That “a sharp stomach is the best sauce,” is a saying as true as it is
common. In Ulrick Hutton’s book on the virtues of guaiacum, there is a
very singular story on this subject.
The relations of a rich German ecclesiastic, carrying him to drink the
waters for the recovery of his health, and passing by the house of a
famous quack, he inquired what was the reverend gentleman’s distemper?
They told him a total debility, loss of appetite, and a great decay in
his senses. The empiric, after viewing his enormous chin, and bodily
bulk, guessed rightly at the cause of his distemper, and proposed, for a
certain sum, to bring him home, on a day fixed, perfectly cured. The
patient was put into his hands, and the doctor treated him in the
following manner:--He furnished him every day with half a pound of
excellent dry biscuit; to moisten this, he allowed him three pints of
very good spring water; and he suffered him to sleep but a few hours out
of the twenty-four. When he had brought him within the just proportion
of a man, he obliged him to ring a bell, or work in the garden, with a
rolling-stone, an hour before breakfast, and four hours in the
afternoon. At the stated day the doctor produced him, perfectly
restored.
Nice eating destroys the health, let it be ever so moderate; for the
stomach, as every man’s experience must inform him, finds greater
difficulty in digesting rich dishes than meats plainly dressed. To a
sound man sauces are needless; to one who is diseased, they nourish not
him, but his distemper; and the intemperance of his taste betrays him
into the hands of death, which could not, perhaps, have mastered his
constitution. Lewis Cornaro brought himself into a wretched condition,
while a young man, by indulging his taste; yet, when he had once taken a
resolution of restraining it, nature did that which physic could not; it
restored him to perfect health of body, and serenity of mind, both of
which he enjoyed to extreme old age.
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~Books.~