_In Answer to your Request, concerning my Illness, as near as
I can remember, I here give you in short the Matter of Fact.
In the Month of ~October, Anno 1694~, I was sent for to my
old Friend and Acquaintance, Colonel ~Warwick Bamfield~, at
~Hardington~ in ~Somersetshire~; I being then in ~London~, and
had been very ill all the Summer at ~Bath~; my Case was, as I
and other Physicians thought, a true and confirm’d ~Phthisis~;
for I had an habitual Heat and continual Cough, Night and Day,
a very quick and frequent Pulse; I spit Blood, and exputed a
viscous tough Matter, sometimes Green, Yellow, Ash-colour’d,
and that in great Quantity. It would sink in Water, and smell
ill and fœtid when cast upon live Coals. My Flesh went off,
my Stomach decay’d, and I had that ~Livor Genarum~, as tabid
People usually have, Night-Sweats, &c. so that every Body gave
me over as lost and gone; but through a constant and cool
Regimen in Dyet, chiefly Milk and Apples, sometimes with Honey
and Sugar of Roses, and a distill’d Milk, with the temperate
and cool Pectorals, together with constant Riding Night and
Morning in the Air, and that on the highest Hills and Places I
could find. I thank God, in two Months time my Hectic abated,
Cough ceas’d, Flesh came on, and my Stomach return’d; and by
continuing Riding, and other Field-Exercises, I recovered to
a Miracle: And this present Year 1705, falling into the same
Distemper, I was cured by the same Means, but chiefly Riding.
This is very well known, and observed by all that knew me at
the ~Bath~; And I wish others, in my Case and Circumstances,
may find the like happy Success. I am_,