PLEA 
 
 FOR A 
 
 SIMPLER 
 
 LIFE 
 
 OBOROB S. KB1TH 
 
 FADS 
 
 OF AN 
 
 OLD 
 PHYSICIAN
 
 PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE 
 
 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN
 
 GEORGE S. KEITH.
 
 Plea for a Simpler Life 
 
 and 
 
 Fads of an Old Physician 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE S. KEITH 
 
 M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P.E. 
 
 " 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 XI. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 1900 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT is now upwards of four years since the 
 ' Plea for a Simpler Life ' was published. 
 As the views given in it are mostly directly 
 opposed to those held at the present time by 
 the medical profession, I expected that they 
 would meet with much criticism and opposi- 
 tion. Of the latter they have had plenty for 
 all I know, but although ten thousand copies 
 of the book have been sold, in all English- 
 speaking countries, I have not seen or heard 
 of a single hostile criticism, while it has met 
 with a hearty reception from most of our 
 leading journals, three of them medical. I 
 have been still more gratified by letters from 
 older and well known members of the pro- 
 
 2019042
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 fession both in this country and in America. 
 But there is an opposite side to this pleasant 
 picture. From the young men I have no 
 recognition whatever. In the medical journals 
 of the clay I have seen recently strong 
 recommendations of such old - fashioned 
 remedies as bleeding, leeching, emetics, etc. 
 Although these were no doubt much abused 
 in my early days, I have never entirely 
 given them up ; but the present fashion 
 of physicing and overfeeding, so far as 
 my own observation and reading go, still 
 carries the day, as it has done for more 
 than fifty years. 
 
 Previous to the publication of 'Fads of an 
 Old Physician ' I was inundated with letters 
 asking for more minute directions as to food, 
 etc. I usually advised that the ' Plea ' should 
 be given to the family doctor, who might be 
 willing to try my methods if he knew them 
 to be agreeable to the patient. The plan,
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 however, almost invariably failed, and I was 
 induced in a number of cases to try treatment 
 by letter. This I found, as I expected, to 
 be most unsatisfactory. Since the publication 
 of ' Fads ' I have had far fewer letters asking 
 for help, and I now tell inquirers that they 
 must learn to treat themselves, with the 
 guidance of my volumes, if they cannot get 
 their own or any other medical man to treat 
 them on any but the most opposite principles. 
 The letters from ladies especially, are often 
 very sad. A recent one from a lady, aged 
 sixty, told that she had been an invalid since 
 she was twelve years old, during which time 
 she had upwards of thirty doctors. She 
 must have had a splendid constitution, as 
 some of her complaints had been very severe, 
 and most of them (excepting the surgical), 
 had they been let alone, should have given 
 her very little trouble. The worst was an 
 Influenza, treated in the usual fashion, the
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 dregs of which, ending in a pelvic abscess, 
 kept her in bed for five years. 
 
 The plan of self-treatment has answered 
 admirably. Judging by the number of my 
 correspondents who have had no doctor, 
 some of them for years, the loss to the 
 profession must have been very considerable, 
 and it is rapidly increasing. In this way I 
 hope that my simple methods will come to 
 be appreciated. The younger practitioners 
 will not try them, and in this they are 
 often encouraged by the women, whom I 
 have found to be quite as opposed to me as 
 the doctors. I only know of one, a young 
 colonial doctor, who has been converted, and 
 in this way. I had sent him the 'Plea! In 
 writing to thank me he said it would never 
 suit them in the Colony, as beef and mutton 
 raising was the chief industry, and it was from 
 this that the doctors got their fees. Some 
 years later he asked a member of his family
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 to tell me that I had one follower in New 
 Zealand. It came about in this way. There 
 was a very fatal epidemic of Influenza with 
 Pneumonia in the district. The priest had 
 somehow got my book, his servant was taken 
 ill, and he resolved to try upon him my 
 method of giving neither food nor stimulants. 
 The case did well ; my friend, not wishing to 
 lose his clients in this way, tried the same 
 method in other cases and with equal success. 
 I would not, however, undertake to cure 
 every case in such a meat-eating country as 
 New Zealand, but there is certainly even 
 less need for food and stimulants there than 
 here. 
 
 It is quite as difficult, if not more so, to 
 convince a woman not to ' keep up ' a sick 
 husband or child. I have known many cases 
 where the consequence was fatal. One of 
 them I may mention, the parties being all 
 dead. A much valued friend, an honoured
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 Edinburgh citizen, not a patient of mine but 
 I had attended some of his nearest relatives, 
 had often occasion to meet me. He well 
 knew my peculiar views. I saw that he was 
 showing marked signs of serious illness. I 
 urged him to change his mode of living. He 
 was willing to do so, but said he would have 
 difficulties at home. I soon saw a change 
 on him for the better, and hoped that he was 
 all right. I was now absent from home for 
 several months, and on my return I found he 
 was back to his old condition. I urged him 
 to return to the diet which had been so 
 efficacious, and he did so with the same 
 manifest advantage as before. I was then 
 absent for a longer period, and when I 
 returned found him worse than ever. I 
 asked why he had taken to his old way of 
 living for a third time, and his answer 
 was very emphatically, ' the womenfolks will 
 not have it.' The beaten man gave up
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 the contest, and the end was not long in 
 coming. 
 
 There is a very serious difficulty to one 
 who wishes to be his own doctor. The pro- 
 fession is recognised by the law ; a registered 
 practitioner has privileges which are possessed 
 by no one else ; and a man who knows that 
 his own health and that of his family is better 
 without physic or a physician, has good cause 
 to complain that he cannot use his freedom 
 without being liable to much worry and vexa- 
 tion in time of trouble. I know no monopoly 
 as this to which our country has given up its 
 liberty, and I doubt if any such exist. A 
 monopoly may become a tyranny, and in this 
 respect that allowed to our medical authorities 
 certainly beats the record. 
 
 But the law is not unchangeable. In 
 America, whence we are getting many lessons, 
 a new medical school started some years ago 
 on principles said to be more simple and
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 rational than ours ; however that may be, it 
 is now recognised by eight of the Western 
 States. This gives a hint to the profession 
 which I would earnestly advise it to ponder. 
 It is long since I recommended a friend not 
 to make his son a doctor, as the present 
 system could not last ; but time moves on 
 slowly, and conventionalism is still the 
 greatest enemy to progress. 
 
 While condemning the prevailing methods, 
 I do not recall a word of what I have written 
 (' Fads,' p. 33) of the value of the doctor's 
 services to his clients. In the country 
 especially, he also gives the only surgical aid 
 available, and this is no small part of his 
 duties. In sanitary matters his assistance 
 is often invaluable. But I have already 
 come to know that, on simpler lines, 
 and mainly by following nature's sugges- 
 tions, a man may more easily than I 
 thought come to be his own doctor, with
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 much benefit both to his health and to his 
 pocket. 
 
 There is one disease which, from time to 
 time, carries off many victims, most of whom 
 would be saved by the adoption of a different 
 treatment. This is Influenza. The cases 
 are mostly slight, and a common cold is often 
 spoken of as Influenza and gets well even if 
 treated badly ; and, like Diphtheria in its 
 early days, some can say they cure all cases 
 of Influenza who may never have seen a 
 genuine case. The prevailing treatment of 
 severe cases I have condemned strongly in 
 both these volumes, and have given cases 
 proving the benefit of leaving them to nature. 
 Since their publication I have come across 
 nothing to change my opinions, and I have 
 met with other cases, which from the import- 
 ance of the subject I give here, instead of 
 relegating them to the small type of an 
 appendix.
 
 xiv PREFACE 
 
 Robert Glass has been with me as gardener 
 for fifteen years. He had improved much in 
 health after taking to a simpler diet than 
 before, and he had learned how to manage 
 his own health. I heard he was suffering 
 from a smart attack of Influenza, then 
 prevalent. After a week he was able to be 
 about again and was doing some light work. 
 He said that he had no appetite, and look- 
 ing at his tongue I found it still raw and 
 irritable, and I told him that the less food he 
 took the better. Three days afterwards I 
 heard he was back in bed, and on asking 
 what he had been doing he told me he had 
 gone to the doctor of a Friendly Society from 
 which he had an allowance when laid up, but 
 for this a doctor's certificate was necessary. 
 Before leaving, the doctor asked if he had 
 got his appetite, and after looking at his 
 tongue the same as I had seen it on the 
 same day he said, ' this will never do,' and
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 gave him a tonic. He took the tonic, which 
 soon made him feel hungry, and he had 
 taken some food, with the result just 
 mentioned. In three days he was up and 
 found no difficulty in doing some light work 
 before he had taken any food whatever. 
 His health has been decidedly better since. 
 
 The wife of the gardener had, shortly after 
 this, her third attack of Influenza. She was 
 left to the care of her husband, and was doing 
 very well, though, like him, feeling intensely 
 weak. On the morning of the fourth or fifth 
 day I heard she was very ill. I found her in 
 an alarming condition, very feverish, suffer- 
 ing from severe pains in the head, back, and 
 thighs, and all the previous night she had 
 been in high delirium. I asked her if she 
 had taken any food, and she said nothing 
 but a bit of dry bread yesterday. I was 
 anxious about her for three days, during 
 which she took nothing but hot water. On
 
 xvi PREFACE 
 
 the morning of the fourth day I was pleased 
 to find her, as she said, quite well. The 
 delirium and all other symptoms were gone, 
 and she had slept quietly all night. Several 
 days afterwards, when still in bed but enjoy- 
 ing a little simple food, she laid her hand 
 over her stomach and said, ' I feel so different 
 here this time.' Had I been unable to see 
 her, and another doctor been called in, he 
 would certainly have said she was sinking. 
 He would have given both food and 
 stimulants, and very possibly she would 
 have died. She also has enjoyed much 
 better health since. 
 
 A case like the following sometimes 
 makes me wish that, for my own comfort, 
 I had been born twenty or thirty years later, 
 and that in happy ignorance I had followed 
 the multitude in doing evil. 
 
 A very old friend, a well-known scientist 
 in his own department of medicine, had an
 
 PREFACE xvii 
 
 attack of Influenza. Nine or ten months 
 after this I heard he was dying from some 
 organic disease in the abdomen. I called to 
 ask for him and was told that he was very 
 ill, but was able sometimes to see a friend. 
 I sent up my card, and was at once admitted. 
 He was much pleased to see me, and said he 
 was just on the point of asking me to visit 
 him ; that his doctor and friends insisted on 
 his taking a glass of whiskey with his meals 
 thrice a day, and he was sure it was doing 
 him harm. I quite agreed in this, and he 
 resolved he would take no more. I also 
 advised him to reduce his meals, as I found 
 he was suffering from dyspepsia, which had 
 come on during a sea voyage he had taken 
 some months before. The weather was 
 cold ; he could rarely get on deck, while he 
 was tempted to indulge freely in the pleasures 
 of the table. I could discover no organic 
 
 disease. He had been a strong healthy man 
 b
 
 xv iii PREFACE 
 
 as I knew him, and he had still enough of 
 superfluous tissue to enable him safely to take 
 a long fast if necessary. But he was now 
 so weak that he could not get out of bed 
 without risking a faint, which he had on 
 more than one occasion. This gave me no 
 alarm when I heard how he had been living 
 and saw the state of his tongue, but in the 
 meantime I advised him not to attempt to 
 rise, or even to sit up in bed. I saw him 
 again after ten days. The servant told me 
 he was much better, and this was confirmed 
 by his friends. I found him in a much safer 
 condition. His tongue was more natural. 
 He had taken no whiskey. I spoke strongly 
 to his friends, who seemed pleased with his 
 improvement. He was perfectly fit to be 
 his own doctor, and had he been let alone I 
 cannot doubt that he would have recovered. 
 Ten days later I was grieved to find him by 
 no means so well, and was not astonished at
 
 PREFACE xix 
 
 this when I found that instead of the whiskey 
 he was taking three large glasses of Burgundy 
 a day. He could not resist his friends and 
 the doctor. I had the melancholy satisfac- 
 tion of seeing him again two or three times 
 at intervals, but he was gradually losing 
 ground, and he died from Pneumonia about 
 a couple of months after my first visit. 
 
 Some months before I saw the last case, 
 I met in the West Country a younger 
 man, manager of a large business, which 
 kept him a very busy man indeed. He 
 looked a strong man quite broken down. I 
 found from a mutual friend that he had 
 a bad attack of Influenza several months 
 before. I suspected how he was being 
 treated, and sent him my 'Plea' He wrote 
 at once that he already had the volume and 
 had read it frequently. He had, however, 
 till some ten days before I saw him, followed 
 his doctor's advice ; he then took advantage
 
 xx PREFACE 
 
 of his absence to change the treatment, and 
 at once he felt better. He was about to 
 take a long sea voyage in a warm climate, 
 and had he still been trying to keep himself 
 up, he could scarcely expect to do otherwise 
 than follow the course of my older friend. I 
 heard soon that he was working so hard 
 where he was abroad that he must be better. 
 Lately I heard from himself that though 
 now doing his work, he felt it very severe 
 upon him, also that there were 'continual 
 skirmishes going on with the home authorities, 
 who believe feeding -up to be the proper 
 remedy.' It is sometimes very long, after a 
 badly-treated Influenza, before one is quite 
 restored. Rest of body, mind, and stomach 
 are here most needful. 
 
 The last time I visited my literary friend, 
 whose case is the penultimate one in ' Fads, 1 
 I found that he, his secretary, and two others 
 in the house had been down with Influenza
 
 PREFACE xxi 
 
 several months previously. He and the 
 secretary had followed my rules of treatment, 
 and were in excellent health. The other two 
 had been treated by the doctor, and were 
 still completely broken down. Here we have 
 four cases of the same epidemic treated by the 
 different methods, and with the usual results. 
 If my contention is true that the effect of 
 alcoholic stimulants is depressing ('Plea,' 
 p. 33), and that hot water is the best 
 stimulant we possess (p. 42 andfiassim, and 
 ' Fads,' p. 67) and neither of these con- 
 tentions has been controverted then my 
 treatment is the scientific one. On the 
 positive side it gives the stimulant for 
 which the demand seems so imperative, and 
 negatively it withholds the food which the 
 stomach is in no condition to digest, and, if 
 it were, the brain could give none of the 
 nerve energy required for its digestion. It 
 follows that the older and feebler the patient
 
 xxii PREFACE 
 
 is, the greater is the necessity for following 
 this conservative and scientific treatment. 
 
 I am indebted to the publishers for the 
 suggestion of a joint volume, each of the 
 two being retained in its original form. 
 The one is, in fact, the complement of the 
 other, and I will thus be saved answering 
 occasional letters which I still receive from 
 those who have only seen the first volume. 
 
 CURRIE, MIDLOTHIAN, 
 January 1900.
 
 PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE
 
 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
 
 iv 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 v 
 
 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
 
 vi 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 
 leel 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 
 ' 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 d 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 classes of the Iicole de Mddecine. 
 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 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 11 
 
 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 ot 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,
 
 1 6 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,
 
 ,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 aperientgave
 
 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, oreven 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 
 the effect is very 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 the 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, and 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
 
 4 2 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 ot 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
 
 5 o 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
 
 5 2 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 tew, 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 ofwhich 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 hsematuria. 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 
 
 5
 
 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 hsematuria 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 haa 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
 
 7 o 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,
 
 7 8 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 
 
 o 
 
 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 
 the 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 01 
 
 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 Pl&A 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 carbonaceous 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.
 
 9 8 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
 
 TOO 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
 
 106 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
 
 H2 PLEA FOR 
 
 would at once change his mode of living. 1 
 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.' He visited 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.'
 
 ii 4 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-
 
 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
 
 u6 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
 
 u8 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 of 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
 
 1 30 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 \ 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
 
 I 3 6 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,
 
 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 POR 
 
 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 14? 
 
 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'
 
 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I HAVE frequently been asked by readers of 
 my ' Plea for a Simpler Life ' for more details 
 regarding matters treated in the volume. 
 Some of these details were given in an 
 appendix written at the time and intended 
 to be issued with the text, but it was omitted 
 for what were thought to be sufficient rea- 
 sons. This appendix forms the basis of the 
 present volume ; and I have taken the 
 opportunity to give to the public and the 
 profession my views on some other matters 
 of general interest to both, bearing more or 
 less directly on the prevention and treatment 
 of disease in a simpler way than is generally 
 followed in this country.
 
 vi FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 In the preface to the 'Plea' I ventured to 
 speak somewhat defiantly of the criticisms 
 which I expected would follow its publica- 
 tion. This I have found to have been an 
 unnecessary precaution, as the volume 
 though in many respects opposed to the 
 ruling ideas of the day both as to principles 
 and practice has met with no hostile criti- 
 cism whatever, although its reception by the 
 public has been such as is seldom given to 
 an unknown writer. On the contrary, it has 
 been favourably reviewed by most of the 
 leading papers and by several of the medical 
 journals ; and some of the older heads of the 
 profession, both physicians and teachers, in 
 this country and in America, have written to 
 signify their approval of my attempt to 
 simplify the teaching and the practice of 
 medicine. As yet, however, I can see no 
 signs of improvement. During the last 
 twelve months I have come across instances
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 of such gross maltreatment as I never before 
 met with or even heard of. At the same 
 time I am constantly told that there has 
 been a vast improvement, and that there is 
 no such physicking, feeding, and stimulating 
 as there was some twenty or thirty years 
 ago. I sincerely hope that it is so, but I 
 can see no proof of it whatever, and I wish 
 much that some of the younger members of 
 the profession would point out to the public 
 what are the principles by which they are 
 guided in treating their patients. Not many 
 months ago a mother came to tell me how 
 her son, who was said to be suffering from 
 an enlarged stomach, was being treated by 
 the family doctor under the direction of a 
 leading consulting physician. Into this 
 enlarged stomach there daily passed a pound 
 and a half of pounded beef, a pound of fish, 
 two large meals of revelenta quantity not 
 known exactly, but a packet which cost us.
 
 viii FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 lasted about a fortnight one large meal of 
 Danger's Food made with strong meat stock, 
 six to eight tumblers of milk, with part of 
 which the revelenta was prepared, coffee, 
 and during the night biscuits. To get this 
 into a stomach an enlarged one was pos- 
 sible ; to digest it from day to day was a 
 different matter ; but science now came in, 
 in the form of the stomach-pump, which was 
 used every night to get rid of the fermenting 
 mass and to wash out the unhappy organ. 
 This had gone on for the last five months ; 
 the youth was still able to go about, and 
 even to do a little business. Was this a 
 new form of homeopathy, only going from 
 the extreme of infinitesimals to an extreme 
 of quantities, a big stomach to be relieved 
 by extreme repletion? My theory is that 
 the quantity of food was so enormous that 
 it had not time to get very acrid and intoler- 
 able before it was removed ; and this would
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 also explain how that during the night, when 
 pain came on in the emptied stomach (no 
 doubt from acid poured into it from the 
 blood), biscuits were given to dilute the acid 
 secretion and render it less intolerable. The 
 youth did not seem much the worse for this 
 strange cure. I should like much to hear 
 what was expected from the treatment ; and 
 if it was only an experiment I doubt if it will 
 be often repeated with the same immunity. 
 Once I was threatened with the law for leav- 
 ing an old gentleman to get well in his warm 
 bed without food or physic, and he did not 
 disappoint me. I would not have taken the 
 hint so calmly had I been acting contrary to 
 nature and to common sense, as in the case 
 I have mentioned. I could not have credited 
 the story had I not got it at first hand. The 
 knowledge that such cases for this is not 
 the only one are possible in the present 
 day, will explain if it does not excuse
 
 x FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 some plain speaking in the following 
 pages. 
 
 Most of my peculiar ideas have been 
 looked on and spoken of as ' Fads ' by my 
 medical friends. I do not object to the 
 word, as I have noticed that the faddist not 
 infrequently gains the day in the long run. 
 It is therefore in a hopeful spirit that I have 
 adopted the word in the title of this volume. 
 
 G. S. K. 
 
 CURRIE, MIDLOTHIAN, 
 January 1897.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE . . . . . . v 
 
 1. ON SO-CALLED 'STARVING' . . I. 
 
 2. THREE DIFFERENT METHODS FOR PRESERVING AND 
 
 REGAINING HEALTH . .- . . . 10 
 
 3. ON STIMULANTS . . . . . 35 
 
 4. ON SELF-MASSAGE . . . ... 47 
 
 5. ON HOT WATER ..... 65 
 
 6. ON LIQUORICE . . . . . -77 
 
 7. ON CANCER . . r . . .82 
 
 8. RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS . . "97 
 
 9. ON RHEUMATIC FEVER .... 109 
 
 10. HOW ONE SHOULD LIVE IN A HOT CLIMATE . Il6 
 
 11. ON MATTERS WHICH RETARD DIGESTION AND PRE- 
 
 VENT WASTE . . . . . .124
 
 xii FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 PAGE 
 
 12. ON NATURAL CRAVINGS AND DISLIKES . . 130 
 
 13. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH . . . 141 
 
 14. THE EFFECTS OF HIGH LIVING _ ON THE MORALS OF 
 
 THE YOUNG . . . . . .154 
 
 15. MY TEACHERS ... 160
 
 SO-CALLED 'STARVING' 
 
 I HAVE frequently in my ' Plea for a Simpler 
 Life ' spoken of starving, and of being rather 
 pleased with the name often applied to me 
 of a 'starving doctor.' I never, of course, 
 allowed that my treatment was a starving 
 one in the ordinary sense of the word, and 
 frequently was able to prove that it was 
 exactly the contrary. I had to work with 
 the stomach as I found it, and that was often 
 in a weaker condition and less fit for work 
 than any other organ of the body ; very often 
 because it had been specially overtaxed in 
 a vain attempt to 'keep up the system.' I 
 have sometimes said to ignorant intruders 
 who were urging me to give food to their 
 " i
 
 2 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 weak friends, that I would gladly do so if, 
 in the first place, they would kindly provide 
 them with fresh stomachs. Here the infalli- 
 bility of inexperience and of ignorance comes 
 in very strongly, and with much evil to the 
 patient, as well as worry to the prudent 
 doctor. A case or two will bring out the 
 force of these remarks better than any 
 argument. 
 
