WBC P895 1832 IE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE Hl NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE N A T I O N A I I I B R A R Y O F M E D I C I N E VISIT TVNOIIVN SNUIU1B IU 7t\ I RY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL IIBRARY C v»an tvnoiivn 3Ni3ia3w jo abvbbit tvnoiivn jnoiqiw jo a»v»«i BVB8I1 TVNOIIVN 3 N I 3 I 0 3 W J O A II V B a IT T V N O I 1 V N 3 N I 3 I Q 3 W J O A » V »« ARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL IIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL IIBRARY -tml "Z utVvi V ' s/s//.,//, the H)yVi.c| THIRD EDITION OF THE PRACTICAL PROOFS ill OF THE SOUNDNESS OF THE HYGEIAN SYSTEM OFPHYSIOLOGY, GIVING INCONTROVERTIBLE "TESTIMONY TO THE AFFLICTED, OF THE INESTIMABLE VALUE QF ^ MORISCW'S VEGETABLE UNIVERSAL MEDICINES: Including, with other Matter, " THB ORIGIN OF LIFE, AND CAUSE OF ALL DISEASE EXPLAINED ;" X AN ENTIRELY NEW VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SMALL POX VIRUS, ' And of its being most certainly EKADICABLE, OR RENDERED HARMLESS ; AND SUNDRY CASES OF CURE, WITH MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION CONNECT,EJ£-WITH THE SUCCESSFUL PROMULGATION of the c> ^KiL.niy.i HYGEIAN SYSTEMS tV '"''>*■ THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. r*r DR. H. SHEPHEARD MOAT; and to be had at the Offices, 148, FaUoa BiM«l, and at 50, Canal Street; and of every duly authorized Agent Tor dispensing toe HYGEIAN MEDICINES throughout the United State*. 1832. [.'nvn,i" srcvr;:inrr to Act of Coi^rc??. in the year iN'il, l,y H. .-"hk;,ie4k.i Mt at, intheofiit. oft!* Clerk of the SoutlLni L'intrici oCvew-York' WBC If 32 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION OP PRACTICAL PROOFS. The lapse of a comparatively very short period having sufficed to distribute the last edition of the " Practical Proofs," as well as to enlist a large portion of the enlightened « community in favour of the Hygeian System of Physiology, as developed by the President of the British College of Health, and practised by its Members,—the grateful task of addressing the public again, devolves upon the Publisher of this little invaluable work. The task is one of the highest gratification; and, did it involve the necessity of entering into minute details of the rapid progress made towards the universal diffusion of the Hygeian Theory, would become a series of acknowledg- ments to the benefitted thousands who have lent their aid to effect that end. The Hygeian System, deduced upon principles of a fixed basis, admits no change; in reference, therefore, to proceed- ings connected therewith, it only becomes necessary to record the vast increase of friends to the cause, with the signal success which has attended its practical application, in the relief of a multitude of sufferers. Within the last, twelve months, the world has been agi- tated and alarmed by the frightful devastations of the Cholera in the North and Northeast of Europe : and America, how~ ever distant front the scene, does not fail to participate in the apprehension of the extension of the contagion to her shores. Such an opportunity of heaping greater mystery on the renowned Medical Art could not be permitted to escape iy therefore every civilized country on the face of the earth, speedily issued forth Treatises, Remarks and Remedies, for the Cure of Cholera Morbus. Viewing, with well-grounded confidence, the peculiar adaptation of the Hygeian Theory to the purposes of era- dicating this disease, it is deemed necessary to insert in this work, the Hygeist's Letter to the East India Company in the year 1825.—This letter must be read with increased satis- faction, as it becomes known, that at the time when the Cholera raged at Petersburgh, no individual suffered who took the Hygeian Medicines, and that the demand for them speedily became so great, as totally to exhaust the supply. This fact can be authenticated by a Gentleman there at the time, but now in this city. The cases of cure which are placed at the end, have been added by request ; but it is particularly wished to be made manifest, that cases of cure for publication, never have, nor • will be asked for. It is in the power of each Agent to give numerous respectable references when required ; but it is with assurance anticipated, that an imparlial consideration of the incontrovertible arguments here adduced in favour of the Hygeian treatment, will inspire greater confidence, and more effectually ensure its universal adoption, than a volume of extraordinary cures! I feel bound to revert to the unprincipled, base, and iufa- mous conduct of my late Agent in this City. Much as I regret the necessity of recurring to this subject, it is due to the Public, who are peculiarly interested in obtaining the Medicines in that Genuine state, which ensures their harm- less effect on the constitution, equally as in justice to myself, that I shortly state the Ireatment I have received. I first most conscientiously disclaim being actuated by any vindictive feelings; having convicted the unfortunate indivi- dual alluded to, offalsehood, and that too, before the tribunal of his own choice, it would be utterly beneath me to express other feelings than those of pity, that a man having support to seek for a family, should be so reckless of character and principle as to to incur the lasting stigma of a vice thus portrayed by the Poet: " Ingratitude's the worst of crimes' '< He that's ungrateful, has no vice'but one, K All other vices are but as virtues in him " T In April, 1831, I was informed by Mr. Hyer, that he intended to remove from his lodgings, and would be pleased to obtain an Agency for the sale of the Hygeian Medicines, the commission on which would enable him to pay the rent of a whole House. This having been assented to by me, in May he located himself in Grand Street, commenced as Agent (using his wife's name) and met with such success, that the commission on sales for the first quarter nearly paid his rent for the year. Though the remuneration was ample— the temptation was too strong to be resisted—the desire of gain overpowered the " still small voice" of conscience, and the dictates of honour and honesty, and in August a spurious preparation was discovered to have been sold by him, pur- porting to be the genuine article which he had from me for saieon commission. From the contrition he expressed when convicted of the base act; from the assurance he gave me of its never being repeated, coupled with the declaration that it had been issued merely as an experiment, the utter futility and worth- lessness of which was best evidenced by its so prompt de- tection and consequent failure, I was induced to pass over the act, (as hereafter described,) and to continue him in the Agency. On the 29th of October, he informed me, he had an idea of giving up the Agency on the 1st of November. Upon inquiring the reason, the only reply I could obtain was, that the act of August having transpired, he had been taunted on the subject, and fearful of loss of character, wished to with- draw. In a few days after this, I had ocular demonstration that he was issuing a counterfeit preparation, with an imitation of the label made use of for the genuine ones; the only course left to pursue, was that of giving a temperate Caution in the daily prints, that such being the case, the Hygeian Medicines could no longer be had genuine from him. In consequence hereof, the following made its appearance in the Courier and Enquirer of November 12th :— TO THE PUBLIC. fl^r" An impudent foreigner, and a quack, calling himself Doctor H. Shepheard Moat, who is desirous of imposing a2 VI himself upon the American public as a physician, without the smallest acquaintance, either in theory or practice, with medicine, and being, at the same time, ignorant of the very composition he sells, has had the assurance to post me in the public papers, as counterfeiting his medicines. That similar medicines to these he imports, are made and sold by Mrs. E. J. Hyer, at No. 141, Grand-street, is a fact, against which any caution is equivalent to an invasion of the rights of a free American citizen, and should be so viewed by all friends of their country and their country's industry and prosperity. And there can be no other reason urged against her so doing, than that suggested by the cupidity of this penurious foreigner, who thinks to claim exclusive jurisdic- tion over 12,000,000 of free people, and coerce them, by exciting a prejudice against one of their number, to contri- bute to his rapacious appetite for money. I think a plain statement of the facts in this case, will suffice to place this attempt at oppression in its proper light, and that the public, and those editors who have given publicity to an advertise- ment against one of the corps, without paying him even the compliment of apprising him of the intended attack, will not hesitateito decide in the premises. About one year since, Mr. Moat came to this city, an adventurer, with no other property than the amount in me- dicines he held in trust for the English makers, on whose account he now sells them, and a letter from a relative of mine residing in London, who recommended him to my attention as a young man of some enterprise and intelligence, though no Doctor, who would feel obliged by my advice and patronage. I accordingly, upon account of the writer of the letter, so far interested myself in his favour, as to answer as security for his house rent, and to notice the medicines he was charged with (which are really excellent in spite of his ignorance) in one of the daily papers of this city. I frequently put myself to a great deal of trouble to make him acquainted with the geography and customs of the country, and to establish him in an available situation. I found him.an apt scholar; but not exactly the kind of person in whose moral integrity I could place an implicit reliance: for the first inti- mation I had of his gratitude, was in the discovery of the fact of his having written to his patrons in London very much to the scandal of my friend there—that I had detained rii his remittances. I overlooked this so far as to say nothing about it, thinking that the embarrassed state of his finances might have coerced him into the fabrication of this piece of scandal. Shortly after this, my wife, Mrs. E. J. Hyer, expressed a desire to sell the medicines as an agent under this Doctor, to which I peremptorily denied my consent, fearing that the practice might appear to be incompatible with my standing, as a co-editor of a daily print But, I was finally induced to comply; and my wife's name ap- peared in the advertisements of this Doctor ! as an agent. She had not held the agency more than three weeks, when I discovered that the Doctor ! contrary to special contract, commenced undermining her business, by placing other agents in the upper part of the city. I immediately called upon him, and told him that I was desirous that my wife should give up this agency, since no reliance could be placed upon his word, and that consequently any permanency in a business of the kind—which was the only expectation which induced me to consent to its acceptance—could not be count- ed