Since drums and parchment were invented.’”[139]
XIX.
CHEYNE. 1671–1743.
ONE of the most esteemed of English physicians, and one of the first medical authorities in this country who expressly wrote in advocacy of the reformed diet, descended from an old Scottish family. He studied medicine at Edinburgh—then and still a principal school of medicine and surgery—where he was a pupil of Dr. Pitcairn. At about the age of thirty he removed to London, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and took his M.D. degree, commencing practice in the metropolis.
The manner of life of a medical practitioner in the first half of the last century differed considerably from the present fashion. Not only personal inclination, but even professional interest, usually led him to frequent taverns and to indulge in all the excesses of “good living;” for in such boon companionship he most easily laid the foundation of his practice. Cheyne’s early habits of temperance thus gave way to the double temptation, and soon by this indulgence he contracted painful disorders which threatened his life. An enormous weight of flesh, intermittent fevers, shortness of breath, and lethargy combined to enfeeble and depress him.
His first appearance in literature was the publication of his New Theory of Fevers, written in defence and at the suggestion of his old master Dr. Pitcairn, who was at war with his brethren on the nature of epidemics. The author, while in after life holding that it contained, though in a crude form, some valuable matter, wisely allowed it to fall into oblivion. The Mechanical or Iatro-Mathematical Theory, as it was called, of which Cheyne was one of the earliest and most distinguished expounders, by which it was attempted to apply the laws of Mechanics to vital phenomena, had succeeded to the principles of the old Chemical School. On the Continent the new theory had the support of the eminent authority of Boerhaave, Borelli, Sauvages, Hoffman, and others. The natural desire to discover some definite and simple formulæ of medical science lay at the root of this, as of many other hypotheses. Cheyne, himself, it is right to observe, ridiculed the notion that all vital processes can be explained on mechanical principles.
In 1705 he published his Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion, a book which had some repute in its day, apparently, since it was in use in the Universities. Between this and his next essay in literature a long interval elapsed, during which he had to pay the penalty of his old habits in apoplectic giddiness, violent headaches, and depression of spirits. Happily, it became for him the turning-point in his life, and eventually rendered him so useful an instructor of his kind. He had now arrived at a considerable amount of reputation in the profession. He seems to have been naturally of agreeable manners and of an amiable disposition, as well as of lively wit which, improved by study and reading, made him highly popular; and amongst his scientific and professional friends he was in great esteem. He had now, however—not too soon—determined to abandon his bon-vivantism, and speedily “even those who had shared the best part of my profusions,” he tells us, “who, in their necessities had been relieved by my false generosity, and, in their disorders, been relieved by my care, did now entirely relinquish and abandon me.” He retired into solitude in the country and, almost momentarily expecting the termination of his life, set himself to serious and earnest reflection on the follies and vices of ordinary living.
At this time it seems that, although he had reduced his food to the smallest possible amount, he had not altogether relinquished flesh-meat. He repaired to Bath for the waters and, by living in the most temperate way and by constant and regular exercise, he seemed to have regained his early health. At Bath he devoted himself to cases of nervous diseases which most nearly concerned his own state, and which were most abundant at that fashionable resort. About the year 1712, or in the forty-second year of his age, his health was fairly re-established, and he began to relax in the milk and vegetable regimen which he had previously adopted.
His next publication was An Essay on the Gout and Bath Waters (1720), which passed through seven editions in six years. In it he commends the vegetable diet, although not so radically as in his latest writings. His relaxation of dietetic reform quickly brought back his former maladies, and he again suffered severely. During the next ten or twelve years he continued to increase in corpulency, until he at last reached the enormous weight of thirty-two stones, and he describes his condition at this time as intolerable.[140] In 1725 he left Bath for London, to consult his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, whose advice probably renewed and confirmed his old inclination for the rational mode of living. At all events, within two years, by a strict adherence to the milk and vegetable regimen his maladies finally disappeared; nor did he afterwards suffer by any relapse into dietetic errors.
In the preceding year had appeared his first important and original work—his well-known Essay of Health and a Long Life. In the preface he declares that it is published for the benefit of those weakly persons who