 A lady came to Edinburgh from Ceylon, 
 suffering from that very serious disorder, 
 tropical diarrhoea. She saw several medical 
 men, but with no benefit, and she went to 
 die quietly in the country, in the house of 
 a friend formerly a colonel in one of the 
 Ceylon regiments. This gentleman and his 
 wife had got benefit from my treatment some 
 years previously, and, on finding that I had 
 not seen his friend, he insisted that she 
 should return to Edinburgh and try if I 
 could do something for her. I found her 
 reduced to an extreme degree. She was 
 taking a large quantity of food and stimulant,
 
 SO-CALLED ' STARVING' 3 
 
 which all passed through her in the usual 
 form it assumes in such cases, but clearly with 
 no benefit to the patient, as she was gradually 
 losing what little strength and flesh she re- 
 tained. I was shown a great bundle of pre- 
 scriptions I only once saw a larger which 
 had been given for her relief. Everything 
 that drugs or food could do had been tried 
 already by some of the best of our doctors, 
 and had failed. This I pointed out to the 
 friends, and it helped me very much in aban- 
 doning all attempts of relief on these lines. 
 I felt very hopeless of being able to do better 
 than the others. Shortly before I had read 
 of a Russian cure for extreme cases, called 
 the 'skim-milk cure,' and as it exactly 
 carried out my views I was glad to try it. I 
 advised that all drugs and stimulants should be 
 at once stopped, and that the only food given 
 should be an ordinary wine-glassful of skim 
 milk three times in the twenty-four hours. 
 This was the Russian cure. To this, as she 
 was so excessively low, I added a minute
 
 4 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 quantity of extract of malt, also thrice a 
 day in the intervals of the milk. This, with 
 hot water, was literally all she got. In a 
 week the diarrhoea quite left her, and she had 
 even got a little stronger. I then left her 
 in charge of my brother, long my colleague, 
 and when I returned after a six weeks' 
 holiday I found her, I may say, quite well. 
 
 Some years later I was called to look after 
 a lady for a medical friend who had to leave 
 town for a time. She was dying from old 
 heart-disease, with general dropsy of the 
 body. She suffered terribly in breathing, 
 and could only sit in her chair, lying down 
 bringing on suffocation. Sir Robert Christi- 
 son had seen her, and the case was looked 
 on as hopeless. I was told that milk 
 treatment had already been tried, and had 
 failed. On inquiry I found that it had been 
 given in considerable quantity. She was 
 now taking what concentrated food she could, 
 and a fair amount of wine. With great diffi- 
 culty I got the lady to try the milk again,
 
 SO-CALLED ' STAR VING ' ; 5 
 
 but in the same quantities as in the former 
 case ; she was very unwilling to give up the 
 wine, as she felt some momentary relief from 
 it. At last, as her only hope, she agreed to 
 give it up and try my plan. Except three 
 small glasses of skim milk a day, and hot 
 water, she had literally no other sustenance. 
 But she soon rallied, was able to lie down 
 comfortably, and by and by to take some 
 food. She made a rapid recovery, and she 
 died several years afterwards from blocking of 
 the arteries of the lower extremities, probably 
 from a clot which had formed in the heart. 
 
 Knowing as I did, from long experience, 
 that I could starve my patients to a good 
 purpose even in such extreme cases as the 
 above, the name so freely bestowed on me 
 gave me very little trouble and did me no 
 harm. Sir J. Simpson used to say that abuse 
 did one as much good as praise, sometimes 
 more. 
 
 Milk is perhaps the best of all foods, but 
 it too may be abused. Returning once from
 
 6 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 a professional visit to the West, I met in the 
 railway carriage an oldish baronet on his way 
 to Edinburgh to see his doctor. I was told 
 he was sure to tell me of his case, as he knew 
 I would be in the train. He soon told me 
 all about himself. He was suffering from his 
 stomach, and had tried many cures ; he was 
 now living solely on milk, of which, he 
 said, to my horror, he was taking fourteen 
 tumblers a day by his doctor's orders. He 
 was almost skin and bone. At Stirling he 
 went out, and on returning was very angry, 
 as he could only get one tumbler of milk 
 instead of three, his ordinary dose. Very 
 soon he began groaning loudly from pain, 
 and as there were ladies in the carriage it 
 was very unpleasant to all of us. In about 
 half an hour the groaning stopped, much to 
 his astonishment, as he said the pain usually 
 went on till towards his next meal. I mildly 
 suggested that perhaps one tumbler did less 
 mischief than three. I had already given 
 him my mind about the treatment, as he had
 
 SO-CALLED 'STARVING' 7 
 
 asked it. I do not know if the milk was 
 continued ; probably it was given up as a 
 proved failure. But this I know, that, had I 
 then begun to take fourteen tumblers of it 
 daily, I would not have lived as he did 
 for three months longer. My own stomach 
 was then in a very irritable condition. I 
 rarely took plain milk, as it at once brought 
 on pain as it did with this gentleman, and no 
 doubt from the same cause, the immediate 
 formation of hard curd, which irritated and 
 brought on spasm. 
 
 The case just related is one of the many 
 I have met with of real starving from taking 
 in too large quantity what, under other 
 circumstances, might be the very best food. 
 The gentleman mentioned was, I was told, 
 supposed to be suffering from cancer of the 
 stomach. If such was the case, there was 
 still less need to torment the diseased organ 
 in the manner which I witnessed in a minor 
 degree. It has been an absolute rule with 
 me from a very early period, when milk
 
 8 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 disagrees with a child, to stop every drop 
 of it till the last trace had left the stomach, 
 along with the well-known ferments which 
 cause its conversion into hard curd, or what 
 in Scotland we call green cheese in its first 
 stage. This will often at once put an end 
 to diarrhoea in children who may hitherto 
 have lived on milk only. Water will suffice 
 for a few days, if the stomach is out of 
 order as well as the bowels. If something 
 more is wanted, very thin soup from young 
 meat or chicken may be given, or thin oat- 
 meal gruel well boiled. After three days 
 the milk may usually be resumed with 
 safety. Many adults cannot take pure milk, 
 who take it freely in bread or puddings. 
 When so taken, it cannot form a curd even 
 if it meets with acid in the stomach. This 
 acidity is a very common cause of trouble. 
 If the youth or grown-up person who suffers 
 from it, instead of taking drugs for immediate 
 relief, would exercise in a greater or less 
 degree, as may be necessary, a wholesome
 
 SO-CALLED 'STARVING' 9 
 
 abstinence or call it starvation he would 
 soon find that he had no cause to accuse a 
 weak stomach for his share of the misery 
 which so many of the well-fed suffer in this 
 country, and all the world over. This is 
 the key-note of what I have to teach in this 
 as in my former volume, and it indicates a 
 strange bias in human nature that it should 
 be necessary to harp on it so often and so 
 loudly. I am by no means the only one in 
 the profession and out of it who, but often 
 in vain and with little thanks, endeavours to 
 benefit his fellows in a way that runs contrary 
 to custom and fashion, and which has only 
 experience of its value and common sense 
 to recommend it.
 
 II 
 
 THREE DIFFERENT METHODS FOR PRESERVING 
 AND REGAINING HEALTH 
 
 WITHIN the last two years two volumes 
 besides my own have been published which 
 recommend the treatment of disease by a 
 different method from that usually taught. 
 The one is by Dr. Haig of London, 1 the 
 other by Dr. Dewey of Meadville, Penn- 
 sylvania. 2 Both differ on many points from 
 the method laid down in ' Plea for a 
 Simpler Life,' but all three have much in 
 common in their endeavour to arrive at 
 the same end. Dr. Haig, whose method is 
 
 1 Uric Acid in Causation of Disease. J. and A. 
 Churchill. 
 
 2 The True Science of Living. Henry Bill Publishing 
 Company.
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 11 
 
 based on strictly scientific investigations 
 carried on for several years, and suggested 
 to him very much by his own personal 
 experience, finds in uric acid, present in the 
 blood or deposited in different structures 
 of the body, the cause of most of our 
 common and troublesome ailments. For 
 the prevention and cure of these ailments, 
 he recommends mainly abstinence from all 
 foods which contain uric acid, or its elements. 
 Under the first category are to be found 
 all animal foods except milk, and under the 
 second, tea, coffee, cocoa, etc., which contain 
 xanthin, a chemical substance which he says 
 is always changed in the system into uric 
 acid, and which thus possesses the same 
 disturbing properties. His own food, which 
 he gives in full detail, consists of milk, cheese, 
 and butter, with a liberal variety of bread 
 stuffs and other cereals, and of vegetables 
 and fruits. By adhering to this diet he has 
 raised himself from a very low and suffering 
 condition ; he is now in the enjoyment of
 
 12 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 good health, and he has seen equally good 
 results in those who have followed his example. 
 
 To start his patients on their new mode 
 of life, Dr. Haig gives some drugs to wash 
 out the excess of uric acid in the blood, or 
 deposited in the various textures and organs 
 of the body. These are salicylate of soda, 
 and others, but with a proper diet none of 
 these should be afterwards required. 
 
 Dr. Dewey's method is a very different 
 one. He had found very early in his 
 practice that he cured his patients at least as 
 well with small doses of medicines as others 
 bid with big ones. Twenty years ago he 
 met with a case of typhoid fever in a young, 
 full, married woman, whose general health 
 had not been good, and whose stomach now 
 rejected all drugs, food, and drink. This 
 went on for three weeks ; on the twenty-fifth 
 day the aversion to beef-tea ceased, and for 
 ten days longer, when his services were dis- 
 pensed with, he left the feeding to the 
 patient. A perfect cure was effected without
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 13 
 
 food and without remedies, with no unusual 
 wasting of the body ; while the mental and 
 physical strength increased with the decline 
 of symptoms, and before any food could be 
 taken. Dr. Dewey had already seen, as has 
 every physician, numerous cases where for a 
 time little food had been taken with no loss 
 of vital power ; but this one led him to look 
 more into nature's methods, and to the dis- 
 covery of the value of the store of nutriment 
 which is found in every human body until 
 reduced to what he calls its skeleton form. 
 
 Thus far Dr. Dewey's progress was 
 owing to observation of others, and it 
 affected only his treatment of the sick ; but 
 eight years later he was led by his personal 
 experience to apply his method also to the 
 more or less healthy. ' I was,' he said, 
 ' the victim of slow digestion never attended 
 with pain, but always with discomfort, which 
 disappeared under the excitement of business. 
 I never was without appetite in fact, it was 
 always too strong to be manageable. I was
 
 14 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 never disabled by it an hour in my life, but 
 there was always an abiding sense of dis- 
 comfort when not under excitement.' ' I 
 habitually ate a hearty breakfast every 
 morning, with or without previous exercise ; 
 no meal ever fully satisfied hunger. I could 
 take a lunch between meals with relish, only 
 that I dared not ; and all through the days, 
 the months, and the years I was more or 
 less starved because of habitually overtaxed 
 machinery.' At last one morning he got 
 up without an appetite, having partaken of a 
 heavy meal the preceding evening. He 
 now recalled what a friend had told him 
 some years before. He had been on a tour 
 in England, and had noticed that a common 
 breakfast there was a cup of coffee and a 
 roll. Dr. Dewey bethought him to try this 
 instead of his usual heavy meal, but as he had 
 no appetite he omitted the roll. The result 
 was that instead of feeling faint, as he had 
 feared, he had, he says, a ' forenoon of such 
 lofty mental cheer, and such energy of soul and
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 15 
 
 body, such a sense of physical ease, as I had not 
 known since I was a young man in my later 
 teens.' He continued the coffee breakfast, and 
 in the course of a few weeks, he says, ' there 
 was such a quickening of my life in every 
 line that friends began to notice it. It was 
 very cheering to be met in the streets with 
 the remark that I was looking better ; and 
 all the more as I had reached a time when 
 mental and physical wreckage seemed not 
 so very far off.' 
 
 Dr. Dewey's grand means of cure now is 
 abstinence for the time from all food, and 
 this he carries out to a degree which must 
 astonish most physicians of the present day, 
 as well as their patients. During times of 
 sickness, when there is no desire for food, he 
 gives none till the desire comes, and then 
 only if the state of the tongue and general 
 condition show that the power of digestion 
 has returned. This may be in a few days, 
 or in severe cases, as of rheumatic fever, it 
 may not be for forty days or even longer.
 
 16 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 He points out very forcibly that we have all 
 a store of material laid up in the body which 
 supplies what is required for keeping the 
 necessary functions of the system going, 
 while no food can be usefully taken into the 
 stomach. I had mentioned this provision in 
 my 'Plea, 1 and had stated that so long as 
 it lasts it is sufficient to preserve life. I also 
 suggested that it might be found that the 
 waste of the body was less when this 
 internal supply was alone trusted to, than 
 when it was supplemented by food from 
 without which the organs of nutrition were 
 not in a condition to utilise. This, to my 
 mind, Dr. Dewey has proved to be the fact, 
 and no one can read his cases without being 
 convinced that it is so. He gives a most 
 interesting table from Dr. Yeo, showing 
 what textures of the body waste most rapidly 
 in disease. Fat is at one end of the scale, 
 and at the other the brain, which does not 
 waste till all the other textures and organs 
 are depleted to the utmost.
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 17 
 
 In cases of slighter disease, where the 
 patient is able to be about, or to carry on 
 his business, but with discomfort, the same 
 abstinence from all food is recommended. 
 It is usually found that work can be done 
 more easily, and that strength actually in- 
 creases, although the starving may have to 
 be kept up for several days. But the great 
 coup in Dr. Dewey's practice is, that to im- 
 prove or to preserve health he advises all to 
 give up breakfast, and to fast till the mid- 
 day meal. In this he has had a very large 
 number of followers, very much to their 
 advantage. It may be that the omission of 
 breakfast is more needed and has greater 
 effect in America than it would have on this 
 side of the Atlantic. In America the meal 
 is usually a very full one, made up in a large 
 measure of a variety of hot cakes, also flesh 
 food and tea or coffee. The other two 
 meals of the day are full, ' square ' meals 
 likewise. I have seen much overfeeding in 
 this country, but never to such a degree, and
 
 1 8 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 so generally, as I have seen in America and 
 in American steamers. In one of the latter 
 the cooking was the worst I ever met with, 
 but the hard meat was swallowed all the 
 same, and the consequences must have been 
 grievous. 
 
 Dr. Dewey gives much prominence to 
 the relief got in following his plan of no 
 breakfast by the women of the household, 
 who are thus saved a large portion of their 
 work. This is of much wider importance in 
 America than in this country, as even in 
 better -class households, from want of ser- 
 vants, much work necessarily falls on the 
 women of the family. 
 
 In Dr. Dewey's first volume (p. 172) he 
 states with approval that by adopting his 
 system more food will be taken and properly 
 digested than when too much is taken from 
 day to day, with occasional breaks-down and 
 inability to take food. He seems to use 
 abstinence from time to time as others do 
 aperient medicines, and visits to spas, in
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 19 
 
 order to clear out the digestive organs, and 
 thus enable them to do more and, for a time 
 at least, better work. I ventured to express 
 my fear that in this way though an in- 
 finitely more rational way than is usually 
 followed life may be no longer than it has 
 hitherto been. The return to a fuller diet 
 than is necessary, though stopped from time 
 to time by the rule that no food is to be 
 taken when it is clearly not properly utilised, 
 is fitted to render the blood more abundant 
 and richer than the secreting organs can 
 properly manage, and may lead to acute 
 attacks of illness from chill or other accidental 
 cause, or to deposit, in some perhaps weaker 
 or overworked organ, a part of its overload 
 of plastic material, and thus bring on per- 
 manent changes most difficult, or impossible, 
 to get rid of. 
 
 In a later work, however, by Dr. Dewey, 
 A New Era for Women, published in 1896, 
 he states (p. 75), that by following his 
 method of no breakfast a much more moder-
 
 20 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 ate mid-day meal is required, and the even- 
 ing meal becomes very light indeed, the one 
 square meal of the day having been much 
 more thoroughly digested. 
 
 Another slight criticism which I will ven- 
 ture to make on Dr. Dewey's method is, 
 that he notices with approval the feeling of 
 keen hunger as necessary for the enjoyment 
 of a plentiful, or of any meal. I have long 
 maintained that keen hunger, in most cases, 
 if not in all, implies a more or less morbid 
 condition of the stomach. This indicates 
 that it is not empty, as it ought to be after a 
 meal is fully digested, but contains some 
 acid or acrid matters, which may be part of 
 the food previously taken turned sour, or, if 
 the food has entirely left it, an acid secretion 
 from the blood. In either case there may be 
 a feeling of keen hunger, but this is only a 
 crave by the nerves of the stomach for relief, 
 which the sufferer knows from experience 
 is to be got by diluting the acrid mass with 
 a fresh supply of inert food. That this is
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 21 
 
 the true reading of such cases I have often 
 proved. Relief for the time may be got by 
 using plain water for dilution, or by eating a 
 bit of liquorice, or by taking an alkali. Some 
 of the most satisfactory cases I have* had to 
 deal with were of ladies whose health had 
 gradually deteriorated, and their strength 
 got to so low an ebb that they required, or 
 were supposed to require, food or wine every 
 two hours. Such a case is difficult to 
 manage, as the immediate relief from tak- 
 ing food is so great. I have sometimes 
 succeeded by pointing out that the ease and 
 renewed strength which at once ensue cannot 
 possibly arise from the food, as there is no 
 time for its digestion. If the case is not too 
 chronic, the result of rational treatment is 
 very satisfactory. One of the best instances 
 of this I have met with was that of a young 
 lady of good Scottish family, who had 
 married two years previously in Yorkshire. 
 I had known her a perfectly healthy and 
 handsome girl, plainly and healthily brought
 
 22 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 up. In her new home the mode of living 
 was a full one. She had two children, the 
 first of whom she tried to nurse. This was 
 supposed to demand still fuller living and a 
 larger amount of stimulant. She had to 
 give up nursing, and was gradually getting 
 into bad health. She did not attempt to 
 nurse her second child, and now she fairly 
 broke down ; her mother, who brought her 
 to Edinburgh, told me she could not under- 
 stand her at all. I found her pretty much a 
 wreck, mentally and bodily. By the doctor's 
 orders and her own desire, she was taking 
 food or wine every two hours, and a good 
 deal even during the night. All her stimu- 
 lants and medicines were stopped at once, 
 and more than half her food, which was 
 given at proper intervals. In one fortnight 
 she was able to walk along Princes Street as 
 well as ever she was. But in this case I 
 had the mother's help, and could at once do 
 what I knew to be best. 
 
 Dr. Dewey, in his two volumes, gives
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 23 
 
 many instances of cures effected quite as 
 rapidly, by his mode of complete abstinence 
 from food for an indefinite period. He 
 makes no use of stimulants, and his one 
 drug is opium given by injection, which in 
 painful cases he uses to give relief, while 
 nature unassisted is curing the disease. 
 
 The method I have been led to follow in 
 the treatment and prevention of disease, as 
 given in the ' Plea for a Simpler Life' agrees 
 in its essential features with the two methods 
 we have been considering. With Dr. Haig 
 I give up, under all states of ill-health, the 
 use of strong animal foods, especially beef; 
 and I also give up these in all who, though 
 in their usual health, are of a decidedly 
 nervous temperament, or of the rheumatic 
 or gouty diathesis. To all, even the 
 healthiest, I advise their use to a very 
 moderate extent, from their tendency to 
 bring on acute rheumatism and gout, and, 
 if taken even by the healthiest too freely 
 and too long, causing, through deposits in
 
 24 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 the internal organs, diseases which only in- 
 dicate their presence after cure has become 
 impossible. For the young I recommend 
 little or no strong animal food till they reach 
 the term of puberty in this following the 
 rule laid down by the writer of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, that ' strong meat be- 
 longeth to them of full age.' There are 
 few rules that have no exceptions, and 
 although beef may seem my Mte noire, I 
 have used it even with children, and with 
 great benefit. In some protracted cases of 
 diarrhoea in children a year or two old, given 
 raw, or slightly warmed, and pounded very 
 fine, it often acts splendidly. The child 
 usually takes it at once and greedily, and 
 will live on it for some weeks, when the 
 desire ceases ; but the child is now cured, 
 and can take other food. Raw beef has 
 much in common with the albumen of white 
 of egg, and in the circumstances mentioned 
 I would just as soon think of giving hard- 
 boiled egg as cooked beef. Beef slightly
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 25 
 
 cooked, and in moderate quantity, is some- 
 times very grateful to a convalescent from 
 acute disease, and for a time may be 
 indulged in with safety and even benefit. 
 
 There is an abundant outlet for butcher's 
 meat in its moderate use by the healthy, and 
 especially by the working man. 
 
 I do not altogether follow Dr. Haig in 
 proscribing tea and coffee and all substances 
 containing xanthin (see Chap. XI.). One 
 consequence is that I consume daily much 
 less food than does Dr. Haig. He gives a 
 detailed account of his food, and it amounts 
 to more than three times what keeps me in 
 the best of health. 
 
 As I have been asked by readers of the 
 ' Plea ' to give my own diet, I take this oppor- 
 tunity of doing so. This will save me much 
 writing. I have always to explain that what I 
 do myself I do not urge on others. Here they 
 have three different ways of living, which may 
 help them to fix on what is best under their 
 own perhaps widely-differing circumstances.
 
 26 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 For breakfast I have a large cup of tea, 
 with milk or cream ; brown bread from two 
 to three ounces, and usually one and a half 
 ounce of fish, or half that quantity, and that 
 very rarely, of bacon. Sometimes for a few 
 days I take a cup of coffee with half milk, 
 but no fish nor bacon. Lunch is a cup of 
 cocoa or chocolate, if the weather be cold ; 
 if it is warm, a small tumbler of milk, about 
 six ounces, with, the same quantity of bread 
 as at breakfast. At both meals I use butter, 
 not a quarter of an ounce, and quite as much 
 jelly or marmalade. This is my usual lunch, 
 but occasionally instead of cocoa I have a 
 baked apple or some prunes with milk, or 
 strawberries and cream so long as I can get 
 them, or, very rarely, vegetable soup. When 
 I have no milk I take usually a morsel (not 
 half an ounce) of cheese. 
 
 At 4 P.M. a small cup of tea, and some- 
 times biscuit or cake. For dinner at 7, 
 which is my chief meal, I have soup, from 
 peas, lentils, potatoes, celery, carrot, etc.,
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 27 
 
 the first two made with no meat stock, 
 and the others with that from lamb or a 
 bone, or only with a little milk and butter; 
 or fish soup, the only pure animal soup I 
 indulge in. Of fish I take about three 
 ounces, with a potato and always another 
 vegetable fresh from the garden. If there 
 is no fish, I may take once or twice a 
 week an ounce or two, certainly not more, 
 of lamb, game, rabbit, or tripe ; but often 
 I have neither fish nor flesh. The dinner 
 ends with stewed fruit with cream, or 
 pudding or fruit tart of these I take a fair 
 helping. During the winter season, instead 
 of fruit or pudding, I often have celery with 
 cheese, oatcake and butter. 
 
 On this diet I enjoy the best of health, 
 and for my age (78) am up to a fair 
 amount of exercise, walking three to six 
 miles daily in good and sometimes in bad 
 weather, and usually part of this is up a 
 steep road with a rise of 250 feet. The 
 only confession I have to make is, that
 
 28 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 when at home I do not rise till I have had 
 breakfast and read the newspaper. This is 
 a habit I have recommended to many ap- 
 proaching my own age, and those who have 
 tried it admit that they are stronger for the 
 rest of the day. I enjoy breakfast just as 
 much as my other meals, though I never feel 
 what can be called hunger, and have not done 
 so for many years. I could omit a meal at any 
 time without discomfort. This I have long 
 looked on as the best proof of perfect digestion. 
 During very warm weather I take rather less 
 bread and butter, and I do not try to make 
 this up by taking more of anything else. 
 
