rank the water next morning, and, with
a few doses of my physician's prescription, in three days found myself
in perfect health, which appeared almost a miracle to all that saw me.
You may imagine I am willing to submit to the orders of one that I must
acknowledge the instrument of saving my life, though they are not
entirely conformable to my will and pleasure. He has sentenced me to a
long continuance here, which, he says, is absolutely necessary to the
confirmation of my health, and would persuade me that my illness has
been wholly owing to my omission of drinking the waters these two years
past. I dare not contradict him, and must own he deserves (from the
various surprising cures I have seen) the name given to him in this
country of the miraculous man. Both his character and practice are so
singular, I cannot forbear giving you some account of them. He will not
permit his patients to have either surgeon or apothecary: he performs
all the operations of the first with great dexterity; and whatever
compounds he gives, he makes in his own house: those are very few; the
juice of herbs, and these waters, being commonly his sole prescriptions.
He has very little learning, and professes drawing all his knowledge
from experience, which he possesses, perhaps, in a greater degree than
any other mortal, being the seventh doctor of his family in a direct
line. His forefathers have all of them left journals and registers
solely for the use of their posterity, none of them having published
anything; and he has recourse to these manuscripts on every difficult
case, the veracity of which, at least, is unquestionable. His vivacity
is prodigious, and he is indefatigable in his industry: but what most
distinguishes him is a disinterestedness I never saw in any other: he is
as regular in his attendance on the poorest peasant, from whom he never
can receive one farthing, as on the richest of the nobility; and,
whenever he is wanted, will climb three or four miles in the mountains,
in the hottest sun, or heaviest rain, where a horse cannot go, to arrive
at a cottage, where, if their condition requires it, he does not only
give them advice and medicines gratis, but bread, wine, and whatever is
needful. There never passes a week without one or more of these
expeditions. His last visit is generally to me. I often see him as dirty
and tired as a foot post, having eat nothing all day but a roll or two
that he carries in his pocket, yet blest wi