upon. He promised to remove the objection, which he never did, and we. went on as usual. But we found the self-baptised doctor a gentleman of pro- found sagacity, and as penurious as a miser. He began a system of speculation to a considerable profit,—first upon his own government, by smuggling into London the British Stamps sent out on the Medicines for the benefit of draw- back, allowed him on the invoice by the manufacturers ; then, by subdividing the contents of the boxes, and thereby making the *{ damned Yankees" pay thrice over for a single packet, as sworn to in the custom-house in this city. We had several applications from poor people who were suffer- ing under serious complaints, without the means of purchas- ing relief through the application of these medicines, and reported them to the tender-hearted Docter ! with the ex- pectation that he would humanely bestow them upon them without charge. We were mistaken. His uniform replies were, that he would not, since he could sell enough, without giving any way. The consequence was, we became disgusted with this second Sangrado, no less for this cause than from the frequent complaints from buyers, who did not hesitate to charge him with abstracting from the ordinal amount of the medicines. My wife made some herself, and gave them to vm the poor. The Doctor became alarmed, and said it was interfering with his business. We again offered to surrender the agency : No : he could not do without our assistance, and wished to preserve our friendship. Again I consented to retain the agency; and, since he appeared alarmed at the prospect of our competing with him, I gave him an obligation that my wife should not make any more during such agency. And she did not. My wife still strenuously contended for her right to manu- facture and sell, under her own name, these medicines, and to make such use of the recipe in her possession as she pleased. The privilege was as common as that of making a piece of broad cloth of a quality equal to that coming from nny foreign factory. There was no patent existing in either this country or Great-Britain, and the right was at once clear and incontrovertible. She accordingly resigned the agency, and commenced the manufacture of the Hygeian Medicines, from a copy of the original recipe sent out to me from London, upon her own account. I then gave him my note at three months upon the outstanding accounts, and passed receipts with him. And it is for this heinous offence that I have been posted in the public papers. I appeal to the good sense of the American people, and ask no other verdict than that which may flow from the exer- cise of their impartial judgment. If every American citizen, who undertakes to promote, by the exercise of his talents and industry, the good of the community, by extending the bene. fits arising from the adaptation of foreign intelligence to the exigences of the country, is to be proscribed by irresponsible adventurers, an end must soon come to our efforts at do- mestic industry, in every department of the arts of life, as well as the literature and science of the age. W. G. HYER. The base malignity and gross absurdity of this precious piece of rubbish, was, in my opinion, an all-sufficient answer to itself. Over-ruled, however, by the voice of friends I was induced to reply, and published the following in the same paper, of November 14th, and remainder of week. ix HYGEIAN MEDICINES. CAUTION !!!—W. G. Hyer, 141 Grand-street, my late agent, having counterfeited the Hygeian Medicines, the pub- lic are cautioned that the said Medicines can no longer be obtained from that person. Mr. J. Stanley, corner of Broad- way and Canal-street, and Mr. Beastall, 148 Fulton-street, are the only persons authorised to sell Morison's Pills, the Hygeian Universal Medicines of the British College of Health, in the City of New-York, by appointment of Dr. H. SHEPHEARD MOAT, Son of the Vice President of the British College, and sole Agent and Importer of the Medi- cines in the United States, Smith-street, Brooklyn. (£3=* The scurrility and abuse which this necessary caution has produced, would need no attention, were it not that the falsehoods with which such is accompanied, might, uncontra- dicted, appear facts. Personalities can have little interest with the community ; in reply, therefore, to the contemptible aspersions of W. G. Hyer, I content myself with affirming, that his statements respecting me personally, are a tissue of falsehoods, and before the citizens of New-York, J dare him to the proof. At W. G. Hyer's solicitation, I gave him an agency for selling the Hygeian Medicines in the city of New-York. From this period I was constantly importuned by this public spirited and enterprising encourager of home manufactures, to give him the exclusive agency for the city. This I invari- ably refused, as injustice to those agents previously appointed. In August last, a pscket of pills was brought to me, in conse- quence of their injurious effect, which I promptly discovered to be spurious ; and finding that they were purchased of [not given by) Hyer, I went to him at the Standard office, and charged him with the base act. To make short, he undertook to give me a bond as security in future, and to make an acknowledgment of his baseness and dishonesty before a friend of mine. He gave the bond, to which Mr. Mumford, Editor of the Standard paper, affixed his signature as witness. In pity to the humble spirit of the guilty man, I immediately called him into the back office, extended my hand, and told him I forgave him the remainder of the obli- gation. With much apparent shame, the hypocrite thanked X me for saving him from such further humiliation; said he felt the disgrace to the heart, from which my kindness would never be erased, wondered at his folly in permitting his wife to lead him into such an error, and would use his utmost ex- ertions to repair the injury. W. G. Hyer's sense of gratitude is developed, in his ad- dress to the public. He acknowledges, under female influ* ence having become a manufacturer of counterfeit pills. I do not object to his making pills ; but let them not be foisted on the community as those that are imported from the British College of Health. With regard to the assertion that W. G. Hyer has the original recipe from London, it is most certainly untrue ; for Messrs. Morison and Moat, President and Vice-President of the College, are the only individuals with whom the know- ledge of that valuable recipe remains. Hyer's only acquaint- ance in London, was Mr. John Newman, his brother-in-law, now residing with him in New-York, and awaitingmy father's appointment to the general agency in Canada. I call upon that gentleman to state what information it was ever in his power to afford this Hyer about the composition of the Pills. I shall dismiss further notice of this fellow's contemptible trash, by observing that he might have found means to pay the $400 which he is indebted to me, before he displayed his tact at abuse and assumption of patronage whilst clerk in an office II. SHEPHEARD MOAT. W. G. Hyer acknowledges the inestimable value of the medicines I import and vend through the medium of agents. I cannot return the compliment; for whilst writing this, three individuals have called, who, having purchased the spu- rious article, and experienced its injurious effects, promptly returned what was left of the same to the " original recipe'' party, and compelled them to refund the whole of the money paid. The parties will come forward, if required. It is not my intention to notice further the personal abuse couched in Mr. Hyer's address—my object now is to satisfy the numerous friends of the Medicine, that those only can be pure and genuine, which pass through my hands. The preparation which composes the Hygeian Medicines, Is entirely the discovery of Mr. Morison—their qualities XI their power, and their effect proved by actual experiment upon himself. The knowledge of that preparation rests entirely with himself, and with Mr. Thomas Moat, my Father. And to no other individual has it ever been imparted. How an individual, of limited means, residing in New- York, could obtain knowledge of a circumstance, confided (with every inducement to retain the same) to two persons living in London, is a mystery bearing too visibly on the face of it, the stamp of misrepresentation, for any, with the correct use of their intellect, to give one instant's credence to. I will only add further on this matter, that Messrs. Mori- son and Moat defy the world to analyze the Hygeian Medi- cines, and acting upon the persuasion, that it is not in the power of Chemistry to do so, they entertain no apprehen- sion of the Composition being discovered, have therefore never considered it necessary to secure their right by patent, and consequently have never been called upon to make any specification of the preparation. By particular request, Mr. Morison's proof of the Medicine, and cuie by them, is in- serted in this Address. In conclusion, I give notice to all, wishing to obtain the Genuine Morison's Pills, the Hygeian Universal Medicine of the British College of Health, that each Packet is signed by me ; each Agent gives Security against Counterfeit Prepa- rations, and is furnished with a printed Appointment, signed by me ; and it is hoped that each purchaser will invariably require the production of that Document, any individual gelling without which is an Imposter. H SHEPHEAD MOAT, Sole General Agent to the United State*, Smith Street, Brooklyn. MR. MORISON, THE HYGEIST'S, ACCOUNT OF HIS OWN CASE OF CURE, As extracted from Morisoniana, the Family Adviser of the British College of Health. Having now brought this my word of advice to the world, learnt from dear-bought experience and suffering, to a con- clusion, it may not be deemed superfluous to say a little of myself, as the reader generally is curious—and very natu- rally so—to know something of the person, or author, who presumes to offer him his advice on any subject, either for his amusement or real benefit. Besides which, it will show, too, how Providence has conducted me under the pressure of the direst disease, for such a number of years, to arrive at last at the truth, and thereby have gained a real knowledge of the human body, (the promulgation of which is the rtiost important gift that could be made to the human race,) and a perfect conviction of the erroneous theory and practice of the present medical profession. Certainly in all ages, ancient as well as modern, the world has been amused with sarcasms, and accusations of the inutility of the medical profession ; but that was all : physi- cians and doctors still kept their footing. Thus satirizing and lampooning the profession only amused those in health, did not benefit the sick; and mankind seeing disease and death all around them, whether they consulted the doctors or whether they did not, considered all as the inevitable work of Providence, and came to this consoling conclusion, " that what cannot be cured, must be endured," Such, I may say, is still the state of ideas and feelings of mankind. Thus accusing and inveighing against the vagueness and futility of the mode of practice of