water-drinking will be available for a cure, the same must not be drank
sparingly, but plentifully; as (for instance) to ease the gripings in
a looseness or flux: for, if but a pint of water should be drank, ease
would hardly succeed; but, drinking in about an hours time a quart or
three pints, the sharpness and evil quality of the humour offending,
will be so far diluted or weakened, that immediate ease will follow. If
the season be too cold to drink cold water, you may warm it a little
upon the fire, or put a hot toast of bread into every pint. And the
same is true in fevers, or in pains from gravel or the cholic: A small
quantity will not be effectual in these cases; for in the cholic a
quart is necessary, which ought to be carefully noted; and, in a fever,
a little water will rather increase the burning, which large draughts,
often drank, will soon take off. Rest, fasting, and drinking much
water, after a vomit or two, is a course that never yet hath failed
to cure fevers, by clearing the stomach of that sordid filthiness
which causeth the distemper: for a happy issue will certainly follow
such a course, if the fever is simple, and not complicated with such
other distempers which will resist all remedies: For in many cases
nothing can prevent mortality, as is evident by the death of the best
physicians themselves, and by the death of many who consulted with them
for a cure, since many die under the hands of the most able doctors, as
well as quacks.
[Sidenote: _Grief and frights._]
I will add to what hath been said, one experiment more, that is very
material: And that is, being very hypochondriacal, and of a melancholy
temper, I have often been strangely dejected in mind when under grief
for some misfortunes, which sometimes have been so great, as to
threaten danger to life; in which fits of grief I always found the
parts within my breast very uneasy, and sometimes continued long: But
now I have found a good remedy; for, upon drinking a pint or more of
cold water, I find ease in two or three minutes, so that no grief
seems to afflict. Which experience I discover for the sake of others in
the same circumstances, being certain, that the stomach sympathizeth
with the mind, and this becomes the cause of that uneasy sensation
perceived there, for which, cold water I have found to be the best
remedy in myself, and I believe others may find the same benefit, who
wilt make use thereof upon the like occasion. And it gives also relief
to people under frights, which sometimes have been very fatal, even
unto death.
[Sidenote: _Vapours._]
There is also another experiment that I have often seen of good effect;
and that is, that if persons, subject to what is called vapours,
or that are afflicted with fits, commonly called _the fits of the
mother_, will but drink water when they find their fits approach,
it will immediately yield relief. There is in this case a mealy
julep, prescribed by Dr. Bates, which is, to take a spoonful of fine
wheat-flour, an ounce of fine sugar, and a pint of water, brew them
together, and drink it off: This is pleasanter than water alone; but
water of itself will be as effectual, or rather better, as hath been
often proved upon persons in those fits.
[Sidenote: _How to distinguish Water._]
Some perhaps may desire to know how to distinguish good from bad water.
And the way to do this is, by the taste and scent; for being purely
fresh, not salt, nor sweetish, nor ill-scented, it is good, provided it
be pure and clear: Of which kind is the common water used in London,
when well settled, or in fair weather. As for those who are curious,
and will be at the charge, they may procure the best water for drink by
distillation, either in an alembick, or in a cold still used in drawing
any cold water from herbs; for no earthly or metallic substance, nor
any kind of salt will rise in distillation: So that the water so
distilled will be pure, and admirable to drink when cold, and will
keep as long from stinking as any of the cold distilled water in the
apothecaries shops; according to what Dr. Quincy hath affirmed about
it in his _Dispensatory_.
Those who have not the conveniency of distillation, may boil it a
little as they do for tea; for then, when kept a while after it is
cold, it will become more fine, by suffering any mixture contained in
it to settle to the bottom of the vessel, and that will render it still
more pure: In short, all water that will make a good lather with soap,
is wholesome to drink without boiling, but none else.
[Sidenote: _Pains in the stomach._]
Since the collecting together the fore-mentioned accounts, I have met
with a book written by Dr. Boerhaave, the present professor of physic
at Leyden in Holland, who affirms that drinking water, made very warm,
is a good remedy to pacify griping pains in the stomach; and that it is
proper to bathe wounds in the face with it, when they come to be just
healed, so that the place be kept continually wet, which I conceive is
best done by applying often linen cloths wet, and binding them on till
they begin to be dry, for this will prevent scars: And he saith, that
warm water is better to attenuate or thin the blood than cold.
[Sidenote: _Fevers._]
There is published lately a book of experiments made with water, by Dr.
