, and very soon the attempt 
 is made by food and stimulants ' to support 
 the system.' I am very sure my success 
 has been greater since I have trusted entirely 
 to rest and time, and have given neither food 
 nor medicine. If the lower bowel is loaded, 
 it may be right to remove what is there 
 mechanically or by a mild enema, and 
 emptying the bladder may have to be seen 
 to if necessary. But beyond this rest 
 should be absolute. The straining caused 
 by the simplest aperient may make to the 
 patient the difference of life or death ; 
 abstinence from food and mostly from drink 
 of any kind will soon diminish the volume 
 of the blood, and if continued will help to 
 absorb the clot of blood, which may be looked 
 upon as an addition to the store of nutriment 
 we have spoken of as laid up in the system 
 to meet such a contingency as now presents
 
 52 PLEA FOR 
 
 itself. Thirst, if it by and by comes on. 
 may be relieved by frequent minute sips of 
 cold water better than by a large draught 
 of any liquid ; and later, if there be signs of 
 exhaustion or of failure of the heart's action, 
 my experience is that hot water will be of 
 far more use than any alcoholic stimulant, or, 
 if this cannot be taken in any quantity, some 
 small doses of carbonate of ammonia. There 
 are, of course, cases where the escape of blood 
 is so large that there is no chance of recovery 
 from the first ; but I have seen many cases 
 apparently hopeless, and where for many 
 days there has been no sign of conscious- 
 ness, that have been pulled through, not by 
 the physician, but by nature left entirely to 
 her own resources. In a large proportion of 
 very severe cases which I have been allowed 
 to treat in my own way, the patients, even 
 though well up in years, and in one remark- 
 able case very old, have afterwards enjoyed 
 excellent health for many years without one 
 sign of paralysis of any sort ; and some have
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 53 
 
 done a large amount of head-work, and have 
 died from diseases of quite a different char- 
 acter, or from simple old age. 
 
 One case, treated in a very different 
 way, caused me perhaps more worry and 
 anxiety than any other I ever attended. A 
 gentleman of middle life, whose family I had 
 long looked after, had an attack of apoplexy 
 in the north of England, where the family 
 had gone for the summer. He was a strong, 
 healthy man, and I do not remember that he 
 ever required from me any medical advice ; 
 but he was certainly too well fed. After 
 some months he was brought back to 
 Edinburgh by the medical man who had 
 attended him through his illness, and whom 
 I was asked to meet along with one of our 
 consulting physicians. The patient was still 
 a great invalid and much paralysed. He was 
 quite helpless, and the English doctor, who 
 was well pleased with the improvement so 
 far, seemed most anxious to impress upon us 
 the necessity of keeping up his strength.
 
 54 PLEA FOR 
 
 He was taking as much ' good ' food as he 
 could, and also stimulants. On leaving, the 
 consultant told me he had been much amused 
 at the way the English doctor, a young 
 man, had laid down the law to me, a much 
 older man. * But,' he said, ' you can now 
 take your own way,' which he knew very 
 well. But I could not get my own way, and 
 had not the patient been an old and intimate 
 friend I would have given up the case, the 
 more readily that I got no help from my 
 consulting friend. At last most marked 
 gouty symptoms appeared, and then I suc- 
 ceeded better in getting my own way. It 
 was too late and the patient died. I suc- 
 ceeded in getting an examination of the brain 
 made by the then pathologist of the In- 
 firmary. We found, besides a quantity of 
 clear fluid on the surface and in the ventricles 
 of the brain, what looked like a small tumour 
 embedded in the substance of the cerebrum, 
 where it might have given but little trouble. 
 But it proved to be the remains of a clot of
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 55 
 
 blood, partially organised, and with vessels 
 through its substance. The full feeding had 
 given no chance to its being absorbed, and 
 the continued irritation kept up by it had led 
 to effusion ; and the pressure of the fluid on 
 different parts of the brain accounted to us 
 for the curious changing symptoms which the 
 case had shown all through its course. 
 
 It has often been to me a sad reflection 
 that wealth, which here was in abundance, 
 and the kindliest of feelings for my friend 
 was blessed with one of the best of wives 
 should, from want of a little knowledge of the 
 laws of nature, be turned into true causes of 
 suffering being aggravated and death brought 
 on prematurely ; and that the acquisition 
 of that knowledge is hindered by the varying 
 fashions of the day, as they affect the teach- 
 ing and practice of medicine. I have myself 
 suffered in many ways from my heterodoxy. 
 A few of my good patients have left me a 
 very few, and as I have good reason to know, 
 not always to their own advantage. Servants
 
 56 PLEA FOR 
 
 in families in which I attended frequently 
 would have none of me and demanded 
 another ; and I have even been threatened 
 with the terrors of the law. My worthy 
 friend, then Police Surgeon of Edinburgh, 
 will, I think, forgive my giving a short 
 story which afforded us both a good laugh 
 the last time I had the pleasure of see- 
 ing him. Some twenty- five years ago, 
 meeting him in the street, he told me most 
 seriously that I must take care what I was 
 about, or I would certainly come within the 
 clutches of the law. This coming from him 
 rather startled me, and I asked what he 
 meant. ' Oh,' said he, ' there is old General C. , 
 next door to me, ill in bed, getting no food, 
 and nothing being done for him.' I felt 
 relieved and answered that I would take the 
 risk. The old gentleman soon got well ; no 
 doubt he has occasionally gone through the 
 same experience since, but he is still alive, 
 and the last time I saw him very much so ; 
 and now, at the good age of ninety-five, he is,
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 57 
 
 I am told, the oldest officer of Her Majesty's 
 Service. If ' something had been done for 
 him,' as my friend suggested, then and on 
 other occasions, he might have lived as long, 
 but I doubt it. 
 
 There is another set of cases where great 
 mischief is done by a free use of food and 
 stimulants, viz. in haemorrhages from some 
 other internal organ, as the stomach, lungs, 
 or kidneys. The old idea was to remove the 
 cause of the haemorrhage by lessening the 
 pressure of the blood ; and this by reducing 
 its quantity by bleeding, or by putting 
 leeches on a distant part of the body, with 
 the view of drawing the blood into another 
 direction. The idea now almost always acted 
 on is to keep up the strength by stimulants, 
 and to make up the loss as quickly as possible 
 by giving good food ; while also a variety of 
 so-called styptic medicines are used, with, in 
 some cases, the local application of cold. The 
 sceptical physician who does not pursue these 
 methods runs a considerable risk of getting
 
 58 PLEA FOR 
 
 into trouble ; but I have often run the risk 
 during the last forty years, and I have never, 
 so far as I know, had cause to regret it. I 
 will give a few cases which I choose out of 
 many as perhaps the most illustrative of my 
 heterodoxy both in theory and in practice. 
 
 A gentleman about middle age and of a 
 healthy constitution was long addicted to 
 turns of deep drinking. He was absolute 
 master in his own house, and he never 
 allowed me to be sent for till he was just on 
 the verge of delirium tremens. In a previous 
 attack he had some haemorrhage from the 
 stomach, owing evidently to a cirrhotic liver. 
 This alarmed him, and for a much longer 
 period than usual he had kept off all stimul- 
 ants. At length, however, he had to allow me 
 to be sent for, and from his fears of haemor- 
 rhage somewhat earlier than usual. I found 
 that for ten days he had taken no food what- 
 ever ; but was drinking largely strong wines 
 and spirits. He was not yet in the state 
 that I could stop this and give him some mild
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 59 
 
 food, but every day he promised me that he 
 would take no more, and next day he ex- 
 pressed great regret that he had found it 
 impossible to do so. This went on for three 
 or four days, when one morning I got an 
 urgent message to see him. I found that all 
 of a sudden he had vomited an enormous 
 quantity of blood. I guessed it at ten or 
 twelve pounds at least. I certainly never 
 saw such a quantity of vomited blood before, 
 nor anything like it. No pulse could be felt 
 in any of his extremities, which were cold, 
 and his heart could scarcely be heard to beat. 
 He had some consciousness ; he seemed to 
 wish to speak to me, and putting my ear 
 close to his mouth, I heard, in the faintest 
 whisper, ' a big drink.' My first thought 
 was to gratify him, as he seemed in a quite 
 hopeless condition ; but I knew that to con- 
 tinue the stimulants was to give him no 
 chance at all, and that if there was any doubt 
 he should get the benefit of it. His great 
 want now was evidently fluid, and some safe
 
 60 PLEA FOR 
 
 stimulant, if there was such, to keep up the 
 heart's action. I got a tumbler of quite hot 
 water, with a teaspoonful of Liebig's Extract 
 dissolved in it, and I poured gently on the 
 surface of this a single teaspoonful of whisky, 
 the fumes and taste of which might deceive him 
 into the belief that I had yielded to his wish ; 
 and he swallowed this with some effort. The 
 same dose was repeated in some twenty or 
 thirty minutes, and these two teaspoonfuls of 
 whisky were all the stimulant he got ; but 
 the hot water and Liebig were continued at 
 frequent intervals and were well taken. By 
 evening some reaction came on, and to the 
 astonishment of every one he made a steady 
 recovery. He lived carefully for some years, 
 had no return of haemorrhage, and he died 
 from the effects of a severe chill from long 
 exposure to rain and cold. 
 
 A young married lady, an old patient, 
 came to Edinburgh to consult me for a severe 
 chest affection of some standing. I had gone 
 to the south of France, so she consulted one
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 61 
 
 of the ablest physicians of London, now de- 
 ceased. He gave her mother, who accom- 
 panied her, such a hopeless opinion, and, at 
 the same time, ordered so very different a 
 diet from what she knew I would approve of 
 that she followed me south, hoping that I 
 would take a less desperate view of the case. 
 I found that it was a very serious one indeed. 
 The upper part of both lungs was inflamed 
 and congested, one much more than the 
 other, about one - half of the lung being 
 affected, and in it there was at least one con- 
 siderable cavity already formed. There had 
 been repeated attacks of haemoptysis to rather 
 an alarming extent. The London physician, 
 who had been extremely kind and sympa- 
 thetic, told them not to be alarmed at this, as 
 it must occur from time to time. He re- 
 commended some drugs, I forget what, but 
 his great anxiety was that she should be 
 well nourished, and he wrote out a diet for 
 her which she was to follow as far as possible. 
 Her mother had tried to keep her up to the
 
 62 PLEA FOR 
 
 mark, but she herself complained to me 
 strongly that the attempt to do so only made 
 her more miserable. Her coated tongue at 
 once proved 'to me that she could not digest 
 such a diet, and she was delighted when I 
 told her I would not ask her to take more 
 food than she wished or could enjoy. I re- 
 commended a very moderate quantity of 
 milk and an egg or two as her only animal 
 diet, and I ordered no drugs. I also told 
 the mother that I took a much more serious 
 view of the haemorrhage ; that had she been 
 able to take and to digest the quantity of 
 nourishment ordered in London, an occa- 
 sional bleeding might relieve the congested 
 and now evidently inflamed lungs ; and that 
 had the blood come from some external part 
 of the body little mischief might result, but 
 that a portion of it would most probably 
 remain in the lungs, and would certainly set 
 up further irritation. The old lady saw the 
 common sense of this, and no longer urged 
 food on her daughter. Next day I found
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 63 
 
 good milk was not to be procured. The 
 cows of the hotel were fed more or less on 
 oranges, and the milk had a peculiar flavour 
 which rendered it undrinkable. Nor were 
 fresh eggs to be got. The friends I was 
 living with close by had, fortunately, a cow 
 properly fed, and had also a number of fowls, 
 and they kindly supplied my patient with 
 one pint of milk and a couple of eggs every 
 morning. On these and on nothing else the 
 invalid lived for several weeks ; and though 
 the weather was such that she could get but 
 little out of doors, the change on her was 
 really marvellous. She lost her pinched, 
 pallid, suffering look, slept better, was able 
 to move about, her cough improved, and she 
 had no more haemoptysis. But the great 
 change was in the lungs. The congestion 
 in the best lung almost disappeared ; and in 
 the bad one the local signs were so much 
 modified that, but for the undoubted presence 
 of a cavity, I might have hoped that there 
 was no phthisis at all. Had the London
 
 64 PLEA FOR 
 
 physician seen her four weeks later he could 
 not possibly have given so hopeless a pro- 
 gnosis. I never saw her again, and she died 
 of phthisis two years afterwards. 
 
