s efficacy; still it was not to be denied that
the water did him great and positive good.

He soon found his newly discovered medicine not only more agreeable to
his taste, but cheaper also than Huxham's tincture and quassia. He also
found that his son's daily visits to the spring cost him less than Dr.
Physic's daily rides of three or four miles. So that though he was
greatly delighted to see the smiling face, and hear the stories and
jolly laugh of the latter, he was glad when he proposed to call less
frequently than he had done and to lay aside all medicine.

He recovered in a reasonable time, and lived to a very advanced age. A
friend of his and mine, found him in his eighty-sixth year, mowing
thistles barefooted. Two or three years still later, I found him--it was
during the cold month of January, 1852--in the woods with his hired man
far from his house, assisting in cutting and loading wood; in which
employment he seemed to act with much of the energy and not a little of
the activity of his earlier years.

I do not of course undertake to say that he owed his recovery from his
long sickness, above described solely to drinking cold water, there are
so many other circumstances to be taken into the account, in settling
all questions like this, that such an assertion would be hazardous, not
to say foolish. His fever at the time of making his experiment, had
already passed away; and having great tenacity of life, it was but
reasonable to expect nature would ere long, rally, if she _could_ rally
at all. It is also worthy of remark, that though his physician was one
of those men who place their chief reliance on the medicine they give,
rather than on the recuperative powers of the system, yet to his credit
be it said, he had in this instance departed from his usual routine, and
given comparatively little.

Perhaps we may explain the phenomenon of his recovery, as follows:
nature long oppressed, yet by rest partially restored to her wonted
energy, was now ready to rally as soon as she could get the opportunity;
this the moderate draughts of water by their effects on the circulation
enabled her to do; then, too, one consideration which I forgot to
mention in its place, deserves to be noticed. When the sick man began
the use of water, he laid aside (without the knowledge of his physician)
most of what pills and powders and tinctures were prescribed him. And
finally he had great faith in the water, as you have already seen