THEODORE TRONCHEN l8l 



everywhere he insists on obedience to these precepts, the need of which 

 in those days we can now hardly realize. Yet his directions are even 

 today being preached as novelties. 



The need of fresh air was especially urgent among the fashionable 

 world of that time, when the bedrooms were often wholly unlighted and 

 unventilated. The canopied and curtained feather-beds in which the 

 luxurious spent many hours shut out every chance of air, and even in 

 palaces like Versailles the windows were tightly closed and never opened 

 from All Saints Day to Easter. It was his revolt against such un- 

 changed air in the sick room which led to a serious cabal against his 

 conduct of the case of Mademoiselle. When called to see the princess, 

 who was suffering from phthisis, he found her in such a close, fetid 

 room that he impulsively exclaimed "The princess is being poisoned" 

 and ordered the windows thrown open at once. The remark was at 

 once reported, and with courtly alacrity the rumor spread of Tronchin's 

 charges against the medical and court attendants. A serious quarrel 

 arose, and it was some time before the suspicions and recriminations 

 were allayed. 



In the matter of diet he urged simplicity and abstemiousness, and 

 the ingestion of abundant water. His letters are full of the most detailed 

 advice upon these subjects, and show a practical judgment in dietetics 

 which the present-day knowledge of physiology can only confirm. They 

 are, too, models of clear simple language, within the easy comprehension 

 of the patient. 



Exercise, especially in the open air, was the third text of all his 

 teaching. "Chop your own wood" he directs one nobleman, quite as 

 Abernethy in England later told his gouty patient to "live on a shilling 

 a day, and earn it." 



You must take constantly and regularly as much exercise as you can without fatigue. 

 Use will gradually make it easy. Riding a horse is preferable to all other forms. 



For the court ladies the idea of actual bodily exercise out of doors was 

 a most startling novelty, but such was the insistence and personal 

 influence of this great new physician that the early morning walk out of 

 doors in low shoes and simple dress soon became the fashion. The 

 long, staff-like canes, which we know in pictures of the time, were 



