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1 ¦(V/\j£3t^v\. o i LECTURE f » , ON 

EPIDEMIC DISEASES GENERALLY, 

AND PARTICULARLY THE 

SPASMODIC CHOLERA. 

DELIVERED IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, MARCH, 1832, AND REPEATED JUNE, 1332, AND IN ALBANY, JULY 4, 1832, AND IN NEW YORK, JUNE. 1833. 

.... 

WITH 

AN APPENDIX, 

CONTAINING 

SEVERAL TESTIMONIALS,— RULES OF THE GRAHAM BOARDING HOUSE, &c. 

BY SYLVESTER GRAHAM, PUBLIC LECTURER ON^^IfcNKE^OF HUMAN LIFE. <C1 — l NEW YORK . PUBLISHED BY MAHLON DAY. 376, Pearl Street. 1833. 



VA/C8 

AN EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL, AND OTHER HARD TERMS. 

Abnormal, not according to the healthy laws and operations of the system ; diseased. Alimentary canal, includes the stomach and intestines. 

Arterial, belonging to the arteries. Acute disease, comes on suddenly with increased action, inflammation, &c Adscititious, added, supplemental, additional. Chyme, the digested food of the stomach ; chytnification, making chyme. [chyle. Chyle, the nutritious part of the food which forms the blood ; chylification, making Capillary, very small, hair-sized vessel. Calorific, having the power to produce heat; calorification, causing heat. Chronic disease, of slow advances and long standing. 

Collapse, falling together ; ceasing to act. Calculi, hard, stone-like substances formed in the hver, kidneys bladder, &c. Cholera morbus, a diseased flow of bile or galL Congestion, an over fulness of the blood vessels, &c Diaphragm, the membrane that divides the body into chest and abdomen, or belly. Diabetes, disease of the kidneys ; excessive secretion. 

Depurating, cleansing, purifying. . Endemic disease, a local disease; peculiar to a country or place. Epidemic disease, general, extensive, common to many. Epigastric, round about the stomach. Enteritis,. inflammation of the intestines. Function, office of the organ ; digestion is the function of the stomach. Filamentary, thread-like, smallest form of the structure. Ganglion, a bulbous enlargement, or knot of nervous substance. Gastric belonging to the stomach— gastritis inflammation of the stomach. Gastrointestinal, belonging to the stomach and intestines. 

Inosculate, to unite, to run into one. 

Intercostal, between the ribs. .... ?, ,• Idiopathic, the original disease ; original character of the disease. Idiosyncrasy, peculiar temperament, predisposition. Lacteals, small vessels that convey the chyle to the blood vessels. Lymphatics, small vessels that convey the lymph, &c. to the blood vessels. Medulla oblongafa, top of the spinal marrow. Morbid, diseased— morbific, causing disease. Mucous Membrane, the membrane lining the alimentary canal, lungs, &c. Malaria, bad, or poisonous air, pestilential air, &c. Messentary, the membrane to which the intestines are attached. Normal, according to the healthy laws and operations of the system. Ossification, bony formation. Plexus, a number of nervous cords, woven together. Pntumo-gastric, belonging to the lungs and stomach. Preternatural above what is natural, or ordinary and healthy. ... PhysZol The science of the properties and functions of animals and plant* Pathology, the doctrine of diseases, their causes, symptoms, &c. Psycology, the doctrine of the nature and properties of the soul. Physiological pathology, disease connected with disordered function, &c. Pulmonary, belonging to the lungs. Scirrus, or Scirrhus, hardened indurated gland. 

tZZ' a^S^iySt of nervous ormuscular fibres in the , organs r!^X, that part of medicine which respects the application of remedies, &<% Venous blood, the blood of the veins. Vascular, consisting of vessels, as the arteries, veins, &c 

f^rs^'ri-, v •«« *«. fee- 

Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The following Lecture on the Cholera, was first delivered at the close of my bourse of Lectures on the Science of Human Life, in the Baptist meetinghouse in Mulberry Street, New York, in March, 1832, in the presence of more than two thousand people. The effect produced, was very considerable, and the Lecture became the topic of conversation and remark, somewhat extensively in the city. • Soon after this, an editorial article appeared in the Courier nnd Enquirer, under the head of" Facts, not Theory, in regard to Asiatic Cholera." In this article it was attempted to be shown, that " the Cholera originated and raged most fatally among the Hindoos who subsisted on rice, and were the most temperate people in the world ;" and therefore, it was better for the people of this country to cat, at least their usual proportion, of flesh and other things to which they were accustomed, than to abstain from flesh entirely, with a view to avoid or mitigate the Cholera. 1 immediately replied to this article, in the most respectful manner, but the Editor did not find it convenient to publish my reply. Kot long after this article iippearedin the Courier and Enquirer, a letter ofconrable length, from Dr. De Kay, appeared in the Evening Post, in which it was stated that "the occasional use of stimuli in the form of generous wine, or brandy, or gin and water, was found decidedly beneficial during the prevalence of the Cholera, at Constantinople,— that this epidemic broke out and raged with great violence among the Jr?ws at Smyrna, during one of their religious fasts ; — and had proved peculiarly fatal among that class of people generally, in Asia and Europe, whose diet was particularly meagre and abstemious." Whatever might have been the design of the writers of these articles, the citizens of New York universally received them as specially intended to bear against the dietetic doctrines which I had taught in my Lecture on the Cholera, and immediately, throughout the city, the clamor was raised, "If the Cholera comes here, all the Grahamites will certainly die with it." — I am sorry to say, that too many physicians, who were ignorant of what I had really taught, gave countenance to this hue and cry. When the news reached New York that the Cholera had appeared in Canada, the panic in the city exceeded all bounds. I had closed my Lectures for the season, and according to arrangements, made several months before, was about to proceed with my family to Rhode Island, where I had engaged to be, as early as the fourth of July ; but such was now the panic in the city, and so much was I urged to repeat my Lecture on the Cholera, that I consented to defer my departure, and comply with the wishes of my friends. In announcing the Lecture through the newspapers, I particularly invited the Corporation, and the medical Itlemen of the city, to attend. I also sent a special invitation to the Board of ermen, by whom it was formally accepted ; and put a quantity of tickets into the ds of Dr. Lee, who engaged to see that at least a considerable portion of the sicians were furnished. ft the mean time the clamor and excitement were increasing, and I was respectr informed that some physicians, at least, were visiting families in which they ctised, and advising them to subsist principally on animal food, and always to c a little brandy or wine with their water. — On the evening of the 21st of June peated my Lecture in the Chatham Street Chapel, without any other alteration, i the addition of such important facts, and matter, as circumstances presented. it is, the doctrine of the causes, nature, prevention, and remedy, of the Cholera, t now stands in the text of the following Lecture, is prescisely the same that 1 



«r 



delivered in March preceding. The additional matter is principally in reference to the articles which appeared in the Courier and Enquirer, and the Evening Post. 1 again began to prepare to leave the city for Khode Island, when I received a letter from Dr. Beck of Albany, as the Secretary of the City Temperance Society, requesting me to come to that city, and deliver a lecturo, on the 4th of July. It was impossible for me to comply with this request, without putting myself, and family, and some of my friends in the city, to very great inconvenience, and disappointing my friends in Rhode Island ; nevertheless it seemed to be my duty to go to Albany, and 1 concluded to go. On the 2d of July, 9 cases of the Cholera were reported in New York : on the 3d I went to Albany : on the evening of the 4th, delivered my Lecture on the Cholera there, and on tho sth returned to New York, and found that Mrs. G. had engaged our passage to Newport for the 6th. I found atao that the cry was up, in which even some respectable physicians had a voice, that I had fled from the city in such a panic, on account of the cholera, that I had left my family behind. I endeavored to persuade my family to proceed to Rhode Island without me, but not being able to succeed, I left the city ior Newport on the 6th of July ; and then the cry became louder and more general, that Graham had fled from the city in a panic, and all his followers were dead or dyin« with the Cholera. This cry wan kept up through the whole season of sickness, in order to destroy all the confidence of the people in my doctrines, and drive them to flesh-eating, and brandy and winedrinking. But not every one was shaken. Some were steadfast, and they fully realized all the benefits 1 had promised. [See the Appendix.] Immediately after my arrival in Rhode Island, I sat down and prepared the following lecture for the press, just as the text is now published, with an intention of sending it back to the city for publication ; but all communication being cut off, I was disappointed, and the manuscript remained on hand. Some days after I had delivered my lecture the second time, the two Clinical Lectures on the nature, treatment, and symptoms of Spasmodic Cholera, by Broussais, appeared in an English dress in New York. I read these Lectures, and was not a little surprised to find a very striking resemblance, in many respects, between them and mme — especially ns I had read no other medical treatise on the cholera whatever — my own lecture being written from the information I had gathered, as to facts, from the public papers, and from my own physiological and pathological views. And whatever may be thought of my opinion as to the epidemic cause of the cholera throughout the world, — let it be remembered that even if this opinion were shown to be incorrect, all my other reasoning would be none the less true. On the evenings of June 7th and 13th, 1833,1 repeated this Lecture again at Clinton Hall i and now I present it to the public in print for several reasons. In the first place, the doctrines of this Lecture have been so entirely confirmed by the whole history of the cholera in this country up to the present moment, that 1 feel it the more important that it should be published as extensively as possible. In the second place, as it is not exclusively applicable to the epidemic cholera, but summarily embraces all epidemic, chronic, and acute diseases, so it will at all times and in all places be useful instruction to the people. In the third place, those who have heard the Lecture have generally requested that it should be published. Finally, the mode of treatment pointed out in the Lecture for diarrhoea is equally applicable to all kinds of bowel-complaints, at all times, and therefore should the epidemic cholera never again appear in this country, this Lecture will be perhaps equally useful. 

S. Graham. 

Jit nut 20lh. 1833. 





Almost every writer on physiology, who has made any pretensions to originality, has attempted to define or explain what is signified by the word lift: but if a want of correct knowledge, and of a sound judgment, has not led me to an erroneous opinion on the subject, all have failed, through an endeavor to find, in the principles and properties, common to inorganic matter, the elementary causes of organic life. While, however, so much obscurity, if not impenetrable mystery, hangs over the nature of organic life, the vital conduct, or the means, and manner, by which life maintains itself in its organic domain, against the power of counteracting agents, and influences, is better understood : and the continued, antagonistic conflict between vitality, in accomplishing its functions, and the more primitive affinities of inorganic chemistry, was beautifully expressed by our late distinguished Doctor Rush, of Philadelphia, when he said that "Life is a temporary victory over the causes whichinduce death." In producing eachand all of its peculiar and legitimate results, vitality necessarily overcomes the laws,and counteracts the affinities of inorganic matter ; and exerts molecular affinities, of a totally distinct and opposite character, — which result in aggregations and structures, entirely different from those of inorganic matter : — and hence it is true, that ail the inorganic affinities in Nature, are adverse to organic structure, and life : and hence also, it is true, that life maintains its power, and performs its functions, in opposition to the ordinary laws of inorganic matter, and, within its own appropriate domain, resists the operations of those laws, while its power is paramount. Thus, the vegetable seed, which, being deprived of life, would soon yield to the action of the more primitive laws of matter, and by the process of what we call decay, pass into other forms : — yet while its vitality remains, it resists those laws, and preserves its form and structure, and vital properties and powers so perfectly, that even after a lapse of centuries, if placed in genial circumstances, it will vegetate, like a last year's seed, and develope its appropriate form of plant or tree. By the same power, the hybernating animals, lying in a torpid state, without nourishment, resist dissolution and decay, for months ; and in some instances, there is reason to believe, even for many years, and again awake to the active manifestations of life, and the powers of locomotion. And by the same controlling power, the living body preserves its own peculiar temperature, and with little variation, in arctic winters 

2 



6 

and tropic summers ; and converts foreign matter to its own substance , disposing of the various materials of which itself consists, with the utmost integrity, regularity and precision, according to its wants. 