Hancock, a divine, called _Febrifugum Magnum_; wherein he saith, that
drinking a pint or a quart of cold water in bed will raise a copious
sweat, and cure all burning fevers, which at once taking hath done
the business: It will raise a sweat without much more covering than
ordinary. And he further affirms, that the same taken at the beginning
of the cold fit of an ague, and sweating upon it, at two or three
times taking, will cure that distemper. A large quantity of hot water,
I know, hath been advised to take off the cold fit of agues, but the
party was not ordered to sweat. Which discovery of the reverend doctor
about fevers, is confirmed by the following accounts, which I received
from a worthy gentleman, Mr. Ralph Thoresby, F. R. S.[1] to whom they
were transmitted by Mr. Lucas, a pious and learned gentleman of Leeds
in Yorkshire, who says, that
[1] Author of _Ducatus Leodiensis_, or Topography of Leeds, which the
present learned Bishop of London, in his preface to the new edition
of Cambden’s Britannia, stiles, _An useful and accurate Treatise_.
‘One Captain Rosier fell into a violent fever, which as soon as he
perceived, he said he must have some cold water. The gentlewoman, at
whose house he lodged, not thinking that proper, boiled the water
(unknown to him) and put some spirits therein, and sent it up cold;
but he smelt it before it came to his head, and refused to drink
it, saying, he knew what he did, for he had several times tried
it. Afterwards, some clear water being brought, he drank it, sweat
profusely, and was well the next day.
‘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.’
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _What sweating most natural._]
In short, he affirms, and that with great reason, that sweating in
fevers, by drinking cold water, is more natural than to do it with hot
sudorifics, which often do harm in the beginning of fevers, except good
store of cooling moistning liquors are drank with them, they being more
apt to inflame than cool and quench heat in the body; and for that
reason sweating hath not been often advised by physicians, because they
were ignorant of this way of sweating to cure fevers, by drinking cold
water.
Which cure, he said, did succeed in one who was his relation, at the
fifth day after his falling sick; to whom he gave a dose of water
after he was in bed, and he sweated profusely for twenty-four hours,
and thereby was cured. Half a pint, he saith, is enough for a grown
child; a pint to a man or woman, tho’ if they drink a quart, it will be
better. And in scarlet fevers, small pox, or measles, tho’ the water
will not cause sweat, yet it will so quell and keep under the fever,
that the eruptions will come out more kindly; which is a confirmation
of what before was said about Dr. Bett’s prescribing two quarts of
water, when the small pox did not come out kindly; the water afforded
matter to fill them up, according to what the author observes of a
certain person, in the history of _Cold Bathing_, p. 347., that he
could give an hundred instances where people of all ages have been
lost, by being denied drink in the small pox,----for it hinders the
filling of the pustules.
[Sidenote: _Plague._]
And Dr. Hancock sets down an account of the author of the
_Free-thinker_, concerning a woman, who in the last great plague fell
ill of that distemper, who got her husband to fetch her a pitcher
of water from Lambs-conduit; she drank plentifully of it, but did
not avoid the cold, and so did not sweat, however she was cured. And
he gives us another relation of an Englishman, formerly resident at
Morocco, that fell ill of the plague at that place, and, getting
water to drink, fell into a violent sweat, and recovered: From whence
the doctor concludes, that water is good in the plague; agreeable to
what is related in Sir John Floyer’s book of _Cold Baths_, wherein
it is said, that but two died of the plague who lived over the water
upon London bridge, p. 223, the coolness of the air being supposed to
contribute to their health who inhabited on the water in that manner,
their blood being cooler than others: It is said also, the watermen
escaped better than others.
[Sidenote: right pointing finger icon]
I will here add to what the doctor hath said before, concerning the
cure of fevers, that if the fever be accompanied in the beginning with
any great illness at the stomach, nauseating or vomiting, it will be
the surest and safest practice to clear the stomach first, by vomiting
with warm water, as before directed; for I cannot believe it possible
for the stomach to be cleared from foul humours by sweating. It may do,
if no great sense of disorder is perceived there; but it will certainly
be safest to cleanse the stomach first, which is the place where
all diseases have their original; for then sweating with cold water
afterwards may turn to good account. Indeed I have not made any trial
of it since the doctor’s book was published, but I have a very good
opinion of his accounts therein given concerning the benefit of water,
having had so much experience thereof in my own practice for above
forty years; for so long it is since I first began to collect those
accounts, and make those experiments, which are herein made public
for the benefit of all. I will only add, that in a book, intituled,
_Organum Salutis_, p. 50. written by Judge Rumsey, he saith, he never
found any thing more useful for the health of man, than to drink first
in the morning half a pint of cold water; and this will contribute much
to the cure of blood-shotten eyes.
[Sidenote: _Pag._ 42, 43, 44.]