 Some years ago I spent a few weeks near 
 Rio. I was there asked to meet the late Dr. 
 F. of Rio to consult about an English 
 gentleman living in the hotel. The case 
 was one of severe haematuria. He had 
 suffered for years from dyspepsia. A sea 
 voyage was recommended ; but after a short 
 remission the stomach ailment returned, ac- 
 companied with hsematuria, and he arrived 
 in Rio much exhausted. After some weeks' 
 rest in a delightful climate he was no better, 
 and Dr. F. advised him to get home as 
 long as it was possible for him to travel. His 
 general health was wretched, and the main 
 object of the doctor and of his nephew, who 
 was with him, was to get him to take any 
 tempting food he could, to make up for the 
 loss of blood, which was considerable and 
 constant, and to keep up his strength. Every
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 65 
 
 possible remedy had been tried, the doctor 
 told me, except turpentine, which he pro- 
 posed we should give him ; but he con- 
 sidered the case hopeless, and wished to get 
 him home if possible ; as he was unfit to 
 travel the ten miles to Rio and get on board 
 the steamer in one day, he kindly offered to 
 take him to his own house for the night. It 
 looked very much as if some organic change 
 of the bladder was present. I suggested that 
 possibly the cause might be a simpler one, 
 and that, as the bleeding had come on when 
 he was living, as he told me, on fuller diet 
 than usual, on board ship, and during very 
 hot weather, it might at first have been an 
 effort of nature to relieve a congested organ, 
 and that the weak part had not had a chance 
 to heal from the constant use of as full a 
 diet as was possible. This was quite a 
 new view of the case both to the patient 
 and to the doctor, and the former was most 
 willing to change his mode of living. It 
 was agreed not to try the turpentine nor
 
 66 PLEA FOR 
 
 any medicine whatever, and to adopt at once 
 and for the future a very simple and restricted 
 diet. He left next day, and on my return 
 home I found a letter from the nephew, dated 
 six weeks after I had seen the invalid. He 
 writes : ' My uncle's haematuria ceased with- 
 out any assistance from medicine as soon as 
 we got fairly through the tropics, and he 
 began to mend slowly, and by the time he 
 arrived at Liverpool he had regained some 
 of his strength. The change of air on get- 
 ting home did him good, and, on the whole, I 
 think he has very nearly recovered what he 
 lost on the voyage. I attribute his recovery 
 greatly to your advice.' How often I have 
 known a simple case converted into a com- 
 plicated and hopeless one by exactly the 
 same treatment ! 
 
 I will give one other case, perhaps the 
 worst case of haemorrhage from a fibroid 
 tumour I ever met with. A lady, from 
 Glasgow, where she kept house for a brother, 
 came to see me several times and lived
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 67 
 
 with a sister in Edinburgh. I advised rest 
 and light food. She was rather of the full 
 plethoric type. She got worse and worse, 
 and at last finding she could not take rest at 
 home I insisted that she should stop with 
 her sister, remain absolutely in bed, and, 
 though she was now very weak and bloodless, 
 that she should live on a very restricted, al- 
 most starvation diet. I had given her freely 
 the favourite styptic remedies, especially 
 Ruspini's Styptic, which then enjoyed a very 
 high reputation. The surgical methods now 
 used in such cases, and electricity as now 
 practised with often the best results, were 
 not then thought of. At once she began to 
 improve, and at the end of three or four 
 months, during which she rested, and I may 
 say more or less starved, the attacks left her 
 and did not return. She soon gained strength 
 and went home. The end was rather a sad 
 one. Some three years after I was called to 
 see her in Glasgow. She had kept quite 
 well, and got strong and full as before.
 
 68 PLEA FOR 
 
 Whether I had not enjoined her strongly 
 enough to avoid getting too full and plethoric 
 now that she had not her previous relief, or 
 that she had not considered it necessary to 
 be any longer so careful, I do not know ; but I 
 found her suffering from a very severe attack 
 of pleuro-pneumonia, to which she succumbed 
 a day or two after. Twenty years earlier 
 she would have been bled and bled again, 
 and the result might have been different. 
 
 In such a case as the last, I have all 
 along occasionally ventured to bleed, and my 
 successor has done the same. Fortunately 
 the result was always favourable. We know 
 from such cases as I have given the details 
 of, that one can lose a vast amount of blood 
 and be ultimately not one whit the worse for 
 it. Above all, in a case of congestion of the 
 lungs the remedy seems the natural one. 
 The whole mass of the blood must circulate 
 through the lungs, as well as through the 
 rest of the body. If the lungs are swollen 
 and congested this becomes impossible, and
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 69 
 
 surely it is a more rational method to relieve 
 them of a portion of their load, rather than 
 to try to force the whole of it through by 
 stimulating the heart's action, as is the 
 method universally adopted nowadays. I 
 heard and knew little or nothing of the com- 
 plaint in my younger days, perhaps because 
 by early bleeding it was rarely allowed to get 
 ahead, but was checked at the commence- 
 ment. 
 
 I find that the same mode of treating con- 
 gestion of the lungs now prevails in France 
 as in this country. The change from the old 
 to the new treatment, and the usual 'results, 
 was told me very graphically some years ago 
 by a fine old French gentleman whom I had 
 seen from time to time near Antibes, where 
 he was the neighbour of friends I frequently 
 visited. I heard he had been ill, and went to 
 see him. He told me he had been very ill, 
 and that the wonder was he was alive. He 
 had had congestion of the lungs. * In my 
 young days,' he said, ' when any one got
 
 70 PLEA FOR 
 
 congestion of the lungs, he was bled, and he 
 was cured. But now, if you take congestion 
 of the lungs, the doctor will not bleed you, 
 and there is nothing to do but to send for 
 the padre.' 
 
 As I wish to notice the evils that result 
 from full feeding in asylums, I may here 
 give some account of my experience in 
 treating cases of insanity, and give one or 
 two illustrative cases. I may be told that I 
 can have but little knowledge of this exten- 
 sive subject, as I have never been attached 
 to any establishment dealing with it. This 
 is true, but I have had much experience 
 outside, where I was not bound very much 
 by rules, and could treat each case as it arose. 
 As proof that I was considered by experts as 
 knowing something about the insane, my ad- 
 vice has more than once been asked by them 
 when their own relatives were threatened. 
 There is no harm in stating that an old 
 friend, who was long held, and justly so, as 
 the head of his specialty in Scotland, when
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 71 
 
 he feared that a very near relation was becom- 
 ing insane, put her under my care, and let 
 me have a free hand in her treatment. On 
 stopping her stimulants and good food, we 
 found that the insomnia and other more sus- 
 picious symptoms soon went off, and our 
 anxiety about her was speedily relieved. 
 More recently another medical man, who 
 occupied a high position in connection with 
 lunacy, asked me to look after a friend, an 
 old lady who had still more advanced 
 symptoms than the last-mentioned. In his 
 letter to me he said he knew nobody but 
 myself who could be of any use to her. 
 
 I could give numerous cases of good 
 results from, as I think, a rational mode of 
 treatment. 
 
 An old lady, long a patient of mine, lived 
 undoubtedly too well. She was a robust, 
 healthy woman with a good stomach, and she 
 took advantage of it. About once a year 
 she had a severe attack of erysipelas of the 
 head, which cleared her out for a time. One
 
 72 PLEA FOR 
 
 year the erysipelas did not come on, and 
 instead of it she had an attack of acute 
 mania. She was making a slow recovery 
 after the acute symptoms were over, and for 
 a change she went to the country. There 
 her friends put her on a better diet. She 
 did not improve, and they called in the 
 physician of the county asylum. He wrote 
 me that the case was a hopeless one of 
 senile insanity, and told me what would be 
 the course it would certainly run. He also 
 said that it was not safe to leave her at 
 large, as in such cases there was a tendency to 
 suicide. Of course he approved of good 
 living. If his views had been carried out, I 
 have no doubt his prognosis would have 
 proved correct. But I managed to get her 
 home, put her again on a restricted diet, and 
 though not quite sound she lived for years 
 with her daughters in town, and never 
 showed signs of senile insanity nor of any 
 other form of it. 
 
 A much younger lady I kept out of an
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 73 
 
 asylum for twenty years. She had occa- 
 sional attacks of insane excitement during all 
 that time, but she had an excellent maid, 
 and little was needed except an occasional 
 quiet change to a lodging in the country. 
 She was getting past her change of life, and 
 I quite expected she would have a comfort- 
 able and calm old age. At one time she asked 
 me if she should not adopt vegetarianism 
 pure and simple. I had put her at least half- 
 way towards it ; and I afterwards regretted 
 that I had not let her follow her wish. But 
 I pointed out to her that she was doing very 
 well as she was, and thought it would be 
 better that she did not change. She was 
 now living by herself in her own house, in a 
 fine healthy locality. By and by she was 
 so well that she went to pay a visit to friends 
 at some distance. There one of her excited 
 turns came upon her, I know not from what 
 cause. Her friends got alarmed and sent for 
 their doctor, a valued friend of mine, long 
 since dead. He at once said she was too
 
 74 PLEA FOR 
 
 low, and changed entirely her mode of living. 
 Ere long I was asked to send a professional 
 nurse to bring her back to Edinburgh. She 
 was soon much in her usual again. At 
 the desire of the friends I got an excellent 
 lady attendant for her, and hoped all would 
 go well. But now the friends, who had left 
 me quite alone hitherto, interfered with the 
 lady attendant, and she had to give up her 
 place. Seeing I could do no more good, I 
 had also to give up my patient, very much to 
 her sorrow, and my own. All along she had 
 dreaded being sent to an asylum, and made 
 me promise that I would never allow it. It 
 was soon resolved however to send her there, 
 the chief reason given being as before, that 
 there was risk of her committing suicide. 
 She was sent to what are justly considered 
 most comfortable quarters ; but very soon 
 the physician of the establishment came to 
 tell me that on one of the first opportunities 
 she had committed the act the fear of which 
 had led to her seclusion. I was not astonished,
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 75 
 
 though I had never seen the slightest ten- 
 dency in her to injure herself during the 
 twenty years I had the care of her. 
 
 In cases where it is possible, and these 
 are not a few, my desire has been, especially in 
 recent years, to keep my patients out of any 
 asylum ; and I have not had cause to regret 
 it. Simple feeding does more than make up 
 for all the advantages and these are^very 
 great of the best regulated establishment. 
 Happily there are already some signs of a 
 coming change. 
 
 I shall now give a few purely medical 
 cases, illustrating the two opposite modes of 
 treatment, and extending over a period of 
 more than quarter of a century. 
 
 In November 1869 I was called to Helens- 
 burgh to see Mrs. S., an old lady who was 
 supposed to be dying from cancer of the 
 stomach. The patient was well on to eighty 
 years of age. She had enjoyed good health, 
 had been well fed, took a moderate amount 
 of wine, but for some years had attacks of
 
 76 PLEA FOR 
 
 disordered stomach, accompanied with vomit- 
 ing, which was the chief symptom. These 
 attacks had been getting more frequent and 
 severe, but the present one was much the worst 
 she had ever had. For twelve days nothing 
 had remained on her stomach ; she had got 
 very thin ; her colour was very bad ; but the 
 vomiting now was more from irritation of the 
 stomach than from bile. After the vomiting 
 fits, which were very distressing and exhaust- 
 ing, she had a desire for something to drink, 
 and this was freely supplied in the varied 
 forms of champagne, soda and brandy, beef- 
 tea, and turtle-soup. For a few minutes she 
 was relieved, but the distress and vomiting 
 soon returned. Her strength was rapidly 
 failing, and it looked as if one or at the most 
 two days more would bring the end. From 
 being full and plump, she had got so thin 
 that the edge of the liver could be felt a little 
 below the ribs, and this had led to the idea 
 that she might be suffering from cancer of 
 the stomach. After finding out all I could
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 77 
 
 about the case I withdrew to consult with 
 the doctor and a semi -medical friend of 
 the family. I was able to assure them that 
 the case was not one of cancer ; that the old 
 lady had still some life in her ; and that if only 
 we could give the stomach a rest it might 
 recover its functions and she might yet get 
 well. I pointed out that the desire for drink 
 or such fluid food as she was taking so freely 
 was not a true call of nature for nourishment, 
 but a crave for something to dilute the acrid 
 mass which soon formed again after each fresh 
 supply, aggravating the irritation of the 
 nerves of the stomach, and bringing back the 
 misery which, for a short time, had been 
 relieved. She had of course been taking a 
 variety of medicines. I recommended that all 
 these should be stopped, as also the stimulants 
 and food, and that the old lady should have 
 nothing whatever but hot water, and of this 
 just as much as she cared to take ; that this 
 should be continued at least for twelve or 
 twenty-four hours, when, if it seemed to suit,
 
 78 PLEA FOR 
 
 a very small quantity of milk could be added 
 to it, and gradually, as it could be done with- 
 out the least discomfort, a very little mild 
 food, as gruel, or weak chicken soup, might be 
 given occasionally. This was all agreed to 
 most readily, as it was clear to every one that 
 on the present lines of treatment the case 
 was utterly hopeless. As we were talking, a 
 message came that Mrs. S. had been sick 
 again, and would she take soda and brandy, 
 or what ? She had had a bad fit of sickness. 
 I said that now was the time to begin the hot 
 water, the stomach being well emptied ; and 
 I sent her up a full tumbler, about as hot as 
 one could drink it, to be taken at once in 
 whole or in part, just as she felt inclined. In 
 about half an hour, before leaving, I went to 
 her room and found her in a much more 
 satisfactory condition. She had taken the 
 whole tumbler greedily, and it was, she said, 
 the only thing that had done her good. She 
 felt soothed and comfortable. I did not see 
 her again, but from this turning-point she
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 79 
 
 made a steady though necessarily a slow re- 
 covery, only somewhat retarded on one or two 
 occasions by the desire of the doctor to get 
 up her strength a little faster. She quite re- 
 covered her health and her former plumpness, 
 and she lived for I do not know how many years. 
 
