ABSTRACT
Many more Cases I could mention, of such as, in the like Distempers with there here specified, have actually obtained under my Direction a lasting and solid Cure, by a Regimen of Diet and such Medicines, as I have hinted. But if these will not fatisfy my Reader, Volumes of Cases would not; they will be sufficient for the Candid Miserable and Sincere; the Captious Healthy, and the Diffident, nothing I can say will satisfy. It is certain none will undertake such a Method, till they have found all others vain and ineffectual; nor can I blame any one for so doing: If the Gratification of their Palate and Taste be of greater Pleasure to them than their Sufferings are of Pain, they are as yet unfit for any such Regimen or Method; they must be worse, before they can be better. I think it pretty certain from the Way of Living of the lower Rank of all Nations, that such a Regimen will not directly kill or starve any thing but Distempers: Unless the Wound be actually mortal and incureable in its own Nature and Degree: and pven then it will prolong their Days, and make their Passage less miserable and painful, than any other Method; and I daily see many wretched Persons complaining, grumbling, and inwardly cursing the Creator of the Universe for their Miseries and Sufferings, who I am morally and medically certain, bring all their Wretchedness on themselves, by constantly over-loading, bursting and cramming the poor passive Machine: and who, by the Methods and Medicines I have mentioned, might be made easy, chearful, and happy, tho’ not perhaps always at first, (unless they have few Humours. or Salts in their Juices) yet surely in Some time. A vegetable Patient of mine, very justly observed to me, that whereas before, he could never trust his Appetite's Longings or Craving, while on an animal high Diet, without suffering to Extremity: Now he found, he might safely and securely trust Nature and Appetite, without Danger, Fear or Suffering. Others I have known, who having entered upon, and being in some Degree recovered by this Method and these Medicines, yet have continued Weak, Poor, and Valetudinary all their Days, for Want of Resolution and Perseverance in it, by being divided and frightened by the unexperienced Gainsayers. But in about thirty Years Practice, in which I have in some Degree or other, advised this Method in proper Cases, I have had but two Patients, in whose total Recovery, I have been mistaken, and theirs were both scrophulous Cases, where the Glands and Tubercules were so many, so hard and impervious, that even the ponderous Remedies and Diet joined, could not discuss them, and they were both also too far gone before they entered upon them; and I have found deep scrophulous Vapours, the most obstinate and perverse of any of this Tribe of these Distempers: and indeed nothing can possibly reach such, but the ponderous Medicines, joined with a liquid, cool, soft Milk and Seed Regimen; and if these two do not in due Time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will.