Since the last edition of this work, there hath been published _An
Essay of Health and long Life_, by Dr. Cheyne, wherein this truth is
asserted too, ‘That water was the primitive, original beverage--(and
happy had it been for the race of mankind, if other mixt and artificial
liquors had never been invented) and that water alone is sufficient
and effectual for all the purposes of human wants in drink. Strong
liquors were never designed for common use, tho’ now we see the better
sort scarce ever dilute their food with any other liquor: And thereby
we see their blood becomes inflamed into gout, stone, rheumatisms,
raging fevers, and pleurisies; and their passions enraged into
quarrels, murders, and blasphemies; their juices dried up; and their
solids scorched and shriveled.’ This author, p. 46., exclaims against
strong drinks, as the root of one half of all the human miseries; but
finds they are unwilling to leave them off, pretending the danger of
all sudden changes. But he alledgeth, ‘That he hath known good and
constant effects from leaving off suddenly great quantities of wine,
and flesh-meats too, by those accustomed to both; and never observed
any ill consequences from it in any case whatsoever; but that broken
constitutions have thereby lived longer, and grown better, by so doing.’
Some few, and but very few, have pretended, that by leaving off wine
and strong drink, and using only water, they found their bodies
weakened: But this perhaps may proceed only from the same fancy which
made the lady believe her doctor could not cure her, because he did not
keep a coach. There may be some constitutions that water doth not agree
with, even as cheese will not agree with some: Nay, I once met with an
ancient woman, who affirmed, she could not, and never did eat bread.
And there are so few in comparison to them who have found benefit by
the use of water, to those who have not, that no wise man will refrain
on their account, till, upon trial, he really finds it will not agree
with him.
One of the most ingenious watch-makers in London, very lately, from
a long continued flux, was very much weakened, and entirely lost his
appetite, so far that he could eat no food whatsoever: He had the
advice of an able physician, his intimate acquaintance, who could not
give him any relief: He, upon reading my book, came to ask me, whether
I thought he might venture to drink water? I thereupon prevailed with
him to drink half a pint of cold water going to bed, and half a pint in
the morning: He, tho’ an immoderate drinker of wine before, was so far
from being injured by it, that in a fortnight he began to eat, and in
about a month recovered as good a date of health and countenance as he
had before.
It hath been objected by some few, that drinking of water maketh them
costive: which well considered, is an argument that it strengthens
the bowels; for all fluxes proceed from weak bowels, and are an enemy
to the strength of the bodily members, no persons being in health, as
Dr. Baynard affirms, but those who evacuate figured excrements, which
weak bowels never do; so that firm excrements tend most to strength,
provided there be an evacuation one in a day, which is enough for them
who through temperance live wisely, and do not destroy themselves by
gluttony.
_SOME_
RULES
FOR
Preserving Health by Diet,
_Collected from Physical Authors._
[Sidenote: _Diet will cure diseases._]
In a little treatise, intituled, _Kitchen-physic_, written by Dr. Cook,
the author declares, he can hardly be told of any disease which he
cannot relieve or cure by a proper diet, p. 39. And in the same book
we find his opinion to be this, that all tender sickly people, and all
aged and decrepid persons, ought to eat often, and but a little at
a time, because weak and wasted bodies are to be restored by little
and little; and by moist and liquid food also, rather than by solid,
because moist and liquid diet does nourish soonest, and digest easiest.
[Sidenote: _Feeding much, bad for weak people._]
Those, he saith, that eat much, and get little strength by eating,
shew, that they have used themselves to too full a diet; and the more
you cram such bodies, the less they thrive by it, but rather grow worse
and worse: Because by much feeding you do but add to the bad humours
wherewith the body is already filled, which should rather be wasted by
purging, and using a spare diet.
[Sidenote: _A spare diet, what._]
And a spare diet he describes to be this, that we never eat at once
till the appetite is fully satisfied, and never to eat till we have
an appetite; and men never have a true appetite till they can eat any
ordinary food: And he adviseth to keep constantly to a plain diet,
for those, he says, enjoy most health, and live longest, that avoid
curiosity and variety of meats and drinks, which only serve to entice
to gluttony, and so work our ruin.
[Sidenote: _Sick, to recover soonest._]
Another saith, that the less food the sick person eats, the sooner he
will recover; for it is a true saying, _the more you fill foul bodies,
the more you hurt them_. The stomach being the place where diseases
have their origin, when that part therefore is weak, and out of order,
and cannot make a good digestion, if much is eaten, raw and crude
humours must needs be bred, and bad humours cannot produce good blood.
[Sidenote: _The evil of full meals._]
All men find by experience, that, in the morning before they have
eaten, they are light and pleasantly easy in their bodies; but, after
they have indulged their appetites with plenty of food, they find
themselves heavy and dull, and often sleepy: which sufficiently shews,
that those full meals are prejudicial to the welfare of the body; for
a moderate meal would have continued the ease and lightsomeness they
before found in themselves, and would have refreshed any faintness that
emptiness might occasion. And he certainly, who useth the most simple
meats and drinks, avoideth the snare of provoking his appetite beyond
the necessities of nature; whereas variety enticeth to a fresh desire
of every dainty, till at last the stomach is gorged, and made uncapable
of performing a good digestion; and this produceth those crudities
which are the cause of all diseases, and of so many sudden deaths.