 The two following cases I met with in 
 London, where I spent two winters some ten 
 or twelve years ago : 
 
 I had heard of the illness of a young 
 married lady, a friend of my family, and one 
 day her mother came to ask if I would see 
 her as a friend. She told me her daughter 
 had been gradually getting into bad health, 
 and that now they were very anxious about 
 her. Her stomach had got so weak that it 
 could retain next to nothing ; on the previous 
 day all her food was five oysters, and they 
 were pleased that these had not been vomited. 
 One of the first physicians had seen her in 
 consultation, and ordered wine and a tonic. 
 On a second visit he had ordered stronger 
 wine and a stronger tonic. These were so
 
 8o PLEA FOR 
 
 manifestly injurious that the mother, who 
 well knew my methods though she did not 
 follow them, in despair about her daughter, 
 begged that I would see her. I told her I 
 could not do so in the way she wished ; that 
 no good could come of it, as I certainly would 
 advise a very different treatment ; that I 
 would stop all medicines and stimulants, and 
 would give little or no food until the stomach 
 had rest and could digest it. I asked her to 
 tell the doctor what I said, and if then he was 
 willing to see me I would be glad to meet 
 him. I heard nothing for five days, and was 
 then informed that the doctor had at once 
 adopted my suggestions, and that the patient 
 had showed so much improvement that they 
 did not think a consultation necessary. After 
 another week, however, I got a request to 
 meet the doctor, as the patient, on being tried 
 with stronger food, had at once gone back 
 to her old condition. I found her terribly 
 emaciated, lying on a water-bed to prevent 
 bed-sores which had threatened. There were
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 81 
 
 some symptoms of pelvic irritation, but she 
 was not pregnant. Her family, consisting of 
 two fine healthy boys, quite young, took up 
 much of her time ; she was much in society ; 
 and she had continued her duties to both 
 long after she was quite unfit for the exer- 
 tion. Her exhaustion was now extreme, and 
 both doctor and friends were afraid to con- 
 tinue the only treatment which had in the 
 least degree done her good. Though by no 
 means sure of the result, I strongly urged as 
 the only chance of preserving life that the 
 stomach must have rest ; that in its present 
 condition any stimulating food or medicine 
 could only do mischief; and that if time could 
 not be given it to recover its tone the 
 patient must die. As the only food I re- 
 commended a few sips from time to time of 
 well-diluted milk, lime-water, and white of 
 egg, and, as the only stimulant, hot water 
 as she could take it. This was agreed to. 
 I think I also recommended a large sinapism 
 over the stomach at bed-time, kept on only
 
 82 PLEA FOR 
 
 so long as it was pleasant. This I have long 
 found to allay irritation and miseries when 
 the stomach is irritable, and very often it 
 produces a quiet sleep. At once she rallied, 
 the sickness stopped, and she even gained in 
 strength. The process of recovery was very 
 slow, but pretty steady, even when she began 
 to take a little more simple food, such as 
 well -boiled gruel, soup of young chicken 
 or of young lamb. I had several meetings 
 with the doctor, who was astonished and de- 
 lighted with the result of a mode of treat- 
 ment which was absolutely new to him. He 
 told me that he could only account for the 
 condition of his patient when I first saw her 
 on the idea that she was falling into acute 
 phthisis, although the chest signs were as 
 yet very trifling. By and by the signs of 
 pelvic irritation became more marked and 
 had to be attended to ; but it was years 
 before she was fit for much exertion. She 
 is now in excellent health. 
 
 My next case is a sad contrast to the
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 83 
 
 former. A nervous Scotchman of a decidedly 
 gouty type, a resident of Edinburgh, suffered 
 so frequently in our irritating climate from 
 bronchitis and stomach attacks that I had 
 advised him many years previously to go to 
 London. The change was advantageous for 
 him as to his business, and he found the 
 climate much more suitable. He came down 
 from time to time to Edinburgh, when I 
 usually saw him, as the return to the North 
 often, as I have seen in others, brought 
 back something of his old ailments. But 
 altogether he enjoyed very fair health, and, 
 as he lived very carefully, I expected for 
 him a long life. I did not see him for some 
 years, when, happening to be in London, I 
 called for him as usual. I was astonished at 
 the change in his appearance. He had got 
 stout and full, a great contrast to his ordinary 
 condition. He told me that a year ago he 
 consulted a doctor who told him that his was 
 poor man's gout, and he put him on a full 
 diet both of food and stimulants. He soon
 
 84 PLEA FOR 
 
 got into robust health, ' but/ he said, ' I had 
 a terrible winter.' He was attacked with 
 eczema over his whole body, and had to be 
 in bed, I think he said for six months, 
 with a wire cover over him to prevent the 
 clothes from touching his body. He was of 
 course dosed and dieted, and as the weather 
 got warmer he got free of the eczema. That 
 was three months before I saw him. He 
 had resumed his full living, and he was 
 again strong and stout. Though he did 
 not exactly say it, I saw that he thought I 
 had been too strict with him. I had not the 
 heart to frighten him, and only remarked 
 that it was lucky for him that the gout had 
 taken an outward direction. Three months 
 later I went up to London for the winter, 
 and one of my first visits was to my old 
 friend. I was told he was very ill and could 
 see no one. I was admitted, however, and 
 his wife told me his history since I had seen 
 him. He had kept in excellent health all 
 the summer ; but when on a visit to the
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 85 
 
 country three weeks before he got a chill, 
 and one of his old bronchitic turns came on. 
 He got home, and had gradually got worse. 
 On going to his room I found him in a very 
 suffering condition. He seemed still a large 
 strong man compared to what he used to 
 be ; but, in addition to the bronchitis, his 
 stomach had now gone wrong, and he was so 
 wretched he could scarcely speak to me. 
 He told me that his wife, by the doctor's 
 orders, was always urging him to take food 
 and stimulants, and he was sure they did 
 him no good. He did not vomit much, if at 
 all, but his uneasiness and misery were un- 
 ceasing. I saw that his stomach was full 
 of acridity, and happening to have some 
 liquorice in my pocket I gave him a good 
 piece of it. It at once relieved him, and he 
 was able to talk more comfortably. After a 
 little he suddenly took up a tumbler of rich 
 London milk, and before I could stop him 
 swallowed some mouthfuls. In a few minutes 
 his intense uneasiness returned ; the milk
 
 86 PLEA FOR 
 
 had at once soured and formed a hard curd 
 in his stomach. This accident confirmed me 
 in the belief that his suffering was mainly 
 from a grievous error in diet. I gave the 
 wife a strong message to the doctor : that 
 I had known his patient much longer than 
 he, and that a very different diet would be 
 much to his advantage. Three days later I 
 called to see him, and found him much the 
 same, still taking too much food, etc., but his 
 wife was not now so urgent for him to take 
 it. I also got a message from the doctor 
 that the patient was a strong man, that there 
 was no fear of him, but that I must have 
 forgotten how old he was he was perhaps a 
 trifle older than myself, and that it was 
 absolutely necessary to keep up his strength ; 
 I was sorry, but could say no more. Twice 
 again I called to ask for him at intervals of 
 three days, and the last time was told the 
 doctor was getting rather anxious about him, 
 and would be glad to meet me. I agreed of 
 course to meet him at any time he fixed.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 87 
 
 I heard nothing for two days, and then a 
 black-bordered letter intimated his death. 
 
 I know that it is the prevailing opinion 
 that old people require more ( keeping up ' 
 than younger persons. My experience tells 
 me that this is a great mistake, both in health 
 and in disease. I am perfectly sure that the 
 old bear stimulants much worse than the 
 younger. I have often seen a new lease of 
 life follow the giving up of even a very 
 moderate use of wine which had been in- 
 dulged in for the greater part of a lifetime, 
 and had thus become a habit. That the 
 same holds in the case of disease will perhaps 
 be better illustrated by the following case, 
 one of the latest of the very few I now have 
 occasion to treat. An old lady of eighty- 
 seven had a year ago a severe attack of 
 influenza then epidemic in Edinburgh. She 
 usually enjoyed fair health for her age, and 
 she rarely if ever took any stimulants, but I 
 could not get her off what I consider the bad
 
 88 PLEA FOR 
 
 habit of taking aperient medicine. For some 
 years she had suffered much from chronic 
 rheumatism, which had at last rendered her 
 quite helpless, and she could not turn in bed 
 without great pain. Massage more than 
 once relieved her considerably, but finding 
 that the relief was only temporary she got 
 discouraged and gave it up. Having a fair 
 stomach and no exercise she got full and un- 
 wieldy, and it looked as if soon she would be 
 unable to leave her bed. When I saw her 
 she was evidently in for a severe attack ; I 
 advised that she should take no medicine, as 
 much hot water as she pleased, and little or 
 no food. The state of the tongue was proof 
 enough to me that she could digest nothing, 
 and she had an abundant store of nutriment in 
 her body to last for weeks if necessary. I tried 
 to comfort her two anxious daughters by say- 
 ing that I hoped she would weather the influ- 
 enza ; and that if she got fairplay, she would 
 almost certainly be cured of her rheumatism, 
 and possibly of her habit of taking medicine.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 89 
 
 Almost from the first the head was affected, 
 and the old lady at the end had lost all that 
 had occurred during at least two weeks. On 
 the fourth night of her illness she remembered 
 that her bowels had not been opened for four 
 days, and she insisted that the nurse should 
 give her a dose of castor oil ; the effect was 
 rather severe, and that, with the necessary 
 movement, so exhausted her, that in the 
 morning I found her in a state of collapse, 
 and feared she was to die. By evening, how- 
 ever, she rallied without any stimulant but 
 some doses of carbonate of ammonia in 
 camphor mixture, a stimulant much prefer- 
 able to wine or brandy when the stomach is 
 disordered. She now forgot all about her 
 bowels and they moved of themselves twelve 
 days later, when everything was so perfectly 
 natural that the nurse, to whom this treat- 
 ment was altogether new, and the daughters 
 also acknowledged that I had been right. 
 The case went on with no improvement, but 
 fortunately no chest symptoms supervened
 
 90 PLEA FOR 
 
 except a troublesome cough. One night, 
 about a fortnight after the commencement, 
 the daughters feared she was lower, and sent 
 for the neighbouring doctor. He at once 
 ordered brandy, but it was not given till I 
 should see her next morning. I found her 
 much in the same condition, and the brandy 
 was not given. She did not show any sign 
 of improvement till the end of three weeks, 
 when a copious erythematous rash came out 
 on the lower part of the body, and we had 
 much trouble to prevent bed-sores. She was 
 now however round the corner, her tongue 
 cleared, and she could take a little simple 
 food. She made a steady if slow recovery. 
 She has had no rheumatism since, and though, 
 from the bad summer and worse winter, she 
 has got but little out of doors, and has not 
 yet much power of walking, she now enjoys 
 better health than she has had for years. 
 She lost at least a stone and a half in weight, 
 which is a great advantage to her, and which 
 I advised her not to try to make up. She
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 91 
 
 lives well on considerably less food than she 
 took before her illness, and she is quite 
 resolved to do so for the future; and she 
 requires no aperients. I tell her that I hope 
 she will now live out her hundred years. 
 
