sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of
lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising.
But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have
treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness,
have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression,
sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only
those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and
sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak
constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness
and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors.

"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great
influence on the solids, after the fluids have been entirely sweetened
and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as
a matter of course."

At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus
says:

"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and
vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if
they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths
of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or
pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs,
and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or
epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers
of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the
Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians
of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in
Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the
Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves."

To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts
from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long
Life.

"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who
retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia,
lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that
the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with
only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five
years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a
similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hund