been desperate. I knew there was no imposthume in my lungs, and I
supposed the stitches were spasmodical. I was sensible that all
my complaints were originally derived from relaxation. I
therefore hired a chaise, and going to the beach, about a league
from the town, plunged into the sea without hesitation. By this
desperate remedy, I got a fresh cold in my head: but my stitches
and fever vanished the very first day; and by a daily repetition
of the bath, I have diminished my cough, strengthened my body,
and recovered my spirits. I believe I should have tried the same
experiment, even if there had been an abscess in my lungs, though
such practice would have been contrary to all the rules of
medicine: but I am not one of those who implicitly believe in all
the dogmata of physic. I saw one of the guides at Bath, the
stoutest fellow among them, who recovered from the last stage of
a consumption, by going into the king's bath, contrary to the
express injunction of his doctor. He said, if he must die, the
sooner the better, as he had nothing left for his subsistence.
Instead of immediate death, he found instant case, and continued
mending every day, till his health was entirely re-established. I
myself drank the waters of Bath, and bathed, in diametrical
opposition to the opinion of some physicians there settled, and
found myself better every day, notwithstanding their unfavourable
prognostic. If I had been of the rigid fibre, full of blood,
subject to inflammation, I should have followed a different
course. Our acquaintance, doctor C--, while he actually spit
up matter, and rode out every day for his life, led his horse
to water, at the pond in Hyde-Park, one cold frosty morning,
and the beast, which happened to be of a hot constitution,
plunged himself and his master over head and ears in the water.
The poor doctor hastened home, half dead with fear, and