 I could give other cases of influenza quite 
 as illustrative as the above. I have known 
 the disease since 1837, when there was an 
 epidemic which few escaped in Aberdeen, 
 where I was a medical student. I have had 
 my share of cases in most epidemics since. 
 I have never treated them on the keeping-up 
 plan, and I have had no occasion to regret it. 
 The orthodox treatment has run the whole 
 extent of the gamut since 1837. 
 
 There are no doubt great differences both 
 in the epidemics and in individual cases ; but 
 I have failed as yet to meet with any case for 
 which I would consider an alcoholic stimulant 
 necessary, unless it be where such an accident 
 occurred as happened to the old lady whose 
 case I have given somewhat in detail, and 
 where I gave some doses of carbonate of
 
 92 PLEA FOR 
 
 ammonia. In such a condition it is possible 
 that a temporary fillip may help to bring the 
 patient round a corner, but even for this I 
 consider the ammonia preferable to alcohol. 
 In this case too the collapse was undoubtedly 
 brought on by an error in treatment. There is 
 in most cases of influenza of the recent type a 
 great and sudden depression and a feeling of 
 intense weakness. But this is caused by the 
 unknown poison. It is not of short duration, 
 but may remain for many days, and a mere 
 fillip is not what is required. Surely this 
 depression cannot be relieved either by 
 alcoholic stimulants, which notoriously lower 
 all the chemical actions of the body, and are 
 much more likely to prevent the elimination 
 of the poison than to aid it, nor by food of any 
 kind, which must use up some nervous energy 
 in its digestion, and which, under the circum- 
 stances, it is not likely to get. Anyhow I 
 have used neither, but have trusted to hot 
 water alone during the earlier days, and I 
 have given little or no food till, from the state
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 93 
 
 of the tongue, I could judge that its digestion 
 was possible, and then in very small quantity. 
 With this treatment I have not met with any 
 case of an influenza patient suffering from ill- 
 health for months or years from what is called 
 the dregs of the disease. These are common 
 enough, but I believe they are mostly or 
 entirely due to giving any food in the early, 
 and too much in the later stages and after- 
 wards.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I HAVE as yet only attempted to lay a 
 foundation for my ' plea for a simpler life,' 
 the main object of this book. I have tried 
 to show that when disease comes upon us, 
 the means ordinarily used to restore us to 
 health other than those which nature herself 
 employs are mostly at best doubtful and 
 uncertain, often injurious, and varying at 
 different times, and I may add in different 
 countries. 
 
 I have pointed out that in a large pro- 
 portion of cases what we call disease is the 
 means adopted by nature for the cure, or, I 
 may add, for the checking of some evil lurk- 
 ing in the system, which, if allowed to go 
 on, might lead to permanent impairment of
 
 PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE 95 
 
 some of the important organs of the body or 
 of their functions, or even to loss of life. If 
 this is true, the inference is clear that some- 
 thing has occurred, either suddenly, or since 
 a longer or shorter period, which has led to 
 the necessary interference on the part of 
 nature. 
 
 To point out what this something is, in 
 the whole domain of medicine, is a very large 
 order indeed ; and here there is room for the 
 highest knowledge and skill that professional 
 men are ever likely to attain to, and where 
 these will always have their work and their 
 reward. 
 
 My object is a much humbler one, and is 
 mainly to point out that the means com- 
 monly adopted at the present day for the 
 cure of a large part of the diseases which 
 are commonly met with in our ordinary 
 practice are precisely those which are them- 
 selves, when used improperly, the main 
 causes of these same diseases. I allude, of 
 course, to food and stimulants, and these
 
 96 PLEA FOR 
 
 assisted by drugs to do their evil work un- 
 observed. 
 
 Food is essentially, as has often been 
 pointed out, of two kinds. The one is that 
 which, by slow combustion in the body, and 
 mainly in the lungs, goes to the production 
 of heat. This is used up mostly in sustain- 
 ing the heat of the body, but it is also, by 
 some subtle chemical or other change which 
 we do not know, converted into force, in 
 the forms of muscular, nervous, and mental 
 energy, and perhaps of electricity. This, 
 which may be called the working food, is 
 mostly carbonaceous, and includes all matters 
 which burn in the fire, as sugar, starch, oily 
 matters, and alcohol, which all burn readily 
 and leave no residue. The other kind of 
 food is what goes mainly to form and to keep 
 up the body, and to supply its waste ; the 
 essential element in its composition is nitro- 
 gen. It will not burn in the fire, but is 
 slowly consumed, leaving only a small quan- 
 tity of mineral matter in the form of ash.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 97 
 
 This also assists in a minor degree in keep- 
 ing up the heat of the body and in the pro- 
 duction of energy, by a slow oxygenation in 
 its passage through the body, which it leaves 
 mostly through the kidneys. It is represented 
 chiefly by animal flesh of all sorts. Other 
 substances used as food are combinations of 
 these two, and of these bread and milk are 
 the most important ; but it includes all 
 cereals, and the pea or lentil tribe, which are 
 astonishingly rich in nitrogen. Vegetables 
 belong mostly to the carbonacepus group, but 
 vary much in .composition, as also do fruits, 
 which often contain little but water, with 
 more or less sugar or some acid peculiar to 
 the fruit itself. All foods contain some 
 saline matters, varying much both in quan- 
 tity and kind, but some of them absolutely 
 necessary to the health or full development 
 of the human body. 
 
 The above is a very elementary and im- 
 perfect history of the two forms of ordinary 
 food, but it is enough for my present purpose.
 
 98 PLEA FOR 
 
 Of stimulants I need only mention alcohol, 
 wine, and beer, and these very shortly. 
 That they are not necessary for life there 
 can be no doubt whatever. Nature does 
 not provide them ; they are artificial pro- 
 ducts ; and how long man existed and pro- 
 gressed without them we do not know. In 
 large regions they are not used or are not to 
 be had, and these regions lie in all parts of 
 the world hot, cold, and temperate. The 
 evils arising from them we all see and 
 deplore, and any benefits they confer either 
 in health or disease we have seen to be very 
 doubtful. Fashion changes in regard to 
 them much as with drugs. Formerly it was 
 wine, then brandy, and now Scotch or Irish 
 whisky. In India some thirty years ago the 
 run was upon strong Burton beer. Now com- 
 paratively little of this is exported, and its 
 place is taken by lighter beers from this 
 country and a much lighter country beer, or 
 by light claret, and brandy and water or 
 whisky and water.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 99 
 
 I will now consider in a general way how 
 errors in food affect the healthy and induce 
 disease ; or, in other words, render inter- 
 ference necessary in order to prevent some 
 greater evils. 
 
 If a healthy person takes too much car- 
 bonaceous food, the error sooner or later 
 shows itself. For a time the excess is set 
 aside in the form of fat ; and the discomforts 
 from this, or still more frequently the change 
 in the figure, attract attention, and, if the case 
 be wisely treated, relief is got from less food 
 and more exercise. Or the secretion in the 
 liver of bile which contains so large an 
 amount of carbon that it burns in the fire is 
 unduly increased, the blood gets carbonised, 
 langour and discomfort come on, appetite 
 fails, and a chill, followed by irritation of the 
 stomach, ends in a bilious attack. This, with 
 the enforced starvation, it may be for several 
 days, clears off the superabundant carbon, 
 and leaves the sufferer in a healthy condition. 
 
 The case is very different when the excess
 
 ioo PLEA FOR 
 
 has been in animal food. This may go on 
 for many years, even for what may be con- 
 sidered a fair lifetime ; and, if the individual 
 is of a sound constitution, and under favour- 
 able circumstances, he may dispose of twice 
 or thrice the quantity of flesh food that is re- 
 quired by his system, and still retain his 
 health to all appearance unimpaired. The 
 kidneys, which eliminate with some little help 
 from the skin all effete animal matters, will 
 do double or three times their necessary 
 work for an indefinite period ; and if life be 
 cut short by accident, the case may be quoted 
 as one of a remarkably healthy life, and the 
 credit of this may be given to the full mode 
 of living. But if not cut short by accident, 
 and if there be no weak organ which may 
 break down earlier, sooner or later, but long 
 before what should be the natural span 
 of a healthy life, ugly signs of disease un- 
 expectedly manifest themselves, and the till 
 now strong and healthy man is told that his 
 case is hopeless and beyond the means of
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 101 
 
 possible cure. Naturally the overworked 
 kidneys are the first to give out, and failure 
 on their part may prove fatal ; or the blood 
 gets loaded with animal matters of which 
 they fail to relieve it, and these are deposited 
 in various organs in some in the form of 
 fibrin, which by and by hardens, and destroys 
 more or less their substance and their func- 
 tions. A very common form of evil arising in 
 this way is what is called general paralysis ; 
 I never heard of this in my student days, and 
 not till long after. No doubt cases occurred 
 before and were known by a different name, 
 but they were few, and their number has 
 increased enormously during the last thirty 
 years. The symptoms and pathological 
 changes vary infinitely, according to the part 
 of the nerve centres affected, and the stage 
 of the disease. I cannot recall a case which 
 was not that of a previously healthy indi- 
 vidual, and who lived fully. 
 
 What I wish mainly to draw attention to 
 as to those two errors of excess is, that in the
 
 102 PLEA FOR 
 
 first nature interferes soon and sharply, and 
 no permanent mischief is left ; and in the 
 other, excellent health may be enjoyed for 
 very many years, while all the time changes 
 are going on which give no sign till the 
 case is hopeless. 
 
 In the great majority of cases of errors of 
 food in quantity, the excess is of both kinds, 
 carbonaceous and nitrogenous ; and no doubt 
 there are very few healthy people who can 
 afford it who do not usually exceed. Appe- 
 tite seems to call us to enjoy it, and a 
 ' healthy appetite ' is applauded by all, while 
 a ' poor appetite ' meets with general re- 
 probation, and any one who ' picks ' is looked 
 on as a poor creature. If appetite threatens 
 to fail there are plenty of ' pick-me-ups ' to 
 have recourse to ; and if any discomfort is 
 felt after a meal there are plenty of pills 
 ready at hand to relieve it. Then as ' pre- 
 vention is better than cure ' a wise saying if 
 properly used the pill is taken before or with 
 the meal, and all goes merrily, for a time. The
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 103 
 
 blood-vessels of the stomach and the stomach 
 itself get enlarged, and demand a larger 
 supply of food to give satiety, a tonic is now 
 needed and a stronger pill, then a stronger 
 tonic, which by the bye seldom does any good ; 
 but sooner or later dyspepsia comes on if 
 no more serious ailment, with its innumer- 
 able miseries ; for the nerves of the stomach 
 when irritated seem to take a pleasure in 
 worrying all the other nerves of the body. 
 Innumerable ' remedies ' are now available 
 pepsins, peptones, alkalies, acids, etc., all 
 with the view of assisting digestion. Dys- 
 pepsia is a mine of wealth to the doctor and 
 the chemist, not forgetting the proprietors 
 of patent medicines whose * infallible cures ' 
 are legion. The invalid may suffer for the 
 rest of his life, and, as his spirits and temper 
 are often none of the best, his misery is often 
 shared by all who are about him. The 
 ablest men in science, art, and literature 
 seem to suffer most. It may be that their 
 condition is only better known, from their
 
 104 PLEA FOR 
 
 lives being made public ; but in reading 
 biographies I have often been saddened by 
 occasional hints of sufferings brought on un- 
 doubtedly by resisting natural laws, a resist- 
 ance kept up till the very last days of life. The 
 worst case of this I ever came across was that 
 of a well-known public man, not so many years 
 ago, whose case was watched by many as 
 given in regular medical bulletins published 
 in the daily papers. I pointed out, just a 
 month after they began to appear, how the 
 reports alternated in this way. For a few 
 days they were despondent, as the patient 
 was lower and could take no food. Then 
 (after the abstinence) he improved, and satis- 
 faction was expressed that the appetite had 
 returned and that he could eat ; very soon 
 appetite failed, and he was weaker. This 
 went on for some four months, the strength 
 however gradually failing. At length the 
 case got hopeless and was acknowledged 
 to be so, but still the attempt at feeding 
 went on, and on the very last day of life
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 105 
 
 food was pressed on the unwilling sufferer, 
 even though it was immediately rejected. 
 Here unfortunately the case is ended, and no 
 other method can be tried. There is but 
 one chance. If nature had been allowed to 
 have her way, had the abundant material 
 stored up in the body been left to do its own 
 work, and little or nothing been added but a 
 supply of plain water, the best diluent and 
 eliminator, and with it, if considered neces- 
 sary and if agreeable to the patient, more or 
 less force-giving heat the only real stimul- 
 ant I cannot but think that the result would 
 have been very different. I am not orthodox 
 enough (blasphemous enough ?) to believe 
 that these sufferings are all sent by Provi- 
 dence. An old man who has lived a natural 
 life, and has reached his full time, has an in- 
 finitely better chance of passing away with- 
 out suffering, and without regret. I have 
 seen both. 
 
