oldest season of a very cold year, and reduced to a mere skeleton;
and I am positive that it was the great regularity I had observed
for so many years, and that only, which rescued me from the jaws
of death. In all that time I never knew what sickness was, unless
I may call by that same name some slight indispositions of a day
or two's continuance; the regular life I had led, as I have
already taken notice, for so many years, not having permitted any
superfluous or bad humours to breed in me; or if they did, to
acquire such strength and malignity, a they generally acquire in
the superannuated bodies of those, who live without rule. And as
there was not any old malignity in my humours (which is the thing
that kills people) but only that, which my new irregularity had
occasioned, this fit of sickness, though exceeding violent, had
not the strength to destroy me. This it was, and nothing else,
that saved my life; whence may be gathered, how great is the
power and efficacy of regularity; and how great, likewise, is
that of irregularity, which in a few days could bring on me so
terrible a fit of sickness, just as regularity had preserved me
in health for so many years.

And it appears to me a no weak argument, that, since the world,
consisting of the four elements, is upheld by order; and our
life, as to the body, is no other than a harmonious combination
of the same four elements, so it should be preserved and maintained
by the very same order; and, on the other hand, it must be worn
out by sickness, or destroyed by death, which are produced by the
contrary effects. By order the arts are more easily learned; by
order armies are rendered victorious; by order, in a word,
families, cities, and even states are maintained. Hence I
concluded, that orderly living is no other than a most certain
cause and foundation of health and long life; nay I cannot help
saying, that it is the only and true medicine; and whoever weighs
the matter well, must also conclude, that this is really the case.
Hence it is, that when a physician comes to visit a patient, the
first thing he prescribes, is to live regularly. In like manner,
when a physician takes leave of a patient, on his being recovered,
he advises him, as he tenders his health, to lead a regular life.
And it is not to be doubted, that, were a patient so recovered
to live in that manner, he could never be sick again, as it
removes every cause of illness; and so, for the future, w