Rules for sickness.
It was the opinion of Dr Pitt, who was formerly physician to St. Bartholomew’s hospital, that fasting, rest, and drinking water, would cure most diseases. And there seemeth to be a great deal of reason in what he asserts: for fasting will give time to the stomach to unload itself of the cause of distempers, the cause of all diseases being begun in that bowel only: to which cleansing, the drinking of water plentifully will much contribute; which also will keep the action of the stomach upon the hinges, by filling of it when empty, at which time there will be need of rest, for thereby the body will be less fit for business: Tho’ the mere drinking of water, which affords nourishment sufficient for the growth and support of all vegetables, will, in some measure, supply the want of food; as hath been shewn in the example of two, who were supported a long time by nothing else. In short, the best way for a sick man to recover, is to eat little or no food till he finds an appetite, according to that saying,
Spare diet will the most diseases cure,
If a due time the same you can endure.
And fasting from food may be continued long enough to be a remedy for many diseases, with the assistance of common water; by the drinking of which warm, in a due quantity, without a total fasting, two persons, I am informed, were recovered out of consumptions, with which they were extremely weakened, and that in about six weeks time; as another by drinking milk and whey, equal parts, made blood hot, without using any other diet, which is thought to be far more effectual than asses milk, whose virtue consists in being thinner than other milk.
Air, its benefit.
But, besides a spare diet, cool dry air is also very helpful to preserve men in health, who are not sick; for it mixes with the blood, and without it the motion of the blood and spirits can never be preserved; as appears by diving vessels, in which men cannot live when the air therein is made hot by their own body and breath: And is proved also by an experiment of Dr. Croone’s, who stifled a chicken till it seemed quite dead; and yet, by blowing cool air into the lungs with a small pair of bellows, it revived. Hence it appears, that the common custom of managing sick people is very pernicious, and so far from helping them to recover, that it is sufficient to make a healthy person sick: For were a person, who was not sick, confined for three or four weeks in a room made hot like a stove, and kept in his bed, with the curtains drawn, and all the windows close shut, and the room made unpleasant with the nauseous fumes of physic and a close-stool, which will almost make a healthy man sick when he enters into it; we can never think that this is the way to recover one that really is sick, and wants the fresh air and reviving scents to cherish his blood; a fresh, open, sweet air being one principal means to strengthen the body, make a good appetite and digestion, and render the spirits brisk and lively: which advantage should be allowed to all but childbed women, and those who are afflicted with the small pox: for the fresh air can be prejudicial to no other, whose bodies are clothed warm, either in bed, or sitting in a chair in their chamber.
A fever suddenly cured.
Some years since, a neighbour became very feverish, and his wife persuaded him to go to bed; and hearing of it soon after, I gave him a visit where I found the windows close shut, the curtains of the bed drawn, and the room very hot, for it was in July: He was burning hot, and complained for want of breath. I drew open the curtains, covered him warm, and then opened the windows, and the wind blew into the room; upon which he soon told me, his shortness of breath had left him. I persuaded him to drink water, which he found did much refresh him; and, after I had taken my leave of him, he called for more water: and, while he had the cup in his hand, an apothecary came in, whom his wife had sent for, who, finding him about to drink the water, told him, if he did it, he was a dead man; but, instead of forbearing, he drank it up in his presence: upon which the other took his leave, and told him, he would say no more to him. However, before night, the person got up, went abroad, and was cured of his fever. Which is one instance, among many others that might be given, of the benefit of fresh air to a person who is kept warm in his bed; for thereby his body was cooled inwardly, and his breathing made more free, by the air which was drawn into his lungs to refresh and comfort the blood as it passed through them.
A cool and low diet.
I shall only add, that by keeping the blood cool as well as clean, is to be understood, not only moderation in diet, but to feed most on cooling food made of wheat, barley, oat-meal, rice, and ripe apples, as also on milk, which, joined with oat-meal, is the chief food of those lusty and strong men, the Highlanders of Scotland, who abound in children, as Dr. Cheyne tells us in his Treatise of the Gout, p. 108. edit. 4. which demonstrates milk and oat-meal to be a most strengthening food, and such as keeps the blood in due order; so that therewith men may subsist, tho’ they abstain from beef, pork and venison, and all other meats hard to digest, and drink water as the highlanders do: Of the efficacy of which cooling milk-diet the said Dr. Cheyne gives a notable instance in a doctor that lived at Croyden, p. 103. who had long been afflicted with the falling-evil; for, by slow observation, he found the lighter his meals were, the lighter were his fits. At last he also cast off all liquids but water, and found his fits weaker, and the intervals longer; and finding his disease mend, as its fewel was withdrawn, he took to vegetable food, and water only, which put an entire period to his fits without any relapse: But finding that food windy to him, he took to milk, of which he drank a pint for a breakfast, a quart at dinner, and a pint for supper, without fish, flesh, bread, or any strong or spirituous liquor, or any drink but water, with which he lived afterwards for fourteen years, without the least interruption in his health, strength or vigour, but died afterwards of a pleurisy. Which is a confirmation of what Dr. Cook did affirm, of the possibility of curing diseases by a diet only, that is temperate and cooling; of which milk is a part, as are also the roots and seeds of vegetables, such as potatoes, turnips, wheat, rice, barley, oat-meal, and full ripe fruit.