304 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



people take — partly, at first, by order of the doctor and 

 continued afterwards, and still more from the taking of 

 quack medicines. When a doctor comes to the house, he 

 should be given every chance, and obeyed in all he says ; 

 but when he is dismissed, his medicines should go with him, 

 and aU amateur doctoring should be of the simplest kind — 

 abstinence first and foremost, and various appHcations of 

 hot and cold water. One of our great physicians two or 

 three years ago, in his opening address to his hospital pupils, 

 said that seventy per cent, of the patients in a great London 

 hospital (think what that means !) would not be there if 

 they were teetotalers and vegetarians ; and this statement 

 passed unnoticed in aU the daily papers in which the 

 address was reported. If doctors could convince their 

 patients of this, I fear their profession would be a less 

 lucrative one, and that the health of the community would 

 be far better — at any rate, fewer of the leisured moneyed 

 classes would have to go to German watering-places, 

 homcEopathists, and quacks. 



It is quite a latter-day thing for doctors to talk in this 

 way about abstinence in health, but I shall never forget 

 vyhat I owe to an old-fashioned country doctor, who told 

 me, whenever my children were aihng, to knock off at 

 once all animal food — meat, soup, and even milk. Later 

 in my life, I remember it was a favourite saying of Sir 

 "William Gull's : ' First get your patient hungry, and then 

 keep him so.' 



The first book I recommend is called 'On SKght 

 Ailments and on Treating Disease,' by Lionel Beale. 

 This is a collection of lectures delivered at King's College, 

 London, on the principles and practice of medicine. If 

 the book has a fault, it is that it is too comprehensive and 

 medical to suit the palate of the ordinary amateur. The 

 next contains the wisdom of the serpent and the sim- 



