friend who had been much dosed by many for dyspepsia, and how he bade
him ride, and abandon drugs, and how, after a thousand miles of such
riding, he regained health and vigor. See how this wise man touches the
matter of gout: "For years a man has feasted; has omitted his usual
exercises; has grown slow and sluggish; has been overstudious or
overanxious, etc." Then he reasons about "smothering the animal spirits,
which are the primary instruments of concoction," and so on, but at last
he says, "We must look beyond medicines. Wise men do this in gout and in
all other chronic diseases." And what does he advise? Here is the
substance of what he says. A gouty man must be moderate, not too
abstinent, so as to get weak. One meat is best; mixtures are bad. A milk
diet "has prevailed," only bread being added, but it must be rigid and
has its risks. He seems to have kept a nobleman on milk a year. Also
there must be total abstinence from wine and all fermented liquors.
Early bed hours and early rising are for the gouty. Then there come wise
words as to worry and overwork. But, above all, the gouty must ride on
horseback and exercise afoot. As to the wilder passions of men, he makes
this strangely interesting remark, "All such the old man should avoid,
for," he says, "by their indulgence he thus denies himself the privilege
of enjoying that jubilee which by the special and kind gift of nature is
conceded to old men: of whom it is the natural and happy lot to be
emancipated from the control of those lusts which during youth attacked
them."

This is a fair specimen of a master at his best. I would rather have
trusted Sydenham, with all his queer theories, than many a man with the
ampler resources of to-day; for his century may aid but does not make
the true physician, who is not the slave, but the master, of opinions.

To enforce again the fact that the greater men of my art, even in days