a profession, (highly honourable and necessary in itself, if properly understood,) could be •£ B 14 no use, unless you, at the same time, presented to the public another mode of practice, surer to cure and prevent then- diseases, and more adapted to their natures. I would, at the same time, request the reader—the unpre- judiced reader—if he has occasion for, or expects to reap any benefit from this advice, and improve his state of health, to weigh well within himself the validity of the arguments and deductions here introduced, though, perhaps, new to him. If he is satisfied with his health as it is, he will say, " I don't require any advice on the subject, and reject the offer." Considering health and disease as mere dispensa- tions from the hand of Providence, showering all her greatest benefits on a very few individuals, and withholding them from the multitude, he thinks himself one of the select few, and that his state of health must be lasting. He does not consider them what they really are, proceeding from the universal laws of nature, brought on by a train of circum- stances incident to life from birth to death, which, perhaps, have escaped his notice. To such a train of favourable circumstances, the healthy cheerful man owes his good, and to another train of unfavourable circumstances, the diseased man owes his bad health. We often see the most robust health brought to naught ; why ? because he was not instructed—did not know the sure way of preventing disease. He feels the darts of acute or chronic disorders ; his high spirits forsake him, and he feels as a diseased man. Cer- tainly then, if the healthy man can be brought thus low, from a cause which we comprehend, owing to his own neglect, the valetudinary, or diseased man, may have his health improved by pursuing a different mode, and eradica- ting from his body the cause of corruption and disease. The sun shines alike for all. Does the farmer who takes in a barren field—drains it, ploughs it, manures it,—see his hopes blasted 1 No. And do we suppose that Providence has beeD less mindful of one of us, and that it intended this life as a world of woes to nine-tenths of mankind 1 No ; the idea would be unjust, impious. Nature has in store great resour- ces for the valetudinary. If none of his organs, or viscera are really injured : that is to say, if they are not eaten) corroded, or wasted, by the long abode of his acrimonious' humours upon them ; and even then he may have still almost certain hopes, if be arms himself with fortitude and peiseve- 15 ranee, and if he has an inward conviction of the cause of all diseases, as explained in this advice. The world, no doubt, will receive this advice with caution, and even distrust. Many of them will say, How can any man, not bred up to physic, as taught in our colleges and hospitals, pretend to come forward and offer opinions so contrary to those adopted by an host of learned men, who have spent their whole lives in studying and watching disease —from one, too, who despises to make quotations from the fathers of the medical art ? Nature and experience are, however, better and surer masters and guides than any of these ; and this will not be the first example in the world of the human mind remaining for ages ignorant of truths tho most obvious, and highly interesting to the felicity of man- kind. Witness the fallacies that have taken place, both as to religion and government, and the discoveries made in natural history and the arts. Besides, in cases of this kind, it is so difficult to leave the beaten track, and combat the prejudices of mankind and of the age, that one must almost have the fervour of an apostle, and only have in view the good of the human race, to undertake and enter on such a calling ; and I should have considered myself as guilty of treason to mankind, had I not promulgated truths so much to their advantage : even though the consequences to me may be highly disagreeable, from opposing such powerful adversaries, and which nothing but a conscientious convic- tion could overcome and determine me to bring before the public. A thirty-five years' inexpressible suffering, both of body and mind, is an event, too, which falls but to the lot of few, if of any at all. Had it pleased God to call me out of this world some years ago, I should have died as another man, and been forgotten, and the world could have reaped no benefit from my case and misfortunes, nor from the favour- able effects produced by the same means on my children. This is a guarantee to the world not often to be met with, and a convincing proof of the motto prefixed to this advice, that " health and old age are within the reach of us all." I had passed my fiftieth year before I first saw the light —the true light, that guided me to health ; and from my sixteenth year, I had passed a life of disease, physical, misery, and woe. During that long period, I thought, 16 believed, and acted, as others do who are in search of health: —boarding-schools, confinement, and costiveness, were the parents that gave birth to my disease. After a lapse of five years, from sixteen to twenty-one, passed in a neglected state, and when disease was rooted in my body, (for people, and I myself then, consider the diseases of the body like a pear on a tree, and that they must be allowed to come to their full maturity before they are to be touched or meddled with,) I began to run the gauntlet of all the remedies which physicians of all countries are in the habit of prescribing. Beginning with change of air, country amusement and exer- cise, anthelminthicks, or vermifuges, mercurial and mineral purges ; the scene was changed into stomachics, bitters, port wine, and beef-steaks, shower cold bath, chalybeates and mineral waters. Then came change of climate—from a cold climate to the torrid zone : no alteration. Next suc- ceeded mercury in all its shapes—salivation, valerian, aether, bark in abundance, laxative pills just to move the bowels, assafcetida : then poverty of diet, scarcely any thing but vegetables and water. Nothing had any effect in giving me ease. At another time, a renowned M. D. or Surgeon of London, and of noted eccentricity, restricted me to a diet of a tea-cup-full of bread and milk for breakfast ; and for dinner, a basin of soup with bread and meat, the whole only to be of volume even to fill the basin. Half an ounce of salts every morning, and a glass of cascarilla bark before dinner, were the medicines to accompany this diet of an anchorite, which was thought the ne plus ultra of medical skill—along with particular injunctions at what hour to take exercise, and at what hour to sit still ; and thus setting forth at the same time that relaxing, bracing, and starving, could not fail to restore nerves and organs of digestion, and give to the machine a new life and ease. But many months of this made me no better, but worse. My doctors began to be at their wit's end ; but they never want a refuge when disease is obstinate, and does not choose to obev their pre- scriptions. It was then imagination—nothing can be done ; go about your business, occupy yourself with business and employments, and learn to bear your sufferings. Total want of sleep, constant beating and uneasiness about the heart, dejection, the feeling of something like a bar across the lower part of my breast, no relish fqr amusement nor any 17 thing else, costiveness—all these diseases together were nothing to their sapient eyes and ears, accustomed to hear such complaints daily ; but the sufferer does not content himself with such language. The next thing was, for these great oracles of Epidaurus, to find, in the formation of my chest, the cause of my complaint and constant uneasiness. Then the truss-maker, or steel stays maker, was set to work : steel jackets were made to spread out my bones of the chest, and give to the heart full scope to play. This appeared to me, then, a high effort of genius, and showed the resources of their medical art; and I blessed the men, who, thus devoting themselves to the research of knowledge to cure our diseases, evinced so much science. (What does not the poor sufferer grasp at ?) But alas ! my chest would not open, the bones would not spread out. Reader, I suppose you think you have heard all, and that I must in good ear- nest declare, and think myself incurable. So I well nigh did and thought : but disease is a cloak you cannot carry about you unseen. So it happened to me—one's features, the eye, the gait, the complexion—every thing announces it when the body is out of order ; and I was then still young, and had a right to ease, and even to health. This attracted the attention of an eminent medical man, in a large town, where I then was, and whom I had seen accidentally : this was twenty years ago. He soon displayed his science by finding out a cause for my complaint, which none of his predecessors had yet thought of. A cure or operation of such importance was not, however, to be undertaken by one alone, and a medical board was formed of two physicians, and two surgeons, and all in high repute : and what do you think their unanimous decision was ? Only to make a hole or incision at the pit of the stomach, arrive at the cartilage which is there, lift it up, and cut off its point.; giving plau- sible reasons that the cartilage was too long, rubbed upon the stomach, and caused the beating, irritation, want of sleep, &c. &c, which I invariably complained of. Guided by such Mentors, and men of science too, I consented to submit; one night's good rest and sleep, I thought, would repay me for all the danger I ran ; such was my calculation and eager- ness to get well. The operation was begun, of which I bear the mark to this day: but on advancing, the scientific gentlemen got frightened at the danger, and abandoned me b 2 18 to the care of another surgeon to heal up the wound. This was a shock hard to bear ; such a disappointment after my sanguine hopes. What was to be done ? suicide ? Nature and religion both revolt at it. Thus I continued, year after year, struggling with disease—my speedy dissolution was often looked for—my meridian of life passed—the powers and energy of life fast subsiding—my faculties impairing, and sight becoming dim. I was fast descending into tho grave—the lightest meal gave me all the horrors of indi- gestion—that low languid state of it in which the sufferer finds no ease nor rest any way—my glands in the neck and groin obstructed—irritable, peevish, sleepless—my joints stiff, and my feet filled with excruciating pains, so that I could scarcely walk—on my elbows and shoulders the flesh appearing raw, the skin being eat away by the acrimony of the humours. Such was I in my fifty-first year; and my original complaint, the cause and source of all these evils, remaining the same. At this period I acquired new ideas. I began to reason with myself on all that had passed, and had been done. I soon saw the futility of the whole, and the want of principles and design in all the prescriptions of my doctors : they appeared to me, no better than the hood- winked person at the play of" blind-man's buff:" they are groping about, and it is all a chance whether they hit on the right disease or