All the interesting effects of organic life, are embraced in the economy of the grand vital function of Nutrition. 

The food of various kinds, which we receive into the stomach for the sustenance of the body, if the vitafity of the stomach were destroyed, would naturally take on a chemical action, and soon run into fermentation and putrefaction, and puss entirely into olher fornn of inorganic matter: and this is ever the more natural and inherent tendency of the food received into the living stomach. Vitality alone, therefore, overcomes this tendency, and counteracts the inorganic affinities, and transforms the nutri-. tious properties of the several kinds of food, into a nearly homogeneous substance, of a very different character from what it was when first swallowed. 

Destroy vitality here, and the process of digestion would instantly cease, and the chyme would yield to inorganic affinities. But vitality, *• maintaining its victory over the causes which induce death," carries on the living function, and still farther digests the contents of the alimentary canal, and elaborates the chyle, and carefully conveys it through living, and in some measure, vivifying tubes, to the blood vessels ; and through the office of the heart, ushers it into the capillaries of the lungs, and by the vital functions of these organs, completes the transformation into living, arterial blood : — and this, possessed of all the properties necessary for the nutrition of the body, is, by the vital power and functions of the appropriate organs, distributed into every part of the beautifully complicated system, — where, according to the wants of the several parts and substances of the body, portions of the blood are detained, and, by a process of purely vital chemistry, transformed into bone, cartilage, muscle, nerve, &c, while at the same time, particles of each and all of these substances, after having fulfilled their time and purpose in the organic structure, are, by the same vital power, continually undergoing a change back into a limpid fluid, which is conveyed by appropriate vessels, and mingled with the returning blood, that, from every part of the system comes back to the centre, through the veins, dark, and full of impurities, and destitute of those properties which are necessary to nourish the body, and sustain the functions of life. 

By (he vital powers and functions of the several organs — especially the skin, lungs, and kidneys, the impurities of the venous blood are separated out, and cast off from the organic system, and the blood is completely purified and renovated, and tilted again for all the purposes of arterial circulation. 

Thus, from the very commencement of digestion in the stomach, to the last office of the skin and other organs, in throwing off the worn-out and offensive matter of the system, vitality exerts its efficient and controlling power, and maintains its victory over the causes which induce death : — for if the vital power should be overcome in any stage of this general function, the process would be immediately arrested, and dissolution would ensue. Even the arterial blood, which is itself a highly vital fluid, depends on the vitality of the living vase in which it flows, for 



7 

the continuance of its life, and for its vital results: — for if a portion of the blood be confined in a section of the living and healthy artery, the vitality of the blood is preserved, so long an the artery remains in a living nnd healthy state ; but if the vitality of the artery be destroyed, the life of the blood contained in it, is soon lost. 

In the same manner, vitality exerts its conservative and controlling influence, over every substance within its dominion — even over the effete or worn-out matter of the body, restraining it from taking on the action of inorganic affinities, until it is conducted beyond the threshold of organic function and vital welfare. 

In order to a better understanding of the economy of the vital power, it is necessary to ascertain the tissue in which vitality more particularly resides, or with which it is more immediately connected. 

In the language of physiologists, man has an animal life, and a vegetative or organic life. His animal life comprises his organs and powers of sensation, voluntary motiona nd volition : — and his vegetative or organic life comprises his organs and powers concerned in the grand function of nutrition : such as appertain to digestion, respiration, circulation, secretion, absorption, excretion, &c. 

Corresponding with this division, man hns two clnsses, or what, indeed, may almost be called two systems of nerves. The nerves which appertain to animal life, are connected with the brain and spinal marrow, and are distributed principally to the muscles of voluntary motion, and to the sensitive surface of the body, or external skin. The nerves which appertain to organic life, and which, in regard to the subject before us, are altogether the most important to us, are believed to originate with the organs themselves, in a kind of rudimentary brain, or bulbous enlargement of nervous substance, whioh is called a ganglion or knot, of which there is a large number in the different parts of the body. 

As the several organs with which they are connected, advance in their formation, these ganglions increase in size, and throw out cords or branches, some of which go to connect them directly with each other, and form a general union, or system of the whole ; while other branches, from different ganglions, interweave and inosculate, and form plexuses, from whrch, again, numerous branches are given off, to supply the stomach, and heart and lungs, ai»d liver and kidneys, and all the other organs concerned in the general function of nutrition. 

Besides the more deeply seated ganglions connected with the principal viscera, there are two series of them, which range along the anterior sides of the back bone, connected together, in a chain, on each side, by nervous cords which extend from the lower extremity of the spine, to the base of the cranium, and enter by small branches through the carotid canal with the artery, and form connections with branches of the fifth and sixth pairs of nerves of the brain. These two series of what are called peripheral ganglions, with their connecting cords, are denominated the sympathetic nerves, because they are believed to form the most intimate union of sympathy between all the viscera concerned in organic life. 

Besides the cords which connect these peripheral ganglions with each other, each ganglion gives off a short thick cord outwardly, to join a cord coming from the spine, and also receives a branch from each cord coming 



8 

from tho spine — and each ganglion gives off one or more branches, which run inwardly to interlace and inosculate with each other, and with branches from the more deeply seated ganglions, forming theplexuses from which the several organs are supplied as just described. From three, four, five, and sometimes more, of the ganglions within the chest, belonging to the sympathetic nerve on each side of the spine, large cords are given off, and run inward and downward, and finally uniting into one cord on each side, and passing through the diaphragm, form at its base, on the anterior sides of the spine, two large ganglions, called the semilunar ganglions. These ganglions give off numerous large branches, which, together with several from other parts, and some from within the cranium, form a very large, central plexus, in front of the spine, which constitutes a kind of common centre of action and sympathy, to the whole system of organic nerves. This is called the solar plexus. From it, branches are given off in every direction, to enter into other plexuses, and to supply organs. Some of its largest cords go to the stomach, which lies just in front of it, and are distributed over that organ, interweaving and uniting with numerous branches of the pneumo-gastric nerve,-from the grand centre of perception and action within the cranium, with which, also, the stomach is largely supplied. 

From the solar piexus, also, numerous branches issue, which invest the arterial trunks with a kind of nervous lace-work, and proceed with them through all their distributions and ramifications, even to their capillary terminations, in the glandulous structures, and the vasculo-nervous texture which forms Ihe skin, and mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, and lungs, and the mpmbranes of other surfaces. 

Thus all the nerves of organic life are intimately woven together into a common web of sympathy, and harmony of action — pervading all the organs concerned in the general function of nutrition ; bringing them into general and special relations, and supplying them with that peculiar vital power by which each is enabled to perform its particular office. 

The stomach, the intestines, the lacteals, the lungs, the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, the veins, the lymphatics, the liver, the kidneys, the skin, &c. &c, depend upon the nerves of organic life for that vital power by which are performed the functions of chymification and chylification, and absorption, and respiration, and circulation, and organization, and calorification, and secretion, and excretion, &c. &c. It is by the power derived from or through these nerves that the food is transformed into chyme, and the chyme into chyle, and the chyle into blood, — and the blood preserved in its fluidity and vitality, and distributed throughout the whole system, and portions of it transformed into bone and cartilage, and muscle and nerve, and every other substance in the body ; and all the various secretions are performed, and the skin, and lungs, and kidneys, and other depurating organs, separate out and throw off the impurities of the venous blood. Hence the vital power which resists, counteracts, and subdues, chemical affinities and noxious agents — the vital power which maintains its victory over the causes which induce death, resides in, or acts through, the nerves of organic life, in the performance of its great conservative functions, — for organic life may continue when animal life is suspended, and even for a short time after animal life is 



9 

extinct — but animal life cannot continue an instant after organic life is destroyed. 

Iv the early stages of the organic developement, each of the more deeply seated ganglions, is supposed to constitute a kind of independent centre of action, — presiding in its own appropriatp sphere : but as the system advances in growth, to that state in which it will be necessary for it to perform independently, its own general function of nutrition, the several ganglions become, as we have seen, intimately connected together, and by their peculiar arrangements, form a common centre of sympathy and action, for the nerves of organic life, in the semilunar ganglions and solar plexus. 

Again : — by means of the connections formed between the ganglions of the sympathetic, and the intercostal nerves of the spinal marrow, and more particularly by means of the connection formed between the top of the medulla oblongata, or head of the spinal marrow within the cranium, and the semilunar ganglions and solar plexus, by the pneumo-gastric nerve, some of whose branches run directly to this last centre, and more of them interweave and unite with branches from the solar plexus in the stomach, — a common point of union, and centre of perception and of action, is established in the top of the medulla oblongata, for all the normal operations of the united system of animal and organic life. 

Here then, we see this beautifully complicated system of organs, each constituted for its particular office, and all nicely adjusted for one grand, vital result ; — so woven together in one general web of nervous texture, that a community of life and energy constitute their vitality and functional power — each, so immediately and powerfully sympathizing with all, and all with each, that no one organ can be diseased, — no one function can be disordered, without affecting in a greater or less degree, the condition and conduct of the whole. We see also, that the mucous membrane which lines the whole length of the alimentary canal, from the lips of the mouth to the inferior extremity, is formed, principally, of the filamentary ends of nerves of organic life, with capillary terminations of blood-vessels, absorbents, &c, so that the whole extended surface is one sheet of sympathy, with which every part of the system reciprocates its influences, and directly sympathizes in all conditions. 

But the inner surface of the stomach is more peculiarly the centre of sympathy to the whole organic system ; supplied as it so largely is, with nerves from the solar plexus and from several other plexuses, and from the medulla oblongata, it is brought into direct and special relation with the brain, heart, lungs, liver, skin, and indeed with all the organs of the system : so that every affection and every disturbance of the stomach, influences, in a greater or less degree, every organ and every function in the body. 

Although the stomach is, by no means, the source of nervous energy to the system, yet such is its nervous supply, and such are its constitutional relations, that it may with propriety be considered the common index of the whole system : for the vital power of the system to resist the influence of noxious agents, and to accomplish the functions of life, always corresponds with the condition of the stomach. 

