its before and
after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with
bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons
under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but
must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well.

"7. _Gravel._--Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds,
drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or
soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol
water beverage, will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or
bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the
patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age.

"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or
other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients
in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both
scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard,
and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could
not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they
entered upon them;--and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most
obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing
can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a
liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in
due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will."

Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a
great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy,
hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and
venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he
does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of
sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the
following pretty strong statement:

"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and
seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional
helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure
or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of."

Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my
extracts from his writings.

"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in
these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any
thing that sha