 In such badly treated cases in my opinion 
 as the above, I cannot blame either the
 
 io6 PLEA FOR 
 
 medical men or the friends of the sick. It is 
 the bad system which guides the former, and 
 anxiety to leave nothing undone that could 
 benefit the loved one which influences the 
 latter. It is only a little want of knowledge 
 which unwittingly leads to so much suffering 
 and death. 
 
 To what degree this want of knowledge 
 extends amongst the profession the following 
 will tell. I was asked by a young friend to 
 meet the headmaster and other teachers of a 
 large educational establishment which shall be 
 nameless. There were many boarders, who 
 were treated generally and fed in the way 
 followed in the leading English schools of 
 the day. My friend, who was one of the 
 teachers, had himself suffered when a boy 
 from intense headache, and had got benefit 
 from my advice ; and he knew well the evils 
 which resulted to youths from too high feed- 
 ing. I dined with the party; we had a friendly 
 enough discussion, but I could not alter their 
 opinion in the slightest degree. A year
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 107 
 
 later I had occasion to see the headmaster 
 again. After our business was finished he 
 said to me, ' You will remember our talk, 
 just a year ago, about the general mode of 
 treating our boys, and especially about their 
 food.' ' Perfectly,' I answered, 'and precious 
 little I made of you.' ' That I allow,' he 
 said ; ' but I know now that you are right, 
 and I very much wish you could help us, but 
 in the meantime we are helpless. It is the 
 system known to the parents and expected of 
 us. If, for instance, the boys do not get the 
 best butcher meat, and as much as they wish 
 every day, they can write to their parents ; 
 they would write to the directors ; and, in 
 short, we must go on as we have done.' I 
 said that I was much pleased to hear that he 
 now agreed with me, and I hoped something 
 better might come of it ; but that I should 
 like very much to know what had made him 
 change his views so completely, and in so 
 short a time. He told me it was a very 
 simple matter indeed. He had an older
 
 io8 PLEA FOR 
 
 brother, an English clergyman, who for 
 many years had suffered from rheumatic 
 gout, and who went annually to one of the 
 favourite baths in France or in Germany. He 
 returned always somewhat improved in health, 
 but he lost it all and more by the next season, 
 and latterly he had been going fast downhill, 
 and it looked as if he would soon not be able 
 to go at all. Last year, since we had our 
 conversation, he went to Germany, and he 
 met at last an honest doctor, who, when he 
 was leaving, said to him : ' What is the use 
 of your coming here, or elsewhere, once a 
 year to get washed out, and then going 
 home and living in a way which absolutely 
 destroys all the benefit and brings back all 
 your ailments ? ' ' But what struck me most/ 
 the headmaster added, * was that he put my 
 brother upon precisely the food you recom- 
 mended for our boys, and that he has kept 
 well since, and has had no occasion to return 
 to Germany.' It was this that converted 
 him.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 109 
 
 What I wish to notice specially here is, 
 that the advice as to diet which the German 
 doctor gave the clergyman was perfectly new 
 to him. He had consulted medical men both 
 in this country and abroad, but had got no 
 warning from any of them. He at once saw 
 the common sense of the advice, and was 
 only too glad to follow it. Many, I know, 
 would not have done so even had they been 
 warned. 
 
 For many years after giving up ordering 
 drugs I sent patients to Germany for a 
 course of baths, and saw great benefit in 
 some cases where a more rational diet was 
 adopted for the future. But too many others 
 used the benefit they got only to enable 
 them to exceed again with some comfort for 
 a time ; and in some the end certainly came 
 sooner in consequence. I have a hope that 
 a few who read this may be induced to follow 
 the example of the old clergyman, and get 
 the same benefit that he did. 
 
 I am quite aware that in most work
 
 i io PLEA FOR 
 
 which treat of such diseases as mentioned 
 above, one cause of them always given is too 
 rich living ; but I am not aware that I ever 
 saw it given as the essential cause, and in 
 practice it seems to be overlooked both by 
 patient and doctor. The fear of ' letting the 
 system run down ' seems to neutralise every 
 other consideration. 
 
 The evil principles as to diet which pre- 
 vail in this country are, I fear, at least as 
 dominant in the colonies and across the 
 Atlantic. I have had some experience as 
 to both, but can only afford room for the 
 following. 
 
 Four years ago I was crossing from New 
 York to Glasgow. One day, on entering 
 the smoking-room, I found a hot discussion 
 going on as to the advantages or otherwise 
 of tobacco. One elderly gentleman who had 
 injured himself by its abuse was insisting 
 that its effects were always bad, and that its 
 use should not be allowed. I was appealed 
 to as a medical man to decide between the
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE in 
 
 parties. This I managed to do to the 
 apparent satisfaction of both. I pointed 
 out that tobacco is a natural product ; that it 
 has come to be used in all parts of the globe 
 where it can be got ; and that this fact alone 
 surely indicated that it must have some 
 quality which fitted it for man's use. Though 
 no regular smoker myself, I had often found, 
 when anxious or worried and worn out, that 
 a very mild cigar had soothed me, and en- 
 abled me to take a more hopeful view of 
 what was troubling me. Of course I noticed 
 the evils of excess, but added that every 
 good thing is liable to abuse, and, as I always 
 do when I have the opportunity, I spoke of 
 the abuse of flesh food as doing perhaps 
 more harm than all other evil habits together. 
 This was a new doctrine to all, and we went 
 into it pretty fully. By and by a youngish 
 gentleman who had said nothing started up 
 and, in a somewhat excited manner, said that 
 I had exactly described his case; that this 
 was the turning-point of his life ; and that he
 
 ii2 PLEA FOR 
 
 would at once change his mode of living. I 
 had noticed his pallid, 'seedy' look, and as he 
 sat at a table near me I could not help seeing 
 that he regularly, after a few days' sea-sick- 
 ness, took for a little man, as he was, an 
 enormous quantity of beef and mutton. He 
 afterwards told me his history. He had been 
 in his father's business, an important one, in 
 one of the largest Canadian cities. So long 
 as he could take it easily, and had plenty of 
 out-of-door exercise, especially in hunting, 
 he enjoyed the best of health. By and by 
 he became a partner of the firm ; he was kept 
 much more closely to the office and could 
 get very little exercise. Soon his health 
 failed, and he became utterly unfit for busi- 
 ness. Four doctors, he said, had treated 
 him with no good result, and he was sent off 
 for a three months' holiday. I asked him 
 why he took so much animal food. He said 
 he felt so weak that he thought the more he 
 could take the better, and he had never been 
 warned against it. One of the medical men,
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 113 
 
 he remembered, had said he was taking more 
 food than was good for him under his circum- 
 stances ; but he understood that the circum- 
 stances ought to be changed and not the food. 
 My observations in the smoking-room were, 
 in fact, a revelation to him. He at once 
 altered his diet both in quantity and quality, 
 and after a week, when the voyage ended, 
 he already felt much better, and there was 
 some slight appearance of colour in his face. 
 I heard from him a month later, when he 
 wrote that he was very much better ; that his 
 strength was returning, and that he could 
 now walk five miles with ease ; and he thanked 
 me warmly for having ' taught him how to 
 live.' Revisited me before returning home, 
 and he certainly looked a very different man. 
 Later I had a letter from him, in which he 
 states : * I am pleased to say that I am feel- 
 ing splendid, and am holding fast to your 
 method of living. In fact, I have not tasted 
 butcher's meat half a dozen times since my 
 return home, which is six months ago.'
 
 ii4 PLEA FOR 
 
 Another of the party who heard the con- 
 versation in the smoking-room a Scotch 
 clergyman also adopted a different mode of 
 living, and, as he told me, with great ad- 
 vantage to himself and family. To him also 
 the doctrine was a new one. How many 
 there must be who * perish for lack of 
 knowledge ! ' 
 
 So much for the evils arising from abuse 
 of food, especially of animal food ; I have 
 no doubt I will be told that all that I have 
 here brought forward has been preached and 
 published times without number, not only by 
 vegetarians, homeopaths, etc., but also by 
 members of the profession. This is no doubt 
 true, and it is well that it is so. I am 
 pleased to know that I am not the only 
 black sheep in the fold ; and I trust their 
 number will increase, and that they will put 
 themselves in evidence more and more. I 
 have no wish to monopolise the fighting, and 
 will be glad to pass it on to younger hands. 
 
 Much is to be hoped from the work of medi-
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 115 
 
 cal scientists, among whom there are many 
 eminent workers and searchers after truth. 
 I am not sure that practical medicine has as 
 yet been much assisted by their labours. A 
 genuine medical fact is about the most diffi- 
 cult fact to establish, so that it may be use- 
 fully and safely acted on. It has to deal with 
 such complexities of chemical and physio- 
 logical and vital changes within the body 
 acting and reacting on each other, and these 
 affected by temperament, heredity, idiosyn- 
 crasies, and external surroundings, that a 
 final and reliable determination is always 
 difficult and often impossible. Medicine as 
 a fixed science does not as yet exist. 
 
 But the work of medical scientists in 
 many different lines, if it has not as yet done 
 much to help forward the practical treatment 
 of disease, has at least shown the uselessness 
 (or worse) of some medicines or methods 
 hitherto in repute. One of the most interest- 
 ing of these is seen in the recent investiga- 
 tions of Dr. A. Haig, which go to prove the
 
 n6 PLEA FOR 
 
 effects of uric acid in the blood in destroying 
 its coloured globules, and thus inducing 
 anaemia, for which good * red meat ' has 
 hitherto been considered the fittest cure. In 
 experimenting on himself to try to ascertain 
 the action on the blood of uric acid taken 
 into the stomach, he took a certain quantity 
 of beef-tea as an equivalent for a certain 
 number of grains of the acid. He shows 
 also that iron is useless so long as it is given 
 with red meat, and he thus accounts for its 
 failure in many cases. I long ago came to 
 the same conclusions, but could not give the 
 same scientific reason. Perhaps the most 
 white-faced family I ever saw was one of six, 
 in South America, who had at least two full 
 meals daily of beef and mutton. The only 
 exception was the baby, which was still at the 
 breast and which was a fine rosy child. The 
 parents were Scotch. They lived in the 
 country, in a fine airy house, and about the 
 last thing one would expect to see there was 
 anaemia in any form.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 117 
 
 In the British Medical Journal, 3ist 
 March 1894, is a review of the last work on 
 Skin Diseases by Dr. H. Tenneson of the 
 Hopital St. Louis, Paris. Dr. Tenneson's 
 views on eczema are specially noticed, and 
 they are virtually those which I have held 
 for forty years. As to medicines in this 
 disease, he says that several are injurious, 
 none are useful. As to food he says : * Many 
 people, because they have a good appetite, 
 think they have a good stomach ; and manu- 
 facture daily in their overloaded digestive 
 tracts toxic substances, which, after they are 
 absorbed, excite abnormal effects both on the 
 skin and all the other organs of the body.' 
 His rule therefore as to food is simply restrict- 
 ing the quantity, particularly at the mid-day 
 meal. His local treatment is allowing or 
 provoking the oozing as long as possible, and 
 he finds that the soothing ointments used 
 owe their value solely to the lard with which 
 they are made. I have constantly pointed 
 out to my patients that eczema is a natural
 
 nS PLEA FOR 
 
 relief to the system, as it throws out safely 
 on the skin some of the excess of plastic 
 matter in the blood, which it cannot 
 dispose of in the natural way through the 
 kidneys. The next safest exit for this 
 material is by the mucous surface of the 
 throat and larynx and bronchia ; and the 
 amount excreted from them in cases of 
 chronic bronchitis, which are so common in 
 gouty and rheumatic subjects, is sometimes 
 very great. The phlegm coughed up is not 
 mere watery fluid, but is more or less pure 
 animal matter, as may be seen by putting it 
 into spirit, when, like white of egg, it gets 
 solid. Unfortunately both these skin and 
 mucous exudations are treated as diseases 
 per se, and are checked if possible. Surely 
 it is better to allow the excess of material 
 to escape from the blood in this way 
 (if we do not cut down the excess of 
 food which produces it) than to force the 
 blood to relieve itself by depositing it in 
 deeper and more important organs, as the
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 119 
 
 liver, the nerve centres, or the heart. As the 
 product of these exudations is purely nitro- 
 genous, I would blame excess of flesh food 
 as their cause ; and as Dr. Tenneson says that 
 it is the mid-day meal which specially requires 
 reduction, and as this is in France the chief 
 flesh meal of the day, we may be practically at 
 one. But nature clearly throws off the exces- 
 sive plastic matter from the blood clean and 
 unchanged, and I do not see the necessity for 
 the previous formation of toxic matters from 
 the intestines, at least not in the cases we 
 have been considering. 
 