When this organ is in good health, and properly supplied with healthful 



10 

food, and the function of digestion is vigorously nnd healthfully going on, then it is that all the vital functions of organic life, are most vigorously and perfectly performed, — then it is, that man has the greatest physical power for achievement and endurance ; then has life the most complete victory over the causes which induce death ; then has man the greatest power to resist the influence of cold and heat, wet and dry, malaria, or the subtile breath of pestilence, or whatever infectious or malignant causes may exist around him, and act upon him. And on the contrary, when ihe stomach is debilitated and disordered, — when its natural and healthy susceptibilities have given place to preternatural and diseased excitability, and irritability, and when its vital energies are scarcely sufficient to perform, even imperfectly, the function of digestion, — then every other organ in the system sympathizes, and every other function languishes : — respiration is less full and perfect, less oxygen of Ihe air is inhaled and appropriated by the lungs, the blood is not so completely purified and renovated, circulation is less vigorous and copious, assimilation and organization are more feebly carried op, the secretions are either diminished or morbidly excessive : — the skin which should throw off, in the form of insensible perspiration, more than half of the impurities of the blood, becomes enfeebled, and less perfectly performs its depurating functions ; — and the vilal power of the system, to regiilttie its own temperature, and resist the influence of noxious agents, is always diminished :—: — and in this condition of the system it is, that the vital functions are always most easily disturbed by foreign agents, and the body is most liable to injury from the action of morbific causes. In this condition, man is less able to endure fatigue, and to resist the influence of heat and cold, wet and dry, unhealthy atmospheres, and infectious and pestilential causes. 

Thus we see, that the healthful performance of the vital functions, and the power of the living body to resist the influence of noxious agents, depend on the health and integrity of the nerves of organic life. 

These nerves, in a perfectly healthy state, are endowed with a nice and peculiar susceptibility, which renders them capable of being acted on by their own natural and appropriate stimuli : and the most perfect integrity of the nerves themselves, and of the functions resulting from their energy, depends on the unimpaired healthfulness of this susceptibility. 

In their healthy state, the nerve.? of organic life have no sensibility :—: — and hence they are also called the nerves of vegetative life ; because the functions of the organs depending on them for nervous energy, are, in their healthy state, performed without the consciousness of the animal. But these nerves are capable of being irritated into a state of excessive irritability and diseased sensibility, v/hich is utterly incompatible with their healthy and peculiar susceptibility ; and consequently, incompatible with the healthy performance of the functions of those organs which depend on them for nervous energy. 

Unhappily for man, almost every circumstance and influence in civic life, tend to the developement of preternatural irritability and diseased sensibility in these nerves. All undue excitements and exercises of the mind, and of the passions ; all exceptive indulgences of the appetites ; 



11 

improper qualities and quantities of food , the debilitating habits of mdolence and effeminacy ; the various customs and circumstances of artificial life, such as appertain to habitation, clothing, locomotion, the preparation of food, &c. &c. ; and worst of all, the habitual use of artificial stimulants, such as the heating and irritating condiments of the table, and more particularly the various narcotic and alcoholic substances ; — all act upon the stomach to disturb its functions, and to impair the health of its nervous and muscular tissues, and, consequently, tend to debilitate that organ ; and, by continued or repeated irritation, to developo and establish in it a diseased excitability and irritability, resulting often in chronic or acute inflammation, and painful sensibility and disorganization. 

But this is not all ; the stomach cannot suffer alone : being, as it were, a kind of retina or sensorium to the nerves of organic life, the whole system of those nerves, and consequently all the organs supplied by them, sympathize powerfully in all its conditions and affections, partake of all its irritations, and suffer a consequent debility. . The brain, the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the skin, and other organs, participate in nil its irritations, and are affected by all its conditions. The necessary consequence is, that the natural and heallhy susceptibility of the nerves is impaired, general debility of functional power ensues, (ending always to diseased irritability, inflammation, painful sensibility, <i lid, finally, disorganization and death. 

The constitutional susceptibilities of our nature, when properly and healthfully acted on, always afford pleasure from the excitement or stimulation; and hence there is in human nature, a constitutional love of stimulation : and this love or desire always tends to excess of indulgence — and the more so, as indulgence becomes excessive, and is followed by exhaustion of the vital energy, and abatement of vital power ; and this result always obtains to a greater degree, and more permanently, from the action of the artificial than of the natural stimuli. 

From this constitutional principle, springs the almost universal propensity, in the human race, to indulge in excessive stimulation : — and hence, the substances and means of artificial stimulation and intoxication, have been among the earliest discoveries and inventions of social life in almost ail the different tribes and nations of men since the creation of the human species. And, unfortunately, as men have emerged from the savage or barbarous state, and advanced in those refinements and luxuries of civil life, which rendered them more susceptible of the pernicious effects of artificial stimulants, and left them less vital power to react against them, they have also greatly multiplied 4he forms of those stimulants, and increased the deleteriousness of their qualities. 

The effects of this combination of causes, on the human race, have been just such as every sound and sagacious physiologist might have distinctly and confidently predicted from a priori reasoning 

Continued irritation and disturbed functions, have necessarily resulted in general debility of the nervous system, and reduction of vital power. The stomach, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, skin, and other organs concerned in the grand function of nutrition, have all participated in the general withering, and each particular function has been enfeebled, and the vital nower of the body to resist the noxious agents that surround and act upon it, has been proportionably diminished. 



12 

In this manner, chronic diseases, corresponding in character with the peculiarities of circumstances, of causes, and of individual idiosyncracies, or predispositions, have been, generally, by slow and imperceptible degrees, developed in the human system ; and, to a very great extent, rendered constitutional,^at least so far as to involve decided, and often very strong predispositions. In the same manner, by the more sudden and powerful action of causes, acute diseases are induced, which are much more rapid and violent in their progress, and sudden in their results. 

Thus, by various causes, and particularly, by the habitual use of artificial stimuli, the vital energies of the human race, from generation to generation, have been exceedingly impaired, and the vital power of resistance to the causes which induce disease and death, reduced. — I say, " particularly, the habitual use of artificial stimuli," because it is a notable fact, worthy of profound consideration, that all those tribes which have been found on islands and elsewhere, whose diet was plain, coarse and simple, and who were entirely free from the use of artificial stimulants, have also been almost as entirely free from all kinds of disease ; while, on the other hand, all those tribes whose circumstances were, in all other respects equal, but who habitually, and often freely used artificial stimulants, have been afflicted with various forms of chronic and acute disease ; and frequently visited with extensive and terribly malignant epidemics. 

Many of the practices which prevail in society, are such as would destroy life at once, if they were not entered into by very small degrees of increase. By these means we gradually destroy those peculiar susceptibilities of the healthful living tissues, which in an unimpaired state, immediately detect the presence of deleterious substances, and summon alt the instinctive energies of the system to throw them off, when the action of the poison is sufficiently powerful to endanger the vital welfare of the body. 

In this manner the system is made to yield, and yield before the encroachments and depredations of those practices, which are continally violating the laws of life, and diminishing the power of vital resistance. 

This important doctrine cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated, than by adducing the effects of that most loathsome of all substances, tobacco, on the living body. This plant is one of the most powerful narcotic poisons in the vegetable kingdom. Should a man, entirely unaccustomed to the use of it, take into his mouth, at once, such a cud as is ordinarily used by the confirmed tobacco eater, and in the same manner, chew it and retain it there, the natural susceptibilities of his nerves would give the alarm instantly. The distressing sympathy would soon extend to the stomach and brain, and thence throughout the whole system. All the energy of vital resistance would be summoned up, and the most loathsome sickness, and violent, continued and convulsive efforts, by vomiting and otherwise, would be instinctively made, to reject the destructive poison. If the vital powers were sufficient to sustain the conflict till the offending cause was entirely removed, the individual would survive : if not, the most distressing exhaustion, and collapse, and death would ensue. In such a case, the manifestations of poison would be such as to render it impossible for anyone to doubt the deleterious properties of tobacco. But why then does not tobacco, at all times and in all cases, produce such manifestations of 



13 

its poisonous character/ The reason is not because the tobacco, in any degree, changes its character or power, but because a change is effected in the condition of tho nerves on which it acts. 

fe However small the quantity of tobacco used at first, the unimpaired sccptibilitics of the nerves detect its poisonous qualities, and give an inn equal to the danger, producing vertigo, nausea, and perhaps vomit- L But if the quantity taken into the mouth at first is so small, as not seriously and immediately to endanger the vitality of the system, the instinctive alarm given is comparatively limited and feeble, and the efforts to throw it off correspond, in power and continuance, with, the degree of excitement. Yet the evil ends not here. All the organs of the system have been more or less irritated, and their functions more or less disturbed — and still worse, the peculiar susceptibilities of the nerves, which at irsfenabled them so promptly to detect the poisonous qualities ofthetobaco, have been seriously impaired : so that ordinarily, if, after the irritation •roduced by the first dose is entirely removed, another dose of equal uantity and power bo taken, the nerves have less ability to detect its >oisono!is qualities, and consequently, less alarm will be given, and less jffort will be made to throw it off. By continuing the use of tobacco, and by slowly increasing its quantity, the peculiar susceptibilities of the nerves, which enabled them to detect its poisonous qualities, are more and more impaired, — till, finally, they not only cease entirely to give an alarm to the system, but on account of the injury thus done them, become so dependent on the stimulating properties of the tobacco, to raise them from the consequent prostration, that they even demand the continued use of the destructive poison, and with an imperativeness and pertinacity equal to the force of antipathies overcome in forming the demand. This constitutes the foundation and the power of the habit. But let it not be supposed that the tobacco is in itself less poisonous, nor that its effects on the system are really less pernicious ! True it does not produce so great an excitement of the nerves on which it immediately acts, nor cause so great an irritation of the organs generally; but this is owing to that impaired condition of the living tissues, which causes them to suffer equal or even greater injury from the less irritation ; and which renders them just so much the less able to resist the destructive action of other noxious agents, as they have been impaired by the tobacco. And this is true of the effects of all narcotic and alcoholic, and indeed, all other artificial stimulants, on the living tissues of the human body. 

It is an indubitable truth, that the action of all artificial stimulants, on the living tissues, is always, and necessarily, in the nature of things, at the expense of the vital energies of the tissues, and always impairs those natural and peculiar susceptibilities, which constitutionally adapt the tissues to their natural and appropriate stimuli. 

The necessary consequence of all this is, that throughout the human race, the vital power of the body to perform its organic functions, and maintain its victory over the causes which induce death, is reduced very far below the capabilities of the original constitution of man ; yes, very far below the present capabilities of the human constitution. 

Indeed, almost the entire human family make it a matter of continual practical experiment, to ascertain how near they can run to the line of death, and still maintain life ! Who but the suffering invalid — (and sel- 

8 



14 

dom even he) seriously inquires, " What, and how much shall I eat and drink, and in what manner shall I live, in order to sustain my body in its healthiest and best condition ?" Does not almost every human being, rather, at least in practice, demand — How far can I indulge, and live 1 Is it surprising then, that we find the human race from generation to generation, leaning so far towards death, that their vital centre of gravity almost falls without the base of vital control ? And poising thus, is it a marvel, that even the moth and the caterpillar should often throw them from their balance, and send them headlong to destruction ? 

