Scurvy.
The plentiful drinking of water is commended in the scurvy, whether hot or cold, by Dr. Pitcairn, to dissolve the scorbutic salts, and carry them out by urine; but this is a distemper that Dr. Cheyne affirms is difficult to cure, that nothing but a total abstinence from flesh, fish, and strong liquor, will overcome the scurvy, p. 127, whether they are acids or alkalies. But tho’ weakness and faintness commonly attends on this distemper, yet myself, who have been formerly extremely troubled with the scurvy, which often made me faint and weak, and my pulse so low as scarcely to be felt, found at last that the pulse would infallibly rise upon drinking a pint or more of cold water, and in a little time I should again become brisk and strong: for I have often observed, that, upon a disorder of the stomach, the strength of the bodily members soon would fail, and as easily be recovered when the disorder of the stomach was removed; which requires temperance and cooling diet, when distempered, especially in drink.
Asthma & consumption.
To what hath been already said, I will add an account, taken from a credible person, of a man in the parish of Shoreditch, who was desperately ill of an asthma, or shortness of breath, and deep consumption, for which he had tried many remedies to no purpose. At length he was advised by a physician, being poor, to drink no drink but water, and eat no other food but water-gruel, without salt or sugar; which course of diet he continued for three months, finding himself at first to be somewhat better, and at the three months end he was perfectly cured; but, for security’s sake, he continued in that diet a month longer, and grew fat and strong upon it. But his diet he had no mind to till he was thoroughly hungry, and then he did eat it with pleasure; in which perhaps consisted the best part of his cure, it being an advantage to health never to eat till hunger calls for food.
Cough cured.
And I remember a young woman, a burnisher of silver, who had a desperate cough, for which she had taken many things of an apothecary to no purpose; at length the journeyman told her, his master said, he could do no more:
But, said the fellow, I would advise you every morning to wash behind your ears, and upon your temples, and on the mould of your head, with cold water: which she told me she did, and was perfectly cured of her cough by that means. And for a Hoarseness. hoarseness that comes upon a cold, the dipping of a handkerchief five times double in very hot water, and holding it to the mouth and nose, new-dipping it as it becomes cold, is commended by Dr. Alexander Read as a good remedy.
Difficulty in making water.
There are divers other cases wherein the use of water hath done much good. An ancient practiser in physic told me, that in many difficulties of making water, he had advised the party to put his yard into water as hot as he could endure it, which in a minute did cause him to make water; and that women have had the same benefit by sitting over hot water. And he often had advised them who were costive, Costiveness. and went to stool with great difficulty, to sit over a pot with hot water in it; which soon was attended with an easy dejection of stool, the body drawing up the vapour, which provoked expulsion of the excrements without much straining.
Children unquiet.