not; nay, that by their present practice they cannot cure any disease, as they are ignorant of the real cause of all disease. If a patient gets cured of his disease, it is by nature : well for him if they have not given him soporiferous drugs to counteract nature. Let me make here one remark : has the medical profession, notwithstanding the antiquity it boasts of, discovered or established as yet any real fact as to the treatment of disease, and that has proved convincing to themselves or satisfactory to others—their practice varying in different countries, and in the same coun- try varying according to the individual notions of the physi- cians, one contradicting another 1 Do they not show, by their eagerness in looking out for new remedies, and new modes of cure, that they are in want of something, which they have not yet found ] Can any one of us, or themselves say, that they possess a sure mode of improving our health' benefitting our nature, and expanding our faculties, to the utmost of which they are susceptible 1~such, however 19 should be the task of the true physician. They are still expecting to find out, to accomplish this, some great remedy or specific, in some remote quarter of the globe ; and the lichen of Iceland, or another exotic, the name of which I dp not remember, are now under their demure consideration, as proper drugs to operate the salvation of the human race. In a year or two they will be forgotten. Do you think this is the way to treat man, the chief work of the creation ! Depend upon it, their theory and practice are erroneous. We trust and depend upon them to be sure, because it is the practice of the world ; and every one knows not better, and is at a loss what to do. Discarding every thing I had learn- ed and believed in before from their doctrines, I said to myself, What can it be that makes me so ill, so miserable ? It is neither musket-balls nor stones, nor sharp-pointed instruments ; for I have neither of those within me. It cannot be any of my solid parts ; for if any of them were in an injured state, I should soon feel the consequences of it. It can then be nothing else but my bad humours, which, from my stomach and bowels, are diffused all over my body. I then rested settled as to that point, resolved to place my confidence in the vegetable universal medicines, as the only rational purifiers of the blood and system, as they alone take away the dross and impurities out of the body—and they have not deceived me. One step leads to another : 1 soon found that the idea with regard to them was erroneous ; that instead of weakening, they strengthen ; that though used for any length of time, they still operate alike ; that the stomach and bowels never get wearied with them ; on the contrary, that they delight in them; that all other functions and powers are improved ; that on leaving them off, costiveness did not ensue (provided you have once persevered with the use of them to effectually purify the system ;) and that evacuating by these vegetables, is the natural function of the bowels, as digestion to the stomach, breathing to the lungs, sight to the eyes ; and every one knows, that all these are the better for being used. All nations, from the remotest ages, have had ships; but Columbus only found out the way to America—before him they only knew to paddle about the shores : by Columbus, the world has derived from ships the advantages they were susceptible of. So I have ventured on an unknown ocean, and made the object I was in search 20 of health. These vegetable medicines were likewise known, but their use was not. People and physicians knew only that it was sometimes necessary to give them, in a small degree —just, as they say, to open the bowels, and prevent nature from being stopped—trusting to their art to establish and maintain the just equilibrium among the humours, by their various drugs of different natures. But this equilibrium always escaped them, when they thought themselves the surest of it. They did not know, or, at least, they do not show it by their practice, that by draining the body of its dross and humours, all the other juices flow in their natural healthy state. They seem to think the stomach and bowels comparable to a pair of mill-stones, and that use would make them smooth and lose their powers; hence the erroneous system of giving tone, force, bracing, &c. Perhaps they are just now debating in their medical councils, whether it is by muscular force, or by juices, that digestion is consumma- ted. The stomach and bowels have always power enough when they are clean. The only thing they dread, is when their juices are obstructed and cannot flow freely : therefore the evident inference from this is, that it is by the juices alone that the digestion of our aliments is consummated. By the use of them, I have, comparatively speaking, renew- ed my youth ; I have got rid of all pains—my limbs are supple—the palpitation at my heart is gone, and my spirits easy ;—my sleep is returned for a period of four or five hours—I neither fear wet, cold, nor heat, nor catch colds in any situation ;—exercise gives me no fatigue ;—and this great change, so much good, operated for the trifling incon- venience of swallowing a few pills at bed-time, and a glass of lemonade in the morning, which do not impose—nay don't require any restraint either day or night, but leave you a perfect master of yourself and your time. My most sanguine expectations, three years ago, could not have anticipated such a result. I was dying, and ten times worse than any of you, and, as you see, the disease was old. For recent complaints, and as a preventive, ten days will do more than a year for me. Luckily for me, amidst such various treatments, T had the good fortune to escape lauda- num and bleeding ; otherwise I should not have been here to tell the tale. After long perseverance, two years and a half after I had begun with the vegetable universal medicine 21 I had ocular demonstrations of the cause of my complaint being evacuated : a substance of a skinny, glutinous nature, four or five inches long, moulded like a gut, descended from the mouth of my stomach, immediately from, the place where the learned doctors and surgeons had begun the incision for opening, and of which a fac-simile is still in my possession. You, may well imagine that from its long abode there it had acquired considerable consistency, which must have been much greater before passing through the stomach and bowels, and thus presenting itself to my eyes. Had my body been opened at any period of my illness, no doubt the dissectors would have dignified it with the name of ossification of some of these parts; and there as we may suppose, it was sticking close as gum or fungus to a tree. Reader, this was the cause from the beginning of my disease, want of all rest and comfort, and loss of fortune. I frequently thought I should go mad, and that I was possessed of a devil within mev In the first periods of it, and when my other feelings wsere still acute, I would have taken up my abode in the sandy deserts of Africa, to obtain a few nights' sound sleep, the common solace of man- kind ; and so I well nigh did, or worse, for it drove me to theWest Indies. You cannot imagine to yourself the anguish and pain of it; yet no one knew how to give me any relief. At its commencement, thirty-eight years ago, it was only a simple humour that had settled there, and by the treatment which nature prescribes for all disease, would have been radically cured in a week, or ten days ; but it was neglected, and allowed to take root and grow. Reader, all your dis- eases and pains arise from a like cause: they must proceed from a humour. I defy all ingenuity to establish any other cause. I had no more visible appearance of humours then about me than you have. I was only highly uneasy and disturbed, and had pain ; and it is evident that my heart at every stroke met a resistance. Nothing could give me sleep. You see, my medical advisers never dreamed of finding out the true cause : the vegetable universal me- dicines, however, did me this good office, as they search the whole body, and ferret out disease; that is, obnox- ious humours, wherever they are seated. Do not we hear every day of people with pains in the side, breast, abdomen, and head, which terminate fatally, only because 22 the proper remedy is not applied 1 Did not Bonaparte die of a disorder of this kind, in some shape or other, which some courses of the vegetable universal medicine would have stopped and eradicated ? So do we all; but it is not investigated : a humour in some shape is the cause of all disease, and of death. Is this no small consolation to man- kind, to have their minds set at ease on a point that so much interests them, as to know the real cause of their diseases, and to see their way clear out of the wilderness in which they were before lost ] But physicians will say, (and some others will join them,) Who could discover the cause of such a disorder? or, that you had brazen stomach and bowels, to support such purging. It is, however, the talent you often pique yourselves upon the most, to discriminate constitutions, and to treat them accord- ingly. On the many applications I made to you, why did not any of you find out the stomach and bowels of brass at the time? This is, however, but mere waste of words, and requires no other refutation than to repeat, that every one possesses the same stomach and bowels of brass, and that it is only stagnant and conupt humours which the stomach and bowels dread, and that it is owing to these humours, in one shape or other, that all around us die ; for death always proceeds from an injury done to some of our inward parts by these humours. And here I cannot forbear still impressing on the mind of the reader, that all pain, no matter how trifling, an individual feels, is the beginning of disease, and will be every day making progress, if you do not check it and eva- cuate it. It is the snow-ball at the top of the mountain, which, if allowed to roll down, becomes an overwhelming mass at the bottom. Away, then, with that inhuman and brutalizing idea and method which many people have, of foolishly resisting and attempting to conquer pain and dis- ease. They say unto themselves—I am ill; I suffer, but yet I won't submit; it would be pusillanimous, effeminate. Certainly such a man's apology is to be found in the igno^ ranee of his advisers. If he consulted a physician, he told him one thing and prescribed accordingly; if he went to another physician, he told him another story, and prescribed 23 wisdom to take nothing, because they had never been put on the right road. The intelligent reader will perceive, that by this mode of treatment you strike at the root of all dis- ease at the same time, and prevent the Hydra monster from assuming his various shapes. How often do we see a person fallen sick, when he is treating and labouring under any disease, another malady, of a different nature and symptoms, declares itself; and the patient falls a victim to a complica- tion of diseases, but which proceeded in all from the same cause or origin !