It'cannot, therefore, be any cause of wonder, that chronic and acute diseases, in all their dreadful forms and modes of destruction, should be multiplied throughout the human family, and sweep away the great majority of the species, even in the dawn of life ! Nor is it wonderful, that some local, or general cause, not powerful in itself, such as the exhalations of decaying vegetable or animal matter, the character and quality of food, a sudden change in the temperature, or humidity, or dryness of the atmosphere — or something else, equally simple and obvious in its nature and existence, should, in consequence of the peculiar condition of the human system, superinduce an endemic or epidemic disease, whose fatality "corresponds with the reduced state of the vital power of resistance in man, the influence of moral causes co-operating, and the propriety or impropriety of medical theory and treatment. 

In this manner, bilious intermittent, and remittent fevers, dysentery, typhus fever, yellow fever, scarlet fever, influenza, cholera morbus, &c. &c, obtain and become more or less general, according to circumstances and the nature of exciting causes. 

Cholera morbushas afflicted the human race, ever since the abusesofthe vital organs have been such as to induce that disease in the human body. The history of it comes to us from the days of Hippocrates, who flourished about four hundred years before Christ, — if indeed, we do not find a much earlier record of it in the writings of Moses. For there is reason to believe that the terrible disease which broke out so suddenly and raged so fatally among the Jews in the wilderness, at the time they ate so freely of the flesh of quails, was no other than cholera morbus. 

This disease is not in its nature at all times, if indeed it is ever necessarily of an epidemic character. In the time of Hippocrates, it was more commonly peculiar to the young and robust, who, by their occasional excesses, or improper diet, caused such an irritation of the stomach and intestines, and sympathetically of the liver, as to induce an increased, or, as it was called, a morbid or diseased flow of the bile into the alimentary canal, which produced violent vomiting and purging, in order to throw off the offending or irritating cause. 

The natural organic susceptibilities of the young and healthy are comparatively little impaired, and consequently they are more readily and powerfully disturbed by the presence of offending causes. When, therefore, any substance, decidedly offensive to the system, either from its nature, quantity, condition, or untimeliness, is received into the alimentary canal, the natural susceptibilities of which are healthy and vigorous, an instinctive alarm is given, which soon calls up the appropriate efforts of the system to expel the offending substance. This must be done by vomiting and purging, and to produce these, instinctively, an increased 



15 

quantity of more than ordinarily acrimonious quality of bile, is introduced into the stomach and intestines ; and this is effected by peculiar irritations of the liver, and these irritations depend on certain conditions of the stomach and intestines. 

In this view of the subject, which is purely physiological, cholera morbus seems to be the constitutional means, by which the system in* stincti veiy expels offensive and disturbing substances from the alimentary canal, and under such circumstances, the disorder, though violent, is far from being alarming, unless the disturbing cause is intrinsically and fatally poisonous : — tor with proper treatment, such as the free administration of warm water, to cleanse and soothe the stomach and intestines, — and often without any thing more than the unassisted efforts of instinct itself, the disturbing cause is soon removed, and the disorder ceases. 

But when a long train of abuses has greatly impaired, and perhaps almost, or entirely destroyed the healthful susceptibilities of the nervous tissue of the alimentary canal, and exceedingly diminished the vital energies of the system, if an irritation is induced which brings on cholera morbus, almost every thing concurs to increase the danger of a fatal result. For a morbid irritation once fully induced, in such a system, will not subside even when the first exciting cause is removed ; but feeds and increases itself by its own action. The same morbid irritability throughout the whole system causes the functions of all the organs to be more easily disturbed, and even arrested by the irritation of the stomach and intestines ; while on the other hand, the system has less power to sustain itself under these irritations, and to umaintain its victory over the causes which induce death. 

From such a condition of the human system it is, that the fatality of cholera morbus generally arises : — and such or nearly such, is the habitual condition of the bodies of a great portion of the human family ; in consequence of the almost incessant irritations that are kept up in the alimentary canal, by various causes in civic life ; but more especially, by the use of artificial stimulants, and particularly the narcotic and alcoholic of every form. 

As I have already observed, cholera morbus is a disease which has tn known for many centuries ; and in certain portions of the earth, it very extensively and almost uninterruptedly prevailed from the earliest periods of their history : and not unfrequently has it become epidemic and swept off immense numbers of the human family. 

The epidemic disease which is at present the cause of so much alarm throughout the world, and which has extended over so great a portion of the earth, and committed such dreadful ravages in its course, cutting off many millions of the human race, in the short period of a few years, though popularly called Cholera Morbus, Cholera Asphyxia, Spasmodic Cholera, &c, yet in its present form and character, the term cholera does not seem to be applied to it with strict propriety, as it is more remarkable for the entire absence, than for the presence of bile in the alimentary canal. lam inclined to believe, however, that this disease was originally, a proper cholera morbus ; and that from various causes operating through a considerable period of time, it has degenerated into its present character. And, in fact, it seems now in no important point to differ from that disease, excepting, that, instead of a morbid flow of 



16 

bile into the alimentary canal, there is a morbid flow or secretion of serotia fluid, which is even more acrid and irritating to the mucous membrane than the bile itself, and consequently causes more violent symptoms. Hence I suspect that the present popular name of the disease, was originally correct. 

The history of this terrible epidemic is too well known, to render it necessary or expedient that I should now enter into its details. Its march of desolation is rapid and fearful ! — We already contemplate its advances with dismay, and feel that its terrors are staring us in the face ! 

It concerns us now, to ascertain, if possible, its nature, its causes, its remedy and its prevention. 

In regard to the nature of this disease there has been rhuch speculation, and a great diversity of opinion. It is truly astonishing and even humbling to see how much the human mind is prone to throw obscurity and fearful mystery over objects which excite the sympathies and passions, and which are in reality far from being mysterious. It is possible that lam in an error on this subject ; but if I am not, there is much more plainness and simplicity about it, than is generally supposed. 

We have already seen, how the organic system, by its vital functions digests its food, and separates out, and more fully digests the chyle, and conveys it through the heart and pulmonary arteries into the lungs, where the process of digestion is. completed, and the nutrimental fluid received from the alimentary canal, is converted into living arterial blood. This blood, prepared for all the wants of the body, is returned to the heart through the pulmonary veins, and thence, through the arterial trunks and branches, and capillary extremities, is diffused over the whole system, and portions of it are detained and converted into bone, cartilage, muscle, nerve, and every other substance belonging to the body, while the remairring portion of it $nds its way, through exceedingly minute vessels, into the veins, in which it returns to the heart : while at the same time, all the different structures of the body, which are constantly receiving nourishment from the arterial blood, are also as continually giving off their worn-out particles, which, by a process of vital chemistry, are resolved into a limpid fluid, and this is taken up by a set of capillary vessels, called the lymphatics, and emptied into the veins and mingled with the returning blood. Thus, both by the absence of properties which are separated from the arterial blood, to supply the various wants of the system, and by the effete and refuse matter returned by the absorbents into the veins, the blood is deprived of its stimulating and nourishing qualities, and is brought back to the heart through the large venous trunks, dark, and full of impurities and wholly unfit for the uses of the system. If the blood, in this condition, should be thrown into the arterial circulation, it would immediately suspend sensation, voluntary motion and consciousness : ahd very soon, the nerves of organic life, wanting their natural and appropriate stimulus, would cease to afford their vital energy to the organs, — all the vital functions would be arrested, and life would be destroyed. 

To prevent this state of things, and to restore the blood to a condition suited to the wants of the system, the skin, the lungs, the kidneys, and perhaps some other organs, are continually, and should be vigorously employed in separating out and throwing off the impurities of the blood : 



17 

and the lungs and skin also digest a portion of tho atmosphere and incorporate it with the blood to increase its vital and healthfully stimulating properties. In this work of depuration, the skin ordinarily throws off, in the form of insensible perspiration, more of the impurities of the blood than all the other organs together. Indeed it is estimated, that more than half of all that is appropriated as nourishment to the system, ultimately passes off through the skin : and some eminent physiologists have asserted that more than half of all that is received into the stomach, passes from the body in this way. The power of these organs to perform their functions, as we have seen, is purely a vital power, depending on the state of the nerves of organic life ; and always corresponding in energy and vigor with the general condition of the digestive apparatus, and especially the stomach. When, therefore, the stomach is disordered and debilitated, and its function is feebly performed, the functions of the skin and lungs are less vigorous and complete, — the blood is riot so thoroughly purified, nor is so large a portion of the atmosphere digested and incorporated with it, to increase its living'energy and stimulating power. The whole organic system suffers in 'consequence ; the heart is less vigorous in its action, circulation is enfeebled, and the whole capillary system suffers a diminution of its vital power, on which all the processes of vital chemistry depend : and the body is consequently less able to endure cold and heat, £d is more liable to be injured by all the sudden changes of temperature, :t, conduct, and condition ; and by the action of noxious and pestilential uses. 

Let me again remind you however, that I do not intend to teach, that the stomach is the organ which generates and disseminates the vital energy of the neives of organic life ; nor that it is the centre of action to this system of nerves. 

In a healthy and normal slate of the human system, each organ has, probably, to a certain extent, its own more immediate and special centre of action ; and these special centres are associated by a more common centre of perception and action of organic life in the semilunar ganglions and solar plexus : while the top of the medulla oblongata, or head of the spinal marrow, is believed to constitute the general centre of perception and action to the whole united system of animal and organic life. 

The proper performance of the functions of life, and the welfare of each and every part of the system, depends upon the integrity of the nerves, in supplying the necessary vital energy ; and this again, depends on their healthy state, and the due subordination of every part, to its lawful centre of action. 

By inducing a diseased condition and inflammation of any part, a new and abnormal centre of action may be established, equal in the power and extent of its influence, to the importance of the part, and the degree of its morbid irritation ; which will not only derange the function of the part itself, but also to a greater or less extent, those of the other parts ; and sometimes, of the whole system : — causing an undue determination of the fluids to itself, and resulting in morbid secretion, imperfect assimilation, chronic inflammation and disorganization or change of structure, by softening or induration, producing schirrus, ossification, calculi, ulcers, cancers and dissolution : — or, mounting into a high state of acute in tlainmation, 



18 

and in a more violent and rapid career, bringing on gangrene, or general convulsions, collapse and death. 

Some of the functions of the body are, however, to a certain extent reciprocal ; so that the suppression of the one leads to an increase, and often to a morbid excess of the other. Such is the case with the functions of the skin and kidneys ; and also of the skin and lungs ; and perhaps some others in a small measure. 

