"After breakfast had been some time finished, Dr Ramozini told his patient it was time to begin the great work of restoring him to the use of his limbs. He accordingly had him carried into a little room, where he desired the gentleman to attempt to stand. 'That is impossible,' answered the patient, 'for I have not been able to use a leg these three years.' 'Prop yourself, then, upon your crutches, and lean against the wall to support yourself,' answered the physician. The gentleman did so, and the
doctor went abruptly out, and locked the door after him. He had not been long in this situation before he felt the floor of
the chamber, which he had not before perceived to be composed of plates of iron, grow immoderately hot under his feet. He called the doctor and his servants, but to no purpose; he then began to utter loud vociferations and menaces, but all was equally ineffectual; he raved, he swore, he promised, he entreated, but nobody came to his assistance, and the heat grew more intense every instant. At length necessity compelled him to hop upon one leg in order to rest the other, and this he did with greater agility than he could conceive was possible; presently the other leg began to burn, and then he hopped again upon the other. Thus he went on, hopping about with this involuntary exercise, till he had stretched every sinew and muscle more than he had done for several years before, and thrown himself into a profuse perspiration.
"When the doctor was satisfied with the exertions of his patient, he sent into the floor an easy chair for him to rest upon, and suffered the floor to cool as gradually as it had been heated. Then it was that the sick man for the first time began to be sensible of the real use and pleasure of repose; he had earned it by fatigue, without which it can never prove either salutary or agreeable.
"At dinner the doctor appeared again to his patient, and made him a thousand apologies for the liberties he had taken with his person. These excuses he received with a kind of sullen civility. However, his anger was a little mitigated by the smell of a roasted pullet, which was brought to table and set before him. He now, from exercise and abstinence, began to find a relish in his victuals
which he had never done before, and the doctor permitted him to mingle a little wine with his water. These compliances, however, were so extremely irksome to his temper, that the month seemed to pass away as slowly as a year. When it was expired, and his servants came to ask his orders, he instantly threw himself into his carriage without taking leave either of the doctor or his family. When he came to reflect upon the treatment he had received, his forced exercises, his involuntary abstinence, and all the other mortifications he had undergone, he could not conceive but it must be a plot of the physician he had left behind, and full of rage and indignation, drove directly to his house in order to reproach him with it.
"The physician happened to be at home, but scarcely knew his patient again, though after so short an absence. He had shrunk to half his former bulk, his look and colour were mended, and he had entirely thrown away his crutches. When he had given vent to all that his anger could suggest, the physician coolly answered in the following manner:—'I know not, sir, what right you have to make me these reproaches, since it was not by my persuasion that you put yourself under the care of Doctor Ramozini.' 'Yes, sir, but you gave me a high character of his skill and integrity.' 'Has he then deceived you in either, or do you find yourself worse than when you put yourself under his care?' 'I cannot say that,' answered the gentleman; 'I am, to be sure, surprisingly improved in my digestion; I sleep better than ever I did before; I eat with an appetite; and I can walk almost as well
as ever I could in my life.' 'And do you seriously come,' said the physician, 'to complain of a man that has affected all these miracles for you in so short a time, and, unless you are now wanting to yourself, has given you a degree of life and health which you had not the smallest reason to expect.'
"The gentleman who had not sufficiently considered all these advantages, began to look a little confused, and the physician thus went on:—'All that you have to complain of is, that you have been involuntarily your own dupe, and cheated into health and happiness. You went to Dr Ramozini, and saw a parcel of miserable wretches comfortably at dinner. That great and worthy man is the father of all about him; he knows that most of the diseases of the poor, originate in their want of food and necessaries, and therefore benevolently assists them with better diet and clothing. The rich, on the contrary, are generally the victims of their own sloth and intemperance, and, therefore, he finds it necessary to use a contrary method of cure—exercise, abstinence, and mortification. You, sir, have indeed been treated like a child, but it has been for your own advantage. Neither your bed, nor meat, nor drink, has ever been medicated; all the wonderful change that has been produced has been by giving you better habits, and rousing the slumbering powers of your own constitution. As to deception, you have none to complain of, except what proceeded from your own foolish imagination, which persuaded you that a physician was to regulate his conduct by the folly and intemperance of his patient. As to all the rest, he only promised to exert all the secrets of
his art for your cure; and this, I am witness he has done so effectually, that, were you to reward him with half your fortune, it would hardly be too much for his deserts.'