BATH, November 10, 1764.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I am much concerned at the account you gave me of
yourself, in your last letter. There is, to be sure, at such a town as
Dresden, at least some one very skillful physician, whom I hope you have
consulted; and I would have you acquaint him with all your several
attacks of this nature, from your great one at Laubach, to your late one
at Dresden: tell him, too, that in your last illness in England, the
physicians mistook your case, and treated it as the gout, till Maty came,
who treated it as a rheumatism, and cured you. In my own opinion, you
have never had the gout, but always the rheumatism; which, to my
knowledge, is as painful as the gout can possibly be, and should be
treated in a quite different way; that is, by cooling medicines and
regimen, instead of those inflammatory cordials which they always
administer where they suppose the gout, to keep it, as they say, out of
the stomach.
I have been here now just a week; but have hitherto drank so little of
the water, that I can neither speak well nor ill of it. The number of
people in this place is infinite; but very few whom I know. Harte seems
settled here for life. He is not well, that is certain; but not so ill
neither as he thinks himself, or at least would be thought.
I long for your answer to my last letter, containing a certain proposal,
which, by this time, I suppose has been made you, and which, in the main,
I approve of your accepting.
God bless you, my dear friend! and send you better health! Adieu.