Every person of any observation, must have noticed that copious perspiration, is ordinarily followed by diminished function of the kidneys: and that a suppression of insensible perspiration by chilly, damp weather, is generally attended with an increased function of the kidneys : and these excesses always correspond with the debility of the organs. But the welfare of the particular parts, as well as of the whole system requires, that each organ should uniformly and vigorously perform the full measure of its own duty, because frequent excesses arising from an undue determination of fluids to any one part, lead to debility of the part, and often result in impaired function, imperfect assimilation, local disease, and general injury and death. In this manner, sudden suppressions of the functions of the skin, often lead to diabetes or pulmonary consumption, by causing undue determinations to the kidneys and lungs, and inducing inflammation in one or the other of those organs, according as hereditary or self-originated predisposition renders the one or the other more liable to become diseased by such irritations. 

Besides these more natural reciprocities of function, it sometimes happens that a very diseased and violent reciprocity is attempted by the system. As for instance ; — when the function of the liver becomes deranged, the system sometimes attempts to force out the excess of bilious matter through the excretary organs of the skin ; and hence we have the manifestations of the disease, called jaundice : — and sometimes the liver is irritated and inflamed, and the character of the bile greatly affected by the excessive presence of those qualities in the blood, which should have been carried off through other organs. And again ; the system is liable to such a determination of the fluids to the mucous surface of the alimentary canal as excessively to irritate and inflame that very important membrane, and thus disturb and derange all the functions of life, and lead to the most painful and often the most fatal consequences. But this last disorder seldom, if ever, obtains unless irritation is first induced in the alimentary canal by the direct action of moral or physical causes, on its nervous tissue. 

Now, with these explanations before us, can the nature of the fearful Epidemic which is committing such ravages in the world, be regarded as in any degree a mystery ? 

Innumerable as are the irritating and debilitating causes which are continually disturbing and impairing the organic functions, and diminishing the vital power of resistance, can it be a matter either of mystery or surprise that a highly morbid irritability of the stomach and intestines, should obtain in a very large portion of the human race ? — All the organs must participate in the affections and conditions of the stomach. — The quality and quantity of the secretions are necessarily affected ; and every thing in the system is strongly predisposed to disease of any and every 



19 

kind. An adscitilious cause, which would scarcely affect, in any degree, • healthy system, may now be sufficient to induce the most violent and fatal disorder. In such a state of things, sudden atmospheric changes, or the presence of noxious gases or effluvia — togethei with exposures, fatigue,— exhaustion,— improper kinds, quantities or conditions of food,'— free use of heating and irritating condiments— fear— anger— venereal excess—and above all, excesses in alcoholic and narcotic substances, acting directly upon a morbidly susceptible and irritable stomach, and through it on the whole system, the utmost disorder must necessarily ensue. If the gastro-intestinal irritation be not of the highest order, the system endeavors to relievo itself from the irritating cause, by a mild form of ditorrhcoa, which, if properly treated, answers the instinctive purposes, and foon gives place to healthy action, and no further inconvenience follows — ut if thedrarrhoίa be neglected, and permitted to run on—and if irritatine rticles of diet be received into the alimentary canal,— and more especially, if heating and irritating astringents, tonics, stimulants, &c &c such as port wine, brandy, or alcohol in any form, or opium in any form, camphor, peppermint, ginger, mustard, pepper, &c. &c. be taken for the purpose of checking the diarrhoea, it is within the range of possibility that the experiment may succeed, so far at least, as to arrest, for a while, the disfeharges, and in some extremely rare instances the system may recoverbut almost inevitably the disorder will be aggravated ; and a highly morl bid, gastric, or gastro- intestinal irritation will be induced, affectin ff the «n nf 2 Ste a m f!\° rga(>iC "'T 8 ; and CaUsin S a P° werful determination of the fluids to the centre, and a copious flow of crude and very ex•sperattng serous fluid into the alimentary canal, for the morbidly instinctive purpose, of flooding away, as it were, the irritating cause. Violent UT if ""t rrTf^ fff ° r PV*™ instinctive P W P°^ ensue : attended generally, a first, w.th a high state of irritation and inflammatory action Jf the vascular system. The determination to the centreis still increased Insensible perspiration is suppressed.-respiration is labored and diffil\AA eX £7? CaP u aiy LL ° rganS are P rostrate d •• and the skin becomes cold and death-like ; while the messenteric, and other central vessels be come overcharged and generally highly inflamed. The liver, partaking of the distracting irritations, suffers spasmodic strictures of the gall-duct hnd thus its important secretions are shut out from the alimentary canal. .A,K V i GnergieS °t VV h ° nerves of or g«™ life are much impaired Iri WY t t I J 6 SyS , t6m ° f thGSe " erVeS be in a state of ex^««ve morbid irritability, the gastric or gastro-intestinal irritation will soon become overwhelming, and tne alimentary canal, in some or all its parts, immediately becomes an abnormal centre of action to the whole domain of orS JSTfL T^ 6nerv T energies, which in a normal state, radiate, as it were, from their natural centre or centres, to the heart, arteries vein* capiHanes, and all the other organs of the system, are almost "^^ enS fc£s^*"S TnlT n 1 P^^-toeir functions are scarcely plr- Ire wh 5 ' ° r , e " tireI J c u ease ' The fun ctions of the skin in particular, f, th?h°i y A n f a ' -{^ impUrities Which * should thro^ off, remain in the blood, to diminish its vitality and oppress the system. The blood vessels approach the same condition ;— the heart beats feebly, and perfcaps intermits ;-circulation is extremely languid j and the pulse scarce- 



20 

Iy perceptible. — respiration is exceedingly labored nnd difficult: th# calorific function necessarily ceases in the external parts, and the extremities and surface generally, become deadly cold 5 and the skin is often covered with a cold clammy moisture. The blood thickens, grows dark and sizy, and its vitality rapidly declines : while at the same time, all that can flow in the system, rushes, in horrid anarchy, to the centre, producing the most violent congestion in the vessels leading to, and in the vicinity of, the alimentary canal, causing an intense heat and high excitability of the parts, and inundating the stomach and intestines with a most excruciating serous fluid, which tortures beyond measure, the highly irritated and now keenly sensitive mucous membrane which lines them ; and thus exceedingly augments the suffering and increases the dreadful disorder. 

In such a state of things, can we wonder at the violent vomiting and purging I Can we be surprised at the intermission, or entire cessation of the pulse ; — at the complete suspension of the function of animal heat in the superficial organs, and the consequent coldness of the surface and extremities? Or can il be a matter of astonishmenVthat all the muscles of voluntaryand involuntary motion, supplied with nerves from the ganglionic system, brought, as they are, under a distracting and paramount influence, from thisncw centre of action, should be thrown into the most violent and painful spasms and convulsions? — Indeed ! can we wonder at any of the horrid manifestations of this terrible disease — this fearful anarchy of the organic powers — this tremendous vengeance of the injured, exasperated and frantic instinct ? For it is worthy of remark, that this dreadful epidemic appears to be peculiarly a disease of the organic domain. Animal life is seldom much affected by it, except through the medium of the ganglionic nerves ; and the brain, in particular, is seldom so much disturbed as to disorder the mental manifestations. 

A still more extreme case takes place in those who by excessive sensuality, filthiness and pernicious diet, have reduced the vital powers of their organic nerves almost to the line of death : an overwhelming gastrointestinal irritation arrests, at once, all their feeble functions of life ; inducing in a moment, as it were, a universal prostration, and almost instantaneous death, as with apoplexy or a sun-stroke. Great numbers of the canal diggers died in this terrible manner, at Georgetown, D. C, and elsewhere, in the summer of 1831, and in this same awful manner, the present epidemic has cut off thousands of wretched beings! 

In regard to the causes of this direful epidemic, I have already entered so fully into the consideration of them, that it is not necessary for me again to be very minute in their general detail. 

It may be said, in general terms, that the primary and paramount cause, is always, the peculiar condition of the human system, resulting from the violation of the laws of organic life. Its more immediately exciting causes, however, are various ; such as atmospheric changes and conditions — quality and quantity of food — excesses of e\ery kind : but more than all, perhaps, the excesses of filthy sensuality, and the use of artificial stimulants, and especially of the narcotic and alcoholic kinds; — in short, anything and everything that reduces the vital powers of the nerves of organic life ; and brings the alimentary canal and 



21 

with it the whole system, into a state of extreme, morbid irritability ; leaving little power in the system to sustain high irritation, and to resist and throw off noxious and disturbing causes. 

It may, however, with confidence be nsserted, that all the causes which obtain, beyond the control of man, would seldom or never develope this disease without the concurrence of those causes which operate through his voluntary conduct. 

But is there not some subtle agent, some pestilential essence, or some livingsubstance, — entirely distinct from, and independent of human agency, and above human control, — which passes from place to place, and by its own independent and absolute and malignant energy, induces this terrible disease wherever it exerts its influence ? 

I reply to this : in the first place, that the philosophy of the case requires no such cause ; and in the second place, that an accurate investigation of all the phenomena and facts in the case would never lead inductively to such a conclusion : and therefore, in the third place, that I cannot possibly yield my conviction to such an opinion. 

How then shall we account for the fact, that this disease is so extensively epidemic 1 

That disease has swept over a great portion of the earth's surface with terrible devastations, is too fatally true to be denied : but what evidence is there of the essential identity, in all cases, as to the cause, of the disease, which under the name of Epidemic Cholera, has committed such fearful ravages in Asia and Europe ? Is it replied that all the manifestations and effects have been the same? But is this conclusive ? A fatal dose of arsenic introduced into the human stomach, will produce manifestations and effects, so entirely like those of malignant cholera morbus, that very few, if any, of the most skilful physicians, without some other information than that which they derive from the manifestations and effects, would, when cholera morbus was prevailing, hesitate a moment, to pronounce it that disease. A thousand other causes may, with the concurrence and co-operation of peculiar circumstances, develope the same symptoms, and cause the same results. 

Every pathologist ought to understand the nature of man thoroughly, in all its powers and properties : — not only organic and animal, but also mental and moral. He ought to be intimately acquainted with the physical and intellectual reciprocities ; the full range and power of sympathies, and all their physiological, and pathological, and psychological effects. In order to this, he ought to observe man in every attitude and condition, and under all circumstances and influences; and avail himself of every advantage and every species of information by which he can ascertain the truth. 

Much light might be thrown on pathological subjects, by a correct observation and analysis of the phenomena attending, what may, without irreverence, be called the moral and religious epidemics, which often become very extensive in society. Ido not name these things with disrespect, but merely for the purpose of exhibiting the effects of mental action on the bodily system. 

Time will not, however, at present, allow me to enter so far as might be interesting, and even instructing, into a minute detail of these effects on the functions and conditions of the stomach, liver, heart, lungs, skin, 

1 



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brain, and other organs, and the pathological results which often obtain* I can only, at present, name some of the prominent results, which will serve to elucidate the subject before us : nor shall I pretend to chronological, nor geographical accuracy in the history of the facts which I mention : but I will endeavor to be correct in the facts themselves. 