 In Dr. Haig's book he gives full details 
 of his daily food, and it amounts to above 
 74 ounces, 42 being milk, with jam, sugar, 
 potatoes, and fruit in addition. Mine cer- 
 tainly does not rise to one-quarter of this ; 
 it comes much nearer to that given by 
 Cornaro, 1 the well-known Venetian who lived 
 
 1 How to Regain Health and Live a Hundred Years, by 
 One who did it. Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, London.
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 29 
 
 his hundred years, and whose food amounted 
 to 12 ounces a day, with 14 ounces of light 
 wine. With me tea takes the place of his 
 wine, and were I living in a hot climate I 
 should be much inclined to follow his example, 
 and thus escape taking any xanthin, which 
 Dr. Haig so strongly condemns. I tried 
 lately for about six weeks to take milk at 
 breakfast and lunch instead of tea and cocoa. 
 The only difference I noticed was that, al- 
 though there is much more nourishment in a 
 cup of milk than in the same quantity of tea, 
 I felt that I began sooner to think of lunch 
 and almost to feel a desire for it, and I missed 
 the feeling of satisfaction which a good cup 
 of tea certainly gives. In the afternoon I 
 took sometimes a cup of Paraguayan yerba, 
 which I had got to like in South America, 
 and which sets one up even more distinctly 
 than tea; so I fear that this too contains 
 xanthin. Without tea or cocoa I would, no 
 doubt, find myself taking more food, but I 
 am not sure that this would be more bene-
 
 30 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 ficial, and I am sure that to me at least it 
 would not be so enjoyable. I doubt if any 
 one enjoys his food more than I do. I 
 endeavour always to eat slowly, but I am 
 sometimes told that in this respect precept 
 and practice do not quite accord. 
 
 I have only given an outline of the two 
 other methods, and my readers will do well 
 to study both volumes for themselves. On 
 the diet indicated, I find that if I have to live 
 differently in travelling or visiting, I can 
 make considerable errors for a time with but 
 little harm. The last great error of this sort 
 was several years ago, when I spent six 
 weeks with hospitable friends in South 
 America. There I partook of at least three 
 times the amount of flesh food that I do at 
 home. I kept in excellent health, but to- 
 wards the end of my visit I felt that I had 
 gone far enough astray. Fortunately, prob- 
 ably from the heat of the weather causing a 
 determination to the surface, I suffered from 
 a great increase of eczema, which had stuck
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 31 
 
 to me for many years and has not yet quite 
 left me. This with lighter living for a month 
 near Rio, and some wholesome sea-sickness, 
 restored me to my ordinary condition, and 
 the effect of the trip was on the whole salu- 
 tary. Last spring I made a three weeks' 
 visit to the Riviera, going and returning by 
 sea. My previous experience made me 
 more careful ; I could manage my food 
 better as to quantity, but the quality was too 
 rich, and the consequence was that in six 
 weeks, with no sea-sickness, I lost four or 
 five pounds in weight. This I began to 
 make up at once on my simpler home fare, 
 but it was only after several months that 
 I recovered my normal weight. 
 
 Dr. Haig's personal experience seems to 
 indicate that, if substances containing uric 
 acid, or xanthin, are practically eliminated 
 from food, a much larger amount can be 
 taken than if even a very moderate quantity 
 of flesh, etc., is substituted. I am not 
 astonished, however (p. 540), that if he at-
 
 32 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 tempts to increase his fish and egg, he 'at 
 once begins to suffer for it in the way of 
 headache, dyspepsia, catarrh, asthma, or some 
 other trouble connected with uricacidsemia.' 
 I have had my full share of these troubles; 
 now they are but a memory of the past, and 
 it will, I believe, be my own fault if they do 
 not remain so in the future. 
 
 A friend of my own age, who for thirty 
 years has followed very much my mode of 
 life, lately came across a disciple of Cornaro, 
 a man several years older than himself, but 
 enjoying even better health and spirits. He 
 determined to adopt the very restricted diet 
 which seemed to suit an older man so admir- 
 ably. I quite encouraged him to do so. 
 After two or three months his wife got 
 alarmed that he was even thinner than 
 formerly, he being always on the spare side, 
 and he returned to his old diet. The ex- 
 periment, however, did him no harm at the 
 time, and he has certainly enjoyed better 
 health than he did before. Should he ever
 
 METHODS FOR PRESERVING HEALTH 33 
 
 care to repeat the experiment, it will be with 
 full acquiescence on my part. 
 
 I have gone more into detail in matters of 
 food than I wished ; but I am so often asked 
 to do so, and to give something more than a 
 few general rules, that I see there is need for 
 something more precise. Strict rules, how- 
 ever, can only be given with safety by one 
 who can examine and judge each case by 
 itself, and this is the duty of the medical 
 adviser. Hence my earnest wish to do 
 something to change the teaching and prac- 
 tice of medicine in this country. It is to the 
 medical man we must look for any real and 
 general advance in medical science. But he 
 must learn to think for himself, and not go 
 on the easy idea that all he has been taught 
 in the schools is true, and that if the patient 
 does not improve as he ought, the fault is 
 with the patient, not with the treatment. A 
 trusted doctor is the most prized of all one's 
 friends, and the exigencies of society are 
 such that it is not easy to guide oneself by
 
 34 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 the most perfect rules, even if these were to 
 be had. Under present circumstances it 
 takes as long a time, and as many failures, 
 to enable one safely to be his own doctor, 
 as to be his own lawyer. What a simpler 
 system may effect in both instances can 
 only be dimly seen as yet, but it is worth 
 working for. If a few of us, on very 
 different lines, have found each from his 
 own experience that we can get health 
 ourselves, and give it to our patients, by 
 methods very much the reverse of those 
 which we have been taught, and have for a 
 time followed, it may be hoped that others 
 will follow our example, or, what is better 
 still, may discover other methods more suc- 
 cessful and more generally applicable.
 
 Ill 
 
 ON STIMULANTS 
 
 SOME of my teetotal friends and I have 
 many have urged me to adopt their cause, 
 and to promote it. I have always assured 
 them that I firmly believe I can do, and 
 have done, more for the cause of temperance, 
 if I leave myself free to act as I think best 
 in each case as it arises. As to the evils 
 which attend the use of alcoholic stimulants 
 being enormously in excess of any benefits 
 that may arise from them, both in health and 
 disease, I can have no doubt whatever ; and 
 could I see any possible means of stopping 
 their use entirely, I would most gladly assist 
 in their adoption. There are a few cases, 
 however, in which I have found a temporary
 
 36 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 use of some form of alcoholic stimulant of 
 very decided advantage. From these I give 
 two or three. 
 
 When at - on a professional visit, I 
 was asked to see, a few miles off, the elder 
 sister of the lady I was visiting. I was told 
 she had been on her back for twenty years, 
 and was only able to have her bed made 
 every second night. She had suffered so 
 much pain that for many years she had taken 
 a large dose of opium every night. This 
 quieted her till next night, when, from a re- 
 newal of pain, she always wearied for her 
 dose. She took almost no food, but seemed 
 to live mainly on the opium. No attempt at 
 any change had been made for years. Her 
 illness had commenced very much as that 
 of her younger sister, who, it was feared, was 
 falling into the same helpless condition. I 
 had seen several such cases before, and had 
 declined others my medical friends had wished 
 me to take over, botfi they and I knowing the 
 difficulty of treating them with any success ;
 
 ON STIMULANTS 37 
 
 but I had noticed that sooner or later they 
 came right of themselves, if at all simply 
 managed, or rather if mostly let alone. 1 It 
 occurred to me that in this case, as the 
 patient was getting up in years, the cause of 
 her ill health might have passed off; and 
 that the pain or supposed pain, want of ap- 
 petite, etc., might now be owing to the con- 
 tinued regular use of the opium. I advised 
 that the opiate should be stopped at once, and 
 for a time in its stead half a tumbler of London 
 stout should be given at bedtime, and that a 
 little more food be given as she could take it. 
 The result was better than I or her friends ex- 
 pected ; and just six weeks later she was able 
 to come up to Edinburgh in very fair health. 
 I doubt if this could have been done 
 certainly not so easily without the stout. 
 
 1 These I believe are the best, if not the only, cases in 
 which the ' Weir-Mitchell ' treatment gives such splendid 
 results. I have known about half-a-dozen cases, and could 
 wish I had also known this method of treating them. But 
 I doubt if I would have continued the feeding so fully or so 
 long after the desire for food and its healthy digestion were 
 restored.
 
 38 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 I have met with a few cases of great 
 depression and irritative fever after a very 
 bad confinement in which a temporary 
 use of stout, or of a still pleasanter and 
 more potent liquor, Prestonpans old twelve- 
 guinea ale, has been of great and undoubted 
 service. 
 
 My brother, the late Dr. Thomas Keith, 
 was recovering slowly from a severe attack 
 of scarlet fever. He was a most temperate 
 man, and rarely took any liquor whatever. But 
 quite unexpectedly to himself he took a great 
 desire for sherry, a wine that he had never 
 cared for. He got it, and was astonished to 
 find it so good. Every drop of it he spoke 
 of as nectar ; he looked forward to enjoying 
 sherry all the rest of his life, and could not 
 understand how he had not discovered its 
 value sooner. He certainly did well upon it, 
 and made a more rapid recovery than he 
 otherwise might have done. But, after 
 taking two bottles in the course of a fort- 
 night, he was equally astonished to find that
 
 ON STIMULANTS 39 
 
 the pleasure from it was gone, and he never 
 cared for sherry since. This case and others 
 have led me to what I believe is the proper 
 use of wine and other stimulants. If one 
 who is not, and has never been, in the habit 
 of taking wine or alcohol feels a natural 
 desire or crave for it, I usually let him have 
 it, but I always tell him to stop at once when 
 he finds he no longer cares for it. It is 
 rarely wanted for above a few days, or at the 
 utmost for a week or two, when it may be 
 stopped without the slightest difficulty. Un- 
 fortunately this rule is not followed by most 
 medical men. Their patients, on the con- 
 trary, have pointed out to them the benefit 
 they have clearly got from the stimulant, and 
 they are told to continue it. If they do so 
 for anbther week or ten days after the desire 
 has gone off, the original enjoyment does 
 not return, but in its stead the stimulant has 
 already created a want asking to be supplied, 
 a bad habit is formed, and the result may be 
 most unfortunate.
 
 40 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 I have met with unfortunates, especially 
 ladies, who have strongly blamed the doctor 
 or the nurse for launching them on a course 
 of intemperance from which they could find 
 no escape. In the too rare case where an 
 acquired habit of intemperance has been 
 given up, I know of no circumstances in 
 which I would order any alcoholic stimulant ; 
 and some of the cases given in my 'Plea' 
 will show that even in extreme states of 
 debility we can get on very well without it. 
 For those who have once fallen victims to 
 intemperate habits there is no safety but in 
 absolute abstention. 
 
 From purely medical treatment I have 
 known very little benefit in cases of con- 
 firmed intemperance. Some of the numerous 
 vaunted cures may be of use, but I have no 
 experience of them. But in one case the 
 effect of a powerful and now old-fashioned 
 remedy was very gratifying. A young 
 married lady after her first confinement gave 
 way to intemperate habits. She blamed the
 
 ON STIMULANTS 41 
 
 nurse, but of this I was by no means certain. 
 She got worse and worse, though her 
 husband used all possible measures short of 
 absolute seclusion for her reformation. At 
 length she got so violent that, fearing it 
 might be necessary to lay her up, I asked 
 the husband if her friends, who lived in Eng- 
 land, knew anything of her condition. He 
 told me they did not. I advised him to take 
 her to them, and leave her with them for a 
 time. She remained for several months, and 
 when she came back she was perfectly cured. 
 The doctor of her family tried a remedy, with 
 which I was told he had succeeded before. 
 He put her to bed, gave her mercury to the 
 extent of causing severe salivation, and this 
 he kept up for six weeks. At the end of 
 this treatment her system seemed to have 
 undergone a great change, and for several 
 years, when the family left Edinburgh, she 
 remained perfectly well. 
 
 I have long been convinced that there is 
 a causal connection between a free use of
 
 42 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 flesh foods and an inclination for stimulants, 
 especially in the young. Roast beef is 
 perhaps the most sapid food that exists. 
 Desire gratified leads to a demand for some- 
 thing higher in the same line. This cannot 
 be had from food, but it may from drink. 
 This seems a very vague mode of argument, 
 but I have known cases for which I could 
 give no other or more rational explanation. 
 Many years ago my old friend Dr. Farquhar, 
 physician to the Governor-General of India, 
 asked me to take him to Morningside 
 Asylum, and introduce him to the physician, 
 Dr. Skae. There was, he told me, a proposal 
 to set aside part of the fort buildings of Agra 
 as an asylum for intemperate British soldiers, 
 with a view to their reformation, by keeping 
 them for a time from the use of all strong 
 drink. Dr. Farquhar wished first of all to 
 ascertain what might be expected from such 
 a course. Dr. Skae at once threw cold water 
 on the scheme. He said that in his ex- 
 perience forced abstinence was of no use, and
 
 ON STIMULANTS 43 
 
 a patient, after being with him for twelve 
 months, was very likely to go wrong on the 
 first day of his freedom. My friend was 
 much disappointed, and I do not know if the 
 experiment has ever been tried. But Dr. 
 Skae's patients were kept on full flesh diet. 
 Some time after this, a young friend of mine 
 who went so far wrong from drink that he 
 could not be kept at home, was sent to an 
 establishment in America which had a name 
 for reforming youths in his condition. The 
 manager, an enthusiast, had given evidence 
 in London when an inquiry was made by the 
 Government as to whether more power might 
 be given to medical men to lay up for a time 
 those who, through indulgence in drink, had 
 become a nuisance to the community. This 
 gentleman stated that in his establishment 
 cures were made of 30 per cent of those 
 who remained long enough and submitted to 
 his rules. This, Dr. Skae said, was simply 
 untrue ; it was so different from his own 
 experience. No explanation was given as to
 
 44 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 the methods of treatment. Shortly after this 
 my young friend entered this same establish- 
 ment. He was accompanied by a faithful 
 servant of his family, an old cook. The 
 cook remained for a time, and he by and by 
 wrote the mother of the youth, giving an 
 account of the establishment in his own way, 
 rather a graphic one. Part of the letter the 
 lady copied for me, and it was to the follow- 
 ing effect. He was pleased with everything 
 except the cooking, and he asked the negro 
 cook why he always spoiled the good meat. 
 The answer was, ' Meat not good for the 
 thirst ; if meat not good, must eat what is 
 better for them. 'Cos why ? must eat some- 
 thing, you know.' Besides the beef and 
 mutton which were always spoiled, there was 
 abundance of lighter food well cooked, and at 
 all meals there was a large supply of apples 
 in all forms. This explained to me the 
 success of the doctor, though but for the 
 accident of the cook being there I would not 
 have heard how it was brought about. My
 
 ON STIMULANTS 45 
 
 young friend, who had got to live very much 
 on roast beef, would not have gone near the 
 place had he known he should get none of 
 his favourite victuals ; and he would no doubt 
 take the badly-cooked meat till he discovered 
 that there was something better. As a large 
 board was charged, and meat is cheap in 
 America, it was no doubt found more profit- 
 able to spoil the meat every .day than to 
 frighten away new-comers by a premature 
 disclosure. I read the letter to Dr. Skae, 
 and he was obliged to own that there might 
 be something in it. 
 
 Some years later I happened to come 
 across the report of another establishment in 
 America for the same purpose. In this 
 report the doctor states that during twenty- 
 five years he has cured 98 per cent of those 
 who submitted to the rules. The main treat- 
 ment was abstention from all flesh food 
 whatever. He says that there is something 
 in this that, if it is indulged in, renders the 
 cure of intemperance impossible. If ab-
 
 46 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 stained from, the crave for drink by and by 
 passes away and does not return. Another 
 rule he mentions which recommends itself 
 specially to me ; it is, that if any one falls 
 sick while under his care, he must get well 
 the best way he can without any medicine 
 whatever. In the numerous cases of intem- 
 perance I have had to treat, I have acted as 
 far as possible on the principles stated, and 
 have had at least a fair share of success, but 
 under present circumstances it is very difficult 
 to carry out thoroughly any such plan ; and 
 this has shown me very strongly the necessity 
 for preventive treatment as the real method 
 of getting rid of a horrid evil. Here also 
 ' strong meat ' is only for those ' of full age,' 
 and under some circumstances not even for 
 them.
 
 IV 
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 
 
 WHAT is now called massage has come much 
 into use in recent years for numerous ail- 
 ments. Under the old name of rubbing I 
 have long been familiar with its great and 
 varied usefulness. One of my oldest recol- 
 lections is of a boy who was going about on 
 crutches. The doctors could do nothing for 
 him, but an ' old wife ' undertook to cure 
 him, and did so merely by rubbing. He 
 soon discarded the crutches, and is now one 
 of the oldest of the Scottish clergy. There 
 have been rubbers in Edinburgh almost as 
 long as I have been there, and I have known 
 good work done by them. Massage has now 
 been taken up by the profession ; like other
 
 48 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 good things it may be abused, and it has 
 been. I have long known its use in rheu- 
 matism, both for relief of pain and still more 
 for preventing or relieving stiffness of joints 
 and muscles. I have frequently known its 
 good effects to be lost, from its being done at 
 first too strongly and for too long a time. It 
 exhausts, and is discontinued. This arises 
 very much from the usual mode of remunera- 
 tion of the masseur being at so much an 
 hour ; and canny Scotch people like to get 
 the good of their money. Many also find 
 that though it gives relief for a time it requires 
 repetition, and this and the cost disheartens 
 them. Quite one-half of my friends who have 
 tried it have given it up for these reasons. 
 Some rub on no plan, even of those who have 
 been trained, and when they cause pain at 
 any point they avoid it, whereas in proper 
 cases the pained or tender parts are exactly 
 those which should be acted on though 
 gently at first, and at short intervals till the 
 pain is removed.
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 49 
 
 Having been rheumatic from my youth, 
 and of a strong inherited gouty diathesis, I 
 have had abundant experience of both rheu- 
 matism and gout in the chronic form ; and 
 after all, one's own body is the best corpus 
 vile to experiment on. I have thus become 
 aware of the advantages of rubbing oneself, 
 which I have had occasion to do for a large 
 portion of my life, but more in recent years ; 
 and I have no doubt whatever that but for 
 this useful habit, I would long ere now have 
 been as distorted, stiff, and helpless as were 
 some of my forbears. I have had to do it 
 many times a. day if I have remained long in 
 one position ; or have over-exerted some 
 muscle, which frequently brings on pain ; but 
 this is easily removed if the rubbing is had 
 recourse to at once. Chiefly, however, the 
 rubbing is done at night, and before getting 
 up, when ten minutes' work lets me rise 
 supple and fresh, instead of stiff and languid. 
 There is a knack in it, and many cannot do 
 it with any satisfaction to others ; but with a 
 4
 
 50 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 little perseverance I believe that most can do 
 it for themselves, and with this advantage 
 that each one knows best for himself what are 
 the aching parts, and he can take his own 
 time. 
 
 It is amazing how many pains may be 
 relieved in this way other than in the muscles 
 and tendons, as in the head, the intercostal 
 spaces, and the surfaces of the joints, especi- 
 ally the knee-joint. The pains over bones 
 seem to arise from congestion of the peri- 
 osteum. On touching the part tenderness 
 is felt at once, which comes to pain after a 
 slight rubbing, but by continuing this, then 
 stopping for a few minutes, and again re- 
 peating the process, the pain and tenderness 
 pass off, and in some cases do not return. I 
 have known a pain in the knee on attempting 
 to move it, of months' standing and so bad 
 as to stop walking almost entirely, removed 
 permanently by one rubbing, followed by an 
 occasional rub by the patient himself. I 
 have also known very long-standing pain,
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 51 
 
 seemingly of a rheumatic character, removed 
 at once by passing through the part a large 
 volume of galvanism, such as is used by Drs. 
 Apostoli and Keith in cases of fibroid uterine 
 tumours. Here probably there is a molecu- 
 lar massage of the muscle or part affected, 
 and I have had personal experience that it is 
 very effective. 
 
 But my chief reason for mentioning mas- 
 sage here is, that I may take this oppor- 
 tunity of giving somewhat in detail a use of 
 it which so far as I know is new ; at least, in 
 four years I have come across no one who 
 had heard of it. 
 
 During the whole period of my profes- 
 sional life, being of a very nervous tempera- 
 ment, and having peculiar views as to the 
 mode of treating my patients, mostly antago- 
 nistic to those held by others, I often had 
 times of great anxiety. Sometimes, besides 
 pure mental trouble, I was conscious of a 
 dull physical sensation in the region of the 
 heart, rarely amounting to pain, but in a few
 
 52 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 instances, when very much exhausted as well 
 as anxious, with acute pain. On one occa- 
 sion this got so severe as to feel intolerable, 
 and had I not gone home and at once taken 
 a full dose of chloroform I felt that I should 
 have died. After giving up practice I had 
 little or none of this feeling for many years ; 
 but some four years ago I got as a trustee 
 into a very troublesome lawsuit which 
 worried me very much. The old well- 
 known feeling returned, though never to the 
 extent of causing pain. Naturally, somehow, 
 I often found myself rubbing the upper part 
 of the chest, especially over the heart, and 
 there must have been some relief in this, as 
 I often had recourse to it. One night, for 
 it was then I was most frequently affected 
 in this way, I found a distinct tenderness in 
 the space between the first and second ribs 
 of the left side, apparently in the intercostal 
 muscle ; and, as I had done in different 
 parts of the body before whenever I felt 
 such tenderness, I began to rub it. After
 
 ON SELF-MA SSA GE 53 
 
 getting rather sore for a short time, the 
 tenderness went off, and to my astonishment 
 and delight the peculiar feeling of oppression 
 went with it. At the same time I felt in- 
 clined to take several full breaths. I have 
 often had the same experience since, and 
 have invariably got relief in the same way. 
 The relief is very great ; it somehow enables 
 one to take a more satisfactory view of what 
 is causing the trouble, and, what is even of 
 more consequence, it makes it possible to 
 forget it, and to go quietly to sleep, which 
 before was impossible. After a sleep there 
 may be a return of the feeling, but a very 
 little rubbing now at once removes it. 
 
