ve its
course; 'For,' said he, 'though I should like to sell you medicine and
give you medical advice, for the sake of the emolument, it will do you
no good. Your disease will have its course, and you cannot help it.' I
now thought my days were few; but, as a last resort, I repaired to you."

He here enters into particulars which are not needful to my present
purpose; and the detail, by one so intimately concerned, and withal so
complimentary to me as his physician, would be fulsome. It is
sufficient, perhaps, to add the following paragraphs.

"Agreeably to your advice, I now began to reform, in good earnest. With
a constitution broken down, and almost rotten with disease, it was no
easy matter for me to cure myself; but to it I went, determined to
overcome or die in the attempt.

"I now began to think of eating what God created for man to eat. And now
it was that my health began to return; and by the time I had practised
the rules and prescriptions you laid down for me, about three months, my
cough ceased, my dizziness left me, and my health and strength partly
returned.

"Since that time I have lived on bread made of wheat meal, rye and
Indian bread, rice boiled or stewed, rice puddings, corn puddings,
apples, potatoes, etc. I sleep soundly and sweetly, on a straw bed; rise
at four in summer and five in winter, refreshed both in body and mind;
do as much work as it is necessary for any man to do; am cheerful,
happy, contented, and thankful to God for all his mercies; go to bed at
nine and go to sleep without having the night mare or any thing else to
disturb my rest. I ought to add that I eat no luncheon; and but about as
much in a whole day, as I used to eat at one meal."

As I have already intimated, it is about twenty years since I prescribed
for this individual, at which time he had a wife and two or three
children. The latter seemed to require not a little watching and dosing.
Now, in 1858, he has a very large family, many of whom have either
arrived at maturity or nearly so; and the whole family have, for many
years, been strangers to dosing and drugging. Except the mother, they
seem like a family of giants, so large are their frames, and so marked
and strong are their muscles. They are pictures of health, so to speak;
and if Mr. Barnum would exhibit them at his museum, or elsewhere, he
might, for aught I know, retrieve his shattered fortunes.

I know another great family, in New England, whose history, so