About thirty years since, a powerful religious excitement commenced somewhere, I believe, in the State of Vermont. A fearful solemnity pervaded almost every mind. Deep and continued anxiety, arising from the exhibition and contemplation of awful subjects, and the feariul expectation of the presence and action of a mysterious agent, so affected the bodily organs and functions, that, in a moment of overwhelming excitement, an individual fell prostrate, as though suddenly struck dead by apoplexy. There was an ent/e suspension of animal life for some minutes. This necessarily increased the awful excitement of those who saw or heard of it. It was fully believed to be the effect of the immediate action of the Spirit of God, in renewing the soul ; and therefore, every one, with still more fearful anxiety, began to feel himself in the presence of the same mysterious agent, and that he was at every instant liable to become subject to the same action and the same effect. This again necessarily and very powerfully increased the predisposition of the body for such an effect. The result was, that another, and another, and another, fell in the same manner, and fully confirmed the belief, that it was a phenomenon connected with the mysterious operation of the Spirit of God in converting the soul. This led the subjects themselves to the full conviction that such a phenomenon was a demonstration of their genuine conversion ; and they awoke from their swoon, believing, and often shouting- aloud in the rapture of their belief, that they had become the inalienable heirs of eternal life and happiness. Of course, every tongue, with solemn tone, rehearsed the awful story. The excitement extended and increased, — and the phenomenon of falling down in a swoon, became truly epidemic. Preachers, and others, full of zeal, passed from place to place, and, with all the ardor of enthusiasm, and the untiring earnestness of those who desire to save the souls of their fellow creatures from eternal ruin, repeated and repeated the solemn story, with all the skill of circumstantial detail, and fervently, and often terrifically importuned their hearers to repent and believe, now, in the day of God's mighty power. 

The consequence, was, that sympathies wore aroused, — excitements were produced — and individuals began to fall prostrate, and wake from their swoons rejoicing and shouting ! — and in this manner this species of epidemic spread over a considerable portion of New England, and hundreds, if not thousands, were either " struck down " suddenly, or powerfully agitated, and nearly paralyzed in their bodily powers. - 

A similar excitement took place, several years since, I believe in Kentucky, in which the subjects were affected with powerful spasms in the muscles of the limbs — or sudden twitchings and jerkings in the arms and legs. This was also fully believed to be the effect of the immediate action of the Spirit of God in the work of conversion ; and consequently was regarded with fearful awe. Large circles were formed for prayer, and the anxious were brought within the circles — and united, and sometimes vehement and even boisterous prayer was offered, that the Holy Spirit would come down and convert them ; and these prayers were believed 



23 

to be answered by the Spirit's operations, when the H jerking" commenced, which soon took place, and generally extended to most of those within the ring. 

Some daring young men entered these circles with the spirit of derision — intending to practise an imposition on the religious ; but with horror, they soon found themselves, as they believed, under the irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, and became powerfully affected with the involuntary spasms, and left the circle with the firm belief that they were converted. Such instances went still farther to confirm the popular belief that these "jerks," as they were called, were the effects of the direct and irresistible, though mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit. The consequence was, that they became extensively epidemic ; and those who were the most powerfully affected in this way, were considered the most signally favored, by the abundance of the power of the Holy Spirit. 

I might adduce several other instances of extensive religious excitements, which have been attended wiih different bodily phenomena, of as marked and peculiar character as any I have named. But I have already mentioned enough for my present purpose ; which is solely to show that certain actions of the mind may produce certain conditions of the nervous system, causing corresponding effects on the organs and functions of the body ; and that when peculiar causes have produced peculiar phenomena, and the causes are fully believed to be general, mysterious and irresistible, and the phenomena the necessary results of the action of those causes, the mind of all, coming under the same strong and continued excitement, may so act on the bodily sympathies, and through them, on the organs and tissues, as absolutely to induce the same involuntary phenomena in most or all ; and thus render them extensively epidemic ; while the very fact that they are extensively epidemic, will serve to establish more firmly the popular belief in an identical, mysterious, and irresistible agent. 

Now, if such is the philosophy, so far as bodily phenomena or symptoms are concerned, of moral and religious epidemics, why should we utterly disregard these things in pathological reasoning, and travel over the whole field of conjecture in order to find an adequate cause, when such a cause presents itself in the power of the sympathies directed by the actions of the mind ? Indeed we have the record of facts directly in point, to illustrate this doctrine in pathology. "It is well authenticated that females in the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh, who were affected with hysteric fits, occasioned the same infirmity in others. It is well known, too, that in the poor house at Haerlem, in Holland, some years ago, a girl, under some impression of terror, fell into a convulsive disease, which extended on the mere principle of sympathy, to nearly all the boys and girls in the house. The celebrated Doctor Boerhaave put a stop to it, by preparing certain irons, and having them made red hot, in the presence of the children, and declaring, with great solemnity, that every child which manifested any symptoms of the disease, must be burnt to the bone with one of these hot irons. There was no occasion to use them, and the disease was no more known. — In the year 1803, a species of St. Vitus's dance became epidemic in one of the United States, on the same principle. Many more well authenticated instances of this kind might 



24 

be named, extending through parishes, villages, and districts of this country." 

But do you ask if I believe that such a cause can absolutely produce the Asiatic, spasmodic cholera I I reply, that I fully believe that, when long continued abuses have reduced the vital energies of the nerves of organic life to a very low level, in a great portion of the human family, extending over the face of the earth ; and tho human system is thereby strongly predisposed to take on disease, while it is little able to sustain it,— if certain local causes shall developo a disease pretty extensively, of a fatal and terrific character, the cause which I have named, is alone sufficient to keep up an epidemic disease, which shall be attended with most, or all the prominent symptoms of the first, and become as extensive as the quarry in which it originated. Moreover, such a cause, by long acting on those of better habits, may so irritate and debilitate the nerves of organic life, and so disturb the various functions of the system, as to bring on disorders, which will predispose the body to take on disease, and this, being improperly treated, may terminate either in the prevailing disease itself, or one which shall so assimilate itself, in all its symptoms, to the prevailing disease, that it will be unhesitatingly pronounced the same : and thus, epidemic disease may not only range over the level of its origin, but also frequently undermine, and sweep away many in the higher orders of habit and condition. 

In the winter of 1809-10, a disease broke out in New England, (I believe in Hartford, Connecticut,) which was very sudden in its attack, brief and violent in its career, and fatal in its effects. Much alarm was of course produced : every body talked about the new and terrible disease ; and every one was eager to hear the latest accounts of its progress and fatality. All the symptoms of the disease were carefully observed and published in the newspapers, and still more extensively by the ten thousand tongues of busy rumor, and listened to with deepest sensibility by the ten thousand ears of fearful anxiety. — The skill of the physicians was baffled ; profound and awful mystery enveloped the cause, and covered the mode and means of cure. The physicians, in the general panic and incertitude, abandoned the philosophy of physiological pathology, and gavo themselves up to conjectural speculation and excited imaginations ! — All was dreadful uncertainty, and fearful apprehension, and irresistible fatality. Death, shrouded in the impenetrable darkness of Egyptian midnight, walked forth with terrible omnipotence ! The dying bowed their heads and expired in unutterable agony ; and the living looked on with trembling consternation, and felt that they were contemplating the horrid imagery of their own unavoidable destiny ! Universal panic reigned with fearful despotism over the morbid sensibilities of society ; and every sympathetic pain and affection were apprehended with dismay, as an indubitable symptom of the fatal disease ! — Remedial experiments, corresponding in violence with the supposed power and malignity of the cause of the disease, were numerously tried ; and the work of death was more terrifically accelerated. Then, too, as in all other epidemics, ignorant quacks, with the well-meant concurrence of newspaper editors, spawned and promulgated their officious and mercenary prescriptions, to deceive the credulous, and bewilder the doubtful, and increase the excitement, and extend the devastation. — Medical men rashly published their violent 



25 

•Specifics, which bccnmo, in the hands of the terrified, like the weapons of death in the hands of the insane ! Hundreds, and probably thousands, felt the symptoms, and in the delirium of fear, poured down fatal quantities of brandy and laudanum, and plunged drunken and stupified into the forced embrace of death ! And thus the tremendous havoc swept on, spreading consternation before it, and leaving desolation behind ! — Legislatures adjourned, and fled in dismay — the affairs of society stagnated business was neglected, and men sat down in despondency and despair, to brood over their sympathies ; fearfully watching for symptoms, constantly taking preventives, and literally preparing their bodies for 

iln such a state of things,— and I have not given an exaggerated description—is it surprising that the epidemic Spotted Fever, or Cold .Plague, should extend over a considerable portion of New England, and sweep off hundreds or thousands in its career ?— And yet I have been assured by a highly respectable physician in Massachusetts, that after losing three patients with this disease, by the established mode of practice of the time, he abandoned that mode, and governed himself entirely by the indications of physiological pathology, and adapted his practice to the symptoms of the case, and never, after that, lost a single patient by §at disease, although his practice in it was uncommonly extensive. Inied, he assured me that the disease when properly treated, was more sily managed, than what is ordinarily called a bad cold. 

An epidemic disease bearing the same name, but less extensive and less fatal, because attended with less panic, and less error of treatment, has, for a considerable time past, prevailed in and about New London, Connecticut. There have been, I believe, several hundred cases ; the greater part of which have most unquestionably been purely sympathetic. 

tit is more than probable that an epidemic disease of any very great tent and mortality, never obtained among mankind, in which morbid sympathy and mental action did not constitute a very considerable portion of the efficiency of the epidemic cause. The history of all past epidemics corroborates this opinion : and we find that whenever and wherever the plague has prevailed, not a few even of the medical profession have believed that fear was chiefly concerned in propagating that terrible disease. Undoubtedly there have been at some periods in the history of the world, causes, connected with the disturbances of the earth, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, &c. &c, and perhaps also with the influence of some of the heavenly bodies, which have produced extensive epidemic diseases fit have destroyed great numbers of the human species, and of the ver orders of animals. But these instances have, I am confident, en very few ; while as a general rule, as I have already said, it may th confidence be asserted that all the causes which obtain beyond the ntrol of man, would seldom or never develope epidemic disease, without the concurrence of those causes which operate through his voluntary conduct. And lam entirely confident that every symptom and effect, by which, what is called the Epidemic Cholera, is ordinarily attended, may be superinduced, in certain conditions of the human system, by mental action and remedial agents. 

Let me not be misunderstood : I do not say that mental action will absolutely induce spasmodic cholera, in any state of the body ; but, that 



26 

tn certain conditions of the body, mental action may so affect the nerves of organic life, as to cause that gastro-intestinal irritation, which is the basis of all the symptoms of spasmodic cholera : and that continued mental action of the same character, may reduce the body, from nny state of health, to that condition in which the disease may be superinduced. 

