Читать книгу Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages - William A. Alcott - Страница 41

Phelps, N. Y., May 4, 1835.

Sir,—My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the pain was shifting—sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of a very small quantity of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all hands, as lost.

From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily followed the business of a country physician.

I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual quantity in bulk.

A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole progress. The appetite was, at all times, not only craving, it was voracious; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, dwindled to a point when compared with it.

The quantity that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appetite, only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the whole term, without the least abatement;—and the only means by which I could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I subsisted. And now to the proposed questions.

1. Increased.

2. More agreeable, hunger excepted.

3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive answer.

4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my preliminary remarks.

5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none.

6. Two full years.

7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally took them, in conformity to the customs of those "times of ignorance."

8. I literally drank nothing; the milk wholly supplying the place of all liquids.

9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after.

10. I do not.

11. I have not.

Caleb Bannister.