—It belongs to this great nation, renowned for its religion, morality, glory, perfection in the arts and sciences, and riches* manfully to come forward and stop this havock of disease and wretchedness : this equally interests the rich and the poor, all and every one. The whole nation is groaning under the present practice of the medical pro- fession, which fosters disease more than cures it, and debases our constitutions. Is there no difference betwixt right and wrong in medical treatment ? do the professors of it consider themselves heaven-born ? or is it a subject which defies in- vestigation ? Our hospitals, infirmaries, poor-houses, and mad-houses, are filled with diseased objects. Before they have attained half their natural .age, the young are swept away, or grow up diseased and profligate. Much care has been taken and great means employed to instruct their minds ; but we forget to instruct them as to the treatment of their bodies. This, however, would be no difficult task, and the good consequences of it would soon be felt. The consti- tutional virtues have always been held in the highest estima- tion, as forming good religious members of society. In my own family, on my own children, I have evident testimony of the very salutary effects of the vegetable universal medi- cine; although they were born with far from good constitu- tions to boast of, but the reverse, being all subject to various chronic complaints, as might be expected, yet by the use of them their constitutions and state of body have been wonder- fully improved and altered for the better, kept free from all surrounding disease, not catching colds, coughs, nor sore throats, and always hearty, lively, and apt to learn. Reader, I have an inward conviction of the truth of all advised here—a conviction learnt from experience ; for ex- perience should always precede conviction, however plausible the previous reasoning may be, which led you to make the 24 trial by experience. If it is otherwise, it is only system- making and chimeras. I have revealed to mankind truths the most important to them ; and thirty years ago I would willingly have given all I possessed to have had the same revealed to me, and thought I made a good bargain ; for what is life without health, and the enjoyment of our facul- ties"? not a state of happiness, but of misery. And who is the man who in his life has not felt the insignificancy and even perniciousness of all medical knowledge and prescrip- tions hitherto? My last advice is, if you wish to live long, pleasantly, and happy, useful to yourself and to others, think it not too much trouble to prevent disease. It is much easier to prevent than to cure. Root out the weeds by time. You are now put upon the high road, with health full in view, and guided by sure unerring principles to direct you. JAMES MORISON. POSTSCRIPT. Reader, let me narrate to you a small circumstance that took place not a month ago, and when I was penning this advice to you ; for in an investigation of this kind, the mi- nuter the circumstance, of the more consequence it is. If a man, from his knowledge, science, or art, could cause the slightest down to grow upon your skin, on a part where there was none, and could give good rational grounds for his so doing, we should then have sufficient reason to hope, that the same person would arrive at the knowledge of covering our beads with hair when bald, and where there was none. I had on the middle joint of one of the middle toes of the left foot, a very slight contraction of the articulation, with a little turgidity, and the skin looked Whitish and shining. It, per- haps, had existed there twenty years, (for I do not remem- ber its appearing,) gave me no pain, and did not prevent me wearing any shoe. All I know is, that it was there for many many years : the nicest anatomist, or sculptor, would only have said, that there was some imperfection in it; a little contraction and swelled skin it certainly had. One daV lately I felt pain on it, on the bone farther down, close t« 25 the body of the foot, a little hardness and redness, like a flea bite; but I felt, at the same time, that the pain was deep, and reached the bone. It went on increasing ; and the whole of that part of the foot became inflamed and swelled, artdfor two days I could scarcely walk. Those about me recommended various applications common in such cases ; but I rejected them, sensible of the only cause from which it could proceed, and confident in the vegetable universal medicine to eradicate that cause. I was otherwise in perfect health, and could have walked thirty miles the day before it attacked me. It is to be remarked, too, that on the other side of the articula- tion, towards the point of the toe, there was not the least inflammation ; this shows how the blood acts—it had detached the humour, and was conveying it up to the bowels to be purged off. As I expected, in a few days more, the inflammation subsided ; and, what is still more, the whole contraction and little swelling were gone. Science, or know- ledge, without knowing the cause how this insignificant change on my toe was brought about, is no knowledge at all, and is lost to the world ; you can make no use of it on other occasions. The cause of the change on my toe arose from this : my blood was then purified by three years' use of the vegetable universal medicine, and I was in good health. I have before said, in the body of this advice, that the blood, the life of man, when perfectly purified, becomes penetrat- ing, elastic, energetic. It strives to have uncontrolled sway in all its dominions, the body, and to be itself everywhere, to nourish all properly. More nice than the anatomist or sculptor, and jealous of its rights, the blood had found out this little corner on the articulation of my toe, where one of its bitter enemies had established himself for many years. This enemy was a humour, and the cause of the contraction ; the pure blood, strong and active, enters into combat with it, subdues, and expels it. This was the cause of the inflam- mation—the humour, being dislodged, spread itself over the other parts, till, by the circulation, it was to be conveyed to the bowels to be carried off. One may judge of the malig- nity of the humours, when this, not so big as half a small pea, could occasion such pain. This was the consequence of more than a thousand doses of the vegetable universal medi- cine, which did not disable me, all that time, from any occu- pation or amusement. This may be compared to the last c 26 conquest the blood had to make to regain possession of its dominions. From this occurrence on the toe, one may draw inferences, and knowledge of the most useful nature. We may consider it as the seed of a disease, which had planted itself there, and only waiting a favourable opportunity of spreading itself, which would have depended on my mode of life, and state of blood ; for example, four years ago, being so ill, and pains in some other parts of my feet, that I could scarcely walk, if, instead of using the vegetable universal medicine, I had followed the advice of physicians,cronies, and such like, and used as the expression is, bracers, fortifiers, nostrums, or specifics,—this same humour on the toe would have been fostered up into the gout, or some such thing, and if alive at this day, (which was not probable), I should have been infirm and bed-ridden. JAMES MORISON. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF PRACTICAL PROOFS. On complying with the urgent solicitations made for the publication of this little work in this city, it may not be deemed misplaced to introduce here a few observations on the successful operations of the Members of the British College of Health generally, and the unprecedented support which has been extended to the promulgation of the Hygeian The- ory in the United States. Its Members, both active and honorary, have received an immense augmentation, and they are rapidly extending over the world. Their increasing practice and concurring testi- mony from all parts, stamp celebrity upon the Hygeian System, and more fully demonstrate the virtues and efficacy of the "Universal Medicine." The vouchers, letters, and acknowledgments from Patients, for extraordinary cures, now in their possession, would fill a large volume ; in fact, every patient, whatever his former sufferings, from bad treatment, may have been, becomes a remarkable case of cure, when he follows up and adheres to the prescriptions of the College. Amongst other great improvements of the age in progress from the march of intellect, the world has acquired new ideas with regard to medicine, and the science of reinstating and preserving, in all their perfection, the physical powers and faculties of man. Medicine is as necessary to him as the bread or aliment be eats ; but it should be only a medicine 28 of an innocent and beneficial kind. It should not be (as the superannuated medical profession has made its study and adopted) the use of poisonous and pernicious productions of the vegetable and mineral world,—such as opium, hemlock, fox-glove, hyosamos, colchicum, or prussic acid ; or of the mineral poisons, arsenic, corrosive sublimate, tartaric acid, mercury, antimony, &c—They have been making use of dangerous weapons, which in all cases must do harm, re- quiring great nicety in administering them, without killing the patient on the spot—this is all their art! Medical men have been labouring and studying since Hippocrates (more than 2,000 years) without ever establish- ing any fixed principles as to their science. All has been random and conjecture with them ! Not so with the Hygeian System ! Its principles are as fixed and invariable as those of other sciences, such as astronomy, navigation, or music, which are now brought to great perfection and can be de- pended on. It will now suffice, on the part of the British College of Health, to lay before the public some new lights which have come to its knowledge, as a further guide for preserving health and curing disease. THEORY OF EATING AND DRINKING. This is a subject of the greatest importance to all, and when the principles thereof are once known and understood, it becomes susceptible of fixed rules. There are two ways of doing all things—a right way and a wrong way. The true theory of digestion has been explained in the " Ori«in of Life," as being performed by the gastric juices, furnished from the blood. Thus it happens that we are .never both hungry and thirsty at the same time. If hungry we should eat, but not drink; and vice versa, if thirsty, we should drink, but not eat. The rule to be observed is this: at meals (and we should always be hungry when we make one) we should eat first, and not drink for some time, till decided thirst begins. If a person cannot relish his meal without drink-. ing, he may be sure his digestive juices want correcting. A very easy and satisfactory explanation can be given for this mode of proceeding: as digestion is performed solely by Jhe juices, if, on eating, ypu drink immediately and add. 29 unnecessary liquids of any kind, you thereby materially injure and diminish the power of those digestive juices, and consequently impede a good digestion. When the aliments are once saturated in these digestive juices, thirst will begin, when you may drink with pleasure and benefit. Patients of all classes require to be admonished, that instead of these Medicines rendering them liable to catch cold, they are the only sure means to prevent and cure that failing, or liability to catch cold, by taking out of the body the humour which is the cause of catching cold. They likewise require admonishing on another head, which is, that Patients using the Medicines, when they feel any slight pain, colic, or sickness, (although these last but for a short time, the Patient always feels better after) immediately take alarm, and instead of having confidence in the Medi- cines and their effects, lose it and give them up—they do not reflect, that no alteration or benefit can be produced on a diseased body, without their feeling it—as a necessary step towards their improvement. One must first get a little worse before he can get finally better. The same may be said of various strange symptoms and feelings, which some- times occur during a course—they are all stages, which nature requires our body to pass through, to arrive at a state of health and perfection—and the Patient will find that all such symptoms and feelings, and even weakness, will be removed by some reiterated strong doses. They should likewise consider, that it is not an affair of a moment, or even of months, to re-establish an old diseased body, and to make it a new one: but with patience ?