We know that overwhelming fear, by arresting at once, all the functions of life, may cause instantaneous death i and we know that violent and continued fear, may so affect the hair of the head, in a few hours, as to destroy its color : and that the same passion will suspend in an instant the functions of the skin and superficial capillaries, and impel the fluids from the surface to the centre, leaving the skin cold and corrugated, and cause a spasmodic, and irregular, and interrupted action of the heart and lungs, and induce pain and even severe cramp in the epigastric region ; and great irritation of the liver and kidneys, and sudden and violent evacuations of the bowek and bladder, attended often, with severe and painful spasms of the body and limbs ; and sometimes ending in sudden death* 

Unfortunately, however, in all times of great epidemical excitements, feat is not left to work single-handed in the mighty mischief, but leads to the use of such medical preventives and remedies, as are even more pernicious in their effects on the vital powers, than the passion itself; and thus the ruinous operation is earned on, while intemperance, and irregularities of every kind, come in as immediately exciting causes of disease, to consummate the dreadful work of death. 

To illustrate this doctrine still farther, let us take a single case in detail. Suppose an individual in good health, by continually hearing the accounts of the dreadful mortality, and terrible progress of the Cholera, to be filled with fearful anxiety in view of the probability that it will visit the place where he resides, and the possibility that he may fall a victim to it. He is constantly hearing fresh and shocking accounts of its ravages, and learns all its symptoms and horrors. The mystery of its cause, and the malignity of its career, increase his dread ! His thoughts frequently revert to the painful subject, and the suggestion arises in his mind, ?' I may fall by this awful disease !" — At length his mind comes to brood almost habitually on the alarming subject. His spirits necessarily become more or less depressed, digestion is disturbed, his appetite is impaired, the skin becomes relaxed and debilitated, its functions are less vigorous and complete, the circulation languishes : the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, and all the other organs, partake of the disturbance, and all their functions are correspondently impaired. Assimilation, secretion, and all the other vital processes, are deteriorated. All this reacts upon the stomach, and brain, and nervous system generally, to depress still farther the vital powers, and still more impair the functions : and these disorders of the body react upon the mind, to increase its despondency, and this again depresses still more, the functions of the body. And now the terrible accounts begin to produce great nervous agitation ; and this increases nervous debility and morbid irritability, which still farther enfeeble the vital powers of reaction against disturbing and noxious causes, and predispose the body to disease, and subject the individual to those frequent nervous and sympathetic pains and 



27 

affections which the fearful mind readily conceives to be the premonitory symptoms of the disease. 

Now if the unfortunate individual had knowledge and wisdom enough to regulate his conduct according to his peculiar state, he might, with utmost probability, still be saved from the evils which he so unhappily dreads. If he would carefully, in all respects, adopt a regimen suited to his peculiar condition and circumstances, he would be in little real danger of the disease. But alas ! how seldom is this course pursued ! With all their fears, and with all the disturbing and debilitating effects of their brooding anxieties and agitations, people generally pay little attention to their diet and habits of body, — as though their only danger were from some mysterious agent or principle in the atmosphere, or somewhere else, which absolutely and arbitrarily destroys life, without regard to habits or conditions of body. Or, if they do attempt to regulate their diet, the articles to which they will restrict themselves, and their modes of preparing them, are often even more pernicious than the things which they reject ; and thus the debility and irritability of the digestive organs are still more increased. And to relieve themselves from this depression, and languor, and despondency, resulting from the actions of their mind, and the conditions of their body, they will almost universally have recourse to strong tea and coffee, or to cordials or tonics, or fermented or distilled alcoholic liquors, or opiates, &c. — always, however, under the name of necessary preventives or medicines ! All these things necessarily prepare for the consummation ! Then comes the alarm-cry that the terrible epidemic has reached or broke out in the place, and begun its ruthless work of death ! The panic rises like a whirlwind I The morbid sensibilities, excited by the actions of the mind, are full of premonitory symptoms and affections : this causes powerful agitation, which almost necessarily brings on a disordered state of the stomach and bowels — more especially, if there is the least impropriety in diet ; and by this means the panic is tremendously increased. In this state of vital debility, agitation and terror, some of the vile prescriptions of the newspapers arc adopted, and the most pernicious, and often the most fatal articles, in the form of medicine, are thrown into the disordered and extremely irritable stomach. Perhaps, also, articles of diet of the most improper character are received into the alimentary canal : or it may be, that in this state of the system, some impure air — some noxious exhalation — some infectious effluvia, of a local nature or generation, acts on the highly morbid mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, so that by some or all of these causes, a violent irritation is produced in the alimentary canal, modified in its manifestations by the actions of the mind ; and a powerful determin ation of the fluids to the centre, and excessive central congestion, are caused by the gastro-intestinai irritation ; a crude and exacerbating serous fluid is poured into the alimentary canal, increasing exceedingly the irritation ; and then follow violent vomiting and purging, spasms, asphyxia, and all the other symptoms by which the case is ascertained to be spasmodic cholera ; and these symptoms are generally much aggravated by stimulating substances. 

The case which I have adduced, supposes a tolerably sound state of health in the nerves of organic life previous to the commencement of the 



28 

pnnio or fearful anxiety ; but throughout the whole of the human family, and especially in large cities and towns, a very considerable proportion of society is habitually in that low state of the vital energies, which requires little or none of the preparation for disease, that I have just described : their diet is sometimes — though in this country, unnecessarily, — scanty, seldom of the best kind, often of a very pernicious quality ; and their exposures are frequently great. Still, however, all these causes together, contribute much less to the actual developement of epidemic disease, than the universal, and generally excessive use of artificial stimulants ; in which the poorest and most wretched portions of society indulge. 

It is a well known fact, that immense numbers of the inhabitants of Europe and Asia, as well as of our own country, will voluntarily subsist on one or two scanty meals a day, of miserable food, for the sake ot procuring their ordinary quantity of tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, whiskey, arrack, or some other kind of intoxicating substance. Reckless as these unfortunate beings generally appear to be, yet, they nevertheless partake of the general panic ; which, unhappily, instead of restraining them from their habitual errors, more frequently, on the other hand, drives them to greater excess, as a refuge from the very calamity into which they are blindly precipitating themselves ! 

In such a state of things, fatal disease must necessarily be soon induced : and in such bodies, it must be malignant, violent, and brief; — and under such circumstances and influences, what would, at another time, have appeared only " sudden death," from drunkenness or excess, would now, almost necessarily, take on the type, and exhibit the symptoms, of the prevailing epidemic. Every such death will increase the panic, and consequently multiply the deaths, till excesses, and filth, and disease will, if other circumstances be favorable, generate a malignantly infectious effluvia, which will come in with the other causes, to carry on with tremendous energy, the terrible work of destruction. 

From this combination of causes, a pestilential efficiency is produced which those of healthier condition and better habits, and even the lower order of animals, will often fall before ! Thus the moral fens and morasses of society become the sources of pestilence and death, to those who have, perhaps culpably, neglected to improve their condition. 

It is upon this principle of mental action, affecting physiological conduct, and determining pathological affections and manifestations, that the notorious fact is to be accounted for, that during the prevalence of such an epidemic as the present, almost all other diseases assume the symptoms of, and run into, the prevailing disease : for this is seldom, if ever, the fact to any considerable extent, only during the prevalence of such epidemics as are attended with great panic. 

The epidemic Influenza is caused entirely by certain sudden changes in the atmosphere, acting on the human system in certain conditions, which result from the voluntary habits and customs of civic life : but this is attended with little or no panic, however extensive and fatal the disease ; nor during its prevalence, do any, except cognate diseases, take on its type. The same is true of all epidemic diseases of this predicament. 

On the whole, therefore, though I do not pretend, that panic, or mental 



29 

action, can absolutely and immediately produce real spasmodic cholera, in any and every condition of the human system, yet I do confidently assert that, taking into view tho va-ious causes which are continually operating on mankind, to reduce the vital powers of the nerves of organic life, and considering the actual condition of a large portion of the human family, as to vital power of organic function, nnd resistance to noxious and pestilential agents, mental action alone, is, through the modus operandi which I have described, an adequate cause for the epidemic character of the present prevailing disease, called spasmodic cholera, throughout the human race ! 

I Still, however, let it be remembered, that I do not say that this disease in every individual case preceded by panic, or induced by mental tion. I contend that highly malignant pestilential causes may be locally generated, and act on those who would not otherwise have had the disease, nor even with these causes, without a predisposition resulting generally, if not invariably, from their own voluntary conduct: and I contend also, that the pestilential cause or causes may be conveyed to, and fatally act, to some extent, in places where they would not have originated : and that they may be originated, in the manner I have described, in other places favorable for their generation, without the assistance of any imparted infection or medium of contagion. 

Treatment. 

The next question which comes to us, is — How shall we treat this dreadful disease ? — Here I confess, with a deep sense of the responsibility resting upon my undertaking, and of my want of knowledge of materia medica, that I feel fully conscious that I am passing from physiological and pathological premises, into the somewhat uncertain field of therapeutics. Perhaps it will be thought that I should stop short, nor ,presume to venture a speculative opinion on so momentous a subject. ; But since I have taken it upon me to speak, I will proceed : yet I will endeavor to be exceedingly cautious. 

What, then, shall we do with this disease, — especially when it assumes its severest and most fearful character? — When we find a prostration of nil the functions of life ; when the skin is totally paralyzed, the animal heat gone from the surface and extremities, the breath cold, the tongue dry, voice lost or very feeble, the heart scarcely heaving a sluggish, intermittent pulse, while violent vomiting and purging, and dreadful spasms, and burning pains in the epigastric region, and severe cramps in the limbs and extremities, seem terribly hastening the work of death, what shall be done? For surely, something must be done, and done quickly, or death will have achieved its victory ! 

I ask again, what is the immediate cause of all this derangement and >rostration ? Is it any external agent acting on the exterior surface, causing a paralysis and collapse of the superficial organs, and driving he fluids to the centre ? Certainly not ! — Is it any agent applying itself directly to the nervous system as a whole, and inducing general prostraion, collapse, and the other symptoms in the case ? By no means !—! — Vhat then shall we call it ? Most evidently and certainly, it is irritation n the alimentary canal, originated as I have described, and excited to madness by the acrid fluids which are pouring in from every quarter, and 

» 



30 

producing an excitement which distracts the normal distribution of net' vouB energy, from the natural centres to the several organs, and exerts a paramount influence over all the organs of the body, and blindly drags* all the vital energies into the vortex of its own maniac fury ! 

But what shall we do ? What does nature indicate by her conduct ? Does she not open the orifices of her alimentary canal, and with the agony of a blind and desperate Samson, heave, with all her remaining energies, to throw oft' the irritating and deranging cause from her smarting sensibilities ? 

She asks for assistance ! And does not the nature of the case, more than indicate the kind ? 

But it is said that we must rouse the prostrated functions ! We must produce heat, and circulation, and excite the action of the skin, and overcome the spasms, and arrest the vomiting and purging : and how can all this be done, without the exhibition of narcotics and stimulants % I say again, that nil the prostration and derangement is owing to gastric, or gastro-intestinal irritation, which has become an abnormal and maniac centre of action to the whole system of organic nerves, and all the organs depending on them for functional power ! Remove this irritation, and suffer the normal centres of action to throw their energies upon the organs, and the prostration and derangement are overcome, and the functions restored ! in such a state of things, will you exhibit your exasperating stimulants and deadly narcotics? 

