done his king, he would not have forsaken him in that extremity; and so will every one find, when union and friendship is not founded on solid virtue, and in conformity to the divine order, but in sensual pleasures and mere jollity."

These reflexions, while they are truly characteristic of this eminent man, are replete with that wisdom and instruction from which all may derive advantage.

Dr. Cheyne's retirement into the country, and low living, not having entirely removed his complaints, he was persuaded to try the Bath waters. He accordingly went to Bath, and for some time found considerable relief from drinking the waters. He returned afterwards to London for the winter season, and had recourse to a milk diet, from which he derived the most salutary consequences. He now followed the business of his profession, with great diligence and attention, in summer at Bath, and in winter at London; and, at this period of his life, he generally rode on horse-back ten or fifteen miles every day.

Finding his health to be thoroughly re-established, Dr. Cheyne again made a change in his regimen, gradually lessening the quantity of his milk and vegetables, and by slow degrees, and in moderate quantities, living on the lightest and tenderest animal food. This he continued for some time, and at last gradually went into the common mode of living and drinking wine, though within the bounds of temperance; and he appears to have enjoyed good health for several years. But his mode of living, though he indulged in no

great irregularities, was still more free than his constitution would admit; and, at length, produced very ill effects. In the course of ten or twelve years he continued to increase in size, and at length weighed more than thirty-two stone. His breath became so short, that, upon stepping into his carriage quickly, and with some effort, he was ready to faint away, and his face would turn black. He was not able to walk up above one pair of stairs at a time without extreme difficulty; he was forced to ride from door to door in a chariot even at Bath; and if he had but a hundred paces to walk, he was obliged to have a servant following him with a stool to rest upon.

He had also some other complaints, and grew extremely lethargic; and at Midsummer, in the year 1723, he was seized with a severe symptomatic fever, which terminated in a most violent erysipelas. He continued to be in a very bad state of health for about a year and a half, having now resided for a considerable time almost entirely at Bath. In December, 1725, he went to London, where he had the advice of his friends. Dr. Arbuthnot, Dr. Mead, Dr. Friend, and some other physicians. From nothing, however, did he find so much relief as from a milk and vegetable diet; by a strict adherence to which, in somewhat more than two years, his health was at length thoroughly established; and he confined himself almost entirely to this regimen during the remainder of his life. Of this regimen and its effects, he speaks in the following terms:

"My regimen, at present, is milk, with tea, coffee,

bread and butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with tender roots (as potatoe, turnips, carrots), and, in short, every thing that has not life, dressed or not, as I like it; in which there is as much, or a greater variety than in animal food; so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine, nor any fermented liquors; and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid, moist, or juicy; only after dinner I drink either coffee or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a glass of small soft cyder. The thinner my diet is, the easier, more cheerful and lightsome I find myself. My sleep is also the sounder, though, perhaps, somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal diet. But then I am more alive than ever I was, as soon as I awake and get up. I rise commonly at six, and go to bed at ten.”

In the mean time, Dr. Cheyne continued to publish some other medical works, particularly an "Essay on the Gout, and the Nature and Quality of Bath Waters." This passed through five editions; and was followed by an "Essay on Health and Long Life," written at the desire of Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls. This was well received by the public, but occasioned sundry reflections to be thrown out against him by some persons of the medical profession. It was translated into the French language. In 1726, he published the same work in Latin, but enlarged one passage of this book, in which he gives his opinion of that popular beverage, punch, and which is too curious and too important, perhaps, to be omitted; therefore,

DR. CHEYNE'S OPINION OF PUNCH

is, that, "Next to drams, no liquor deserves more to be stigmatized, and banished the repasts of the tender, valetudinary, and studious, than punch. 'Tis a composition of such parts, as not one of them is salutary, or kindly to such constitutions, except the pure element in it.""I could never see any temptation, for any one in their senses, to indulge in this heathenish liquor, but that it makes its votaries the soonest, and all of a sudden, the deepest drunk, holds them longest in the fit, and deprives them the most entirely of the use of their intellectual faculties and bodily organs, of any liquor whatsoever. It is likest opium, both in its nature, and in the manner of its operation, and nearest arsenic in its deleterious and poisonous qualities: and so I leave it to them." There are not, perhaps, many readers who will allow this censure to be just. Dr. Cheyne, however, is not entirely singular in his opinion, for many other medical authors have condemned the use of punch, as prejudicial to the brain and nervous system. In 1726, he published the "English Malady; or, a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all Kinds." In the preface to this work he has made some important observations on the milk and vegetable diet and low regimen; for, that it might not be supposed, that this diet and low regimen, which he recommended to valetudinary persons, and those who laboured under nervous diseases, was thought proper by him for persons in full health and vigour, he asserted that he thought thin, poor, cool, low diet, as improper and unnatural

K

to a robust, strong, active, healthy man, as a gross, full, high diet for a poor, thin, low, valetudinary creature.

He also says, "I here solemnly declare it as my judgment and opinion (if it be worth the knowing), founded on the experience and observation of many years:

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"Ist. That the diet and manner of living of the middling rank, who are but moderate and temperate in foods of the common and natural product of the country, to wit, in animal foods plainly dressed, and liquors purified by fermentation only, without the tortures of the fire, or without being turned into spirits, is that intended by the Author of nature for this climate and country, and consequently the most wholesome and fittest in general for prolonging life, and preventing distempers, that the ends of Providence and the conditions of mortality will admit.

"2ndly. That no wise man, who is but moderate and temperate in this manner, ought on any account to alter the kind and quality of his diet, till he has duly and sufficiently tried what proper medicine can do, by the advice of the most experienced and knowing physician.

"3dly. That the changes that are advised to be made ought to be duly and maturely considered, and entered upon by degrees, whether from a higher to a lower, or from a lower to a higher diet.

"4thly. That strong, high-seasoned animal foods, and generous defecated spiritous liquors, as begetting warm, full, and enlivened juices, urging on the circulation with force, action, and labour; and so absolutely necessary for handicrafts, great fatigue, and military prowess.”