 Before making this discovery I had been 
 very sure that the worst attacks I had long 
 ago were of the nature of angina, the essence 
 of which seems to be intense anxiety accom- 
 panied or not with pain. Of the few old 
 friends who when sick would still see no 
 one but myself, there were two who had 
 occasional attacks of that most serious
 
 54 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 trouble, and I took the first opportunity of 
 trying if they could be relieved in the same 
 way, and the result in both cases gratified 
 me very much. One was a retired medical 
 friend who had already, on two or three 
 occasions, alarmed his friends by falling 
 down by the roadside when on a walking 
 tour. He also had some attacks very like 
 angina, coming on in bed, and always the 
 precursor of a bilious attack which, after a 
 few days' sickness and vomiting, left him all 
 right again. One morning I was sent for, 
 and I found him at 6 A.M. suffering from 
 severe angina which had lasted for some 
 hours. There was little or no pain, but 
 intense anxiety and oppression in breathing. 
 On being pressed pretty firmly with the point 
 of the finger between the first and second 
 ribs on the left side, he at once complained of 
 pain. I commenced rubbing, at first very 
 gently, and then somewhat more strongly. 
 At once he felt relieved, and took full deep 
 breaths which were before impossible, and in
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 55 
 
 a very few minutes the fit was over and did 
 not return. He had his bilious attack, how- 
 ever. Several months after I was sent for 
 again. I arrived at his house at midnight, 
 and found that he had got so much worse 
 that my friend Dr. Wyllie had been called 
 in. He had given a dose of nitro-glycerine, 
 which had relieved him considerably, so I 
 went to bed after a talk with Dr. Wyllie on 
 my new method. In half an hour I was 
 sent for ; the symptoms had returned. I 
 found the old tenderness, and relieved it and 
 the other symptoms just as formerly, and I 
 had no further call during the night. The 
 bilious turn, however, came on, and was a 
 bad one. After this he was most careful in 
 his mode of life and in avoiding climbing 
 any height, and he got to enjoy really good 
 health for several months, with no heart 
 trouble whatever ; but one day he was 
 walking up a steepish street to attend a 
 meeting, and had perhaps hurried a little. 
 He fell down on the street, was at once
 
 56 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 carried into a shop, and then into a cab, 
 but before it reached the infirmary, which 
 was close by, he was dead. On the former 
 occasions of his falling down he was allowed 
 to remain till he was better. So far as I 
 know his heart was a sound one for his age, 
 which was much about my own. 
 
 My other patient is a lady, about the same 
 age, who has suffered from heart disease for 
 at least forty years. I was about that time 
 cautioned by her uncle, a medical man, not to 
 give her chloroform at her first confinement, 
 she had so bad a heart. It looked as if there 
 must be some aneurismal swelling in the 
 immediate vicinity of the heart, the throbbing 
 was so great to the sight as well as to the 
 touch. She never would permit a proper 
 examination to me or to any one, so I do not 
 know what may be the real condition of the 
 organ. But all along she has been one of the 
 most careful livers I ever knew, mostly a 
 vegetarian, and a very small eater of any- 
 thing. For many years she could not go up-
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 57 
 
 hill, and for the last three or four years she 
 has had attacks of real angina. One day, 
 nearly three years ago, I found her ill. She 
 at once complained of the tenderness between 
 the first and second ribs as in the former case, 
 and was as speedily relieved. I had pre- 
 viously given her nitro-glycerine and amyl, 
 but they had little effect. A year later she 
 told me she had no relief from them, but 
 always from the rubbing, which she did for 
 herself. Two summers ago I found her at 
 the seaside some distance from her house 
 and looking better than I had seen her for 
 years. 
 
 About four years ago I had a meeting in 
 London with a friend who was equally con- 
 cerned in a troublesome lawsuit with myself. 
 Our business was a particularly anxious one. 
 Something in his look made me think that 
 my friend was suffering in the way I have 
 described. I asked him to let me give his 
 
 O 
 
 chest a rub, to which he agreed. There was 
 no tenderness, or it was very slight, and he
 
 58 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 thought only from the friction. At the 
 moment he did not speak of any change, but 
 within two minutes he got up, stretched him- 
 self quite erect, took a full breath or two, and 
 said that somehow he felt ever so much better. 
 About a year afterwards he was found dead 
 in bed, and the cause was ascertained to be 
 a fatty heart. 
 
 We have here three instances of relief 
 from a most simple procedure, and in each the 
 condition of the heart was very different from 
 that of the others. It would seem that the 
 structural condition of the heart has little to 
 do with this peculiar form of physical oppres- 
 sion. The most common cause, so far as I 
 can judge, is a purely nervous one, brought 
 on by a strong mental impression, and giving 
 rise to some local congestion. It must act 
 through some of the nerves which supply the 
 heart, and probably through the pneumo- 
 gastric, which also goes to the stomach. 
 This is rendered more probable by the fact 
 that in some cases of worry the oppression is
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 59 
 
 felt over the stomach just below the end of 
 the sternum. When this is so, tenderness 
 is felt in that locality, affecting apparently the 
 superficial muscles, and the relief by rubbing 
 is very much the same as is got by rubbing 
 between the first and second ribs. This I 
 have often observed in myself and others. 
 In a very few instances I have found that the 
 tenderness was greatest between the second 
 and third ribs, and sometimes it extended 
 slightly to the opposite side. 
 
 In other cases of nervous shock or of 
 great anxiety and distress we have undoubted 
 local congestions, which are relieved by secre- 
 tion of different fluids. Thus a sudden terror 
 is often followed by a cold sweat ; great 
 doubt as to anything much feared, or even 
 hoped for, may bring on a copious flow from 
 the kidneys, or more rarely from the bowels. 
 Students going up for examination are well 
 acquainted with this. Deep sorrow relieves 
 itself by a flood of tears and it is always 
 well when this relief comes. In all these
 
 60 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 cases there must be some congestion, that is, 
 an additional flow of blood to the part from 
 which the secretion comes. As there is no 
 secreting organ in the region of the heart 
 except serous surfaces which do not seem to 
 be affected in this sudden way the mechan- 
 ism of relief from oppression in that quarter 
 must be different. In some states of sorrow 
 relief is got by a succession of sobs that is, 
 of strong spasmodic breathing after periods 
 of very imperfect respiration ; these tend to 
 quicken the circulation through the heart and 
 lungs, and relieve congestion in this way. 
 If the imperfect respiration is long continued, 
 and if this leads to congestion and tenderness 
 of the intercostal muscle, the g&ne to the 
 respiration will be still more increased till it 
 may bring on a fit of real angina. In this 
 condition, or in the slighter forms of the same, 
 smart friction to the affected intercostal 
 muscle may at once remove its congested 
 state and tenderness, and thus allow, or per- 
 haps excite, a freer respiration, and this in
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 61 
 
 its turn may quicken the circulation through 
 the heart and lungs and remove the feeling 
 of oppression and anxiety. Whatever be the 
 modus operandi the salutary effect is un- 
 doubted, and the relief is immediate and 
 great. 
 
 The connection of the heart with the 
 stomach, most probably through the pneumo- 
 gastric nerve, has been long familiar to me, 
 and here the value of simple living comes 
 in very strongly. Every one knows that a 
 full stomach, whether from food or from 
 flatulence, often brings on derangement of 
 the heart's action, it may be to a very serious 
 or even fatal degree. But the quality of the 
 food is of equal importance with the quantity. 
 Savoury food, such as roasted beef above 
 all, attracts blood to the stomach at once, as 
 well as to the tongue and gullet. This I 
 have frequently known to affect the heart 
 in a very remarkable degree. A good many 
 years ago I was asked to look after a well- 
 known Edinburgh literary man. He was
 
 62 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 a very powerful man alike in mind and body, 
 and had enjoyed excellent health. He was 
 past middle life. He was blessed with an 
 excellent stomach, and had taken full ad- 
 vantage of it ; but for some years he had felt 
 something wrong in the region of the heart. 
 By the time I saw him this had come to 
 very frequent attacks of angina, from which 
 his only relief was by inhaling amyl ; but he 
 was now getting quite unfit for his literary 
 work, he had to give up all his outdoor pur- 
 suits, and latterly he could scarcely walk across 
 the floor without a threatening of an attack. 
 He had not been dieted in any way, but 
 naturally his appetite was not what it had 
 been. I stopped all stimulants at once, and 
 still more emphatically all beef and mutton, 
 and recommended great moderation in simpler 
 food. He very soon began to improve, was 
 able to resume his literary work, and even 
 in a moderate degree shooting and fishing, 
 of which he had been very fond. His attacks 
 of angina became very few, and I daresay
 
 ON SELF-MASSAGE 63 
 
 they never came on without a cause. On 
 three occasions only during a period of four 
 years he partook of beef at dinner, and on 
 all three he had one of his worst attacks. 
 I was beginning to hope that the angina was 
 of an entirely functional character, and that 
 with great care his life might be a prolonged 
 one. He was preparing to go to his place 
 in the country, and had on the previous day 
 done more than his usual amount of literary 
 work, which he accomplished with ease ; but 
 in the morning he was seized with a severe 
 attack of his ailment. This continued, and 
 was followed by pneumonia and inflamma- 
 tion of the heart, and after a hard struggle 
 he died. On examination the heart was in 
 one part found to be riddled with small 
 deposits of pus, and one of the coronary 
 arteries was found so contracted that a 
 minute bristle could not be passed into it. 
 The other organs, except the liver, which 
 was somewhat enlarged, were splendidly 
 healthy ; the brain was about the largest we
 
 64 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 had ever seen ; and had our much-honoured 
 friend lived a simpler life all his days he 
 might well have attained to his hundred 
 years. As it was, considering the condition 
 of the coronary artery, which is the most 
 fatal cause of angina, the comparatively good 
 health he enjoyed for four years was remark- 
 able, and it was no doubt due entirely to his 
 changed mode of life. 
 
 NOTE. Massage is coming rapidly into use, and is, 
 after long resistance, acknowledged as an admirable remedy 
 by many of the profession. For myself, I have for the last 
 twenty-five or thirty years given more relief by its means 
 than by all the drugs of the pharmacopoeia. Locally it 
 removes most pains. Ubi dolor ibi fluxus where there is 
 pain there is congestion. Massage relieves the pain by 
 sending the blood on its course. On the general system 
 it acts as a fever does, by clearing off rapidly the debris of 
 the muscles, etc., and thus removing from the body any 
 excess of matters which may be disturbing its functions. 
 If this is followed by simpler dieting in the future, a large 
 portion of the ills of life may be avoided. So far as my 
 own experience goes, the excess of food given to those 
 treated on the Weir-Mitchell system does much more harm 
 than good ; but this shows what massage can do even when 
 so strongly handicapped. 3rd Edition.
 
 HOT WATER 
 
 THE drinking of hot water as a remedy has 
 come much into vogue in recent years. I 
 take this opportunity of telling how it has 
 come into general use. It was recommended 
 to me for headache by Dr. Merei of Pesth, 
 afterwards of Manchester. I was then living 
 too fully, and I could not take it ; it brought 
 on fulness about the head. When later, 
 after having given up the use of butcher's 
 meat, I took to it again and found its great 
 value, Dr. Merei was dead, and I never 
 knew what were his ideas about it ; he died 
 in 1857. It often enabled me to go on 
 working longer, and it sometimes kept off 
 a chill or a threatened headache. This it 
 5
 
 66 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 did, no doubt, partly by diluting acrid matters 
 in the stomach, and partly by its stimulating 
 effects enabling the organs to get rid of 
 these, and to send the blood to the surface. 
 This was the introduction of hot water as a 
 remedy into Scotland. Gradually it came 
 to be used by my patients, and by a few 
 medical men ; and by and by it spread into 
 England also. A few years ago the Edin- 
 burgh Medical Journal spoke of me as the 
 'Apostle of Hot Water.' The writer 
 thought he had got me into a difficulty 
 about the ' Salisbury Treatment,' of which 
 we have heard so much lately, where hot 
 water, combined with beef in huge quantity, 
 is said to work wonders. He well knew my 
 antipathy to the latter, and he did not see 
 how I could explain the good results. Some 
 ten years ago there was a great run on hot 
 water in London. I have not heard so much 
 of it there lately, and I suspect that like most 
 good things it also was abused, and may 
 have fallen somewhat into discredit. During
 
 HOT WATER 67 
 
 all the time I have used it I have only come 
 on two individuals who had discovered its 
 value for themselves. 
 
 Hot water may be used properly as a 
 diluent, as a stimulant, or as a food ; and 
 all these actions may be usefully combined 
 in the same case. 
 
 As a diluent its action is so manifest that 
 little need be said. Cold or tepid water has 
 much the same effect. Its only perfectly 
 safe competitor that I know is liquorice, of 
 which I speak elsewhere. 
 
 Hot water acts as a stimulant by supply- 
 ing ready - made heat or force, when the 
 organs are not able to form the same by 
 the ordinary digestion of carbonaceous food. 
 Hot water thus aids, or rather supplements, 
 the chemical actions of the system. Alcohol, 
 on the contrary, checks these actions, and its 
 effect therefore is to lower the activity of the 
 system that is, to reduce the strength for 
 the time ; or at the best it may give, through 
 some obscure nervous action, a short-lived
 
 68 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 fillip; but this is speedily followed by re- 
 action and by an increase of weakness. I 
 have given in the ' Plea ' cases to show that 
 this stimulating action of hot water is suffi- 
 cient to bring the body out of the very 
 lowest condition as to strength, and that in 
 cases where alcohol had entirely failed to do 
 so. I could give numerous instances of the 
 same kind. 
 
 A medical friend who was liable to very 
 severe headaches, which prostrated him for 
 days, was spending some time in London. 
 On the evening before he left he entertained 
 some friends to dinner, and, being very 
 hospitable, he showed them a good example, 
 and took a hearty meal. Next morning he 
 awoke early, and was much annoyed to find 
 one of his headaches coming on, as it was 
 most inconvenient for him to delay his return. 
 He bethought him of the hot water, which he 
 had often heard of from me but had been in- 
 clined to laugh at. He rang his bell and asked 
 ' Boots ' to bring him a large jug of very
 
 HOT WATER 69 
 
 hot water. This he drank right off and lay 
 down. He fell asleep, and in a few hours 
 awoke quite free from headache and ready 
 for his journey. I read a similar story told 
 in an amusing manner in an American 
 periodical, where the effect of a huge drink 
 of hot water was equally successful. 
 
 Before America was opened up from west 
 to east, as it is now by railways, two English 
 gentlemen took the journey across a great 
 portion of the continent on foot ; their only 
 provision was hard biscuits and a spirit-lamp 
 to boil water. The hot water they used at 
 first to soak the biscuits in, but they soon 
 began to drink it, and were astonished and 
 pleased to find that it acted as a powerful 
 stimulant and producer of strength. Till 
 they thus accidentally made the discovery 
 they had no knowledge of the strengthening 
 virtues of hot water, and they acknowledged 
 the benefits they derived from it in their long 
 and perilous wandering. Hot water acts as 
 a food under precisely the same circumstances.
 
 70 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 Carbonaceous food, if only enough and no 
 more be taken for daily need, goes to burn in 
 the system, and to form bile. 1 If more is 
 taken, and if the digestive organs are healthy, 
 the surplus is stored up as fat, to be used 
 subsequently as circumstances may require. 
 If no carbonaceous food can be usefully taken, 
 the heat in the water takes its place, and may 
 alone supply the wants of the system, or may 
 supplement the fat laid past, which also now 
 comes into use ; and it is in this way that hot 
 water acts as a true food. It would take a 
 considerable amount of carbon fuel, say in 
 bread and butter, to produce the quantity of 
 heat in a tumbler of hot water. 
 
 Hot water is abused if advantage is taken 
 of its stimulating action to force more food 
 through the organs than is wanted. It gives 
 great relief for the time in this way, and it 
 
 1 I am not speaking here quite scientifically, but suffi- 
 ciently so for the purpose. A larger or smaller quantity of 
 carbon in the food passes undigested. Hence in many 
 climates the dung of animals, such as the camel, is often 
 the principal article of fuel
 
 HOT WATER 71 
 
 may be gone on with for a long period. But 
 the ultimate effect on the overtaxed organs 
 can be nothing but hurtful. It is in this way, 
 I fear, that most use it. Under some cir- 
 cumstances this may be allowable and even 
 salutary for a time, when an error has been 
 already made, and if care be taken that the 
 error is not repeated. Drinking hot water 
 may also, in a small degree, take the place of 
 exercise, by increasing the action of the heart 
 and lungs, and thus of the nervous system. 
 
 The first time I knew of hot water being 
 taken as a remedy was in dining in 1834 in 
 London with the widow of Admiral Lord 
 Keith. She took no wine, but half an hour 
 after dinner she sipped a large wine-glass of 
 quite hot water, and she ascribed much of 
 her good health to this practice. She said 
 she had used it regularly for thirty years by 
 the advice of her doctor, whose name I 
 forget. She was Dr. Johnson's favourite 
 pupil, his 'Queenie,' daughter of Mrs. 
 Thrale.
 
 72 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 Since this volume went to press, I noticed 
 in the British Medical Journal, 6th March 
 1897, a short article on 'John Hunter as a 
 Physician,' from which I extract the follow- 
 ing (the article refers to Dr. Newton 
 Pitt's oration before the Hunterian Society 
 in 1895): 'Dr. Hunter was the subject of 
 vertigo, and suffered from noises in his ears 
 and insomnia. Nothing gave him relief till 
 he took a tumblerful of hot water every night 
 just before going to bed. This gave him a 
 good night's rest. So impressed was he 
 with the value of this simple therapeutic 
 measure that he frequently prescribed it for 
 patients with irritable stomachs, and with the 
 greatest success. I have often found a 
 glass of hot water useful for insomnia, but 
 in two cases it had to be given up as it 
 brought on irritability of the bladder an- 
 other cause of insomnia, particularly in elderly 
 people. A glass of milk, which also sometimes 
 relieves insomnia, may cause the same irrita- 
 tion, and with children frequently does so.
 
 HOT WATER 73 
 
 The ' Salisbury ' treatment of most 
 chronic complaints by hot water and beef 
 has had a considerable run in recent years, 
 and the immediate effect of this strange 
 combination has in many cases been highly 
 satisfactory. Here the relief to the stomach, 
 liver, and other organs of digestion is enor- 
 mous, inasmuch as ready-made caloric takes 
 the place of the more crude fuel from which 
 heat is usually manufactured. If carbon- 
 aceous food had been used in too great 
 quantity and it is in a great measure in 
 many cases the cause of illness the relief 
 of symptoms may be very great. But 
 what about the ultimate effect on the great 
 eliminating organs of nitrogenous foods, the 
 kidneys, when such a large addition to their 
 work is thrown upon them by the enormous 
 quantity of flesh taken, which must be dis- 
 posed of somehow? For a time, no doubt, 
 the stimulus of the hot water will enable the 
 kidneys to do more work with ease and 
 comfort to the patient, and with no signs
 
 74 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 of mischief, such as soon show themselves 
 when the excess is in carbonaceous food. 
 I believe that an equally satisfactory cure 
 could be got in the same cases, by stopping 
 for a time most or all carbonaceous food, 
 which may be replaced by hot water ; 
 giving a moderate amount of nitrogenous 
 food, but not necessarily beef; and resuming 
 a more natural and rational mode of living 
 as soon as the overloaded organs have 
 recovered their functions. I think I have 
 seen quite as brilliant and almost as rapid 
 results from this mode of treatment, and 
 common sense might tell us that they will 
 be much more permanent. I am by no 
 means sure that the plan of Dr. Dewey, 
 of abstinence from all food for the necessary 
 time, may not be a still better method. It 
 has the virtue of simplicity, and he has 
 shown it to be safe. 
 
 I had a couple of years ago the pleasure 
 
 of lunching with Mrs. , the apostle of 
 
 the Salisbury treatment in this country. She
 
 HOT WATER 75 
 
 lunched on a large quantity of beef pure and 
 simple, more, certainly, than I ever before 
 saw taken at one meal by man or woman. 
 My lunch was a modest supply of straw- 
 berries and cream, a very common mid-day 
 meal when I can get it. After lunch we had 
 a long talk, when I pointed out to her that I 
 had taken practically no beef for forty years, 
 and now enjoy better health than when I 
 gave it up ; while after some five or six 
 years of a very full beef diet, she did not 
 seem to me to be in better health than 
 before. She had during these years some 
 very serious illnesses which, I believe, had 
 enabled her to continue her system. In her 
 last book she has modified her treatment, 
 and she only recommends one pound of beef 
 to be taken daily, instead of as much as 
 could be taken, or could be got by her 
 poorer patients. She also recommends some 
 carbonaceous food, as biscuit. I cannot help 
 thinking that had she taken my advice when 
 a mutual friend asked me to see her pro-
 
 76 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 fessionally years ago in London, when she 
 was a great sufferer from rheumatic and 
 other ailments, and had she then reduced 
 her diet generally till she could digest it 
 properly, the good effect might not have 
 been so brilliant as it was when she adopted 
 the hot water and beef treatment, but it 
 might have been more permanent. But my 
 mind is always open to conviction, and I 
 have been watching with much interest this 
 curious episode in the history of medicine.
 
 VI 
 
 LIQUORICE 
 
 LIQUORICE as a remedy has hitherto been 
 very little known, if at all. But it has some 
 most useful properties. For relieving the 
 symptoms caused by acrid matters in the 
 stomach, I know nothing to equal it, and 
 I have used it for this purpose for at least 
 forty years. It does not, like alkalies, con- 
 vert acids into more or less inert salts, but 
 it seems to remove their irritating effects 
 in some other way, and the result in relieving 
 the irritation of the nerves of the stomach 
 is much the same. Many object to the use 
 of alkalies, especially of soda if used fre- 
 quently and in large quantities, as it often 
 is, as injuring the coats of the stomach, and
 
 78 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 thus doing permanent mischief. No doubt 
 this action may be from the use of the soda 
 prolonging the period during which relief 
 from the acid can be readily got, and the 
 mucous surface may be injured by the con- 
 stant recurrence of the acidity rather than 
 from the soda. But this evil does not attend 
 the use of liquorice. It in some way of its 
 own for it is neither from mere dilution 
 nor from neutralising the acid removes the 
 irritable quality of the acid or acrid mass, 
 and adds nothing deleterious to the contents 
 of the stomach. It certainly relieves, often 
 in a very remarkable way, the innumerable 
 pains and discomforts, mental and bodily, 
 which arise from irritation of the gastric 
 nerves, as local pain of stomach or bowels, 
 headache, sleeplessness, lowness of spirits, 
 or irritability and general misery. 
 
 I have known relief from liquorice in a 
 very large number of cases both of dyspepsia 
 and sleeplessness. I may mention two of 
 these.
 
