312 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. ^y 



ual effort. My spirits, were however, cheerful ; and even 

 when I was unable to sustain a conversation with a calling 

 stranger, I still believed that I should recover, for my 

 physicians, after careful examination, could find no proof 

 of any organic disease, but only of functional derangement. 

 I yielded for a time to the popular belief that good wine 

 and cordials were the lever which would raise my de- 

 pressed power ; but the relief was only temporary : a flash 

 of nervous excitement produced an illusive appearance of 

 increased vigor with which the mind sympathized ; the 

 transient brightness was soon clouded again, and no per- 

 manent benefit followed ; but often disturbed slumbers, 

 with nocturnal spasms and undefined terrors in dreams, 

 proved that all was wrong. No medical man informed me 

 that I was pursuing a wrong course ; but the same wise 

 and good friend, to whom I have been already so much in- 

 debted, Mr. Daniel Wadsworth, convinced me, after much 

 effort, that my best chance for recovery was to abandon all 

 stimulants and adopt a very simple diet, and in such quan- 

 tities, however moderate, as the stomach might be able to 

 digest and assimilate. I took my resolution in 1823, in the 

 lowest depression of health. I abandoned wine and every 

 other stimulant, including, for the time, even coffee and tea. 

 Tobacco had always been my abhorrence ; and opium, ex- 

 cept medically, when wounded, I had never used. With 

 constant exercise abroad, I adopted a diet of boiled rice, 

 bread and milk, the milk usually boiled and diluted 

 with water, plain animal muscle in small quantity, 

 varied by fowl and fish, avoiding rich gravies and pastry, 

 and occasionally using soups and various farinaceous prep- 

 arations. I persevered a year in this strict regimen, and 

 after a few weeks my unpleasant symptoms abated, my 

 strength gradually increased, and health, imperceptibly in 

 its daily progress, but manifest in its results, stole upon 

 me unawares. While this course of regimen was in prog- 

 ress, I met at Mr. Wadsworth's the late Mr. William Wat- 



