lief alluded to, and though it
were founded in truth, it does not thence follow that mankind are to
remain in ignorance of the whole subject of life and health, nor is it
the intention of enlightened medical men that they shall. The latter are
much more ready, as a general rule, to encourage among mankind the study
of the most appropriate means of preventing disease, than they are
willing to take the needful pains. In short, though physicians by their
slowness to act, in this particular, are greatly faulty, the world as a
mass are still more so.

I was speaking, at first, of tic douloureux. This is a painful affection
of a nerve or a cluster of nerves. When it first began to be spoken of,
it was confined chiefly to an expansion of nerve at the side of the
face, called in anatomical works _pes anserina_. But, of late years, it
has been found to attack various nerves and clusters of nerves in
different parts of the body. In truth, under the general name of
neuralgia, which means about the same thing, we now have tic douloureux
of almost every part of the human system, and it has become so common
that instead of one in a million, we have probably one or two if not
more in every hundred, who have suffered from it in their own persons.

About the year 1840, I had a patient who was exceedingly afflicted with
this painful disease. She was, at the same time, consumptive. The
neuralgia was but a recent thing; the consumption had been of many
years' standing, and was probably inherited. The physicians of her
native region had exhausted their skill on her to no purpose.

There was no hope of aid, in her case, from medicine. The only thing to
be done was to invigorate her system, and thus palliate the neuralgia
and postpone the consumption. She was accordingly placed under the most
rigid restrictions which the code of physical law could demand. She was
required to attend to exercise and bathing with great care; to avoid
over anxiety and fretfulness; to drink water, and to eat the plainest
food. It was not intended to interdict _nutritious_ food; but only that
which was _over-stimulating_.

It required considerable time to show her and her friends the practical
difference between nutrition and stimulation. They thought, as thousands
have thought beside them, that without a stimulating diet she could not
be properly nourished. But they learned at length that good bread of all
sorts, rice, peas, beans, and fruits, especially the fi