 LIQUORICE 79 
 
 A lady from Forfarshire consulted me for 
 severe dyspepsia. She got rid of all her dis- 
 comforts except pains in the small intestine, 
 which came on about three hours after taking 
 food. This proved very difficult to remove, 
 till it occurred to me to recommend liquorice 
 in large quantity before food. This at once 
 relieved the pain, and permanently. Either 
 it soothed an irritable bit of the bowel, or it 
 prevented some change in its contents, which 
 may have come on in the course of digestion 
 at a distance from the stomach. 
 
 I met one day in the street a friend who 
 afterwards developed general paralysis. He 
 was a strong healthy man who lived well, 
 and did a large amount of head-work. He 
 slept badly, and had found that for a time 
 a good tumbler of whisky and water enabled 
 him to sleep better. This, however, had lost 
 its effect. He was induced to take a less 
 full diet for a time, and he got to sleep at 
 least as well without the whisky. But on 
 the day I met him he told me he was again
 
 8o FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 sleeping badly, and I advised him to take a 
 piece of liquorice on going to bed. The 
 next time I saw him he said the liquorice 
 had been a great success, and he was using 
 it, and was sleeping much better. 
 
 Liquorice may, of course, be abused if 
 taken to enable one to consume with less 
 immediate discomfort too much or improper 
 food, but of itself it seems to have no evil 
 qualities whatever. It has antiseptic proper- 
 ties, and is used to preserve such articles as 
 fluid extracts of coffee, but the taste it gives 
 to these is not agreeable. To most it is 
 pleasant to take, and I have sometimes given 
 it in considerable quantity. In quality it 
 varies greatly. Solazzi brand is perhaps 
 the best, but good Pontefract cakes are a 
 very handy form, and there are some excel- 
 lent concentrated forms in small pellets, 
 which are to be had from a good druggist. 
 
 Many years ago when visiting a lady in 
 East Lothian, I mentioned to the doctor 
 that his patient might be benefited by
 
 LIQUORICE 81 
 
 liquorice. He told me he had found it very 
 useful in a way I had not known. Many 
 farm servants, who smoked strong tobacco, 
 could not look at breakfast till they had a 
 smoke ; this was always relieved by taking a 
 bit of liquorice on getting up. He had got 
 great credit from their wives for this pre- 
 scription, so I concluded that the men's 
 temper had also suffered. This is the only 
 doctor I have met who knew the value of 
 liquorice, but I have heard of its being used, 
 and much prized, by old people a generation 
 or two back. 
 
 NOTE. I have heard recently of many who have got 
 much benefit from liquorice. Messrs. Hillaby, large 
 makers of Pontefract cakes, etc., wrote me that their work- 
 women, when pregnant, took it in large quantity, as it kept 
 off sickness. I have long used it in the same cases. I 
 recommended Messrs. Hillaby to try a combination of 
 liquorice with peppermint, which is so useful for flatulence, 
 and as an antiseptic ; it is usually taken in lozenges with 
 sugar, which is apt to turn sour in a bad stomach. They 
 found them to combine perfectly, and many prefer the new 
 lozenge to the old one. To some liquorice and peppermint 
 are disagreeable, but the taste of both is in a great measure 
 covered in the combination, and the risk of acidity is done 
 away with. 3rd Edition.
 
 VII 
 
 ON CANCER 
 
 SEVERAL years ago I read in the British 
 Medical Journal a debate on Cancer in one 
 of the London Medical Societies. Two or 
 three of the surgeons who took part in the 
 debate spoke of starvation as the only 
 remedy for the disease. This interested 
 me much, as I had not noticed similar views 
 in any medical literature with which I was 
 acquainted. I had long known, however, 
 that high living, that is, the use of wine and 
 other stimulants, and of strong animal food, 
 aggravated in an extraordinary manner all 
 the symptoms arising from this terrible 
 disease ; while abstinence from these, and 
 the use of a light and sparing diet, if it
 
 ON CANCER 83 
 
 could not cure, certainly relieved in a high 
 degree the pain and irritability of the patient ; 
 rendered the course of the local disease 
 slower and prolonged life, while it made it 
 much more tolerable till the very end. I 
 know of no class of cases where the benefit 
 that follows a change of living is so marked, 
 and I am not sure that I know of any in 
 which the change is so difficult to make, 
 whether the sufferer be rich or poor. In 
 the one case the relatives, from the kindest 
 of motives, take every care that the doomed 
 one shall want nothing that money can supply, 
 and in the other, kind friends and neighbours 
 have a similar care for the poorer sufferer ; 
 while most surgeons, thinking of the exhaust- 
 ing nature of the malady, recommend all 
 sorts of what are usually considered the 
 richest and most setting - up meats and 
 drinks ; and trust to opiates and other drugs 
 to relieve the pain and suffering. My own 
 experience has led me to adopt a very 
 different treatment to that which is certainly
 
 84 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 still followed as a rule, both as to feeding 
 and giving soothing medicines, and I have 
 found that if a proper diet is given, there is 
 little call for relief by opiates, and sometimes 
 none at all. 
 
 Some twenty years ago I read, I think in 
 the same medical journal, a short notice of 
 a woman who had for some years suffered 
 from cancer in the breast. At last her con- 
 dition got so low and her digestion so bad 
 that she could only take for sustenance a 
 very small quantity of milk. On this alone 
 she lived for two years, and at the end of 
 that period the cancerous growth had quite 
 disappeared. Unfortunately in neither case 
 have I kept a note of the date of the journal. 
 
 I give a few cases, which I have met with 
 in my own practice, where I have found the 
 good effects of light living, both in easing 
 the patient and in prolonging life. 
 
 I first saw Mrs. M at Leith in 1852, 
 
 owing to the death of her doctor, a kind old 
 friend whom she deeply lamented. I had
 
 ON CANCER 85 
 
 known him well, and we were good friends, 
 though differing very much in the mode of 
 
 treating our patients. Mrs. M was then 
 
 about 40, of a very nervous, irritable tem- 
 perament ; she was constantly suffering from 
 some mucous irritation to a degree I have 
 rarely met with, and she had also a moder- 
 ately-sized uterine fibroid. She had been 
 kept up with the best of everything though 
 from the state of her stomach she could take 
 but little but with no good result, and she 
 remained wretchedly thin and rarely able to 
 be out of doors. A change of diet and 
 an almost complete cessation from drugs 
 rendered her life on the whole a much more 
 tolerable one, and of this she was so well 
 convinced, that afterwards when on more 
 than one occasion I begged her to get a 
 local doctor, as she lived out of my usual 
 beat and I had difficulty in giving her 
 proper care when ill, I could only get free 
 for a few months, when again I had to renew 
 my attendance at her urgent request. On
 
 86 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 the whole her health gradually improved ; 
 she was able to go to the country and to 
 visit her friends, and she could take more 
 food and had got a little stouter although 
 living very sparingly. Thirty years after I 
 first saw her, she told me that one of her 
 breasts was beginning to trouble her as it 
 had done long ago. I was startled to find a 
 well-marked knot of scirrhus, and told her 
 my opinion of it. She then said that she had 
 been told the same forty years ago, and she 
 was sure of the date as it was before 1 843 
 which was an epoch in her life, as the year 
 of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland, 
 she being a keen Free Church woman. Dr. 
 Kellie of Leith, a well-known physician 
 there for a long period, was then her doctor ; 
 and her breast had been seen at that time 
 by two other surgeons, and all agreed as to 
 the nature of the case, and said that the 
 tumour should be removed. I rarely saw 
 her after this, having now given up practice. 
 The breast, I was told, gave her considerable
 
 ON CANCER 87 
 
 trouble, but she died from a general break-up 
 when upwards of eighty years of age. 
 
 I was asked by an Edinburgh client to 
 see his sister who was then an inmate of an 
 asylum for the insane in York. She was 
 suffering from malignant disease which had 
 been operated on some months previously, 
 and my opinion was wanted as to whether a 
 further operation would be possible. Another 
 point on which the brother wished to consult 
 me was as to whether it would be prudent 
 for him to receive his sister into his house in 
 Edinburgh. Before coming to the asylum 
 she lived with another brother, and the care 
 and anxiety which her suffering, and still 
 more her irritability, occasioned, had quite 
 upset two of his daughters, and had rendered 
 her removal to where she could be more 
 easily controlled a matter of necessity. She 
 had improved somewhat, and the doctors 
 found that the case was not one fitted for an 
 asylum. My friend had only one daughter 
 at home, a very delicate girl, and though
 
 88 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 most anxious to do the best for his sister, he 
 feared much for the health of his daughter 
 if she was subjected to the same anxiety and 
 worry which had upset her cousins. If was 
 an easy matter for me to find that no further 
 operative treatment of the disease was pos- 
 sible. The other point was more difficult to 
 decide. I ascertained, however, that though 
 of a nervous temperament, the lady had not, 
 till disease came upon her, been irritable and 
 troublesome ; also that to help her to support 
 the weakening discharge from her ailments, 
 which was very abundant, she had been kept 
 on a very stimulating diet, both as to food 
 and wine. In the asylum this had not been 
 carried out in the same degree, and she was 
 already calmer and more easily managed 
 than before. Taking these circumstances 
 into consideration, I recommended that she 
 should be taken to Edinburgh ; and that 
 with the help of a still less stimulating diet, 
 I hoped that no harm would result to her 
 delicate niece. She was accordingly re-
 
 ON CANCER 89 
 
 moved to her brother's house, where she 
 spent the last two years of her life. She 
 took no exciting food, and no stimulant 
 whatever, and she required no medicine of 
 any sort. There was a large vinery on the 
 place, and, while they lasted, her chief sus- 
 tenance was from grapes, which she enjoyed 
 more than anything. The irritability left 
 her at once and completely, and I seldom 
 had a more contented patient, or one whom 
 it was so much a pleasure to visit. On one 
 occasion her brother on his birthday brought 
 her a glass of champagne. She unwillingly 
 tasted it, but at once rejected it, and said it 
 put her mouth on fire, although formerly she 
 could and did partake of it very freely and 
 with relish. In this case no one could doubt 
 that the extremely light and sparing diet 
 prolonged life, and, what is more important, 
 made it much more tolerable both for the 
 patient and her friends. 
 
 Lady at an advanced age suffered 
 
 from a large, open cancerous tumour of the
 
 90 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 breast. It had existed for years, but I did 
 not know of it till it was far advanced, and 
 no operation could be thought of. The 
 suffering was considerable, but was relieved 
 from time to time by rather alarming bleeding. 
 She was able to be out of doors, and to look 
 after her household. She lived carefully, but 
 till lately not very sparingly. In the autumn 
 she went to live with a brother near Lin- 
 
 lithgow, and my friend the late Dr. 
 
 attended her. After she had been there for 
 some months, I was asked to see her. She 
 had lost very much and certainly seemed to 
 be near her end. She had, I found, been 
 treated in a very different way as to food and 
 medicine, but fortunately her stomach had 
 got so weak that she could take little of any- 
 thing. The great desire was to get home to 
 Edinburgh, but this her friends and doctor 
 considered quite impossible, and as a com- 
 promise I was asked to visit her. After 
 full consideration, and seeing that there was 
 still some life in the old lady, I told the
 
 ON CANCER 91 
 
 friends that I did not think she would die on 
 the road, and that it might be best to let her 
 have her own way. This was very un- 
 willingly agreed to, and she was driven to 
 Edinburgh a few days later. She now gladly 
 returned to her old mode of living, and to the 
 astonishment of all but myself, she soon got 
 back to much the same condition as she was 
 in before she went to the country. For two 
 years she was able to be from time to time 
 at church and market, and she died at last 
 from exhaustion and with comparatively little 
 suffering. 
 
 I have to acknowledge that it was but 
 rarely that I could carry out in its fulness what 
 I considered to be the right treatment in such 
 cases, the difficulties, as always, being due to 
 the friends much more than to the patient. 
 Few of my colleagues have even attempted 
 to follow my example. I was pleased, how- 
 ever, lately to hear from a patient of a friend 
 now deceased, and who had twice been 
 operated upon, both of her breasts having
 
 92 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 been removed by him, that on the last 
 occasion she had by his orders lived for three 
 months on three meals daily of oatmeal 
 gruel, and on nothing else. On the first 
 occasion she had told no one of her ailment, 
 and had lived as usual so that there might be 
 no suspicion of anything being wrong with 
 her. It was necessary to operate at once, if 
 at all, and she suffered terribly almost, she 
 said, going wrong in her mind. On the 
 second occasion she had no suffering what- 
 ever, and made a rapid recovery. The first 
 tumour removed was most markedly malig- 
 nant ; the second was not so, and was judged 
 to be of a simple character, although its 
 history and diagnosis were such as to call for 
 its removal. 
 
 On discussing this matter several years ago 
 
 with my friend the late Mr. I , F.R.C.S.E., 
 
 and telling him that I believed that high 
 living was certainly one cause of the scirrhus 
 form of malignant disease, and that I had never 
 met with it except in well-fed women, with
 
 ON CANCER 93 
 
 one doubtful exception, he said that he was 
 the distributor of a fund for poor women 
 suffering from advanced cancer, and he did 
 not think that what I said could apply to 
 them. I asked him to inquire into each case 
 as it presented itself. After six months 
 he told me I was quite right, and that as a 
 general rule he found that his poor clients 
 had been well fed, and so far as they were 
 able to indulge, were well fed still. He 
 took some trouble to get them to alter their 
 ways and live more simply and sparingly, and 
 to some of the stronger ones he gave by my 
 advice small doses of iodide of potassium. A 
 year later he told me that I had brought him 
 into a difficulty. Formerly he had been able 
 to take on most of the fit cases which had 
 applied, and could usually admit the same 
 number from year to year, their average life 
 being one year after admission to the fund. 
 Now he said they were living longer, and 
 several applicants were waiting whom he 
 could not admit. An experiment such as this
 
 94 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 requires much time and pains to carry out, 
 more than a busy man can afford, and probably 
 it was gradually dropped, as, so far as I 
 recollect, my friend never again mentioned 
 the subject. 
 
 Some twenty years ago I was called to the 
 west of Scotland to see a young married 
 gentleman with malignant disease in the 
 groin. He had much pain and suffering, 
 and had already been operated upon ; but the 
 disease had returned. For his relief he was 
 taking opium freely, and he was being as well 
 fed as was possible ; but he was losing ground 
 fast, was quite confined to his bed, and from 
 being of a particularly happy and gentle dis- 
 position he had become irritable and morose, 
 much to the distress of his friends. I could 
 recommend nothing for the local symptoms, 
 but I advised that he should be put on a 
 much more simple and restricted diet, and I 
 hoped that by this means they would be able 
 to reduce or stop the opiates, which were 
 blamed as the main cause of the sad change
 
 ON CANCER 95 
 
 in his mental condition. This was done, and 
 the result was even better than I had hoped. 
 He improved so much in every respect that 
 his medical adviser was soon able to get away 
 for his holiday, which he had put off owing to 
 the constant attendance on his patient, who 
 was an important one. While he was away 
 I was requested to make a second visit, as 
 after some weeks of comparative quiescence 
 the local disease was getting more trouble- 
 some. I found the gentleman in a very 
 different condition mentally and bodily, 
 although his case was quite hopeless ; and 
 all his friends were loud in their appreciation 
 of the change of treatment. The end came 
 soon, but there was no occasion to resume the 
 opium. 
 
 The few cases I have mentioned will, I 
 hope, induce some surgeons to try the method 
 I have indicated on their patients suffering 
 from ordinary cancer. They may have 
 difficulty in so doing, as I have already stated, 
 but if it is tried and carried out, especially
 
 96 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 with those of a nervous temperament, they 
 will at once notice a change for the better. 
 Such at least has been my invariable ex- 
 perience. 
 
 I am pleased to see that Dr. Haig states 
 that cancer has been noticed to be rare among 
 vegetarians, and that he has long thought 
 that it is at least possible that it may often 
 have the way paved for it by the chronic and 
 recurrent local irritation produced by urates 
 in the tissues. 1 
 
 I was told many years ago by a medical 
 friend who was long in India that some forms 
 of malignant disease were common among 
 tribes who lived mostly or entirely on vege- 
 table food ; and I was told by another that 
 they were also common where the only animal 
 food used was fish. These statements have 
 made me all the more careful to inquire as to 
 the mode of life of my own patients before 
 they came into my hands. 
 
 1 On Uric Acid, p. 320.
 
 VIII 
 
 RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS 
 
 SOME medical men seem to think it a duty 
 to relieve pain whatever may be its cause ; 
 and if one form of sedative is evidently in- 
 efficient or attended with bad results, they 
 try another and another. As the number of 
 these is now legion, there is abundant room 
 for experimenting on this line, and the result 
 is no doubt often satisfactory. It is, however, 
 often the reverse, and experience of this 
 taught me early to do without sedatives 
 when there were other methods of relief. 
 Of these a little patience was often the 
 best ; I have frequently been told by invalids 
 that they would much rather submit to pain 
 than to the unpleasant effects of opiates 
 7
 
 98 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 given to relieve it. There are in a number 
 of cases other means of relief, as hot fomenta- 
 tions, mustard poultices, opiate or belladonna 
 plasters, and above all massage, and of this 
 the best and most powerful form I know is 
 dry-cupping. I got a lesson in this at an 
 early period from a country gentleman who 
 suffered from spasms of the stomach. He 
 had got made for himself a small cupping- 
 glass to which was attached an air-pump. 
 The glass was placed on the back, and the 
 air exhausted to a moderate degree, so that 
 the glass could be drawn along the back 
 and all over it. A red wheal is left behind, 
 and soon the whole surface is as if a strong 
 mustard poultice had been applied. The 
 relief to the spasm was immediate. The 
 instrument could be used by any one with a 
 strong hand, and the butler was well up to 
 its use. I have often had recourse to this 
 mode of dry-cupping with great effect. It 
 can be done with an ordinary cupping-glass, 
 if the air is only partly burnt out so as to
 
 RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS 99 
 
 permit of the necessary traction. I never 
 knew the pain of lumbago to resist this 
 method or even the ordinary dry-cupping by 
 fixed glasses left on for a few minutes. I 
 have had relief from the pain of lumbago in 
 this way scores of times, and my servant 
 could use the glasses in both ways with 
 great facility. I mention under 'Self- Massage' 
 the numerous pains which can be relieved by 
 rubbing. 
 
 I remember when the now common mode 
 of using opiates by injection was introduced 
 by my friend the late Dr. Alexander Wood. 
 No practitioner now is without his injecting- 
 syringe and needle. The relief from pain 
 is delightful and is almost immediate. But 
 severe and prolonged sickness often follows, 
 and some suffer the pain rather than have 
 recourse to the injection a second time. 
 With others the agreeable sensations are 
 enjoyed quite as much as the relief from 
 pain, and if the process is often repeated a 
 bad habit is easily formed, which may be
 
 loo FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 as difficult to cure as is that from taking 
 opium in the ordinary way. I have seen 
 terrible evil from this, and to surgeons as 
 well as their patients. I soon became so 
 afraid of the evils arising from opium given 
 or taken in this way, that I am not sure if 
 I have used it in a dozen cases since its 
 introduction. While by no means con- 
 demning its use in every case, I cannot 
 use too strong terms in giving a caution 
 to the younger members of the profession. 
 
 Anaesthetics, which are perhaps the 
 greatest blessings of the age when properly 
 used, may also be abused when given as 
 antidotes to pain not caused by a surgical 
 operation. Here also a bad habit may be 
 formed, from the ease with which anaes- 
 thetics, particularly chloroform, can be ob- 
 tained and used. I must plead guilty to 
 having employed this new remedy on myself 
 in an extreme and foolish manner. But at 
 the time there was some excuse for me. 
 Being the colleague of Professor Simpson
 
 RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS 101 
 
 when chloroform was introduced, I was often 
 asked to try the drug as manufactured by 
 different chemists, and also to try instru- 
 ments which were at first considered neces- 
 sary in using it. Besides taking it to relieve 
 headache and sleeplessness, I took it for a 
 considerable time twice or thrice a day, to 
 see if any evil results would follow. This I 
 was soon not allowed to do at Professor 
 Simpson's house, as on coming out of the 
 chloroform I had such a craving for more, 
 that I sometimes broke through all rules 
 of propriety in attempts to get possession 
 of it. This strong desire I have seen in 
 others, and it helps me to sympathise with 
 persons given to drink. The desire which 
 follows chloroform is much more transitory 
 than that which follows alcohol, but for the 
 time it is very commanding. I did not keep 
 an exact count of the number of times I 
 was under chloroform, but I calculated that 
 within six months after it was introduced 
 I had taken it some three hundred times.
 
 roi PADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 It was certainly injuring me, upsetting my 
 stomach and liver especially, though I am 
 not aware that it caused any permanent 
 harm. Perhaps I could not have continued 
 to take it much longer, as I was coming to 
 have an intense dislike to it, so that the 
 sight of the bottle or even the thought of it 
 brought on a feeling of disgust, and almost 
 of sickness. This went off as soon as a 
 few breaths of it were taken. I have known 
 the same effect produced in others who had 
 become addicted to the practice of inhaling 
 chloroform. 
 
 For inducing sleep opium in its numerous 
 forms has always been much in use. Of 
 the new remedies I have no experience, and 
 no knowledge except from reading. I am 
 constantly receiving papers and pamphlets 
 from the manufacturers or sellers of these, 
 with wonderful reports from medical men 
 and others of the value of some new chemi- 
 cal of which I had not previously heard. 
 They often insist on the superiority of the
 
 RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS 103 
 
 new drug over any previously used, of which 
 they proclaim the faults in no measured 
 words. It is to be hoped that some 
 grains of real value may result although 
 much chaff may have to be blown away ; 
 but it would be well if more time and 
 care were taken in honest inquiry into 
 the effects, immediate and final, of each 
 novelty, and if the consideration of its 
 commercial possibilities were deferred till 
 its true value has been fully established. 
 