_nd perseverance they will. It is always a favourable sign, when a patient feels any new symptom, or feeling arising, and that he does not feel his old ailment or pain so much, or so acute. Boils and abscesses, forming on any part, inwardly or outwardly, are favourable signs, and always terminate well, and restore the patient, when the medicines are persevered with. It may not here be superfluous to put upon record, that patients have taken thirty, forty, end fifty pills at a time, in severe and urgent cases: and what was the con- sequence T Nothing, but that they were the sooner wblu One person ill of a violent bilious and brain fever, who would have been doomed by the faculty to bleeding and, blistering, and a three weeks' confinement, was immediately 30 relieved, and at his employment the next afternoon ! In general, fifteen or twenty pills prove very efficient doses id all cases. This proves that there need be no apprehension of over doses, and shows, too, the absurdities of the faculty, when they frighten you about super-pubgation ! The British College of Health wishes to impress on the public mind one other important truth, necessary for per- fectly understanding the Hygeian theory, which is, that our constitutions are all fundamentally the same, and that they become different only from the effect of disease: this is verified by the practice of all those who take the Universal Medicine, and persevere with it sufficiently to produce the desired change. Although this New Medical Institution has hitherto re- frained from prescribing as to diet, now, however, it is deemed expedient to admonish mankind, and these who are in search of health, strength, contentment, and long life, that animal food is by no means the ?nost conducive thereto, but even destructive to them all. None at all, or at most, very little ardmal food, would be to the advantage of us all. The absurd doctrines, propagated by the faculty, of animal food, jellies, and strong drinks, giving more strength and health than vegetable diet, like unto an ignis fatuus, have misled men, and made more victims of disease and wretchedness, than ten times the number of wars the world has had, would have done. Many great men have often maintained similar ideas with regard to animal and vegetable food, but from their not knowing then the " Universal Medicine," they failed in their attempts of putting it in practice on themselves, or of enlightening the public ; for vegetable food requires the use of a Medicine to prepare the Body, and make it salu- brious and agree, and then it becomes the most pleasant and most strengthening of all foods. The variety of the vegetable world, all fitted for our me, is without bounds. Man should content himself with the produce of his fields, garden, and dairy. A variety of cases, of all descriptions, and from all parts, sent spontaneously, are inserted, and render this edition an universal register, in which every invalid may find similar cases to his own. The publie should likewise be informed, that some of the diphma'd faculty have become secret converts to the Hy, 31 obian System—not by prescribing the " Universal Medi- cines" to their patients, but by using them for themselves and families, and some by written acknowledgments— evincing, by this, the insufficiency or their own sy- stem ! Indeed, what can be more preposterous, or show more the deep-rooted prejudices of the age, than to suppose there is any talismanic virtue in a diploma—earned princi- pally by fees, and some years attendance on absurd and insipid lectures at Medical Rooms. The silence, too, be- hind which they now entrench themselves, instead of coming candidly forward, either in defence of their practice, or allowing their errors, shows their dread, and how much they despair in encountering the British College of Health ; and we may depict them by using a saying proverbial in Catholic countries—that they dread the Hygeisls as the Devil does holy water. Thus has the British College of Health, in the short space of two years, reared its head far above the faculty of the old school, and made proselytes to their system in an unprece- dented manner. Why? Because their system is comprehen- sible, and natural to all. They now call upon the public to assist them in their future operations ; to interfere and peti- tion the Legislature, that one class of men may not have the power to kill or torture thousands of their fellow citizens with impunity, whilst one patient, dying under the treatment of others, subjects them to a criminal prosecution. There ought to be no monopoly in such science, which only engen- ders ignorance and self-conceit. Mankind should be left to judge for themselves who treats them best, and not have absurdities forced upon them, merely because they are dic- tated by men who have got Diplomas. These laws origi. nated in times of ignorance and barbarity, and now require alteration. The point at issue should be decided by fair competition and skill. It is particularly requested to be observed that the Hy- geian Medicines and Publications can only be had genuine of the Agents, as publicly appointed by DR. H. SHEPHEARD MOAT, H. P. M. M. B. C. H. (to whom all applications for Agencies, and general Com. 32 mimicationa are to be addressed,) who is himself appointed Sole Hygeian Delegate to the United States, by the President, Vice President, and Professors in Council, of the British College of Health, London. Advice gratis. Smith-street, Brooklyn, L. I. ORIGIN OF LIFE, AND CAUSE OF DISEASES, CLEARLY EXPLAINED, DEMONSTRATED, AND PUT IN A NEW LIGHT ; ACCOUNTING FOR OUR SENSES AND FEELINGS, A PHYSICAL TREATISE, DEDICATED TO THE eotmcfl & Wvolmoxn ot the aottium ©tttitomttg* BY JAMES MORISON, THE HYGEIST. Man, leam to know thyself, thy own Body, and trust only ta trial and experience. LONDON: 1823 &o the ©ommott «outtcfl uvto tyxotmox* OP THE LONDON UNIVERSITY. Gentlemen, I have taken the liberty of dedicating to you, the following short Treatise, on a subject highly important to the welfare of mankind; and which, on that account, cannot but be interesting to you, however little justice it may have received from the hands of the Author, j? I have the honour to be, respectfully, Gentlemen, Your very obedient humble servant, JAMES MORISON. Clarmont-Place, Judd-slreei, October11828. TREATISE. On the Origin of Life, and the Supreme Agency of Blood and Air only, on the Human Body ; illustrative of the Hygeian Theory of Medicine, and the cause of Diseases. Blood forms the Body—Air gives it Life. What is Life 1 From whence do we spring ? These are questions which have always occupied the attention of mankind, as they do now, without their ever receiving any satisfactory or useful elucidation; and after reading all the theories, systems, and speculations thereupon, of Philosophers, Naturalists, or Phy- sicians, we are, at last, brought only to this conclusion : that we do not know or comprehend anything about it; that our whole beginning and being are incomprehensible to us ; and that that state which we call life, remains a mystery of na- ture to us. Naturalists, Philosophers, Physicians, and Anatomists, have in vain attempted to guide our steps, or to assist our researches, so as to impart to us an intimate conviction and knowledge of the origin of our lives and natures. They have all strayed Into theoretical conjecture, endea- vouring to erect a body composed of matter and spirit, vital- ity and such like. As these theories were all imaginary, and not grounded upon any real basis or foundation, and only flattering to the vanity of mankind, by telling them that they had a soul of a far superior nature to their bodies, and that this soul alone demanded their exclusive care and attention ; we have, in consequence, age after age, seen all these theories, and the various labours of metaphysicians, after momentarily agitating the world, pass away, leaving the human race a prey to never-ending perplexities, doubts, su- perstitions, and ideas of predestination. Life consists of Blood and Air. It is not intended, in this short sketch, to enter into, or D 38 give quotations from authors who have preceded us in treat- ing on these subjects,—a recapitulation of old errors is al- ways useless labour. Our endeavours have a more practical use in view; to make mankind and the world acquainted with the true and real state and cause of their existence, both in health and in disease, and to disperse the superstitious theories and practices of the medical profession; and noted- ly, when they talk of the vitality of different parts of the body, inflammatory action, and above all, what they call sym- pathetic affections,—all of which seem to imply that every part of the body has a thinking and feeling faculty inherent in itself. ' Nothing can be more absurd and contrary to truth than this idea, as it is the blood alone which gives all vitality and power of feeling to every part of the body ; and (hat which they call sympathetic affections, arise entirely from a bad humour in the blood, which, settling, causes pain in any one part, and may be and is carried by the circulation to any other part of the body, where it likewise gives pain. This is the explanation of all sympathetic affections, inflammatory actions, flying pains, and rheumatism. Blood has formed the body ; but there would be no life without air : this will be more decidedly understood by lay- ing before the reader an account of Our formation, and of all animals in the womb of the mother. From the moment that conception has taken place, a communication establishes itself between the centre of the embryo or conception, and the blood of the mother; which blood may be said to nestle, as it were, that is, turns round and round, and by degrees brings to perfection the animal fruit. You