‘Another captain of a ship also took the same method, when he, or any of his men, fell into a fever; which had the desired success.’
Mr. Lucas adds, in another letter to the same gentleman, ‘That his own wife fell very ill of a fever; she drank water, sweat very much, and thereby recovered.’
Colds.
All which instances corroborate the new way of curing fevers, so lately discovered in this city by Dr. Hancock; who also saith, he has had long experience of curing common colds with cold water; and this is done by drinking a large draught of water at going to bed, another in the night, and another in the morning: which, he saith, will soon thicken and sweeten, and digest that thin sharp rheum that provokes coughing to no purpose; for the rheum, when thin, is hard to be brought up; but, when thickened, it will come up easily, and the cough will soon go off. Which agrees with what I before affirmed from my own long experience.
Good for the breath.
He also affirms from his own experience, that using sometimes to take a walk of eight or ten miles in a morning, he found that water gave twice as good breath for that purpose as wine or ale; and, if it would do this for a man who had no asthma, he doubts not but it would do the same in a person troubled with one. And he also affirms water to be the best remedy for a surfeit; to the truth of which I can testify by long experience.
Rheumatism.
He also affirms, that drinking cold water hath been found good in rheumatisms, and that to one so afflicted he had advised to drink it as he lay in his bed, and it took off the fit; but if hot water attenuates the blood most, as Boerhaave affirms it is then best to drink of it warm daily to a good quantity: For, as Pitcairn observes, it is then the best dissolver of all kinds of salts in the body, which it will carry off in the urine, if drank plentifully; for by urine salts are evacuated, as is evident by the taste.
Gout in the stomach.
And it is his opinion, from the long experience he hath had of the effect of water in keeping the stomach in order, and making it tight and strong to perform its operations, and digest all humours, that it will cure the gout in the stomach; and perhaps it may do it better than wine, which I have known to fail. And I do not wonder that the same liquor, which is the principal cause of the gout in other parts, should not be a help in that part, but rather kill, as it often is found to do, tho’ the strongest wine is drank.