Notes of a conversation held with Mr. Howard in May 1789 / [Anon].

  • Howard, John, 1726-1790
Date:
[1790]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of a conversation held with Mr. Howard in May 1789 / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    V' i;^o. N O E OF A CONVERSATION HELD WITH Mr. HOWARD In MAY 1789. Mr. HOWARD was then in the lixty-fecond year of his age, and apparently in very good health. He faid, that for many years he had not tailed animal food, and that for thirty years he had not even tailed wine. His diet for the whole day con- filled of two penny rolls with fome butter or fweetmeat, a pint of milk, and five or fix dilhes of tea, with a roalled apple on going to bed. Whilst he was fuperintending the printing of his Treatife on Lazarettos at War- rington, he arofe every morning at three o’clock for eighteen weeks together in the depth of winter. He was, however, always in the habit of riling early, and of going early to bed. Tea he looked upon as a great exhilarator of the fpirits, carried it always with him in his journles, and made ufe always of green tea. He appeared to think himfelf fupported in his particular purfuit by Divine Provi- dence, and would never let amufement or any other occupation interfere with it. He feldom or ever made ufe of letters of recommendation to perfons of confequence in the places he vifited, and faid he found he fucceeded better in his enquiries when he was left to himfelf. He imagined that his lall expedition would have taken up three years, and intended in that time to have twice vifited Grand Cairo (the fuppofed birth-place of the plague), and to have fpent much time in that city, and to have vifited the Crimea, Conllantinople, and Barbary. He did not appear dcfirous to confult books on the fub- jedt of the plague, and faid, in a letter he had written to a perfon who had fent him a French book on the plague at Marfeilles, “ I read very little on the fubjedl of the plague, as I wifh to draw my inferences from clofe obfervation on the diforder itfelf, and not fr om