may suppose this drop of blood deposited in the embryo, and kept in circula- tion by the blood of the mother, as similar to a person build- ing his own house or covering, or a snail growing in its shell. By degrees the blood forms this habitation or covering for itself, which is called the body, going on progressively dur- ing nine months of pregnancy, perfecting and completing it for the new world it is about to enter : this is all carried on by and from the blood of the mother, introduced into the young infant by means of the navel, which thus circulate! in the infant in the womb as it does after birth. At matu- rity, or the expiration of nine months from conception, it has then completed its work, a child or young man, and 39 thus made a receptacle or habitation for itself (that is the blood) to live in afterlife,—a work complete and perfect ia all its organs and parts, but of which it has made as yet no use, because its body was supported and nourished by the blood of its mother. It has lungs, but does not breathe,— a stomach, but neither eats nor digests,—bowels, but it has as yet no excrement to pass. The moment the new-born infant sees the light, all these (its organs are put in motion by the Almighty breath of Heaven,)—the air, by means of the mechanism or construction of the lungs. The heart now beats, the stomach craves food and digests, and the bowels evacuate ; the infant is then detached from its mo- ther, it receives no more of her blood, and it is now ushered into the world fu, nished with an apparatus to make blood for itself, and to continue its existence. This is the beginning of what we call life, and brought about in a physical, com- prehensible manner. We see therefrom, that the blood of the mother was the only agent in forming the body of the infant; but, though possessing all its organs, it had none of the attributes of life, till the air had acted upon its lungs, and set all the machine in motion,—that is to say, made the blood to circulate. We thus arrive at the first and only true principle of life, and learn therefrom, that there is no vitality or vital principle existing in any part of it, but that all vital- ity proceeds from the circulating blood. During the period of gestation, nature, or (to speak more properly) the blood of the mother has not been negligent. Although the child was not eating, the mother's blood has supplied its stomach and intestines with that fluid called the gastric juice or bile, as necessary for dissolving and digest- ing the food of the new-born infant; this appears from the early evacuation of the meconium or concrete bile by the new-born infant, and which has been accumulating in its en- trails during the period of the child's growth in the womb : from this, we see evidently that the bite is not extracted from our aliments, as vulgarly thought, but is a fluid furnished from the whole mass of our blood, as it accumulated and existed there before the child had ate or drank. It is evident from the foregoing, that man owes his begin- ning and growth to the blood : first, during gestation to the blood of the mother, and afterwards, through life to the blood 4erived from his food ; and the air, through the mechanism. 40 of the lungs, keeps the whole in motion, and that perfect health and strength arise from a free circulation. All dis- eases you witness, either acute or chronic, are owing to an obstructed circulation of the blood—even stomach and bowel complaints, and which have been attributed to very different causes. The blood is the person, the individual himself; the mind is in the blood, as are all our other senses and feelings. When a person thinks, it is the blood that thinks, by the operation of its organ, the brain. When he tastes, it is the blood that tastes, by the operation of the palate and tongue. When he sees, it is the blood that sees, by the operation of the eyes. When he hears, it is the blood that hears, by the operation of the inner ears. When he breathes, it is the blood that breathes, and draws in air by the operation of the lungs. When he feels by the skin or touches, it is the blood that feels, by the operation of the skin. When he suf- fers pain of any kind, he is suffering from some obstruction or impediment, presented to the free circulation of his blood ; if externally, in the shape of a wound, and if internally, in the shape of humours clogging and stopping up the pas- sages of the heart, or in any other part of the body. When he wishes, wills, desires, loves, hates and despises, it is the blood that does all these, by the operation of the heart; or when he executes a movement of any kind, it is the blood that does it, by the operation of the spine, which is the organ of movement. When a person digests, it is the blood that digests, by the operation of the gastric juices poured into the stomach. When the bowels evacuate, it is the blood that evacuates, by means of the bile exciting the bowels. How erroneously have Philosophers, Naturalists, Anatomists, and Physiologists, reasoned on the brain : they have ascribed to it all vitality, the life, the soul of man, and consider it as a kind of deity presiding over the rest of the body. This arose from their viewing the body as if composed of several dif- ferent pieces put together, and their forgetting it is but one whole, or having within it but one feeling agent. Does not every one see plainly the cause of their mistake, and that all their science, as they call it, is a nonsensical jargon of absur- dities, since it is not according to the truth. Have these Philosophers ever felt a corn on the little toe, or the gout on the great toe, or a violent inflammation any where else, and 41 heen insensible of the pain ? have they never witnessed a mortification on the toe soon destroying life? Does not the gouty man in his agony think his great toe endowed with as much sensibility as his brain ? Well, it is the blood that is 'the suffering principle or agency of feeling in all these. Do uot surgeons and doctors know, that by opening a vein, the blood all runs out, and you expire ? What then becomes of this vitality or vital spark, which they tell you your brain and other parts are virtually endowed with, or is inherent in them? Or, if you tie up your little finger with a thread and prevent the blood from circulating in it, you have no more feeling in it;—-or, if you raise the skin or flesh, and detach them from the blood, this will give you pain at first, but, as soon as the skin and flesh are detached from the circulating blood, you have no mote feeling in it, and you may cut it off with a scissors, as something not belonging to you. We hear from the pulpit, and we read every^day in the newspapers, of the vital spark having fled from the body, as if there were some- thing to come out of it, like a spark from a flint stone, and that such a spark was the cause of life, and its exit that of death. Such assertions and opinions coming from so high an authority, tend only to the propagation of vulgar errors, and keep mankind always in the dark as to the real state of their bodies. How can men, and they of learning and judgment too, reason so absurdly on the mind and body, as to suppose them distinct ? Will nothing teach them to abjure their old errors? Don't they see from infancy up to old age, that our minds depend upon the state of our bodies, and not our bodies on the state of our mind : for, in such case, it would be every one's mind, inclination, or wish, to be well and in good health, but this we know has no effect on the bo.iy. But on the other hand, we know well that a proper treatment of the body has an all-powerful influence on the mind, so much so as to con- vert the insane and irritated man, or the desponding dejected man, into a reasonable one. Both these states, so opposite to one another, will be brought to a proper standard by the same means of purifying the blood. Have they not the living example of my Lord Liverpool before them, of him who, eighteen months ago, governfcd*th# Empire, and who has not now, perhaps, the strength of mind or coherency of a baby? What invisible Demon or Spirit came to destroy the mind of Lord Liverpool 1 None. But I will tell you, reader, in a, i> 2 42 a physical way, that which has been the cause of his calamity, that has destroyed his mind and faculty of thinking, by obstructing the operations of the organ of thought, which is the brain. It was this :—Twelve or eighteen months before this calamity befel him, my Lord Liverpool was copiously bled for an inflammatory complaint, insteadofwhichhe should have been only briskly purged: this bleeding which he underwent did not cany away the obstruc- tions that were then forming in the veins and glands of the neck, and on the brain itself, and they have every day since been accumulatingand choking upmore; these bad humours, too, were the cause of the inflammation, for inflammation does not arise from too much blood, but from bad humours choking up the blood. This is the reason why my Lord Li- verpool became an apoplected, palsied man : deprived of his faculties and of thought, he has not the power of his mind, because the brain, glands, anjd blood vessels leading to the brain, are choked up, and the blood cannot now run smoothly and briskly to and from the brain: we see, from this, that my Lord Liverpool lost his mind, owingto the bad treatment of his body. My Lord Liverpool might still recover the use of his faculties, if properly treated. Every thing in an animal body derives from the blood, which is itself the essence or nutritive part of food of all kinds taken into the stomach. We eat only to make blood. This operation of nature in the stomach called digestion, (which is the process of changing all kind of food whatsoever into blood,) is effected solely by means of the juices of the blood itself poured into the stomach ; they alone, in their pure state, have the power of converting food into blood ; and they receive no assistance from any muscular force, for the muscles, nerves, and organs, receive their power of action and sensibility from the purity of the blood, which pervades ajl the body, and in this pure state furnishes or gives off juices equally pure for the support and nourishment of all its mem- bers,—as for example for the eyes, the brain, the hair,for the bones, the nails, the mouth, palate, the skin, &c. A healthy new-born infant digests with ease the food appropriate for it, better than many muscular men digest theirs. A new-born infant may be said, however, to have little or no muscular force: from this we learn the erroneous means that have been hitherto resorted to for remedying all stomach and bowel 43 complaints, indigestion, flatulence, See. &c. ; and we know, too, the little or no success that has always attended them hitherto. These erroneous means are the use of bark, wine, bitters, steel, iron, spices, cold baths, sea bathing, and mine- ral waters—all of them given or prescribed on the errone- ous system of strengthening and bracing up the stomach, its coats and fibres, and the nerves. From the preceding, it is an undeniable truth, that every thing in all animal bodies proceeds from the blood, which is the only supporter of life, feeding and upholding all our or- gans in their due states, even the brain itself, which is the organ of thought, and which Medical Men and Philosophers have very erroneously attempted to represent as possessing innate qualities independent of the physical state of the body ; whereas it receives all its organization and strength from the blood, and according as it is, the brain acts with freedom and vigour, like any other organ—as the eyes, ears, palate, lungs, or heart. Why does a man in a fever, when he becomes delirious, lose his senses ?