xxxiii] LITERARY WORK, ETC., 1 887-1905 229 



work was therefore very far from my thoughts, though at 

 times I was able to do a fair amount of writing. My friend 

 and neighbour, Professor Allman, had suffered from the same 

 affliction during a large part of his life, and only found very 

 partial relief from it by the usual fumigations and cigarettes, 

 with occasional changes of air, and it was often quite painful 

 to witness his sufferings, which continued till his death in 

 1898. As he was himself a medical man, and had had the 

 best advice attainable, I had little hope of anything but a 

 continuance and probably an increase of the disease. 



But the very next year I obtained relief (and up to the pre- 

 sent time an almost complete cure) in an altogether accidental 

 way, if there are any " accidents " in our lives. Mr. A. Bruce- 

 Joy, the well-known sculptor (a perfect stranger to me), had 

 called on me to complete the modelling of a medallion which 

 he had begun from photographs, and I apologized for not 

 looking well, as I was then suffering from one of my frequent 

 spells of asthma, which often prevented me from getting any 

 sleep at night. He thereupon told me that if I would follow 

 his directions I could soon cure myself Of course, I was 

 altogether incredulous ; but when he told me that he had 

 himself been cured of a complication of allied diseases — gout, 

 rheumatism, and bronchitis — of many years' standing, which 

 no English doctors were able to even alleviate, by an American 

 physician. Dr. Salisbury ; that it was effected solely by a 

 change of diet, and that it was no theory or empirical treat- 

 ment, but the result of thirty years' experiment on the effects 

 of various articles of diet upon men and animals, by the only 

 scientific method of studying each food separately and ex- 

 clusively, I determined to try it. The result was, that in a 

 week I felt much better, in a month I felt quite well, and 

 during the six years that have elapsed no attack of asthma 

 or of severe palpitation has recurred, and I have been able to 

 do my literary work as well as before I became subject to 

 the malady. 



I may say that I have long been, and am still, in principle^ 

 a vegetarian, and believe that, for many reasons, it will 

 certainly be the diet of the future. But for want of adequate 