 In my own practice the use of drugs 
 for procuring sleep gradually got less and 
 less, as has their use for relieving pain. In 
 this matter my own case has given me most 
 help. I have slept badly for at least three- 
 fourths of my life, partly from a nervous 
 temperament, partly from a bad stomach, and 
 these aggravated for many years by frequent 
 calls during the night to visit the sick. On 
 one occasion, from a bad chill, I was seized 
 with severe pain over the left shoulder-blade, 
 ending in an abscess, which destroyed part
 
 104 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 of the periosteum and of the bone under it. 
 I was then in poor health, and vainly trying 
 by too much food and physic to keep up my 
 strength. I suffered so much before the 
 abscess was opened that for three full weeks 
 I had no sleep whatever, and very little for 
 as much longer, when 1 went to the west 
 coast for a yachting cruise. My sleep 
 gradually came back, but at this time it was 
 at best restless and unrefreshing sleep, and I 
 was sometimes tempted to try chloroform or 
 an opiate, but that I did very rarely ; opium 
 alone made me more restless. I had been 
 recommended some years before by a country 
 gentleman to use for toothache a full dose of 
 laudanum with a tablespoonful of castor oil. 
 This I was told was an excellent cure, and I 
 found it so in my own case and many others. 
 Years before this I had once taken half a 
 drop of croton oil for toothache and found 
 immediate relief. I was then a student and 
 I had seen croton oil recommended for 
 toothache and neuralgia. The two oils have
 
 RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS 105 
 
 much in common. The addition of castor 
 oil to opium certainly increases its soothing 
 effects, and prevents unpleasant consequences. 
 This was one of the few remedies that I 
 adhered to long after giving up almost all 
 others. When suffering from gastric attacks 
 with severe headache, although the dose had 
 no effect the first day or two, thirty drops of 
 nepenthe with a tablespoonful of castor oil 
 often removed the headache and restlessness, 
 and sometimes induced a long sleep, from 
 which I woke up comparatively well. Since 
 getting into better health, although I usually 
 sleep badly I can rest quietly, and I have 
 found that this makes up, in all essential 
 points, for a shorter period of sound sleep. 
 For this comfortable if not perfect mode of 
 spending the night the great necessity is 
 perfect digestion, so that when one goes to 
 bed there is no sour indigested mass in the 
 stomach, and when the stomach is empty 
 there is no flow of acid secretion into it from 
 the blood. To reach this happy condition of
 
 io6 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 digestion once it has gone wrong is a slow 
 process at best, but the simplest and most 
 rapid method of bringing it about is by more 
 or less complete abstinence from food, and 
 this may be safely done to a very much 
 greater degree than is supposed safe by those 
 who have never tried the experiment. Tem- 
 porary relief may sometimes be got by nature's 
 own method, complete rejection of the acid 
 mass by vomiting, or it may be neutralised 
 by alkalies, or by a free use of liquorice. All 
 of these frequently allay the general irritation 
 and induce sleep, but unless the hint is taken 
 and a more rational use of food be followed, 
 these and other worse attempts at cure only 
 allow the wrong system to be carried on 
 longer, and the disorder to get more fixed 
 and chronic. 
 
 One useful lesson I have learned from my 
 own case and from others is, that a large 
 amount of sound sleep is not essential for any 
 one, that what is taken is very much a matter 
 of habit, and that if sleep be wanting for a
 
 RELIEF OF PAIN AND SLEEPLESSNESS 107 
 
 time, it is as a rule safer to await its natural 
 return than to have recourse to drugs which, 
 though they may give some immediate relief, 
 may in the end be the cause of still greater 
 evils. I know that this view can be contro- 
 verted, but I only seek to uphold it when it 
 is combined with a rational plan of giving 
 food and stimulants. When the stomach is 
 very irritable, quiet sleep may frequently be 
 obtained by the use of a large mustard poul- 
 tice. It should be kept on only so long as it is 
 quite easily borne. Sometimes the effect is 
 so prompt, and the sleep induced so sound, 
 that the pain may not be felt until the skin 
 has become so inflamed as to be troublesome 
 for many days. 
 
 Thinking, especially if the subject is an 
 unpleasant one, is the bane of sleep. I have 
 often been able to counteract this, and some- 
 times to induce sleep by fixing the eyes and 
 noticing the curious changing forms of light 
 and sometimes of colour which usually appear 
 when the attention is turned on them ; or the
 
 io8 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 eyes may simply be kept fixed, in an upward 
 direction in the darkness, or, if there be light, 
 on some object in the room. The slight 
 effort required for this is enough to stop the 
 current of thought. If continued for some 
 minutes it becomes somewhat irksome and 
 tiring, and unconsciously one sometimes falls 
 asleep 
 
 These little experiments at least help to 
 pass the time, and to break the continuity of 
 a long night. A not infrequent cause of 
 sleeplessness is liability to cramp in the legs, 
 especially in persons of advanced years. This 
 is sometimes relieved by raising slightly the 
 lower part of the bed, so that the lower 
 extremities are higher than the rest of the 
 body. This simple change will prevent 
 congestion of the muscles, which may be the 
 exciting cause of the spasm.
 
 IX 
 
 RHEUMATIC FEVER 
 
 RHEUMATIC fever or acute rheumatism has 
 always had an attraction for me. It was the 
 first disease which I had specially considered, 
 as it was the subject of my thesis required 
 for passing as M.D. I got up all its litera- 
 ture on which I could lay my hands, as I 
 then knew nothing of it practically. It was 
 the treatment that chiefly interested me. 
 There was not much room for coming to any 
 definite idea about this. The only conclu- 
 sion I arrived at was that cases treated with 
 quinine were shorter than those treated in 
 any other way, but that this treatment led to 
 more deaths. 
 
 This disease is, I believe, a much more
 
 no FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 common one now than it was fifty years ago, 
 especially among the young, and it leads to a 
 large proportion of the cases of organic heart 
 disease, which also tends to be much more 
 common than formerly. It is to be met with 
 occasionally amongst children of only a few 
 years old, but more frequently among boys 
 at school and youths at college. It is not 
 even yet a very common disease, and a 
 school may have had no case of it for years. 
 I have never in all my experience met with 
 it in young or old except when the diet had 
 been full, and had consisted largely of beef 
 and mutton, and the changed feeding of the 
 young in this respect is to my mind the 
 main, if not the only, cause of the compara- 
 tive frequency of acute rheumatism at the 
 present day. I have been on the outlook for 
 at least forty years for a case of the disease 
 in a child or youth who had not been fed on 
 red meat, and I have not once either met 
 with or heard of a clear case of the kind. 
 Once, indeed, some twenty years ago, I
 
 R HE UMA TIC FE VER \ 1 1 
 
 thought I had come on a slight though well- 
 marked case, and was looking on it as the 
 exception which proves the rule. The child 
 was four or five years old. The mother, 
 before her marriage when she came under 
 my care, had got into bad health from the 
 prevalent too good feeding, and I doubted if 
 she could have had a child at all but for a 
 complete change in her mode of living, which 
 after some time restored her to a fair state of 
 health. I had told her what I thought the 
 right way to feed her boy, and never dreamt 
 that she would try any other. He was quite 
 healthy, but being light- haired and rather 
 pallid, and of the pure nervous temperament, 
 he had not the robust florid look of children 
 of the sanguine or muscular temperament. 
 I found him one day very feverish, with dry 
 furred tongue, and complaining of pain in 
 front of one ankle, which was somewhat red. 
 I told the mother that the symptoms pointed 
 to acute rheumatism, but that I did not think 
 it possible it could be so in a child that had
 
 112 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 been brought up as hers was. Next day the 
 other ankle was affected in the same way, 
 and by and by both knees. There could 
 now be no doubt whatever that the case was 
 one of acute rheumatism. It was a mild case, 
 however, and in ten days the symptoms were 
 passing off. The mother now told me she 
 had a confession to make that a friend had 
 been telling her that it was foolish to try to 
 bring up her pallid boy in the way I recom- 
 mended, and had induced her to give him a 
 bit of meat every day. This was begun six 
 months ago ; after two months he looked no 
 better, so for the last four months she had 
 given him more meat, and still with no 
 change in his appearance. She was glad 
 now to return to the old diet. The only 
 evil that resulted was that the heart was 
 decidedly affected and gave trouble for 
 years, but when last I heard of the young 
 man he was in good health. It was well 
 for him that the disease came on so soon, 
 as, had it been delayed and the flesh feeding
 
 RHEUM A TIC FE VER 1 13 
 
 continued, the result might have been very 
 different. 
 
 When in the Argentine Republic some 
 ten years ago I was told by the principal 
 English doctors in Buenos Ayres and 
 Rosario, the two chief towns, that rheumatic 
 fever is there an exceedingly common disease 
 among the young, and that it leads to most 
 of the heart disease, which also is very 
 common. The amount of meat, especially of 
 beef, consumed there by old and young is 
 enormous, when compared with what is eaten 
 here. The main evils I myself saw from this 
 were anaemia in children, and neuralgia both 
 in old and young. I believe that high living 
 may do less harm in so fine a climate, and 
 there seemed to be fewer sufferers from 
 dyspepsia and other functional ailments. 
 
 I have attended several third attacks of 
 acute rheumatism, but I never had a recur- 
 rence of it in my own practice, as I always 
 proscribed beef and mutton for those whom I 
 saw once with the disease. During the ill-
 
 114 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 ness I gave little or no food, and a favourite 
 remedy was small doses of iodide of potassium. 
 Two severe cases which occurred about the 
 same time I treated with hot water only. 
 One was a third attack. Sir Robert 
 Christison saw them both, and was pleased 
 with the treatment, and he recommended 
 nothing else. In neither case was the heart 
 affected. 
 
 Dr. Dewey has had much more experi- 
 ence of rheumatic fever than I have had. 
 He believes that it is due to disordered 
 digestion, arising from eating for an unknown 
 period beyond the power to digest and assi- 
 milate. As his clients, old and young, con- 
 sume much more butcher's meat than did 
 mine, his experience quite coincides with my 
 own. But his treatment is much more 
 thorough, though quite in the same lines. 
 He gives nothing but water whatever be the 
 length of the illness, and in one case there 
 was no call for food for forty-six days. He 
 then gives whatever the patient asks for, but
 
 RHE UMA TIC FE VER 1 1 5 
 
 not till the tongue is clear and the appetite 
 evidently a natural one. 
 
 The late Dr. James Begbie, who was 
 considered our first authority on gout and 
 rheumatism, told a lady patient of mine, 
 whom I had seen through her third attack of 
 rheumatic fever, that for the rest of her life 
 she ought not to touch beef, mutton, beer, 
 wine, or brandy. I had asked him to see 
 the lady when her friends were insisting 
 that, now she was getting well, she should 
 return to her ordinary mode of life. I had 
 found it useless for me to point out to them 
 that this was precisely what had already 
 subjected her to three attacks of a most 
 dangerous malady.
 
 X 
 
 HOW ONE SHOULD LIVE IN A HOT CLIMATE 
 
 IN a warm climate less food is required than 
 in a cold one, as in the latter a large portion 
 of our food goes to keep up the temperature 
 of the body. This is a self-evident pro- 
 position, but it is often forgotten, and 
 especially by sufferers from dyspepsia who 
 go to a warm climate for their health. The 
 immediate relief is often very marked. Dys- 
 pepsia is usually attended with, and often 
 caused by, an irritable state of the stomach. 
 This implies some degree of congestion that 
 is, of too much blood going to the organ, and 
 the necessary complement is that too little 
 goes to the skin. In a warm state of the 
 atmosphere there is much more tendency of
 
 LIVING IN A HOT CLIMATE u ? 
 
 blood to the surface, and this alone is enough 
 in many cases to cure dyspepsia. If a 
 rational system is now followed, and no more 
 food taken than before, or only enough to 
 restore an impoverished condition of the 
 system, the cure may be permanent. But if, 
 as often happens, more food be still taken 
 than is required, the health may be good for 
 a time, but by and by the same symptoms 
 may recur as before, and now the same means 
 of cure are not available, and the last state is 
 worse than the first. Many also who go to 
 a warm climate and whose health is good, if 
 they continue to take the same food as in a 
 colder country, by and by suffer in one of 
 the many ways that repletion leads to, unless 
 they are wise enough to reduce their diet, 
 especially the carbonaceous or fuel part of it. 
 But many do not think of this, and as they 
 become languid and oppressed, as they suppose 
 from the heat, they often have recourse to 
 some stimulant to relieve them. There 
 would be no great harm from this, provided
 
 ri8 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 they at the same time reduced the quantity 
 of food. It follows that, if food be properly 
 managed, life should be longer in a hot than 
 in a cold climate, as there is less tear and 
 wear of the organs, less work being required 
 of them. A very large number of both sexes 
 who have returned from India have come 
 under my observation, and as a general rule 
 so far as I can recall, a universal rule those 
 who have kept their health at least as well as 
 they had it in this country, and have returned 
 sound and strong, had been moderate eaters, 
 and still more moderate drinkers. 
 
 On the other hand, a large portion of 
 those who broke down had soon found it 
 necessary to take to stimulants to help them, 
 and their career was often very short. One 
 curious observation forced itself on me long 
 ago, that abstainers from all alcoholic stimu- 
 lants sooner or later were liable to break 
 down and to have to return home, when a 
 temporary use of some form of stimulant 
 might have tided them over. It would have
 
 LIVING IN A HOT CLIMATE 119 
 
 acted by diminishing the waste of the body, 
 and thus acting as a food, when the weakened 
 stomach would not do its duty. Cases of 
 this nature are, however, rare compared to 
 those where the combination of too much 
 food with an undue amount of stimulant have 
 sent the young and strong homewards pre- 
 maturely, and often with the foundations of 
 permanent disease. 
 
 Upwards of forty years ago I had the 
 opportunity of sending a young medical friend 
 to Madras as assistant to a civil doctor there. 
 He suffered much from dyspepsia, and was 
 somewhat afraid of the climate. I assured 
 him that the warmth would suit him, and 
 that if he did not take undue advantage of 
 his improved health the relief would be per- 
 manent. For five and twenty years he was 
 perhaps the busiest doctor in Madras, as 
 besides his practice he lectured in the medical 
 school and was coroner. When he returned, 
 he told me that I had been right in advising 
 him as I did. His dyspepsia very soon left
 
 120 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 him, but he did not take the care that I had 
 recommended, and for a time his stomach 
 again failed him. He now took to living as 
 he should have done from the beginning, and 
 got into excellent health, which he brought 
 home with him. I saw him for the last time 
 five years ago, when he was well and doing a 
 fair amount of work in his native city. He 
 died three years later. 
 
 I have met with many cases of maltreat- 
 ment of friends which have roused me to try 
 to improve the methods of the leaders in the 
 profession, but none of them vexed me more 
 than the following. During the mutiny in 
 India in 1857, the wife of one of the most 
 active officials in putting down the rebellion 
 was a patient of mine in Edinburgh. Her 
 husband, one of the hardest workers in India, 
 was a most moderate liver, his only stimulant 
 being one glass of beer a day. He retired 
 soon after the mutiny was ended, and he 
 returned home in the enjoyment of excellent 
 health, and looking, for his age, none the
 
 LIVING IN A HOT CLIMATE 121 
 
 worse for his long and laborious residence in 
 a hot climate. Several years later I saw him 
 in Edinburgh on his way to recruit in the 
 Highlands. He had had some alarming 
 attacks of haemoptysis, and his London 
 physician feared his lungs were in danger 
 from phthisis. He had got weak for a time, 
 and he was of course being well fed. When 
 I saw him he had had no bleeding from the 
 lungs for some weeks, and the signs of mis- 
 chief in the lungs were by no means decisive; 
 there was nothing, in fact, but what might 
 have been caused by the local haemorrhage, 
 although of course this of itself was a sus- 
 picious symptom. I put him on a much- 
 restricted diet, and with little or no wine. 
 On his return in a few months, he was in 
 very much better health and stronger. There 
 had been no return of the haemorrhage, and 
 after a careful examination of the chest I 
 came to the conclusion that he was all right, 
 and only required care, especially in diet, 
 to enable him to continue so. By and by I
 
 122 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 was grieved to hear that he was ill again. 
 The London physician to whom he reported 
 himself on his return at once put him on his 
 old full diet and stimulants, and very soon 
 the haemorrhage returned, and in a few 
 months he died. Shortly after, I had a letter 
 
 from my old friend Dr. F , formerly doctor 
 
 to Lord Lawrence, and through whom I had 
 first known the lady and her husband, in 
 which he wrote that he was pleased to know 
 that I was not the medical man who had put 
 his old friend on a wrong diet. 
 
 I will finish these few notes with an extract 
 from a letter from a medical man living in a 
 hotel in the south of France to a friend close 
 by. It gives very neatly the view that most 
 English residents in a warm climate take of 
 the situation so far as heat and free living 
 are concerned : 
 
 ' This seems the coldest day we have had 
 this winter, and I see the low hills white with 
 snow, but the change seems to suit most 
 people in this house. Continuous sunshine
 
 LIVING IN A HOT CLIMATE 123 
 
 and warmth do not fit in with the English 
 habit of over-eating. We prefer the weather 
 to change a little rather than be bothered to 
 alter our ways. In short, we get out of 
 the difficulty by saying that too much sun- 
 shine and brightness are unwholesome.'
 
 XI 
 
 ON MATTERS WHICH RETARD DIGESTION 
 AND PREVENT WASTE 
 
 THERE are several substances in common use 
 as medicines or foods which check the chem- 
 ical actions concerned in nutrition, and thus 
 lessen the waste of the tissues, and also the 
 secretions which carry off effete products 
 from the system. These are alcohol and 
 opium in all their forms, tea and cognate 
 substances, and osmazome of flesh which 
 gives their stimulating quality to beef-tea, 
 Liebig's Extract, and other preparations of 
 beef. Any of these may be given for a long 
 period, and may favour long life, provided 
 that the quantity of food taken is in an in- 
 verse ratio. It is a well-known fact that an
 
 RETARDED DIGESTION 125 
 
 old woman can live with comfort on a free 
 supply of tea, with very little else. The 
 same is the case, as I have pointed out else- 
 where, with an old Highlander who lives 
 mostly on whisky ; and also with the Indian 
 or Chinaman, who, if he takes a moderate 
 amount of opium, can do much work on very 
 meagre fare. It needs no argument to show 
 that if one or more of these inhibiting sub- 
 stances be taken with an ordinary quantity 
 of food and they are often taken under the 
 false idea that they assist an enfeebled di- 
 gestion the result must be hurtful. It is 
 only the younger and the very healthy who 
 can for any lengthy period indulge in such 
 an unscientific mode of life, and it is those, 
 if they have no one organ weaker than the 
 rest to give them a timely warning, who die 
 earliest. Many years ago I had it from the 
 manager of our foremost life insurance office, 
 that his company lost more on the healthiest 
 lives to which no objection whatever could 
 be made, than on those which, though ac-
 
 126 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 cepted at the ordinary rate as sufficiently 
 good, were not altogether of a first -class 
 character. I had asked him the question, 
 and got the answer I expected. The num- 
 ber of the healthy who throw away their 
 lives in this way is, I am convinced, much 
 greater than is generally believed ; and in- 
 stead of living longest as they certainly 
 ought, they must help very materially to 
 lower the average of human life. The cause 
 of error with most of them is simply want of 
 knowledge, which, to those who do not look 
 beyond their own case, comes too late. I 
 have given a warning to many when I had 
 the opportunity to do so, and not a few have 
 gladly taken it, and have got the sure re- 
 ward. On the many, however, the advice is 
 thrown away, and they have chosen what 
 they consider the pleasanter path. Here, 
 too, they are wrong, as, if they but knew it, 
 the pleasure is all on the other side. With 
 a good stomach, one which would do its duty 
 for a long lifetime, if its very goodness did
 
 RETARDED DIGESTION 127 
 
 not lead so easily to its abuse, the habit of 
 taking too much food is easily acquired. 
 This soon leads to a more abundant supply 
 of blood being sent to all the abdominal 
 organs, as they are all engaged in the pro- 
 cess of digestion. The vessels of the stom- 
 ach become enlarged, and also its capacity 
 to receive food, and satisfaction with a meal 
 is not arrived at till the expectant organ is 
 fully supplied. If alcohol, or osmazome, or 
 tea, or all of them together be also taken, as 
 is usually the case, a crisis is sooner arrived 
 at. There may be a period of enjoyment in 
 the consumption of a long and varied meal, 
 but even with the healthiest this cannot last, 
 unless assisted by aperients and other means 
 which are resorted to by almost all who live 
 fully. Were it not for these aids, nature 
 would soon assert itself, and apply the fit 
 punishment for its broken laws by an un- 
 pleasant but salutary cessation of all desire 
 for food, which, if allowed, would soon re- 
 store in some measure the health of the
 
 128 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 damaged organs. This should suggest to a 
 rational sufferer that the manifest cause of 
 his discomfort should not be repeated, and 
 if this simple rule were attended to, what an 
 amount of suffering and of lives shortened 
 would be saved to humanity ! But we live 
 in an age of science, false as well as true. 
 Nature, if its first hints are not taken, resorts 
 to severer and sharper ones ; the doctor is 
 called in, and, according to the rules of treat- 
 ment of the day, drugs are given to relieve 
 troublesome symptoms ; and if food is de- 
 clined for a few days, it must be taken 
 whether the patient desires it or not, and, 
 along with food, one or more of the inhibit- 
 ing substances we have been speaking of. 
 What might have been only a salutary sick- 
 ness of a few days, resulting in a return to 
 health, may be converted into a long illness, 
 leaving the system seriously impaired. If 
 now a more rational mode of living were 
 adopted, a fair amount of health might be 
 recovered and maintained ; but the anxiety
 
 RETARDED DIGESTION 129 
 
 of the patient, and of his friends and doctor, 
 is to get up the strength as fast as possible, 
 and satisfaction is felt if the weight lost is 
 rapidly regained. The real benefit from the 
 illness is thus lost ; the evil round recurs, 
 and the strong man becomes a confirmed 
 invalid, or, what is perhaps better, comes to 
 an early and premature grave.
 
 XII 
 
 ON NATURAL CRAVINGS AND DISLIKES 
 
 A NATURAL and sometimes an extreme crav- 
 ing by the sick for some special food or 
 means of relief is not uncommon, and it is 
 usually looked on as absurd, and is disre- 
 garded. A remarkable instance of this is 
 given at p. 37. A somewhat similar ex- 
 perience happened to myself when a youth, 
 and suffering from a severe attack of scarlet 
 fever. The fever was strong, and my tem- 
 perature was no doubt very high, but we 
 had not begun to test it by the thermometer. 
 The weather was intensely cold, and I would 
 not allow the window of my very small bed- 
 room to be closed night or day. For several 
 days I kept thinking of the delights of sea-
 
 ON NA TURAL CRA VINGS AND DISLIKES 131 
 
 bathing and swimming, which I used to 
 enjoy like other lads. I was looking for- 
 ward with much satisfaction to next season's 
 sea-bathing. This was in February. The 
 fever was relieved at last by a copious 
 bleeding from the nose, which for a time 
 was rather alarming. I now lost all desire 
 for a swim, as my brother did for sherry. A 
 cold bath as a remedy for my hot condition 
 was not then thought of, although about 
 the beginning of the century Dr. Currie of 
 Liverpool had begun to recommend it for 
 scarlet fever. He had few followers till a 
 more recent date, when the local use of cold 
 water or ice was gradually adopted by many 
 as the best means of reducing the tempera- 
 ture of the body when excessive. 
 
