MR. CHARLES ROBBINS, formerly of Plymouth, New Hampshire, had epilepsy, which commenced when about the age of sixteen, excited by great exertion at a fire, in a very cold winter's night. The fits lasted fourteen. years.

He took a great variety of medicaments; among these was arsenic, which he took in progressively increasing doses, until the dose was seven-eighths of a grain four times a day. This dose was continued for six weeks; it was taken for three months in all, viz., six weeks until the full dose was arrived at, and six weeks after.

It made no sensible impression on the fits. A garlicky atmosphere constantly attended him, so as to be very of fensive; his shirts were colored yellow, and new shirts, after being worn a short time, fell to pieces.

When at the worst, the fits returned once in about two weeks; sometimes two or three fits were had at a time. Among all his fits he had three in which he was conscious through the whole of the convulsion.

He was very subject to cold feet and legs, relieved by the mustard bath. The first medicament that appeared to make an impression on the fits was the kali purum (or

caustic vegetable alkali), with elixir proprietatis three times a day, i. e. before eating.

Under a diet of milk and Boston crackers (biscuit), his fits were milder and ultimately subdued; water the only drink. The habits were at last regular, viz. as to the times of eating, going to bed, and rising. When the bowels were a little sluggish, a table-spoonful of the white mustard seed, three times a day, answered the purpose. exceedingly well.

Mr. R. says that he has seen forty cases of epilepsy; of that number, six have been cured, ten have died idiots, three by accident; the rest have not been followed out.

Mrs. Adams, a young married woman from Morristown, New Jersey, was one of the six cured. She lived on simple food, drank water, took compound tincture of valerian, the kali purum, with elixir pro.; the flesh-brush and mustard tea were applied externally, and she was required to dispense with the reading of novels and romances. whole six (Robbins being one) were treated in the same way.

The

Mr. Robbins was son of a country physician, possessed good talents, was fond of books, and read every medical book he could lay his hands upon. The arsenic and several other medicaments were his own prescriptions. He urgently besought me to tie his carotid arteries. This I promptly and perseveringly declined doing. He was at length cured under a diet which excluded flesh.

"Dr.

Dr. George Cheyne records the following case: Taylor, of Croydon, cured himself entirely and absolutely of the most violent, constant and habitual epilepsy that perhaps was ever known, after having in vain tried all the methods and medicines advised by the most eminent physicians of his time, by a total diet of milk, without bread

or any other vegetable, or anything, besides a spoonful of compound peony water sometimes, to prevent its curdling, confining himself to a pint in the morning, a quart at noon, and a pint at night, of the milk of grass-fed cows in the summer, and of those fed with hay in the winter; the milk of cows fed with grains always inflating him and lying uneasy on his stomach. He had continued in perfect health and vigor (having had seven children) seventeen years, when I saw him and received this account from him, insomuch that he could have played four or five hours. at cricket on Banstead Downs without uneasiness or profuse sweating, and probably might have continued much longer in perfect health (as he did seven or eight years. more), had he not entered upon a different regimen of diet, - as I am informed since I first wrote this history in my treatise on the gout, by a person of great credit,and come to eat animal food, by which in a short time he was destroyed." 1

Dr. McKeen says that a boy of two years, by the name of Upham, nephew of Professor Upham, was brought to him for epilepsy, which he had had for a year, as often as, and sometimes oftener than once a week. He had been fed upon confectionery and cake, and everything he craved.

Dr. McK. prescribed coarse wheat bread, i. e. finely grained and passed through a very coarse sieve, made up with water, and fermented with sweet yeast; water as the only drink. The child has not had a fit since.

Dr. A. Twitchell, one of the most sagacious and distinguished physicians ever reared in New Hampshire, early lost confidence in the treatment of epilepsy by medicine. Several years before his death, he assured me that he relied

1 English Malady, 5th edition, London, 1735, p. 253.

on bread and water as the best articles he had ever tried. He allowed his adult patients from twelve to fifteen ounces each of bread, not more, in a day, and water as much as they pleased. He said that he had seen "about twelve" cases cured in this way. It is exceedingly difficult to secure a faithful and prolonged perseverance in a course of diet so rigid. Large eating may be reckoned as one of the predisposing causes of epilepsy; and the prostration of the nervous system either by incontinence or the solitary vice is an important source of this malady. There is much evidence on this subject.

§ II. DYSPEPSIA.

The elements of nutrition are contained, though in unequal proportions, in each of the small grains, as wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, or Indian corn, and rice. One dyspeptic, perhaps, finds his irritable stomach best appeased by wheat, another by rye, a third by Indian corn, a fourth by oatmeal, and so on. There is something, too, in the mode of preparing the food; it may be in the form of gruel, or thin mush, or of thin dry cake, like that of the Highlands, from the kiln-dried oatmeal, or the Indian hoecake of Kentucky, made thin, like the Jews' passoverbread, requiring a good deal of mastication. Some invalids will recruit upon rice soft boiled, dusted over with sugar, or moistened with milk. The quantity of the forenamed articles is of prime importance. It may be so great as to frustrate the object altogether. Some invalids appear to thrive best by eating twice only in twenty-four hours; others do better upon three times; and some few, when the stomach is peculiarly irritable, do best upon a still more frequent taking of food. Wheat, raw, boiled,

cracked, suit some stomachs. It is probable that some kind of unleavened bread will ultimately prevail. The fermenting material disagrees with many stomachs; and in a large proportion of leavened bread the fermentation is carried so far as to generate an unpleasant acidity. A spongy or vesicular bread, lately introduced into London, made by wetting up flour into a dough with water, strongly charged with carbonic acid gas, and baked immediately, seems at present to promise better than any of the leavened forms hitherto employed. In some instances milk alone has had the effect of repairing the exhausted powers of the stomach.

In his sixty-eighth lecture, Dr. Watson has given in detail a very interesting case from Dr. William Hunter. The patient, a boy eight or nine years of age, "had great pain of his stomach, frequent and violent vomitings, great weakness, and wasting of flesh." All sorts of food and medicine, soon after being swallowed, were thrown off by vomiting. "He was stripped and examined in various postures, but no fulness, hardness, or tumor whatever, could be discovered; on the contrary, he appeared everywhere like a skeleton, covered with a mere skin, and the abdomen was as flat, or rather as much drawn inwards, as if it had not contained half the usual quantity of bowels." No satisfactory explanation could be gained of the cause and the precise nature of the complaint, so entirely unappeasable had it proved under every variety of treatment, by several physicians.

After much reflection upon the case, Dr. H. says to the father, "Take your son home, and as soon as he has rested a little, give him one spoonful of milk. If he keeps it some time without sickness or vomiting, repeat the meal, and so on. If he vomits it, after a little rest, try him with