Comments on Corpulency, 271,- 



I was attacked by a violent diarrhoea, which, I should observe, 

 was at that time (August) very prevalent. It left me extremely 

 low, and I felt much dread at returning to a vegetable diet, 

 and I returned to my usual course of living. My complaints 

 again returned ; I was soon fatter, had bad nights, was 

 lethargic, and felt generally uneasy and unfit for any usual 

 exercise of body or mind." 



Observations. — The variation in this gentleman's health, 

 from an alternate change in his regimen, was of a very decided 

 character; and so long as he was temperatey he was free from 

 the various evils that tormented him, which, the reader will 

 easily discover, were allied to what are familiarly termed the 

 ' blue devils.^ But he was of too sanguine a temperament to be 

 temperate ; he was intemperate in fasting, as well as in feast- 

 ing ; and he adopted and put in practice the theory of the day, 

 with the zeal of an enthusiastic partisan. As he grew older, 

 he became more decided in his personal dietetical experiments. 



I have many letters of a similar nature, at different periods, 

 in which he discusses the subject of health, all of which 

 demonstrate, like the man in the Spectator, he was constantly 

 destroying what he was most anxious to preserve. He read 

 himself into one complaint, which he cured by reading himself 

 into another. At one time he would only take food once a day ; 

 this was altered to the other extreme, eating little and often ; 

 and then he provided himself with gingerbread nuts and 

 biscuits. For three weeks, the hour of dining was regulated, 

 not by the clock, but the state of the stomach ; the dinner was 

 to be served, at any hour from noon till midnight, when the 

 gastric juices were ready. At another period, he instituted a 

 scheme of rules, by which everything was regulated by weight ; 

 and though he did not follow them with the minuteness of 

 Sanctorius, they evince much zeal and perseverance. 



By a journal he kept during the summer of 1816, he was 

 successful in his attempts to reduce his bulk. This is appli- 

 cable to our subject. It records — 



"June 10. Weighed 16sit. lOoz. 

 June 31. Weighed 16 St. loz. 



** During these 21 days the diet chiefly vegetables, milk, 

 and tea, 



T2 



