dred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored
his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to
change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the
effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A
return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he
continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two."

The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy:

"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon
a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this
light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found
myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to
lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at
most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to
spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that
freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall
probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily
substance--which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk,
and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and
baked in a quick oven."

It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one
who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and
twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low
diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with
evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not
many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to
half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance,
we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health
and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the
superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the
feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most
earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most
interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and--I repeat it--if there be
any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be
handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of
living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne.

Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and
proper Method of treating the Gout;