[Sidenote: _The evil of high feeding._]
It is generally observed, that the most unhealthy are found among
those who feed high upon the most delicious dainties, and drink nothing
but the strongest and most spirituous liquors; whereas others who want
this delicate fare, are seldom sick, except they have such unsatiable
appetites as to eat too much; which a man may do of the plainest diet,
whose _belly is his god_, as an apostle expresses it. Phil. iii 19.
But tho’ men may glut themselves with coarse food, yet coarse food,
and long life are very confident, as appears by John Bill, mentioned
in the history of _Cold Baths_, p. 408. whose food was bread, cheese,
and butter; and drink, whey, butter-milk, or water; and yet he lived
133 years, and was a strong, strait, upright man. And the food of John
Bailes, whose age amounted to 128, was for the most part brown bread
and cheese; and his drink, water, or small beer and milk, _Cold Bath_,
p. 416. He had buried the whole town of Northampton twenty times over,
except three or four, and said, _Strong drink killed them all_.
[Sidenote: _Small suppers best._]
Dr. Pratt adviseth to sup sparingly; for to sup sparingly, he saith,
is most healthful, because of the experience of an infinite number of
persons who have received the greatest benefit from light suppers.
For the stomach being not overburdened, the sleep is more pleasant;
and from sparing suppers the breeding of those humours it prevented,
which cause defluxions, rheumatisms, gouts, dropsies, giddiness, and
corruption in the mouth from the scurvy: And from light suppers a
freedom from sickness and reaching in the morning is obtained, and
concoction is made perfect, which prevents obstructions.
[Sidenote: _Fasting, its benefit._]
Another saith, it is well known, that many indispositions are cured
by fasting, or a very spare diet; for what is taken into the stomach
being no more than can be well digested, the chylous juice, so rightly
prepared, is conveyed into the lacteal vessels, and from thence into
the blood; so that, nature being duly supplied with well-concocted
nourishment, the corrupted blood will free itself from that corruption
in time, by throwing it out, through the pores of the skin, in
perspiration, and supply itself with the purer juices; and, in this
way, consumptions and scurvies, and other chronical distempers, will be
overcome. Which way of curing diseases by fasting, swine do naturally
betake themselves to, who, when sick, will eat nothing till they
recover, as they always do after they injure themselves by over-eating;
in which over-eating they are imitated by all who delight in gluttony,
tho’ not in using the same means of recovery, by fasting; so that hogs
are wiser in that particular than such people.
[Sidenote: _A rule in eating._]
That men in health may prevent diseases, it was advised, that one meal
should not be eaten, till the other, which was eaten before, was passed
off clean out of the stomach; which never is done till the appetite of
hunger is found to call for another supply: By means of which constant
observation, the food will be converted to good chyle, and from good
chyle, which is a milk-like substance, good blood will be bred, and
from good blood generous spirits will be produced, on which a healthy
constitution will ensue; but, on the contrary, when too great a
quantity of food is taken for pleasure only, which the stomach cannot
well digest, the chyle will be raw and corrupt, which will foul the
blood, and render the body disordered and unhealthy.
[Sidenote: _Benefits of sobriety._]
Others say, that abstinence and sobriety free from most diseases,
especially catarrhs, coughs, wheesings, giddiness, pain in the head
and stomach, sudden death, lethargies, gout and sciatica, an ill
digestion being the cause of all these; it also prevents pains in the
splene, stone, and gravel, and a dry itch; it makes the body vigorous
and nimble, maintains the five senses in a good state, preserveth the
memory, quickens the wit; and quencheth all undue lust in mankind; and,
in short, all misers, who eat and drink but little, do live long.
[Sidenote: _Rule for diet after fifty._]
Two meals a day is said to be sufficient for all persons after fifty
years of age, and all weak people; and the omitting of suppers does
always conduce much to the health of the weak and aged: since, if no
supper be eaten, the stomach will soon free itself from all tough,
slimy humours wherewith it is slabbered over on the inside, and thereby
the appetite will be renewed, and digestion made more strong. Moreover,
all that are troubled with sweating in the night, any ill taste in
their mouths, belching and troublesome dreams, must avoid suppers; for
in sleep the fibres of the stomach relax, and are not able to contract
themselves so strongly, as when awake, to embrace the food, and by
tituration reduce it into a pap fit to pass into the intestines, out of
which the nourishment is sent to other parts.
[Sidenote: _Temperance prolongs life._]