 There is much, therefore, to be hoped from 
 the progress of science. But its influence on 
 practical medicine has been long in coming, 
 and unfortunately hitherto one scientist has 
 but too often only overthrown the conclusions 
 of another. Is not this after all the ordinary 
 way by which truth is reached ? 
 
 The evils of food excess are much aggra- 
 vated if at the same time alcohol is taken, 
 even in very moderate quantity. This follows
 
 120 PLEA FOR 
 
 from what we now know from the researches 
 of Sir B. W. Richardson. He was, I believe, 
 the first to prove that the presence of alcohol 
 in the body hinders all the chemical actions 
 going on there, exactly as it stops or modifies 
 fermentation in a barrel of wine or beer. In 
 both it retards oxygenation, and lowers the 
 heat. Hence its use in cases of fever, or 
 where it is given in extreme cases when the 
 temperature threatens to rise to a dangerous 
 height. In cases where very little food is 
 habitually taken, it may do little harm, as it 
 lessens the waste of the body, and to a small 
 extent acts as a true food. A Highlander 
 frequently takes as much whisky as would 
 render most persons useless, but living as he 
 often does on a very small amount of oatmeal 
 or potatoes and a little milk, he may do a 
 good day's work if not too severe, and he 
 may live to a long life. I was told by one 
 of the first financiers in Scotland, that such 
 a life about the age of sixty is a much better 
 one on which to buy an annuity, than that of
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 121 
 
 a well-fed Yorkshire teetotaler of the same 
 age. Had the drinking Highlander been 
 also well fed, or had the well-fed Yorkshire- 
 man indulged in alcohol in any form, neither 
 of the two was likely ever to have reached 
 the age of sixty ; but after sixty the average 
 life of the Highlander was appreciably longer 
 than that of the Yorkshireman, and therefore 
 more valuable for the financier's purpose. 
 
 What is heterodox in me was much grati- 
 fied, now many years ago, by the somewhat 
 unprofessional appearance in the Times of a 
 letter from the first of our surgeons in his 
 own line, Sir Henry Thompson. I have 
 not a copy of the letter, but it took a strong 
 hold on my memory and was to the following 
 effect. He wrote, that after a large practice 
 for twenty years among rich and poor, he felt 
 constrained to publish as his strong conviction, 
 that the main cause of the terrible sufferings 
 he had to treat was the glass or two of wine 
 which so many of his patients had been in the 
 habit of taking daily. This was no new idea
 
 122 PLEA FOR 
 
 to me, only it told me that these very moderate 
 drinkers were also well fed, a matter which, 
 for the time, Sir Henry seems to have over- 
 looked. Some years later he published an 
 excellent book on diet. In the second 
 volume he gave menus for dinners, which 
 were admirably adapted to assist a weakened 
 stomach to digest with comfort what is 
 generally considered as a fair amount of food, 
 and which it could not do if the food was 
 presented to it, in a more gross, or to speak 
 politely, in a less scientific form. But still 
 later by some years Sir Henry published a 
 paper in one of the monthly magazines, with 
 almost every line of which I could cordially 
 agree. He pointed out in a very graphic 
 manner the evils that arise from too much 
 food, and that it is our teeth, and later in life 
 our artificial teeth, that cause us so much 
 misery, and bring so many to an untimely 
 grave. I have been very much indebted to 
 this paper, and have often fallen back on it 
 when put on the defensive. I wish we had
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 123 
 
 such another from one of the first-class 
 London physicians. At one time I had hopes 
 of it, but the eminent doctor I allude to got 
 into Punch as the ' starving physician,' a 
 name I have long been rather proud of. 
 Perhaps this had nothing to do with it, but 
 to the end of his life I have known nothing 
 to throw any doubt on his thorough ortho- 
 doxy. A * starving doctor ' would not, I 
 fear, have as yet a very long career as a 
 fashionable and popular physician in London. 
 
 If the evils of high living are bad for the 
 adult, they are still worse for the young, and 
 not only from a physical but from a moral 
 standpoint. For the growing youth until he 
 reaches his full development a larger pro- 
 portion of nitrogenous food is required, and 
 this nature provides in milk, the most perfect 
 food that exists, and which supplies all that 
 is wanted for the sustenance and growth of 
 a healthy body, flesh and bone. I have only
 
 124 PLEA FOR 
 
 met with one case where the child, on leaving 
 its mother, could not take cow's milk or any 
 other ; but I have known some and heard of 
 others who lived on milk for years, in one 
 case for thirty years, and enjoyed the best of 
 health. After weaning, cereals in various 
 forms, eggs, and soups from chickens and 
 young animals should be, along with milk, 
 the ordinary food for some years, when a 
 moderate allowance of flesh from the same 
 young animals or from fish may be added. 
 The only error I should like to notice, in the 
 early steps of a child's life, arises from the 
 dislike of most to give water. A child when 
 feverish from any cause, as a chill, teething, 
 etc., has often a desire for fluid, which it 
 manages easily to express in its own way. 
 But in a vast majority of cases, according to 
 my experience, unless this is much changed 
 during the last fifteen years, the only drink 
 allowed is the ordinary food, possibly in some 
 cases somewhat more diluted. This the 
 stomach by and by rejects, and the case from
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 125 
 
 this cause alone may get serious. An ex- 
 treme case will illustrate my meaning. I 
 was called to see a child about eighteen 
 months to two years of age. It had been 
 left in the charge of two elderly aunts, the 
 parents being missionaries in India. I found 
 the child in a very precarious condition. 
 Nothing would remain on its stomach ; its 
 extremities were cold and shrivelled, the 
 stomach hot and distended. The eye had a 
 peculiar, glistening, eager look, which at 
 once told me it wanted something. I asked 
 if they had given any water. Mistaking my 
 meaning, and perhaps fearing a reprimand 
 they said no, but immediately added that they 
 had given a very little, but they had boiled it 
 first. I asked for a jug of cold water and a 
 tumbler. I shall never forget the eagerness 
 with which the child eyed the water, and 
 grasped the tumbler. To the bewilderment 
 of the aunts it drank the whole to the last 
 drop. It all returned in a few minutes, con- 
 siderably heated. Another tumbler was
 
 126 PLEA FOR 
 
 given, and another and another. These 
 were returned after somewhat lengthening 
 periods, but the fifth remained. Already the 
 heat of the stomach was gone, the extremities 
 were warmer and beginning to fill up. The 
 eager glistening look was changed into a 
 calm placid one, the fever disappeared as if 
 by magic, and the child was soon in a quiet 
 and natural sleep. The cure, in fact, was 
 complete. The aunts said it was a miracle, 
 but I told them it was only a case of common 
 sense. I have rarely felt such well-justified 
 anger, and I fear I did not try to conceal it. 
 
 As this is the only occasion I will have to 
 allude to the earliest period of life, I will 
 shortly notice the mischief which may arise 
 from beginning to give aperient medicine. 
 The first milk of all animals has an aperient 
 tendency, and this is sufficient. Sir James 
 Simpson used to say that if nature had 
 required anything more it would have been 
 provided. But in my day nurses considered 
 it as part of their duty to give castor oil very
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 127 
 
 soon after the infant was born, and in Hints 
 to Mothers by first-class accoucheurs it was 
 laid down as a rule that the bowels must be 
 moved once a day ; in one well-known little 
 volume it was twice a day. The worst case 
 I ever saw of a large mass collected in the 
 bowel was in a child who got medicine daily, 
 the result being always a liquid motion. I 
 very rarely gave any medicine at all, and on 
 one occasion I was very unexpectedly pulled 
 up when I did so. An excellent nurse had 
 come to a family I looked after from a 
 doctor's family, where the children were 
 dosed in the orthodox fashion. She took 
 very badly with the new system, and the 
 mother told me several times of the trouble 
 she had in preventing her from doing what 
 she honestly believed to be part of her duty. 
 Time passed, and one day I was asked to 
 see one ol the children. To gratify the 
 nurse, I fear, and to show her that I was not 
 absolutely incorrigible, I said she might give 
 a small dose of castor oil. But I had miscal-
 
 128 PLEA FOR 
 
 culated the power of observation of the nurse 
 and her common sense. She told me next 
 morning that the child was all right, but that 
 she had not given the oil. 
 
 The terrible evils that are seen in later 
 life from the unnecessary use of medicine in 
 infancy must be my excuse for giving the 
 two cases which follow. I could give many 
 others. 
 
 Owing to the death of the family adviser 
 I was asked to see a girl of some ten or 
 twelve years of age, the niece of a very old 
 medical friend in Edinburgh. She had been 
 treated in true orthodox fashion, but it had 
 been found necessary to give her stronger 
 and stronger physic, till now she was daily 
 getting pills of the strongest kind, and such 
 as are only used by strong men. Her health 
 was suffering, and her education was inter- 
 fered with. With very much trouble, by 
 using milder means and fitting diet, after 
 two years she got rid of all medicine, and a 
 year or two later she went to school in
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 129 
 
 London. She kept quite well for three 
 months, when influenza broke out in the 
 school, which unfortunately she did not 
 escape. The doctor, one of the first in 
 London, of course began her cure with a 
 dose of medicine. This started again the 
 evil habit which with such difficulty she had 
 got rid of; and after three months more she 
 returned with her box of strong pills in much 
 the same state as when I first saw her. I 
 now failed to cure her. This happened fully 
 twenty-five years ago. She has had wretched 
 health ever since, and has tried many doctors 
 and cures in this country and abroad. The 
 only time that she has been in a natural con- 
 dition, her uncle told me, was after an attack 
 of typhoid fever, which she caught on the 
 Continent. I do not blame the London phy- 
 sician. Every one would have done the same. 
 Much about the same time I saw a child 
 of about three years of age under precisely 
 similar circumstances, but already suffering 
 to a much greater degree. She had to get
 
 130 PLEA FOR 
 
 strong medicine every day, and she suffered 
 tortures from its effects. I tried milder 
 measures with no result ; she was going 
 down rapidly, and she was evidently dying. 
 I gave up all physic, and told the nurse to 
 use mechanical means only for her relief. 
 She found that this was impossible ; the poor 
 thing was locally so tender that even touch- 
 ing her risked bringing on a fit. The only 
 thing to be done was to leave her entirely to 
 nature. At once she began to improve. The 
 bowels moved naturally every twelve or four- 
 teen days. The suffering then was great, 
 but not more so than was the daily suffering 
 previously, and she had time to recover in 
 the intervals. She soon recovered her health. 
 After some years the intervals gradually 
 shortened, and the last time I heard of her 
 she was natural in every way and enjoyed the 
 best of health. 
 