 A well-known doctor of divinity in Aber- 
 deenshire was visiting an old woman sup- 
 posed to be at the point of death. He was 
 left alone with her, but he could not get her 
 to attend to his services, as she had taken 
 such a craving for green cheese that she
 
 132 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 could think and speak of nothing else. He 
 returned to the friends and told them the 
 circumstances. ' We know,' they said, 
 ' the craze of the poor body ; she has done 
 nothing but cry for green cheese all day.' 
 ' Why do you not give it her ? ' said the 
 clergyman. ' Because it is the worst thing 
 for her,' was the reply. ' But she is dying, 
 is she not?' 'Oh yes, she is dying.' 
 ' Then the green cheese can do her no 
 harm, and it will let me speak to her 
 quietly.' This was unanswerable; the green 
 cheese was given and eaten greedily, and 
 the old woman recovered. The reverend 
 doctor was in the habit of saying that after 
 this he would never refuse a sick person 
 anything. This story I had from my father, 
 the son of a neighbouring clergyman. 
 
 If I am not much mistaken, a wider and 
 more important subject is the converse of 
 this craving for some specific means of 
 relief; I mean the dislikes of the sick, 
 especially to food, but also to noise, motion,
 
 ON NA TURAL CRA VINGS AND DISLIKES 133 
 
 light, or close air. In all these matters the 
 invalid is, when it is possible, allowed to 
 have his own way, except in the case of the 
 most important of them all, his dislike for 
 food. Here he is very much at the mercy 
 of his doctor and his friends, and unless he 
 has a very strong will he must obey. He 
 may indeed be a willing victim so far as he 
 can resist his natural antipathy ; and sup- 
 posed duty may induce him to take what 
 he would much rather avoid. I have the 
 strongest conviction, and that after more 
 than fifty years' experience, that the forced 
 giving of food when it is not wanted is the 
 cause of more misery, more aggravations of 
 disease, and greater shortening of life, than 
 all other causes put together. This doctrine 
 I have held absolutely for very many years, 
 almost indeed from the beginning of my 
 medical career. I long ago said that I 
 knew of no circumstances in which it was 
 proper to force food on an unwilling patient 
 except in the case of a lunatic who refused
 
 134 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 to take anything. Even this solitary excep- 
 tion I gave up, on coming upon the follow- 
 ing case in a medical journal. Unfortunately 
 I took no note of it, but it was some twenty 
 years ago, or more. A man had been in 
 an asylum for the greater part of his life. 
 From time to time he refused food, and it 
 was put into his stomach by a tube. At 
 last his health quite failed, so much so that 
 it was considered useless to force food any 
 longer upon him, and he was left to die in 
 peace. He did not die, and, more than that, 
 he recovered his sanity, and was able soon 
 to leave the asylum. This case recalls to 
 me one given by Dr. Dewey (p. 314). A 
 boy of five had lost his appetite a year pre- 
 viously. All means were used for his relief 
 by regular and homceopathic doctors, but he 
 got worse, and his food was regularly ejected 
 shortly after it was taken. All hope of re- 
 covery was lost, and as a last resort his 
 father was carrying him to a consultation of 
 several doctors. On the way a friend met
 
 ON NA TURAL CRA VINGS AND DISLIKES 135 
 
 him who had been cured, after a much 
 longer illness, by Dr. Dewey, and he urged 
 the father, weak as the boy was, to give him 
 nothing till a desire for solid food returned. 
 The father had faith in his friend, took his 
 boy home, and gave him no food for four 
 days. A beef-steak was now asked for and 
 digested, and soon the boy was in the best 
 of health, in which Dr. Dewey saw him five 
 months later. ' This boy,' he remarked, 
 'had suffered a living death, week after 
 week, month after month, and yet always 
 within four days of a beef-steak appetite' 
 a very natural remark, but what a reflection 
 on our science of medicine ! Had the poor 
 boy been let alone at first till the dislike for 
 food was changed into a natural desire for 
 it, what an amount of suffering to him and 
 anxiety to his parents would have been 
 prevented. 
 
 I have noticed very often that after an 
 acute illness when little or no food has been 
 taken for a considerable period, a time comes
 
 136 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 when the natural desire for food is strong, 
 and, if indulged in according to the patient's 
 feelings, leads to too much being taken for 
 the still weak stomach to digest, and to con- 
 valescence and return to health being more 
 or less retarded. I have also noticed that 
 if this too keen appetite is not given way to, 
 but a wholesome restraint is exercised, in a 
 very few days the appetite becomes more 
 natural, and in the end a more complete cure 
 is effected. If one has, previous to the ill- 
 ness, been a too free liver which has very 
 probably been the cause of the illness this 
 is now the time when he can with least 
 trouble adopt a less full and simpler way 
 of living for the future. The short abstin- 
 ence enforced by the illness has done what 
 it would have taken a long period of volun- 
 tary moderation to effect. 
 
 Since these pages were written I have 
 read in the British Medical Journal^ i3th 
 February 1897, a short paper on 'Artificial 
 Feeding of the Insane.' As it is by a
 
 ON NATURAL CRA VINGS AND DISLIKES 137 
 
 medical officer in a private asylum in England, 
 I may take it as giving the ordinary treatment 
 in such an establishment. There are several 
 statements in the paper which I should like 
 to notice. 
 
 Refusal of food is said to be more com- 
 mon in an asylum for private patients than 
 among paupers. May not the reason of this 
 be that the wealthier had more need for 
 temporary abstinence than the poorer, and 
 that nature points this out to them ? 
 
 Of the last 200 patients admitted to the 
 private asylum, 27 required forcible feeding, 
 and these were ' performed upon ' by the 
 doctor nearly three thousand times. This 
 is quite a hundred times on the average for 
 each patient, and as ' in some cases a few 
 feedings effected a cure of the habit of 
 refusal,' these must have been very few, or 
 the average performances must have been 
 still more numerous. 
 
 'The 27 did not include many patients 
 whom the attendants were able to feed with
 
 138 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 a spoon, but only those who successfully 
 resisted this method.' 
 
 ' Complete refusal of food for twenty-four 
 hours in a strong well-nourished patient, or 
 the missing of two meals by a feeble one, 
 may be taken as a general rule to indicate 
 the operation ; freshly-admitted cases with 
 a history of starvation, who are feeble with 
 weak pulse, should be fed at once.' 
 
 I say nothing of how the forcible feeding 
 was carried out. It is not pleasant reading, 
 and had better be left buried in the pages of 
 the Medical Journal. 
 
 The food is given thrice a day, and is 
 made up of three pints of milk, six eggs, a 
 pint and a half of beef- tea, two ounces of 
 whisky, two ounces of port wine, and an 
 ounce of maltine. This, to a strong well- 
 nourished patient who has refused food for 
 twenty-four hours, is a pretty full allowance, 
 but his stomach may dispose of it better than 
 would that of a ' feeble one with weak pulse,' 
 who apparently gets the same quantities.
 
 ON NA TURAL CRA VINGS AND DISLIKES 139 
 
 The effect of this forced feeding is said to 
 have been very good, and ' no doubt the lives 
 of many were saved by its adoption.' What 
 the result would have been had the patients 
 been left to themselves, we have no means of 
 knowing, but none of them, I imagine, had 
 approached Dr. Dewey's skeleton form, and 
 'the strong well - nourished ' amongst them 
 must have had at least a month's supply of 
 food laid up ready for absorption, and requir- 
 ing no nervous energy to digest it. Believing 
 as I do that rest is nature's great cure for a 
 damaged organ, I cannot help thinking that 
 this rest to the brain might be a large element 
 in the cure of the insane, and certainly the 
 experiment of giving it would be a very safe 
 one. An accidental experiment of this nature 
 is actually given in the paper, with an excel- 
 lent result. ' In one lady, a case of stupor, 
 gastritis was set up "by irritation from the 
 tube," and, curiously enough, the pyrexia was 
 coincident with the commencement of her 
 recovery.' Although this is not mentioned,
 
 140 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 the gastritis necessarily rendered the feeding 
 impossible, and we may well suppose that 
 stopping the feeding would have been equally 
 salutary, without the gastritis. 
 
 The lasting moral effect of this barbarous 
 treatment is said to be good ; so is the moral 
 effect of a Maxim gun on a crowd of savages, 
 and it may be lasting on the survivors. 
 
 If water is refused as well as food, the 
 experiment can be carried on safely for a 
 much shorter period. Fluid could, if abso- 
 lutely necessary, be given by the bowel, with 
 but little trouble ; but if water is left in the 
 way of the patient, and no inducement what- 
 ever is given to take it, there can be little 
 risk of death from thirst, the craving is too 
 strong ; but force naturally excites resistance.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 
 
 HEALTH is to man his supreme blessing. With- 
 out it life is a more or less constant misery. 
 The force of the instinctive dread of death 
 may be measured or judged of by the rarity 
 with which the miserable bring it on them- 
 selves, when suffering becomes intolerable; 
 and when the desire for ease and rest, which 
 is so easily within their reach, so fills their 
 thoughts as to exclude every other feeling. 
 The health of the individual, like his religion, 
 depends originally, not on himself, but on the 
 circumstances of his birth and his surround- 
 ings, on the health of his progenitors, on the 
 care taken of him before he can do anything to 
 guide himself; and then on making the best
 
 142 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 of the bodily condition in which he finds 
 himself. Up to the age of puberty a man 
 has little responsibility for his own wellbeing. 
 His actions are so dependent on the will of 
 his parents and teachers that little room is 
 left for self-guidance, and his habits are 
 often formed before his own observation and 
 experience have taught him what is essenti- 
 ally right and true. He may be already on 
 a path which will lead him downwards, and 
 his life may be a lost one before he has begun 
 to realise its value. There are others, however, 
 and it is to be hoped the great majority, who, 
 when come to years of discretion, have a 
 more or less healthy body entrusted to them, 
 which they may use aright or which they 
 may abuse. The authority to which they 
 have been subjected must still in a great 
 measure influence their actions from the 
 habits formed during its rule ; but they can 
 now use their reason in judging of the value 
 to be attached to the teachings ot this 
 authority, and they can strike out a new path
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 143 
 
 for themselves. It is right that it should be 
 so, otherwise there would be no progress in 
 humanity, as here what applies to each indi- 
 vidual applies to all. One generation thus 
 becomes responsible in a great degree for the 
 wellbeing of the next, and the result may be 
 progress or deterioration according as the 
 general influences of the day are conducive 
 to the furtherance of what is good and true, 
 or of what is evil and false. 
 
 If we are right in the foregoing general 
 remarks, it needs no argument to show how 
 great is the responsibility of every one of us 
 for our free actings, as it is by these only that 
 we can affect one way or other the tendency, 
 good or bad, of human progress. We not 
 only, each one of us, receive for ourselves the 
 reward or punishment of an honoured or a 
 broken law, but we pass on to another 
 generation, as our parents passed on to us, 
 the blessings or the curses which are the 
 certain consequences of our good or evil 
 actions. How needful, therefore, it is for us
 
 144 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 to search out, so far as our powers and our 
 opportunities allow us, what are the laws by 
 acting in harmony with which we may live 
 and prosper, and by resisting or opposing 
 which we doom ourselves and others to 
 degradation and premature extinction. Here 
 we will deal only with the physical side of 
 the question, and this may prove to be the 
 most important, as without a sound and well- 
 regulated body there is little or no hope of a 
 healthy and well-ordered mind. 
 
 As has been noted elsewhere, 1 the laws by 
 which we are governed are often made clear 
 to us by the results which follow their being 
 broken. We may learn in this way by the 
 experience of others, but the lesson is much 
 more effectual when we ourselves are the 
 sufferers. But even so, the lessons may be 
 many and sharp before we come to their true 
 reading, especially if they are contrary to 
 what we consider our very natural desires 
 and feelings. Our appetites seem to be given 
 
 1 Plea for a Simpler Faith, p. 124
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 145 
 
 us that they may be gratified, and we have 
 to learn that their full enjoyment can be ours 
 only when they are used temperately, and 
 with occasional intermissions when their pru- 
 dent use may have gone on to abuse. 
 
 To many it will be a novel idea, and some- 
 what of a paradox, that health may be too 
 good, and a cause of evil to its possessor. 
 Like all other good things, it may be abused, 
 and its very goodness may lead to its being 
 so. A strong machine is the only one which 
 will stand a large amount of overwork and 
 ill-treatment, and for a time show no signs of 
 failure ; but its period of usefulness is unduly 
 shortened, and sooner or later it comes to a 
 premature end. It may be that this is right 
 and proper, as it may suit the owner better 
 to have from it a larger quantity of work done 
 speedily, than to have the same work spread 
 over a longer period ; and when the over- 
 worked machine is worn out another can be 
 put in its place. It is not so with the human 
 body, a healthy condition of which is neces-
 
 146 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 sary for the performance of its proper func- 
 tions. If from an excess of work demanded 
 of them the organs become weakened and 
 worn out, there is no possible means of re- 
 placing them. Nature may demand a cessa- 
 tion from work before exhaustion is complete, 
 and life may still be prolonged for a time, but 
 it will be a life not worth living, all useful- 
 ness and happiness having gone out of it, 
 and nothing being left but suffering aggra- 
 vated by deep and unavailing regrets. There 
 are, no doubt, circumstances under which a 
 man may knowingly shorten his life by over- 
 working his body, with honour to himself and 
 benefit to others, but such a sacrifice can 
 seldom be demanded, and at best it implies 
 the breaking of nature's laws. The very 
 much more common case is that from ignor- 
 ance, or from wilful indulgence, the system is 
 so overloaded by more food being taken than 
 is required for the proper acting of its func- 
 tions, that undue means must be taken to 
 get rid of the excess. This may be done by
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 147 
 
 over-stimulation of the organs of digestion 
 by drugs ; or by excessive and useless 
 muscular work, as an engine can be got to 
 use up more steam than is required for its 
 proper work, by increasing its speed ; thus 
 wearing out the machine, and it may be lead- 
 ing to the work being done in a less satis- 
 factory manner. To some it may seem 
 absurd to dwell on these so manifest truths. 
 But it is still more absurd for any one to for- 
 get them, and this forgetfulness or inattention 
 undoubtedly has led to the existence of more 
 misery and more throwing away of health 
 and of life among the strongest and healthiest 
 of the well-fed, than has war, pestilence, and 
 famine among the same races of mankind. 
 It is the strong and healthy individual only 
 who can make grievous errors, and continue 
 them for an indefinite time, with no sign of 
 failure, and with no hint or warning of com- 
 ing evil ; and he may go on in comfort till all 
 his organs have become irretrievably dam- 
 aged. The weaker in constitution, especially
 
 148 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 if one organ or set of organs is even more 
 feeble than the others, cannot go so far 
 wrong. He is pulled up in time ; and though 
 he may not be able to enjoy life and its good 
 things so freely as his apparently more for- 
 tunate brothers, yet with care he may be 
 quite capable of doing all the work required 
 of him with ease and comfort, and for a much 
 longer period. I have known very many 
 strong, healthy men and women who natu- 
 rally would be expected to live to a long age, 
 but most of them, from presuming on their 
 strong constitution, and living too freely, 
 have died while still in their prime ; or of the 
 few who have reached a moderate old age, it 
 has been with health much broken down ; 
 and the very few who have attained to their 
 threescore-and-ten and upwards have had 
 their years renewed by one or more severe 
 illnesses from which recovery for a time 
 seemed to be hopeless. It is reasonable to 
 think, that if the strong and healthy who lived 
 too fully had done as their weaker brethren
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 149 
 
 were obliged to do, their lives would, compara- 
 tively, have been much longer and happier, 
 and they would have transmitted to another 
 generation in a still higher degree their own 
 inherent good qualities ; and if their descend- 
 ants should happily learn to follow in the 
 right path, there might well be reached in a 
 few generations the term of a hundred years 
 and upwards, which some physiologists 
 have fixed as the natural period of human 
 life. The pity of it is that most medical men 
 overlook the evils which come upon the 
 healthy from free living, and that in this 
 they are encouraged by the prevailing 
 doctrines of the day as taught in the medical 
 schools, and that they misread the clear warn- 
 ings which nature gives. Some there are, no 
 doubt, who do recommend moderation when 
 excess is carried so far as to be manifestly 
 dangerous, but even they, when nature rebels 
 against a wasteful abuse, instead of prescrib- 
 ing abstinence till she indicates the restora- 
 tion of the exhausted organs, resort to
 
 I5o FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 drugs to do what in most instances is 
 being better done without them, and, if the 
 desire for food does not return in a very 
 few days, they force it in some form on the 
 reluctant sufferer. This they do on the false 
 idea that it will support his strength, and 
 enable him to throw off the disease, whatever 
 this may mean ; or that it will at least retard 
 the waste of the body. I have known for 
 many years that there is no truth whatever 
 in these ideas, and that on the contrary 
 nothing causes more discomfort and weak- 
 ness than taking food which cannot be di- 
 gested, and which only adds to the matters 
 which the system is busied in getting rid of. 
 In my anxiety to get well quickly, I tried 
 this method on myself times without number, 
 and I now know that I only aggravated and 
 prolonged my sufferings. Dr. Dewey of 
 America, whom I have already quoted, has 
 proved, in a very large number of cases, the 
 benefit which follows complete abstinence 
 from food, both in acute and in chronic
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 151 
 
 ailments of all sorts, and this he does much 
 more thoroughly than has been my custom. 
 For upwards of fifty years I acted on the 
 idea that white of egg much diluted, or 
 lime-water and milk, or both combined, 
 helped to carry down the bile and other 
 secretions ; and they certainly were often 
 grateful to the patient, when taken from 
 time to time in small quantity, and they 
 seemed to relieve better than anything else 
 the irritable stomach. 1 If plain water was 
 preferred, it was given instead, and had I 
 the occasion now to use either, I would 
 
 1 I first saw white of egg in water used for diarrhoea by 
 Chomel, in the Hotel Dieu, Paris, in 1841. It was given 
 ad libitum, and with no other food or medicine. The effect 
 was excellent on a large number of cases, an epidemic of 
 diarrhoea having prevailed at the time. The patients were 
 kept strictly in bed. For diarrhoea I have rarely used 
 any other means, unless it was accompanied with pain, and 
 then opium, or opium with castor oil, is very efficacious. I 
 have known white of egg most useful in catarrhal jaundice, 
 probably from relieving irritation of the duodenum, and 
 temporary obstruction of the gall-duct. I read long ago in 
 a medical annual that before mercury came so much into 
 general use white of egg was used for the same pur- 
 poses.
 
 152 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 follow Dr. Dewey's example and give water 
 alone. In my own case I have done this 
 frequently, but I cannot recall an instance 
 in which it was necessary for more than 
 three days. When very busy at home I 
 had to go to London to give evidence in a 
 law court. I lived for three days and nights 
 in a hotel in Jermyn Street. The hurry 
 to get away and the journey brought 
 on a slight attack of my old headache 
 and sickness, and as the case was de- 
 layed till the third day, I was glad to re- 
 main in bed. One day I asked for a cup of 
 tea, but could not drink it, and I took liter- 
 ally nothing but water. As soon as the trial 
 was over, I told the landlady that I was to 
 return to Edinburgh by the night train. She 
 expostulated with me for dreaming of taking 
 the journey without food, when I told her I 
 would take nothing till morning, if then, but 
 that I was nearly well, and would be able to 
 do my next day's work. She then told me 
 that she was treated very differently by her
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH 153 
 
 doctor. She was a stout, dark woman, and 
 one would not have taken her for an invalid, 
 but she suffered from terrible headaches. 
 She was ordered to live very freely, and to 
 take a full supply of wine. Her last pre- 
 scription, a very recent one, was to take on 
 going to bed a large glass of whisky, with 
 water. Next day she told the doctor that 
 she could not take this as it made her tipsy. 
 The doctor's answer was, ' Take the whisky 
 after you go to your room, and no one will 
 see you tipsy ' ! I gave her very different 
 advice, but I do not know if it was acted 
 on or not ; most probably it was not, but, 
 should this meet her eye by any chance, I 
 would be glad to know. Our meeting was 
 twenty -seven years ago, and unless she 
 changed her mode of living, the chances that 
 she still survives are very small.
 
 XIV 
 
 EFFECTS OF HIGH LIVING ON THE MORALS 
 OF THE YOUNG 
 
 IN the ' Plea for a Simpler Life' \ scarcely 
 touched on the subject of the moral evils that 
 arise from bringing up the young on a too full 
 and exciting meat diet. This is a matter which 
 it is difficult to treat in a popular manner^ 
 and some may blame me for touching on 
 it at all. I have done much for many 
 years privately, whenever I had the oppor- 
 tunity, to impress on fathers and mothers 
 the danger to their sons and daughters from 
 exciting prematurely their natural desires and 
 passions ; but custom and fashion have so 
 powerful a hold, especially in the higher 
 circles of society, that I have frequently had
 
 HIGH LIVING AND MORALS OF THE YOUNG 155 
 
 to feel that my efforts were in vain. The 
 foundation of mischief is often laid at home, 
 but the evil system reaches its highest de- 
 velopment in many, if not all, of our first- 
 class public schools and colleges, where the 
 youth is away from home influences, and 
 comes into contact with others older than 
 himself, whose evil communications soon put 
 him on a level with themselves. The exist- 
 ence of bad habits in such schools is well 
 known to the masters, and they take 
 what measures they can for their preven- 
 tion. Even when they know the truth, 
 the strength of custom and habit so impera- 
 tively demands a full diet for the growing 
 youth that they are obliged to fall in with 
 the fashion of the day. But few of them are 
 aware of the main cause of the evil, and the 
 last thing most dream of as a remedy is a 
 simpler diet. They think to give vent to the 
 spirit of their boys, and to make them strong, 
 hardy, and self-reliant, by encouraging them 
 to the utmost to active exertion in the
 
 156 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 gymnasium, and in outdoor games, and by 
 free use of cold-water bathing. They think 
 they prove the value of these exercises when 
 they point out that some of the best athletes 
 are also the best scholars. But this only 
 proves that vigour of mind and body often 
 go together, which was well known before so 
 much credit was given to what many consider 
 a premature use or abuse of physical energy. 
 It may be well to err rather on the side of 
 exerting one's muscles somewhat too much 
 than too little, but there is a medium in all 
 things ; and, if an abnormal amount of 
 exercise is required in order to redress a too 
 full diet, the final result may be an unneces- 
 sary waste of energy and of bodily strength ; 
 just as too much premature mental study and 
 strain weakens the mental power, often for 
 a time, and sometimes permanently. It is 
 well known that a large amount of mental 
 as well as bodily work may be done on a 
 moderate diet made up wholly of vegetable 
 food and milk, and that this may be kept up
 
 HIGH LIVING AND MORALS OF THE YOUNG 157 
 
 for an indefinite period, with no risk to the 
 system ; while it is also known that a pro- 
 fessional, or any one else, if he lives too long 
 on a training diet, made up very much of 
 flesh, often comes to an untimely end, unless 
 he be pulled up in time by an acute disease. 
 In New Testament times and countries 
 morals were at a very low ebb, even in the 
 Christian communities, and good rules are 
 given for attaining a higher moral standard 
 than was professed by the surrounding 
 heathen world. Some of these rules have a 
 physical as well as a moral side. The former 
 may be found, in a very precise and emphatic 
 form, in the last verse of the fifth chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. ' Strong meat 
 belongeth to them that are of full age, even 
 those who by reason .of use have their senses 
 ['organs of sense/ as literally translated by 
 Dean Alford] exercised to discern both good 
 and evil.' In the first lines of the passage 
 we have given in a complete form the rule 
 which in a very modified form I have en-
 
 158 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 deavoured to inculcate for wellnigh half a 
 century. In the remainder of the verse we 
 have the reason given why the rule is neces- 
 sary. It is, that only those who arrive at full 
 age can make a right use of the organs 
 indicated, which are absolutely needful for 
 the preservation of the species. If they are 
 excited prematurely they can only be made a 
 bad use of, and this precocity comes as a 
 consequence of giving strong meat before the 
 arrival of full age. Punishment necessarily 
 follows every broken law, even though it is 
 broken in ignorance. It is a sad thought 
 that so many of our best youths, especially in 
 the higher classes, are subjected to a bring- 
 ing-up which makes it very difficult for them 
 to live a natural and pure life. Youths of a 
 coarser fibre, especially those of the muscular 
 or sanguine temperament, may stand a great 
 deal of wear and tear with but little per- 
 manent injury. Such may 'sow their wild 
 oats ' freely enough, and become after it all 
 respectable members of society. But those
 
 HIGH LIVING AND MORALS OF THE YOUNG 159 
 
 of a more sensitive and delicate type, and of 
 the nervous temperament, suffer most, and, 
 unless they have an unusually strong con- 
 stitution, often permanently. A headmaster, 
 as I have told in the ' Plea ' (p. 106), was con- 
 vinced that high feeding was the cause of 
 much evil, but under the circumstances in 
 which he was placed he could do nothing to 
 prevent it. Some twenty years later, the 
 same master said to a friend of mine, who 
 had asked him what became of all the fine 
 lads under his charge, ' One-half of them go 
 to the devil.' And the same system goes 
 on still. The subject is an unpleasant but a 
 very important one. I would not have 
 touched it had I no remedy to offer. A 
 youth on simple diet may go wrong; on a 
 full diet and with a good stomach he can 
 scarcely fail to do so.
 