—he is in astute of insanity. The reason is because his brain is highly affected __it is full of humours, which choke it up, and cause inflamma- tion. This is verified by the inspection of the sculls of per- sons who die-in this state—the whole brain is found covered with pus, matter, effusions; and if the malady is not proper- ly carried off by evacuations it ends in death, or, at best, in a very infirm, lingering convalescence, and frequently in a confirmed insanity. Examine, interrogate, the miserable inmates of our Bedlams and Lunatic Asylums—you will there find abundant proofs of the melancholy effects of the present treatment, and that these victims date their calamity from some fever or sickness, measles, laying in, milk fever, &c. All these evils originate from improper treament, and from applying other remedies for their cure than the vegetable purgatives. Insanity, melancholy, aberrations, loss of intel- lect, loss of memory, scrofula in young and old, only arise from this cause, impurity of blood ; and have been deemed incurable, merelv owing to false reasonings, and systems ; and that the easy and proper remedy never has been applied. After the blood, the air we breathe is the next agent of life ; we cannot exist a moment without it. Why ? Because the want of it stops the blood ; and if you draw off all the blood, although you have air, yet you expire too. Air, atmosphere, 44 are essential to life, but the quality of them is not of that importance to health that Physicians and Doctors would make you believe : in fact, if you would look over all the world you will find healthy people and sickly people in all kinds of air. I never would advise any one to ba dissatisfied with the air he breathes, and he should be convinced and persuade himself that the air is not the real cause of his pain and sufferings 5 this real cause is always and in all cases a vitiated humour within our own bodies, and, if he takes the proper medicine to evacuate this humour, he will find himself well in any air, and have nothing to fear from those diseases which you were attributing to the unwliolesomeness of the air. It is to be gathered from what we already know of the other operations of nature in her grandest works, that they are all conducted and produced on simple and unvarying prin- ciples : thus the movement of the heavenly bodies proceeds in a never-deviating and fixed way—the true system or know- ledge thereof remained long unknown : and many were the conjectures and opinions of the most learned Philosophers concerning it, before the truth at last shone forth. It would be needless collecting from ancient authors their vari- ous opinions thereon—it is enough to say, that they wrote and formed hypotheses, as if man had been the artificer. Shall I next allude to agriculture, or the vegetation of plants, the oldest of the sciences, and the first occupation of mankind. Not many years ago, even in this country, it was still buried among a heap of unmeaning methods and superstitious usages ; one grain or seed was to be sown, or plant planted, at full moon—another, at new moon—and those of a third kind, at the moon's decline ; with a variety of other unmeaning precautions, now found useless and laughed at. No doubt there are improvements still to be made therein ; but draining, lately introduced, is the great science thereof, or sine qua non foi rendering the earth fruit- ful. The philosopher, or true observer of nature, cannot but be struck Avith the great similarity existing between the ter- restrial body, and the human or animal body ; the cause of unproductiveness in the one, and of diseases in the other, proceeds from the same source, namely, a corrupt, stagnant and sour humour. Garry off the stagnant, corrupt juices, and fruitfulness and health are produced in both: this allows the free circulation of the good juices or dew of heaven and 45 of the blood, and circulation is the life of all vegetating and animal bodies. Nature produces all her variety from the same simple means, and on an universal principle. Drain- ing, to an unfruitful field, is acting as purging on diseased animal bodies. To conclude: an identical fraction of the blood of Eve, (the mother of all mankind,) still circulates in the bodies of all now existing, as it will in the bodies of those yet to come into existence. As the blood has in individuals the power of adding to its own quantity ; but the quality or nature of it (its acting principle of life) was derived from our first mother, as implanted in her by the Almighty. All the diseases that have, since the creation, afflicted mankind, have been owing to humours, more or less acrimonious, corrupt, and putiid, incorporating with the eriginal pure blood, and degenerating it in millions of ways and strengths, thereby increasing our infirmities. This degeneracy of the blood has taken place in individuals, and been influenced—1st, before birth, by the degrees of health and constitution of their parents—2dly, from touch, introduction, or inoculation of a malignant virus, humour, or poison—and 3dly, by the habits, diet, treatment in diseases during infancy and youth, which begin and lay the foundation of all diseases, according to the person's own conduct and mode of life; but still every individual, even the most diseased, has within him a germ or root of the original pure blood of his common mother Eve ; which germ of pure blood is the supporter of our life, and is in a constant struggle to throw off the heterogeneous, corrupt humours, which are the cause of disease in the individual. By purging the body of the diseased individual of its bad humours, you allow the germ of pure blood to gain ground and to make fresh blood of a better quality, and so on pro- gressively, till the whole mass is regenerated : for the good principle, or good pure blood, is always striving to be predomi- nant over the bad ordiseased humours. Nature is constantly, though silently, counteracting the vices of man, for the pre- servation and health of the species. The ideas of the Magi of Persia, who, in a moral light, imagined two Spirits (the one good and the other evil) as continually disputing with one another, the empire over man, receive from this a true, com- prehensible, and corporeal application. THE 1830 NEW YEAR'S GIFT TO THE WORLD: IN A SHORT TREATISE, ON THE ORIGINAL CAUSE OF THE SMALL POX VIRUS, WHEREIN IT IS PROVED TO BE NOT ONLY A NECESSARY OPERATION OF NATURE, BUT PERFECTLY HARMLESS AND BENE- FICIAL, IF JUDICIOUSLY TREATED. WITH PRACTICAL EVIDENCES OF THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF MORISON'S " Vegetable Universal Medicine" Possessing the power of completely eradicating the virulence of the disorder, without one hour's restraint. BY T. MOAT, Vice President of the British College of Health. NEW YEAR'S GIFT. better to the Hygeist on the treatment, cure, and eradicability of the Small Pox, Measles, and Whooping-Cough. Mr. MORISON, Sir, Having had many pleasant conferences with you on the sub- ject of your general theory of curing all complaints with your one only, yet *' Universal Vegetable Medicine," when we have interchanged our innumerable proofs of the soundness of its principle, (which in no one instance had failed, where the patients were obedient, to theinstructions,) the sub- ject Of the ERADICABILITY OF THE SMALL POX, Or, at least of rendering that malady harmless, has ever been a leading article in our consideration ; and you have more than once, desired me to give you my ideas on the cause and cure of that dire disease, in writing. To this request, after having had so many proofs of successful administration, I now attend, and submit the following little Treatise to your perusal and candid consideration, and beg you will give me your mature opinion of its contents, waiting your corrections on points that may appear to you inaccurate. Convinced, however, that on its general principle we are agreed, and knowing that you had determined to put the con- tention between the past and present practice, and your new theory, to the test of public ordeal, by a direct challenge to all the Faculty, I have taken the opportunity of this day, enter- E 50 ing upon anew year, and of commencing a new (Bra in physic, publishing your challenge, with a firm confidence in an acceptable reception from an already prepared and grateful public, for the benefits received through your means. Supported by your general approval of my exertions, I can have no possible misgivings on the result, and look to the conclusion of this year, with increasing and delightful ho- nours in the public estimation. Sir, I remain, as ever, most devotedly your's, THOMAS MOAT. 16, Clarence-Row, New-Passage, ) Devonport, Jan. 1st. 1830. } London, British College of Health, 7th Jan. 1830. ToT. MOAT,V. P. B.C.H. My dear Sir, I beg to own the receipt of your favour of the 1st instant, along with your Treatise on Small Pox, setting forth the facility of preventing and eradicating the same. I have pe- rused it with pleasure and attention, and I agree with your well-grounded reasoning on the history and origin of this disease or plague, which, owing to the absurd and erroneous theories of the medical faculties throughout Europe, has eo long kept the whole world in terror. Your extensive practice and success in this, and every oilier Disease, must at last convince the Public as to the errors that they have been led into as to them all. It is now a great satisfaction to me to find, that what I have written before on small pox, is now verified from extensivB practice. What can be more absurd and pernicious than the manner in which this juvenile disease is treated ? Instead of carrying off the growing peccant humours in the natural and easy way, they lay the little patient up for weeks, to cor. rupt and rot the flesh, and force their way through the ekin, •^FORMING THE COUNTENANCE. 51 The Inoculating, and still more the Vaccinating humbugs, must soon give way as pernicious and delusive; void of atl common sense, and stifling in the bud the efforts of nature to perfect the system, and thus rear up diseased and infirm races of mankind; for, as you justly observe, this humour serves as a root or soil for all future diseases, and should have been got rid of: and mothers will feel themselves much indebted to you for putting them on the way of bringing into the world healthy, strong children, as you have already learned from those mothers who have made use of this medicine during pregnancy. I ever am, my dear Sir, Your's truly, JAMES MORISON, the Hygeist, P. B. C. H. To T. MOAT, V. P. B. C. H., Devonport. DEDICATED to Ws ^taftstg, George the iFourtft, King of Great Britain, Ireland,