 Let us return to errors in food, and first, 
 as to their effect on the healthy and from a 
 physical point of view.
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 131 
 
 Space will not allow me to consider the 
 evils of too little food. In a country like 
 ours this is frequently bad food, and got and 
 eaten with more or less irregularity as to 
 time. This naturally can be best studied in 
 infirmaries and hospitals for the sick, where 
 rest and warmth may be often helped by a 
 moderate supply of good food, and possibly 
 sometimes even of stimulants. But these 
 cases of real debility from want differ pro- 
 digiously from cases we meet with elsewhere, 
 where debility, perhaps much greater and 
 requiring very different treatment, arises from 
 an entirely opposite cause, viz. failure of the 
 digestive organs, from long overwork in dis- 
 posing of more food than it was possible to 
 make a right use of. In these cases a long 
 period of clearing out is needed before the 
 organs can be usefully employed for again 
 building up the system in a wholesome 
 manner. This may be done quickly by a 
 fever or other acute illness, which, if it does 
 not kill the patient, very soon burns off the
 
 132 PLEA FOR 
 
 offending matters, although, as we see in 
 cases of influenza, the benefit may be lost by 
 a foolish system of feeding and stimulating, 
 both during and still more after the illness. 
 If this rapid method of cure is not available, 
 it may be reached much more slowly by failure 
 of appetite coming on, or perhaps some of the 
 more acute forms of dyspepsia. If these are 
 allowed to effect their work of elimination by 
 a more or less protracted process of starvation, 
 all may come right. But if the lowering of 
 the system letting it get * under par ' is the 
 favourite phrase is looked upon as the evil, 
 and if the object aimed at is to get the 
 stomach to .do more and better work by the 
 help of some of the innumerable ' remedies ' of 
 the present day, some temporary relief may 
 be got, but a real permanent cure, I believe, 
 never. This, in my experience, is one, per- 
 haps the chief, cause of those chronic illnesses 
 which are, and very properly, considered as 
 the opprobria of the profession. 
 
 Is it possible that the love of modern
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 133 
 
 physicians for good feeding and stimulants 
 may have some connection with the source 
 whence they get most or all their teaching 
 and their experience? Teachers, the favourite 
 ones, are often clever young men, well up in 
 science, but who have never had any outside 
 experience ; and in England at least such 
 youths start at once as full-blown consultants, 
 by virtue of their degree alone. I am old- 
 fashioned enough to think that apprenticeship 
 under a good master is not a bad introduction 
 to general practice, and that eminence gained 
 as a general practitioner is a good preparation 
 for a consulting physician. I could give 
 some strange illustrations of this, but I for- 
 bear. 
 
 In my young days, in the Twenties and 
 Thirties, the food of the working-man, and 
 also of most of the upper classes, was simple 
 and good. It consisted mostly of milk, eggs, 
 fish, oatmeal, potatoes, and a few other vege- 
 tables. There was no baker nor butcher in 
 the parish, and there was no doctor within
 
 134 PLEA FOR 
 
 five miles, and as his fee was i he was 
 rarely wanted ; the clergyman was the 
 ordinary medical adviser. On one occasion 
 typhus fever broke out in a fishing village. 
 There were twenty cases ; only one of these 
 could afford to get a regular doctor, and his 
 was the only case which proved fatal. The 
 others were, I suppose, left very much to 
 nature. Yeast was the only ' remedy ' that 
 was given, and it got the credit of pulling them 
 through. The sanitary state of the houses 
 was worse than now, and croup and a peculiar 
 local form of ague were no doubt due to a 
 want of drainage of the fields. But with 
 the good food which I have just mentioned 
 there was not much general sickness. It 
 supplied all the wants of the body in a per- 
 fect manner, and gave no great temptation 
 to excess. By and by times changed, and 
 white bread and flesh came into general 
 use. Along with these luxuries came the 
 doctor, although owing to railway facilities 
 he is no longer located in the district. From
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 135 
 
 what I find on occasional visits I am not at 
 all sure that the general health is improved ; 
 indeed, I doubt it very much. One fact at 
 least is certain that the doctor is much more 
 required than formerly. The improved sani- 
 tary conditions alone should have led to a 
 healthier state of the community. Is it 
 wicked in me to suggest that perhaps the 
 changes from the simpler to a fuller mode 
 of living may have helped to neutralise those 
 undoubted advantages ? 
 
 A very large element of the diet both of 
 young and old nowadays is white bread and 
 butcher's meat. I have often pointed out 
 that both are very insufficient foods, especially 
 for the growing child and youth. In the oat, 
 which is now too costly for the poor, and which 
 requires cooking at home, the phosphates 
 essential for the growth of the bony skeleton 
 pervade the whole grain. In wheat it is 
 mostly confined to the outer skin, and as this 
 is entirely removed for the sake of appearance, 
 there is little or nothing in the white loaf of
 
 136 PLEA FOR 
 
 bony matter. It is the same with flesh. The 
 animal makes a perfect body from despised 
 vegetable matter pure and simple, but the 
 phosphates go to form the skeleton, and in 
 the muscle, which we eat, they are conspicuous 
 by their absence. The want is most im- 
 perfectly made up by chemical phosphates, 
 which have come much into use in recent 
 years, and which, no doubt, have helped the 
 purses of the chemists who manufacture 
 them, and of the doctor who very properly, 
 under the circumstances, prescribes them. 
 Had nature been allowed her way, neither 
 chemist nor doctor would have been needed. 
 In youth, as I have already said, a due 
 supply of nitrogenous food is required to 
 build up the body, in addition to what is 
 wanted to supply what is lost by its ordinary 
 waste. The waste varies considerably with 
 the amount of exercise or work. A certain 
 amount of exercise is needed in order to keep 
 the system in a perfect condition of health, 
 and if less work is done than usual less food
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 137 
 
 should be taken. This, however, is a rule 
 which is very often overlooked, although it 
 appears so simple. 
 
 I have occasionally been consulted by 
 gentlemen in apparent good health, but 
 who complained of being quite ' out of 
 sorts,' and who said they never felt really 
 well except when hunting or shooting or 
 taking strong exercise of some sort. On 
 asking them, they told me they went on 
 taking the same amount of food whether 
 they were active or idle ; and on more close 
 inquiry I found their diet was a very full 
 one at all times. They, of course, most of 
 them, took medicine, but they did not find 
 that sufficient. It had not occurred to them 
 to reduce their diet, and they wanted some 
 prescription to help them. I always pointed 
 out the risks they were running, and simply 
 recommended a more rational diet. To 
 assist them I advised them to take their 
 food more slowly, and assured them that 
 they would find that less would satisfy them ;
 
 138 PLEA FOR 
 
 and this if carried out will often enable a 
 man to reduce his food by one-half, and will 
 add very much to his comfort and health. 
 
 I have frequently had Mr. Brassey's 
 experience cast up to me. He got excellent 
 work from his English navvies ; but on ex- 
 tending his contracts to the Continent, he 
 found that the poorly-fed natives could not 
 do the same work till he got them to use the 
 same food. This was triumphantly put to 
 me as a sure proof that a man is a better 
 man when he is well-fed. * Undoubtedly,' 
 I replied ; ' the man is a better man for Mr. 
 Brassey, but what about the man himself? 
 A navvy is worn out by the time he is forty, 
 and a navvy at forty-five is scarcely known.' 
 This fact I had full forty years ago from a 
 Dunfermline doctor, a large part of whose 
 practice was among navvies. This was an 
 argument new to my opponents, but it was 
 always sufficient. 
 
 In more advanced life, and in old age, a 
 simple and restricted diet is even more
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE ' 139 
 
 necessary than before. The natural loss of 
 teeth gives a good hint that the more solid 
 articles of food should be withdrawn. Arti- 
 ficial teeth are of obvious use in other ways, 
 but it is here that Sir H. Thompson's saying 
 about the grave being dug by the teeth 
 mainly comes in. The digestive organs get 
 weak with the rest of the body, and the com- 
 parative rest which age entails lessens the 
 demand for food, both for the production of 
 motive and other force, and for replacing the 
 waste of the body ; and the heat of the body 
 can be partly kept up by external warmth. 
 Stimulants do even more mischief, than for- 
 merly. It is a common remark that cold 
 weather kills old people, and it is a true one. 
 But I was far more afraid of this when the 
 friends insisted on giving the old a regular 
 allowance of wine, in the belief that this 
 would help to keep them alive. The fallacy 
 of this is apparent. The glass of wine may 
 give a fillip for the moment, but it only lasts 
 at the most for half an hour. No fact has
 
 140 PLEA FOR 
 
 been better proved than this. To be of any 
 use it should therefore be repeated twice 
 every hour. This is of course absurd. After 
 the little excitement is over there is naturally 
 a slight reaction, and this is the time, when 
 the system is really ' below par,' that the 
 cold produces its fatal action. 
 
 But, apart from cold, there is a very 
 common idea and this is shared in by the 
 profession that old people who may have 
 taken no stimulant hitherto require it, or, at 
 least, are better for it as they get old and 
 frail. There can be no greater mistake. 
 I always recommended my elderly friends, 
 even those who had been accustomed to 
 take alcohol in some form all their days, 
 to stop it, whether at once or gradually 
 it did not much matter, and I have never 
 seen any harm result. On the contrary, 
 the effect has been always good and has 
 been acknowledged to be so both by the 
 patient and by friends. The desire, if any, 
 soon passes off, as does that, sooner or later, 
 
 HI*
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 141 
 
 which has been brought on by any other bad 
 habit. 
 
 I have seen such undoubted prolongation 
 of life, both in middle and in what is usually 
 held as old age, by changing to a simpler 
 mode of living from one very much the 
 reverse, that I came to the conclusion that 
 with fairplay from the commencement the 
 ordinary life of man should reach one hundred 
 years. This would only apply to those born 
 with a sound constitution. From the errors 
 of our parents, and perhaps of theirs, many 
 are born into the world under very unfavour- 
 able circumstances, and it might require 
 proper living for some generations to restore 
 a family to a natural condition of health. To 
 expect that this may ever happen is, I fear, 
 quite Utopian ; and nature usually cuts the 
 knot in a more speedy fashion by extinguish- 
 ing the family altogether. I was pleased to 
 notice recently that Sir B. W. Richardson, 
 working on other lines, viz. by comparing 
 the period of full development of animals
 
 1 42 PLEA FOR 
 
 with their average length of life, and this 
 with the same data in man, has come to the 
 conclusion that the natural life of man is one 
 hundred and five years. If this be true there 
 must be a terrible fault somewhere, as the 
 estimate exceeds the reality by more than 
 one-half. Instinct seems to do for animals 
 what reason, assisted (or hindered ?) by the 
 resources of civilisation, does not do for man. 
 There is no proof that in the early ages of 
 mankind life was longer than now, or that it 
 is so now among tribes living in a state of 
 nature. If life is to be prolonged, therefore, 
 man must work out his own salvation, and 
 perhaps it is true here also that perfection 
 cometh through suffering. 
 
 In my more orthodox days I used to point 
 out that our antediluvian ancestors who lived 
 . such long lives were vegetarians. I also 
 pointed out as a proof that animal diet gives 
 a desire for strong drink, that the first thing 
 we read of Noah, after permission was given 
 to eat flesh, was that he was drunk. The
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 143 
 
 critics have deprived me of these argu- 
 ments. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 On the subject of the moral effects of 
 high living, especially on the young, I do 
 not enter ; it does not come within the scope 
 of this work. But it is notorious that the 
 morals of the country have not improved 
 during the last half-century ; and this may 
 be taken along with the Scriptural statement 
 that ' Strong meat belongeth to them that 
 are of full age.' To keep to the physical 
 side of the question, we have also Paul's apt 
 and terse statement : ' They that strive for 
 the mastery are temperate in all things.' A 
 very old friend, well known as the best shot' 
 of his day, gave me the credit of his son 
 being the first champion of England. This 
 was from my having got him, at any rate 
 when shooting, to carry out this ' temperance 
 in all things.' Two other volunteer friends, 
 who were fortunate in competitions, also
 
 144 PLEA FOR 
 
 ascribed their success to their having followed 
 my recommendations. This was long ago ; 
 but I am told that it is now well known that 
 high living is fatal to good shooting. 
 
 In the pleas I have advanced for a simple 
 life so far as food is concerned I have pur- 
 posely abstained from giving any fixed rules. 
 Much must be left to oneself, or to those 
 in authority. A long experience bears me 
 out in this. A mistake made and felt tells 
 more than any argument. In some cases 
 strict rules must be given by a medical 
 adviser when he knows that a general rule 
 will not be attended to. But, on the whole, 
 they are better omitted, especially in cases 
 of disease, when the state of the patient may 
 vary from hour to hour. What I would 
 mainly urge is that, when any amount of 
 food can be had, the risk of taking too much 
 is much greater than the risk of taking too 
 little. If this were only known and acted on 
 the change would be very great and very
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 145 
 
 salutary. Another simple rule is to eat 
 slowly. This acts beneficially in two ways. 
 It mixes the food better with the saliva, 
 thus promoting digestion ; and it satiates 
 the appetite sooner, so that less food is 
 taken. 
 