 XV 
 
 MY TEACHERS 
 
 THE history of three ladies, who fell to my 
 care very early in my professional life, gave 
 me timely hints of the benefit which may 
 result from a very restricted diet both 
 temporary and permanent. They owed 
 nothing to me for the adoption of a method 
 that proved so salutary, and the only credit 
 I can take is that I watched the process with 
 an open mind, and had the good sense to 
 make use of it for others when I had seen its 
 value. I must confess, however, to an error 
 I made in the case of another lady, whom I 
 could not induce to take the food I considered 
 necessary for the work she had to do in the 
 way of teaching. At last I told her I would
 
 MY TEACHERS 161 
 
 not continue my attendance, as it could be of 
 no use so long as she would not take suffi- 
 cient nourishment. I left her, and I heard 
 long after that she was still taking her own 
 way, and was getting on very well without 
 me. This also was a lesson. 
 
 A lady, Mrs. S , about middle life, 
 
 was in 1845 put under my care by Professor 
 Simpson. He told me that she could not 
 live long, as she was in an advanced stage of 
 albuminuria or Bright's Disease not so well 
 known then as now. She was very thin and 
 very irritable, but had still some strength, 
 especially of will. For some time Simpson 
 and her husband had been making every effort 
 to induce her to take more food and any 
 stimulant she could fancy ; of the latter she 
 would take none, and of food in any form 
 extremely little. A reason pressed on her 
 was that she must take something to make 
 up for the constant loss of albumen. At first 
 I did my best to induce her to eat, but to no 
 purpose, and I dare not mention the amount
 
 162 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 and kind of food she took ; it would not be 
 believed. Time went on, she continued to 
 do the duties of her household ; she spent the 
 summer always in the country, and though 
 incapable of any but the most moderate 
 exercise she in a measure enjoyed life. 
 After some years I found that the albuminuria 
 had completely ceased. She was now taking 
 a little more food, but still her diet would be 
 considered a starvation one. After twenty 
 years and she had her troubles in the mean- 
 time, from the death of her husband and 
 other circumstances she began to enjoy 
 better health, and latterly she liked a glass of 
 wine. But by and by, when arguing with a 
 fishwife at her own door one cold day, she 
 got a .bad chill. Acute albuminuria now 
 came on. She got over the first attack, but 
 another in a few weeks killed her. The 
 kidneys were both found to be reduced to a 
 mere shell, and this, I believe, must have 
 been very much their state from the time I 
 first saw her Had she fed then as we all
 
 MY TEACHERS 163 
 
 wished, no doubt her life would have been a 
 very short one. 
 
 Mrs. F , a pretty, young, healthy woman, 
 
 one of a large family of daughters, all robust 
 and good-looking, suffered very much on a 
 long and rough voyage across the North Sea. 
 She was very sick and did not get her clothes 
 off during the voyage. She had a bad fever, 
 which ended in an unsightly eruption on her 
 face which would not leave her. Everything 
 was tried by others, and then by myself in 
 1847. The chief means I used was careful 
 dieting, but with little benefit. I had not 
 seen her for about six months, when, to my 
 astonishment, I found her with a face free of 
 eruption and fair as before. She told me 
 that Captain had advised her to give up 
 all flesh meat. He had been troubled with 
 a similar rash, and had found this a perfect 
 cure. Very soon, on the same plan, Mrs. 
 
 F had the same experience. She was now 
 
 married, and by and by had a well-developed, 
 healthy child. I was by no means sure that
 
 1 64 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 she would make a good nurse on her present 
 fare, and advised that she should take a 
 moderate amount of boiled fowl. She tried 
 it a few times, but she thought the eruption 
 was threatening to return. She dropped it, 
 and has gone on her old way for fifty years. 
 She has had a large and very handsome 
 family of sons and daughters. When I first 
 knew her she had bad heart disease, which 
 came on also after her voyage. It has 
 given her much trouble in recent years ; but, 
 as I have found in others, her simple living 
 seems to have checked its development. 
 Her diet has been extremely simple, and in 
 quantity very restricted almost as much so, 
 
 in recent years, as that of Mrs. S . 
 
 Mrs. L , a young married lady, came 
 
 under my care in 1849. She was healthy and 
 had already a young family. She was in a good 
 position, and enjoyed life and its usual com- 
 forts, but occasionally she made a bad break- 
 down. It was in one of them I first saw her 
 along with Professor Simpson. She went to
 
 MY TEACHERS 165 
 
 bed and took almost no food ; for weeks it 
 was only a little oatmeal which she kept by 
 her, and occasionally she wet her finger and 
 put to her mouth what adhered to it. I think 
 this first attack was the longest she had, and 
 it prepared me for others, of which she had 
 altogether a good number, sometimes at inter- 
 vals of years. She had other illnesses, but 
 there was nothing remarkable about them. 
 The difference from the two other cases I 
 have mentioned was that she lived well during 
 the intervals, while the others lived always 
 most sparingly. Later in life she had a smart 
 attack of the prevailing influenza. She 
 followed my plan of treatment, or rather I 
 should say I encouraged her to follow her 
 own. As she was getting better, she told me 
 one day with some amusement that her sister- 
 in-law, a younger and much stronger woman, 
 was also laid up with influenza, and was 
 taking a rather gloomy view of her case. 
 She was, of course, being treated on the 
 'keeping-up' plan. One day, in presence
 
 1 66 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 of her doctor, one of her friends tried to cheer 
 
 her up by alluding to herself (Mrs. L ), 
 
 and pointing out that she was much older and 
 frailer, and had a worse attack. 'Yes,' she 
 replied, ' but she has a sensible doctor.' The 
 younger and stronger lady died in a few 
 days, much to the distress of my patient, who 
 lived for years after this and died at a good 
 old age. 
 
 But for the fact of my having met with 
 these three cases so early in my professional 
 life, I doubt if I would ever have come to 
 carry out so thoroughly the natural mode of 
 treatment I have so long followed, or that I 
 would have ventured to recommend it to the 
 public and to the profession. And had I not 
 been so convinced of the great mischief, 
 especially of late years, to sufferers from 
 influenza from the opposite treatment, I 
 would still less have dared to mention the 
 rather grim anecdote I have just related. 
 Had the treatment in the two cases mentioned 
 been reversed, I cannot but think that the
 
 MY TEACHERS 167 
 
 result in both would have been reversed 
 likewise. But as I have said elsewhere, the 
 physician has but one chance. 
 
 The three histories given above were, 
 more than any others, of great value in 
 showing to me nature's methods of dealing 
 with disease. But ever since they put me 
 on the right road, my education has been 
 carried on by the occurrence of innumerable 
 instances in which I have been enabled 
 to give help in well-nigh hopeless condi- 
 tions, where the opposite plan of ' keeping 
 up the system ' had been long followed, 
 with no result but more or less rapid 
 deterioration. The two following cases I 
 am tempted to give as fair specimens of the 
 safety with which the necessary change of 
 treatment can be made when strength is at 
 the lowest, and as indicating what an amount 
 of suffering might have been spared had the 
 change been made at an earlier period. In 
 August 1874 a youth of eighteen was brought 
 to Edinburgh. His health had broken down
 
 1 68 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 eight months before when studying for college. 
 He had spent some months at a hydropathic 
 institution in England, and had subsequently 
 been under the treatment of two of the most 
 eminent physicians in London. His health 
 had gradually got worse, and he was now 
 reduced to an extreme state of emaciation 
 and feebleness. Any food he tried to take 
 brought on pain and chilliness to a degree 
 I had never met with before, and I never 
 undertook a more hopeless case. On the 
 lines of treatment followed hitherto there 
 was manifestly no hope whatever ; but my 
 methods were known to some near relatives, 
 and I was able to treat him as I wished. 
 Very small quantities of farinaceous food 
 with a little milk gave less discomfort than 
 anything he had tried, and to this he 
 was restricted for many weeks ; but the 
 cure, which commenced at once, was a very 
 tedious one. The great peculiarity in the 
 case, was chilliness coming on when he took 
 anything like a meal. He could swallow
 
 MY TEACHERS 169 
 
 nothing without hot bottles to his stomach 
 and back, or when somewhat stronger he 
 sat with his back to a hot fire ; and when 
 he was able to take a drive, he needed hot 
 bottles and the warmest clothing even in 
 fine weather. Another difficulty was to keep 
 the bowels open. In infancy, from a fall 
 owing to the carelessness of a nurse, he got 
 hemiplegia of the right side. This no doubt 
 rendered the bowel difficulty greater, and, 
 after some attempts were made at intervals 
 to relieve it by medicine and other means 
 which did more harm than good, it was 
 absolutely 'left to nature; and for twenty 
 years no artificial means whatever have been 
 required. His strength slowly improved and 
 ability to take more food, which had still to 
 be of the simplest kind. After nearly five 
 years I advised that he should go to a warm 
 climate, and he went accompanied by an excel- 
 lent nurse to Pau, Portugal, and Madeira. 
 He returned after a year and a half very 
 much improved, and he was soon able to
 
 176 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 occupy himself with literary work, in which, 
 both in prose and poetry, he has proved him- 
 self a successful worker. He is of too high- 
 strung a temperament even yet to indulge 
 in wine or strong meat, but this notwith- 
 standing, he can enjoy London society in a 
 moderate degree with safety and pleasure. 
 
 Twenty years ago I was asked to visit a 
 lady at Tunbridge Wells. I had seen her 
 occasionally before when she was a patient 
 of Professor Simpson. She was then very 
 delicate, and suffered from neuralgia. Her 
 health got gradually worse, and she had to 
 spend the winter in the south. She had 
 just come from Cannes. I found her in 
 about the lowest condition I ever saw any 
 one. The best of everything had been tried 
 to keep up her strength, but to no purpose. 
 She told me that at Cannes she remembered 
 I had said, twenty years before, that if she 
 would give up wine which she was taking 
 freely by order, she would get rid of her 
 neuralgia ; and in despair, and against the
 
 MY TEACHERS 171 
 
 advice of her doctor and all her friends, she 
 gave up all stimulants. The result was as 
 she hoped rather than expected, and she 
 resolved to see me as soon as possible. As 
 I have stated, she was in a wretched con- 
 dition, and she did not seem to have a sound 
 organ in her body. The food which she 
 still tried to take was doing her no good, 
 and she was about as thin as possible. I 
 confess I had not much hope of being of 
 use, but as the only chance of getting her 
 stomach into a better condition, I stopped 
 all rich food and put her on the lightest of 
 diet, and very little of that. Very gradually 
 she began to improve, but for years she lived 
 on the most meagre diet. She came up to 
 London, and for many winters she kept her 
 room, and mostly her bed. But she gradu- 
 ally got stronger ; her heart and lungs, from 
 which she suffered most after her stomach 
 improved, got into a healthier condition. 
 For some years she has gone to the south 
 during the winter, but her headquarters
 
 172 FADS OF AN OLD PHYSICIAN 
 
 are in Scotland. Though still requiring 
 to live very carefully, she is now in 
 better health than I have known her at 
 any time. Of late years she has escaped 
 the dreadful rounds of neuralgia she was 
 used to. These in a milder form were 
 long troublesome, and during them I re- 
 commended a moderate use of wine, and 
 she found it helpful. 
 
 These and other cases which I have given 
 in this volume and 'in the 'Plea,'' give full 
 information as to my ordinary, and I may 
 say invariable methods of treating disease 
 when I was allowed to have a free hand. 
 They differ absolutely from the depleting 
 measures which ruled the profession during 
 my student days, and early professional life ; 
 and they differ just as widely from the medical 
 doctrines and methods now generally taught 
 and practised. I can claim no special skill 
 in treating disease apart from the methods 
 used, nor any immunity from errors in diag- 
 nosis to which all are liable. If I have been
 
 MY TEACHERS 173 
 
 right in adopting a middle course for half a 
 century, during which my clients have given 
 me credit as a successful physician, there 
 must be some huge errors on the part of 
 those who follow methods which in many 
 cases are the very opposite. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printedby R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
 
 INDEX 
 
 I. refers to Plea for a Simpler Life. 
 II. refers to Fads of an Old Physician. 
 
 ABERCROMBIE, Dr., I. 13 
 Abstention from food, I. 38, 
 
 41, 44, 57, 132 
 Abuse of flesh food, I. 111-114, 
 
 119 
 Age, old, I. 46, 56, 86, 105, 
 
 138-142 
 
 Air, fresh, I. 42, 44 
 Alcohol, I. 22, 34, 119, 140; 
 
 useful in rare cases, II. 36 
 Alison, Professor, I. 15, 16 
 Ammonia, carbonate of, I. 52, 
 
 89 
 
 Anremia, I. 1 16 
 Aperients, I. 19, 23, 126-130; 
 
 in apoplexy, 51 ; in scarlet 
 
 fever, 29 
 Aphorism of Hippocrates, I. 27, 
 
 38 
 Apoplexy, I. 50-55 
 
 BATHS, German, I. 108, 109 
 Beef, raw, in children's diarrhoea, 
 
 11.24 
 
 Bleeding, I. 4, 8, 30, 68 
 Bouillaud, I. 8 
 Brassey, Mr., I. 138 
 British Medical Journal, I. 32, 
 117 : II. 82 
 
 CALOMEL, I. 17 
 
 Cambrai, Archbishop of, I. 
 148 
 
 Cancer, aggravated by high liv- 
 ing, II. 82 
 
 Cornaro, II. 28, 32 
 
 DELIRIUM TREMENS, I. 58 
 
 Depletion, order of day, I. 4 ; 
 in treatment of consumption, 
 9 
 
 Dewey, Dr., II. 12, 22, 114, 
 134, ISO 
 
 Diarrhoea, tropical, II. 2 ; abuse 
 of milk in children's, 8 ; raw 
 beef in children's, 24 ; white 
 of egg in, 151 
 
 Diet, of different temperaments, 
 I. 20; the young, 123; the 
 aged, 138; the hard-worked, 
 145 ; the healthy, 147 ; Dr. 
 Keith's, II. 26; Dr. Haig's, 
 28 ; in a hot climate, 1 16 
 
 Drugs, number of new, II. 102 
 
 Dyspepsia, I. 103, 132 
 
 EAT slowly, I. 137, 145 
 Eczema, I. 117 
 Edison, T. A., I. 146
 
 1 7 6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 English versus foreign navvies, 
 
 I. 138 
 
 Exercise, I. 112, 136, 137 
 
 FASHION in medicine, I. 3-8, 
 57, 68, 91, 98 ; in stimulants, 
 98 
 
 Fever, action of, as an eliminant, 
 aperients in scarlet, I. 29 ; 
 Indian, 25; typhus, 134; 
 rheumatic, II. 109 
 
 Flesh food, abuse of, I. 111- 
 114, 119 
 
 Food, abstention from, I. 38-41, 
 44, 51, 132; in disease, 35, 
 54, 57 ; carbonaceous, 96- 
 99, 10 1 ; nitrogenous, 96, 
 99, 101 ; excess in, aggravated 
 by alcohol, 119: enjoyment 
 of, II. 29 
 
 GERMAN baths, I. 108, 109 
 Gout, rheumatic, I. 108 
 
 Hsematuria, I. 64 
 
 Haemorrhage, I. 57 
 
 Haig, Dr. A., I. 115; II. 10, 
 25, 96 
 
 Heart disease and dropsy, II. 
 4 ; troubles aggravated by 
 irritation from stomach, 61 
 
 High living and morals, I. 143 ; 
 
 II. 154 
 
 Hippocrates, aphorism of, I. 27 
 Homeopathy, I. 9, 11-13 
 Hot water, I. 42, 60, 77, 78, 
 8 1, 88, 92; II. 65; story 
 of its introduction, 65 ; as a 
 stimulant, 67 ; as a food, 70 ; 
 abuse of, 70 ; use of, 152 
 
 INFLUENZA, I. 87-93 ; H. 165 
 Insane, artificial feeding of, II. 
 136 
 
 Insanity, treatment of, I. 70, 72 
 Intemperance, cure of, by sali- 
 vation, II. 40 ; aggravated by 
 butcher meat, 42 ; cured by 
 abstinence from butcher meat, 
 43 
 Iodide of potassium, I. 23 
 
 "KEEPING up system," I. 33, 
 53, 54, 86 
 
 LIEBIG'S Extract, I. 60 
 
 Life, prolongation of, I. 141 ; 
 
 II. 149 
 Lime-water and milk, I. 14, 16, 
 
 26, 81 ; II. 151 
 Liquorice, I. 85 ; II. 77 ; and 
 
 peppermint, 81 
 Lungs, congestion of, I. 61 
 
 MAJENDJE, I. 8 
 
 Massage in heart troubles, II. 
 
 5 1 ; relief of pain by, $o, 98 
 Matters which retard digestion 
 
 and prevent waste, II. 124 
 May, Sir Erskine, I. 146 
 Medical teaching and practice, 
 
 L ? 
 Merei, Professor Shoepf, I. 7, 
 
 20 ; II. 65 
 Methods of cure, Nature's, I. 
 
 39, 44, 48, 94, 105, 147 
 Milk, I. 63, 78, 123 ; abuse of, 
 
 II. 5 ; in diarrhoea of children, 
 
 8 ; and lime-water, I. 14, 16, 
 
 26, 81 ; II. 151 
 Morals and high living, I. 143 ; 
 
 II. I 54 
 
 NATURE'S methods of cure, I. 
 
 39, 44, 48, 94, 105, 147 
 Navvies, English and foreign, 
 
 I. 138 
 
 Nitrogenous food, I. 96, 100- 
 104, 123
 
 INDEX 
 
 177 
 
 OPIUM, abuse of injections of, 
 II. 99 
 
 PALMERSTON, Lord, I. 147 
 Paralysis, general, I. 101 
 Phosphates in food, I. 135 
 Pills, I. 17, 102 
 Pneumonia, treatment of, in 
 
 1834, I. 9- 1 1 
 
 Potassium, iodide of, I. 23 
 Prolongation of life, I. 141 ; II. 
 
 149 
 
 QUININE, I. 24 
 
 RELIEF of pain and sleepless- 
 ness, II. 97 
 
 Remedies, new, I. 22 ; drink, 
 34, 39 ; food, 35, 39 ; medi- 
 cine, 43 
 
 Reserve of food in body, I. 36, 
 40, 51, 88, 105 
 
 Responsibilities of health, II. 
 
 IS' 
 Rest to the stomach, I. 39, 67, 
 
 79 ; to the body, 41, 44, 131 
 Rheumatic fever, II. 109 ; more 
 
 common than formerly, 1 10 ; 
 
 very common in Argentine 
 
 Republic, 113; gout, I. 108 
 Russian skim milk cure, II. 3 
 
 SALISBURY treatment, II. 73 
 Scarlet fever, I. 29 
 Self-massage, II. 46 
 Simpson, SirJ., I. 7, 16, 126; 
 II. 100 
 
 ; Starving, two ways of, I. 131 ; 
 so called, II. i 
 
 j Stimulants, I. 34, 39, 42, 51, 
 59, 98, 131 ; II. 35 ; alco- 
 holic, useful in rare cases, 
 36 
 Stomach, rest to, I. 39, 67, 80 
 
 ! Syme, Mr., I. 14 
 
 j TANNER, Dr., I. 36 
 i Teachers, my, II. 160 
 Teaching and practice, medical, 
 
 I- 3 
 
 Thompson, Sir H., I. 121, 139 
 Time an element in cure, I. 43 
 Tobacco, I. no 
 
 Tropical diarrhoea, II. 2 
 
 ! Typhus fever, I. 134 
 
 i URIC acid, I. 116 
 
 VlS MEDICATRIX NATURM, I. 
 44 
 
 WARMTH, I. 41, 131 
 
 Water, I. 35, 44. 124-126; 
 
 hot, II. 65 ; as a stimulant, 
 
 I. 105 ; II. 67 ; abuse of, 70 ; 
 
 as a food, 70 
 Weir-Mitchell treatment, II. 37, 
 
 64 
 
 Whisky, I. 60, 120 
 White, of egg, I. 81 ; bread, 
 
 134, 135 
 Wine, I. 87, 98, 121, 139 
 
 YEO, Dr., II. 1 6 
 
 THE END 
 
 R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
 
 Eighth Reprint^ Crown 8vo, Cloth, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 PLEA FOR A SIMPLER LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE S. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P.E. 
 
 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 reformation of some few, at 
 least, of the many flagrant abuses of medical teaching and practice." Dublin 
 Journal 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. 
 
 " 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 medi- 
 cines. 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." TJie Guardian. 
 
 "As interesting as it is disinterested, and as valuable as it is cheap." Great 
 Thought*. 
 
 " The treatise is a powerful argument against the abuse of food and stimulants, 
 both in health and sickness." St. fatness Budget. 
 
 " 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.