my house employ as many more, and five times
the number to adorn my wife."

I was going on to tell him of another sort of people, who get their
livelihood by attending the sick, having, upon some occasions, informed
his honour that many of my crew had died of diseases. But here it was
with the utmost difficulty that I brought him to apprehend what I meant.
"He could easily conceive, that a _Houyhnhnm_, grew weak and heavy a few
days before his death, or by some accident might hurt a limb; but that
nature, who works all things to perfection, should suffer any pains to
breed in our bodies, he thought impossible, and desired to know the
reason of so unaccountable an evil."

I told him "we fed on a thousand things which operated contrary to each
other; that we ate when we were not hungry, and drank without the
provocation of thirst; that we sat whole nights drinking strong liquors,
without eating a bit, which disposed us to sloth, inflamed our bodies,
and precipitated or prevented digestion; that prostitute female _Yahoos_
acquired a certain malady, which bred rottenness in the bones of those
who fell into their embraces; that this, and many other diseases, were
propagated from father to son; so that great numbers came into the world
with complicated maladies upon them; that it would be endless to give him
a catalogue of all diseases incident to human bodies, for they would not
be fewer than five or six hundred, spread over every limb and joint--in
short, every part, external and intestine, having diseases appropriated
to itself. To remedy which, there was a sort of people bred up among us
in the profession, or pretence, of curing the sick. And because I had
some skill in the faculty, I would, in gratitude to his honour, let him
know the whole mystery and method by which they proceed.

"Their fundamental is, that all diseases arise from repletion; whence
they conclude, that a great evacuation of the body is necessary, either
through the natural passage or upwards at the mouth. Their next business
is from herbs, minerals, gums, oils, shells, salts, juices, sea-weed,
excrements, barks of trees, serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men's
flesh and bones, birds, beasts, and fishes, to form a composition, for
smell and taste, the most abominable, nauseous, and detestable, they can
possibly contrive, which the stomach immediately rejects with loathing,
and this they call a vomit; or else, from the same store-house, with som