A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules, for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / by J.A. Paris.

  • Paris, John Ayrton, 1785-1856.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules, for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / by J.A. Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    391/430 (page 373)
    AS ESSENTIAL AS CI-tANGE OB* AIR. ties produces on the mind, to say nothing of the advantages which necessarily arise from the exer- cise of the body, is more likely to insure exhilara- tion and cheerfulness, and to break down the asso- ciations which continued disease will always engen- der, than a monotonous residence in a luatering- place, where, after the first few days, the patient be- comes familiarized with the objects around him, the spell by which he is to be cured is broken, and his mind is watching every pulsation, in order to discover some indication of that returning health which he so anxiously anticipates. This truth is beautifully illustrated by an anecdote related by Sydenham, and will go further in establishing the importance of the principle I am desirous of enforcing, than any argument which it is in my power to adduce. This great physician having long attended a gentleman of fortune with little or no advantage, frankly avowed his inability to render him any further ser- vice, adding, at the same time, that there was a physician of the name of Robinson, at Inverness, who had distinguished himself by the performance of many remarkable cures of the same complaint as that under which his patient laboured, and ex- pressing a conviction that, if he applied to him, he would come back cured. This was too encouraging a proposal to be rejected: the gentleman received from Sydenham a statement of his case, with the- necessary letter of introduction, and proceeded with- out delay to the place in question. On arriving at