 Less food should be taken or none at all 
 when one is worried or anxious, or when en- 
 gaged in any severe mental work. There is 
 in these conditions little or no nervous 
 energy to spare for the stomach. I came 
 long ago in the course of reading on three 
 celebrated men who, when engaged in work- 
 ing out some great problem in science or 
 war, took actually no food till the strain 
 was over. They were Sir Isaac Newton, 
 Napoleon, and the Duke of Wellington. 
 The latter was always a careful eater. The 
 late General Crockett, who was with him in 
 the Peninsula, told me that, often when a 
 long menu was presented to him, he would 
 run his finger down it till he came to the 
 pudding, which he would order and dine
 
 146 PLEA FOR 
 
 upon. In a recent American work on 
 Edison, I find that he follows the same rule 
 as the other great men, and sometimes en- 
 forces it on his assistants by locking them 
 with himself into a room or workshop till the 
 job (some difficult one) is completed. I had 
 the pleasure once in Edinburgh of dining 
 with the late Sir Erskine May. Our host 
 was an English clergyman pretty far gone in 
 phthisis, whom I had difficulty in getting to 
 reduce the full diet which he had been 
 ordered in the South. Sir Erskine had just 
 finished a long session in the House of 
 Commons, where he was perhaps the busiest 
 man. He seemed to be in the best of health, 
 and he looked more like a healthy English 
 farmer than an over-worked clerk of Parlia- 
 ment. I could not help asking him how he 
 kept his health so well with such an amount of 
 anxious work, and with such long hours. He 
 told me that his rule was, while the House 
 was sitting, to take a chop in the middle of 
 the day, and only a cup of tea at night. He
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 147 
 
 added that Lord Palmerston followed the 
 same plan, though on an occasion he could 
 enjoy a very full dinner. Our host stared, 
 and I had less difficulty with him as to food 
 afterwards ; the plain narration had more 
 influence than a thousand arguments. 
 
 If, when in good health, we took only the 
 food necessary for our comfort and for our 
 work and no more, instead of working the 
 stomach to the utmost, and helping it when 
 it flags by dainties, as well as by drugs 
 and stimulants, we would have much more 
 pleasure from our meals, and a much longer 
 continuance of strength and health. We 
 would also escape many of the ills that life is 
 said to be heir to ; or, should some disease 
 perchance come upon us, if we could eliminate 
 from the old system of cure a large amount 
 of the depletion, and from the new a still 
 larger amount of the feeding and physicking, 
 we would come nearer to nature's mode of 
 preventing and curing diseases; we would 
 find that prevention would be far the larger
 
 148 PLEA FOR 
 
 element of the two, and that the need for the 
 other would be wellnigh extinguished. 
 
 But the physician need not as yet have 
 much fear for his craft. The Archbishop of 
 Cambrai put into the mouth of his wise 
 Nestor that the time will surely come when 
 we will be ashamed to be sick, the causes 
 being our own indiscretions and ignorance. 
 That was two hundred years ago, and as 
 yet there is no sign of the prophecy being 
 nearer its fulfilment. Changes for good 
 come very slowly, and with much back 
 falling and opposition. The way to life 
 is narrow, the other way is broad ; and few 
 walk in the one, and many in the other. 
 Whatever our beliefs regarding a future life, 
 we might be more careful of the present which 
 we most certainly possess, and more readily 
 adopt the simpler ways which lead to its being 
 both longer and happier ; we might seek 
 truth and follow after righteousness for their 
 own sake, and with no thought of reward, 
 and no fear of punishment ; and lastly, we
 
 A SIMPLER LIFE 149 
 
 might use the increased means which the 
 simpler life would afford us to show a more 
 helpful sympathy with the fallen, who, often 
 from no fault of their own, but from their 
 birth and surroundings, are doomed to a life 
 of degradation, misery, vice, and crime. 
 
 I offer no apology for the free use I have 
 made of the personal pronoun in these pages. 
 Had I not done this, I could not have said 
 what I wished to say ; and so I will take for 
 my ' finis ' the hopeful motto of my family, 
 of which I have for fifteen years been the 
 oldest member 
 
 'VERITAS VINCIT'
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABERCROMBIE, Dr., 13 
 Abstention from food, 38-41, 
 
 44, 57, 132 
 
 Abuse of flesh food, 1 1 1 - 1 1 4, 1 1 9 
 Age, old, 46, 56, 86, 105, 138- 
 
 142 
 
 Air, fresh, 42, 44 
 Alcohol, 22, 34, 119, 140 
 Alison, Professor, 15, 16 
 Ammonia, carbonate of, 52, 89 
 Anaemia, 116 
 Aperients, 19, 23, 126-130; in 
 
 apoplexy, 5 1 ; in scarlet fever, 
 
 29 
 
 Aphorism of Hippocrates, 27, 
 
 38 
 Apoplexy, 50-55 
 
 BATHS, German, 108, 109 
 
 Bleeding, 4, 8, 30, 68 
 
 Bouillaud, 8 
 
 Brassey, Mr., 138 
 
 British Medical Journal, 32, 117 
 
 Bronchitis, 84, 118 
 
 CALOMEL, 17 
 
 Cambrai, Archbishop of, 148 
 
 DELIRIUM TREMENS, 58 
 Depletion, order of day, 4 ; in 
 treatment of consumption, 9 
 
 Diet of different temperaments, 
 20 ; for the healthy, 147 ; 
 hard worked, 145 ; the young, 
 123 ; the aged, 138 
 
 Drink, 33, 39, 43 
 
 Dyspepsia, 103, 132 
 
 EAT slowly, 137, 145 
 
 Eczema, 117 
 
 Edison, T. A., 146 
 
 English -versus foreign, navvies, 
 
 138 
 Exercise, 112, 136, 137 
 
 FASHION in medicine, 3-8, 57, 
 68, 91, 98 ; in stimulants, 
 98 
 
 Fever, action of, as an eliminant, 
 aperients in scarlet, 29 - r 
 Indian, 25 ; typhus, 134 
 
 Flesh food, abuse of, 111-114, 
 119 
 
 Food, abstention from, 38-41, 
 44, 51, 132 ; in disease, 35, 
 54, 57 ; carbonaceous, 96-99, 
 101 ; nitrogeneous, 96, 99, 
 101 ; excess in, aggravated by 
 alcohol, 119 
 
 GERMAN baths, 108, 109 
 Gout, rheumatic, 108
 
 INDEX 
 
 H^MATURIA, 64 
 
 Haemorrhage, 57 
 Haig, Dr. A. , 115 
 Hippocrates, aphorism of, 27 
 Homeopathy, 9, 11-13 
 Hot water, 42, 52, 60, 77, 78, 
 81, 88, 92 
 
 INFLUENZA, 87-93, 132 
 Insanity, treatment of, 70, 71, 
 
 72 
 Iodide of potassium, 23 
 
 " KEEPING UP SYSTEM," 33, 53, 
 54,86 
 
 LIEBIG'S Extract, 60 
 Life, prolongation of, 141 
 Lime water and milk, 14, 16, 
 
 26, 81 
 
 Liquorice, 85 
 Lungs, congestion of, 61 
 
 MAJENDIE, 8 
 May, Sir Erskine, 146 
 Medical teaching and practice, 3 
 Merei, Prof. Schoepf, 7, 20 
 Methods of cure, Nature's, 39, 
 
 44, 48, 94, 105, 147 
 Milk, 63, 77, 123 ; and lime 
 
 water, 14, 16, 26 
 
 NATURE'S methods of cure, 39, 
 
 44, 48, 94, 105, 147 
 Navvies, English vemts foreign, 
 
 138 
 Nitrogeneous food, 96, 100-104, 
 
 123 
 
 PALMERSTON, Lord, 147 
 Paralysis, general, 101 
 Phosphates in food, 135 
 Pills, 17, 1 02 
 
 Pneumonia, treatment of, in 
 
 1834, 9-1 1 
 
 Potassium, iodide of, 23 
 Prolongation of life, 141 
 
 QUININE, 24 
 
 Remedies, new, 22 ; drink, 34, 
 
 39 ; food, 35, 39 medicine, 
 
 43 
 Reserve of food in body, 36, 40, 
 
 51, 88, 105 
 Rest, to the stomach, 39, 67, 79 ; 
 
 to the body, 41, 44, 131 
 Rheumatic gout, 108 
 Richardson, Sir B. W., 33, 120, 
 
 141 
 
 SCARLET fever, 29 
 Simpson, Sir J., 7, 16, 126 
 Starving, two ways of, 131 
 Stimulants, 34, 39, 42, 51, 59, 
 
 98, 131 
 
 Stomach, rest to, 39, 67, 80 
 Syme, Mr., 14 
 
 TANNER, Dr., 36 
 
 Teaching and practice, medical, 
 
 3 
 
 Thompson, Sir H., 121, 139 
 Time, an element in cure, 43 
 Tobacco, no 
 Typhus fever, 134 
 
 URIC acid, 116 
 
 VlS MEDICATRIX NATURAE, 44 
 
 WARMTH, 41, 131 
 Water, 35, 44, 105, 124-126 
 Wine, 87, 98, 121, 139 
 Whisky, 60, 120 
 White, of egg, 81 ; bread, 134, 
 135 
 
 Printed by R. &. R. CLARK, LIMITED. Edinburgh
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 ' ' Whatever discussion may arise over this book between the author'and 
 his fellow medical men, the fact will not be altered that there is much in 
 it that ought to be carefully considered by most of us." The Scotsman, 
 
 " There is much sound advice given in this little volume which 
 will be of great service to both the healthy and the unhealthy." Dundee 
 Advertiser. 
 
 " His opinions may be read with advantage." The Times. 
 
 " Pithy and pungent little treatise." The Globe. 
 
 " There is no doubt whatever that the book is full of wise counsel." 
 Edinburgh Medical Journal. 
 
 "There is much truth, and earnestly expressed, in the pages of this 
 small volume, and we sincerely hope that it may receive the attention 
 which it assuredly deserves from the medical practitioners of the present 
 generation and that the publication may bear fruit towards the reforma- 
 tion of some few, at least, of the many flagrant abuses of medical teaching 
 and practice." Dublin Joiirnal of Medical Science. 
 
 "Dr. George Keith's closely-reasoned and temperately- worded ' Plea 
 for a Simpler Life ' cannot be dismissed as superfluous. Much of his 
 advice is as shrewd as it is sound." The Speaker. 
 
 1 ' There are few works containing more sound common sense and good 
 practical wisdom put into small compass as in the little book bearing the 
 above title. It is worth its weight in gold to the man who would rather 
 go in for prevention than cure." The Liberal. 
 
 " It is the old exhortation, plain living and high thinking. But it is 
 more, it shows the way to reach it. It is indeed a most earnest yet 
 scientific exposition of the evil we do to our bodies and souls and spirits 
 by mixed dishes and medicines, If we would follow Dr. Keith's advice 
 and take his prescriptions, we should have less dyspepsia and less atheism 
 amongst us, less need for doctors of medicines and less need for doctors 
 of divinity." Expository Times. 
 
 " This very interesting little book." The Guardian. 
 
 " As interesting as it is disinterested, and as valuable as it is cheap." 
 Great Thoughts. 
 
 1 ' The treatise is a powerful argument against the abuse of food and 
 stimulants, both in health and sickness." St. James's Budget. 
 
 11 The book is well worth reading." The Lancet. 
 
 ' ' This essay is a most profitable and even weighty contribution to 
 medicine, full of observation and original thought." The Academy. 
 
 ' ' This is a charming little book. There is much sound common sense 
 and a great deal of solid truth in what he says, and his little book deserves 
 to be widely read." Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " Most of us, I suppose, want to live as long as we can, and to make 
 our lives as comfortable as possible. Various counsellors in all ages have 
 given advice with a view to the attainment of these desirable ideals ; but 
 I am not sure that any one of them hits the nail on the head with a finer 
 precision than is achieved by Dr. George S. Keith, whose ' Plea for a 
 Simpler Life ' is of sturdy common sense all compact." The New Age. 
 
 LONDON : A. . C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE.