diet of that part
of New England in which he resided---too stimulating, and too much
refined by cookery. In general, too, his active and perverted appetite
led him to excess in quantity; but, as his friends never thought of its
being a morbid or diseased appetite, no strong efforts were made to
control it. In truth, as he was feeble and growing, it was thought
necessary that he should eat stimulating and highly seasoned food, and
in large quantity. He was also accustomed to tea and coffee. All his
appetites, as it afterwards appeared, were, to say the least, very
active, though the gratification of _the third appetite_ was wholly
confined to solitude.

No restriction, nor indeed any direction, so far as I could learn, had
been made at this period, with regard to his mental food. Whatever he
chose to read, he was indulged in, both as regards quantity and quality.
And as usually happens, in the case of epileptic, and scrofulous people,
he was quite too much inclined to works of imagination, with which the
age and country abound. It appears, also, that being regarded as quite
unequal to the task of laboring in field or garden, he was thus, in
large measure, deprived of two essentials of health and happiness,
especially to epileptics; viz., air and exercise.

In August, 1853, he went to an institution that had once been a
water-cure establishment, but which had undergone many modifications,
till it better deserved the name of College of Hygiene, than water cure.
Here he remained several months.

The peculiar treatment he received at this institution consisted, first,
in a plain and unstimulating diet. Water was his only drink, and bread
and fruits, with a few well-cooked vegetables, his only food. But, in
the second place, he was subjected to a course of treatment not unlike
that described in Chapter LXXIX, with the exception of the deep
breathing and cold-bathing. The last, however, was, I believe, used
occasionally.

There was, indeed, one important addition made to the treatment above
alluded to. This consisted in an exercise designed to expand and
strengthen the lungs, by what was called _shaking down the air_. This
exercise was practised very frequently, and was curious. I will describe
it as well as I can.

He was first required to inflate his chest as much as possible, and
then, while retaining the air with all his might, rise on his toes, and
suddenly drop on his heels, with a sort of jerk, several times in
s