And for what purpose? To shut up the floodgates through which nature is trying to relieve herself; and by your narcotics, to kill the excess of vital activity in the irritated organs, and by your fiery stimulants, to roll back the tide of ruin to other outlets, and force the heart and other organs to rouse from their prostration and perform their functions, under nil the embarrassments of distracting irritation in the gastro-intestinal centre ? 

But has not such practice been successful ? — Doubtless there have been instances in which such practice has been apparently if not really successful : — or in other words, some patients have recovered^ either with, or in spite of, this treatment. During the prevalence of all epidemics, and especially those which are attended with great panic, there nre always many spurious cases : and in these cases of purely panic, or sympathetic cholera, the exhibition of brandy and laudanum, (or some other powerful stimulants,) may sometimes seem to afford immediate relief; but even in such cases, always at the hazard of life. When these articles are administered however, in cases of real spasmodic cholera, if any benefit results, it is only in cases where the patient has previously been addicted to the free use of alcoholic liquors, and in the nervous tissue of whose alimentary canal, there is still remaining vital susceptibility and energy enough to receive and diffuso over the whole nervous domain, n stimulation sufficiently powerful to counteract the ruling despotism of the gastro-intestinal irritation, and force the organs into a performance of their functions, in spite of its bewildering and distracting influence. But if this species of forced action is not kept up by the continual administration of the stimulants, the patient must relapse « ith fearful rapidity, to the inevitably fatal action of the disease : and if it is kept up for any considerable time, iho idiopathic character of the 



31 

tisease may indeed be broken up, but it is always at the utmost risk f so wearing out the susceptibilities and energies of the system, that it r ill sink down into an equally fatal disease of a different type : or, if this should not be the case, and the patient should recover from the cholera by such treatment, he will continue, for a considerable time, to be subject to a serious derangement of the stomach and bowels, and will 

be exceedingly liable to another attack of the cholera, from the slightest exposure, or error of conduct. The cases however must be very few, in thich the least apparent benefit is derived from this mode of treatment : hile on the other hand, the most tremendously ruinous effects are proiced by such a practice. 

. How then, you ask again, shall we raise the system from its dreadful prostration, and overcome the spasms, and arrest the violent vomiting and purging ? 

Again I say, remove the irritation of the alimentary canal, and the spasms and vomiting and purging will cease; and the heart and the other organs will immediately recognize their allegiance to their normal Centres of action, and perform their functions without unnatural force. 

- But how shall we remove the gastro-intestinal irritation I—This1 — This depends much on the peculiar naturo of the case. Sometimes, as we have seen, the irritation depends entirely ou the presence of an irritating Substance in the alimentary canal ; such as improper articles of diet, $lc I and sometimes, from the peculiar condition of the system, and •specially, of the nervous tissue of the alimentary canal, the irritation, by whatever immediate cause induced, will propagate itself, and become a pathological affection of the tissue. 

I When the irritation is not overwhelming at first, the system instinctively ideavors to relieve herself, by pouring an increased quantity of mucous icretion into the alimentary canal, and thus relaxing and evacuating the nvels in order to remove the irritating cause : and if the stomach and testines are in a healthy and vigorous state, and the patient is careful abstain from every thing that would increase or keep up the irritation, c system will entirely relieve herself by her own instinctive efforts, and as soon as the irritating cause has been evacuated, the bowels will resume (heir healthy conduct. But when, from the previously debilitated and morbidly irritable state of the alimentary canal, the superinduced irritation becomes a pathological affection of its nervous tissue, the mucous secretion will run into a serous or watery character, and the relax will be followed by a diarrhoea, of a more or less mild or severe character, cor- IBsponding with the previous state of the system and the degree of morbid irritation. 

tlf the diarrhoea be of a mild character, and the previous habits of the lient have not been bad ; and if he keep quiet within doors, and totally d scrupulously refrain from every kind of medicine and aliment, solid *nd fluid, except a little simple Indian-meal gruel, or rice water, or coarse unbolted wheat meal gruel, or wheat bran tea, without any seasoning but a little salt, taking this at stated periods and in moderate quantities, so as not to interfere with the process of digestion ; and if the patient use a good deal of friction over the whole surface, and especially over the stomach and bowels, with a flesh-brush, or coarse towel, or flannel ; and be careful to keep clean in person, clothing, bed, house, &c> avoiding 



32 

confined, and impure, and damp, cold air, tho morbid irritation will be entirely subdued in the course of twenty-four hours ; and then, if the patient will subsist the next twenty-four hours on good, sweet, well-baked, coarse, stale bread, taking it at his regular meal times, and masticating it very fully, using no butter nor any thing else with it, and no other drink but his gruel or good soft water, at the end of the forty-eight hours he will find his bowels in a perfectly healthy state and action. But as surely as he takes any improper article of diet into his stomach, whether solid or fluid, while the diarrhoea is on him, he will increase the irritation, and aggravate the disease. 

Let it always be remembered, that the diarrhoea is not the disease, but the morbid irritation is the disease ; and the diarrhosa is the morbidly instinctive manner in which the system is endeavoring to remove the irritation ; and therefore an attempt to suppress the diarrhoea upon any other principle than by subduing the irritation, will almost inevitably increase the disorder. It is true that the morbid character of the serous fluid which is poured into the intestines, is a powerful cause of the irritation, and therefore it is highly desirable that the diarrhoea should be suppressed as soon as may be ; but still, I say, it must not be done by any means incompatible with the morbid irritation and irritability of the nervous tissue of the alimentary canal. Hence, brandy and laudanum, brandy and sugar, spirits of any kind, — wine, or fermented liquors of any sort, — camphor, peppermint, pepper, mustard, coffee, tea, and all other things of the kind, taken to stop the diarrhosa, are all, in their respective degrees, calculated to aggravate tho real disease, and bring on vomiting and spasms, and increased determination to the centre, and general prostration and collapse,or asphyxia and death! Itistrue that most of these things, may sometimes arrest the diarrhoea; but it is necessarily upon a principle which renders it almost certain that the disorder will soon return again with mci eased violence ; and more especially if any pestilential cause be acting upon tho system. It is also true that in some very rare instances, patients may recover with the us© of these articles : but the cases are only astonishing exceptions to correct rules : and the practice is none the less madly erroneous. 

In regard to the use of opium, to arrest the diarrhoea, or in any stage of the disease, I am convinced that it is little, if any less pernicious than alcohol. As a stimulant, it always increases the irritation ; and as a narcotic, in all cases, it reduces the morbid sensibility and irritation only by diminishing vitality ; and consequently, without removing in any degree the cause of that morbid sensibility and irritation; and therefore, when its narcotic properties are expended, the system is liable to more morbid excesses of sensibility and irritation, with less vital power to sustain them, and to react against morbific causes, and throw off" its own morbid affections ; and if it be repeated so as to keep the system under ks narcotic influence, it becomes itself a powerful cause of the rapid and total extinction of vitality ; and is thus very frequently made to supercede all other causes as an agent of destruction to the sick. For be it remembered, that it cannot possibly, in the nature of things, do any thing directly, towards restoring healthy action ; and healthy action alone can resist morbific causes, and give general health to the system. 

When the diarrhoea is of a more severe and violent character, and esr 



33 

pccially if it be attended with pain, and with spasmodic affections in the hands and feet; and, indeed, it will perhaps be safest to say, in all cases of diarrhoea, during the prevalence of the cholera, the patient should keep quiet within doors — or even take to his bed, maintaining as much composure of mind as possible, carefully abstaining from every stimulating and heating substance, take a gentle dose of rhubarb and calcined magnesia ; or, if his previous habits have been bad, and his stomach, liver, and bowels have been torpid, take a dose of rhubarb and calomel, or a free dose of calomel, and remain quiet upon his bed till the medicine operates, taking nothing into his stomach during the day, except the gruel, as I have before directed, and the next day the bread, or some other plainly ¦ and simply prepared farinaceous aliment, in solid form and freely masticated ; and continuing, for a few days at least, to be guarded and plain and simple in his diet, rubbing the skin freely, morning and evening, with a flesh-brush or coarse cloth, observing personal and domestic cleanliness, and avoiding confined and impure air, &c.,and no further inconvenience will be experienced, and health will be restored, unless there is some great imprudence. 

In cases where the diarrhoea has been neglected, or badly treated, till violent vomiting sets in with the purging, attended with spasms in the bo- I dy and limbs, cold skin, difficulty of breathing, &c, both cathartics and emetics will be unavailing, and they may serve to increase the irritation. In this state of the case, I should suppose that salt water, made as hot as 

the patient can endure it, and introduced freely into the stomach and intestines by potations and injections, would be the best internal application which could be made. My reasons are, that from some interesting experiments which have been made, salt is said to increase the fluidity of the blood when it has a tendency to thicken and coagulate ; and heat, we know, acts as a powerful stimulant on the living nerves without impairing 

¦ their vital properties like alcoholic and narcotic substances ; while the water is calculated, at the same time, to cleanse the mucous membrane from its acrid humors, and act as a diluent and sedative. 

If, however, it should be found necessary in any case to use other stimulants internally, I should suppose that red pepper would be the safest and best, because it is more permanent in its action, than alcoholic stimulants, while perhaps there is no other stimulant which so little impairs the vital properties of the tissues on which it acts ; and consequently, so little exposes the system to reaction and relapse. 

But perhaps the safest and most successful practice, in the advanced stageof the disease, would be a copious use of the hot saltwater internally, both by potation and injection, for the reasons I have just given, while red 

pepper, mustard, and such like stimulants, were applied freely to the outer skin, in a dry form, with brisk, and continued friction ; in order to produce 

a counter irritation and general stimulation. If this practice should prove successful, the patient will be in c6mparatively little danger of consecutive fever, functional derangement or relapse. 

I repeat, however, that not being well acquainted with materia medica, I dare not speak with confidence as to the best articles to be exhibited in this stage of the disease. My remarks are founded entirely on what seems to mo to be the philosophy of the case, and strictly consistent with the principles of physiological pathology manifested; and I feel exceedingly 



34 

confident that if any pre-eminently successful mode of treating !hf» disease shall be discovered, it will be very simple. But it must be confessed, thnt there is at present np little responsibility resting on this point ; and every man who possesses anyconsiderable degree of moral sensibility, will hesitate and consider carefully and deliberately, before he utters even a conjecture, as such, on so fearfully momentous a subject ; knowing well, that if erroneous, it may cause the death of some — perhaps of hundred — possibly of thousands of his fellow creatures, who unfortunately confide in his opinion. 

[Note. Such is the text of the lecture, which I delivered in the Baptist Meeting House, in Mulberry Street, New York, in March, 1832, and repeated at Clinton Hall, in June following, about two weeks before the cholera broke out in the city. Having had no experience in this disease, I was then, of course, obliged to found all my opinions, as to the treatment of it, on what I conceived to be its evident principles of physiological pathology. Since then, as you all well know, the most terrible experiment has been made in this city, and by it, the doctrines which I taught, some months before the disease appeared in this country, have been fully and most signally demonstrated to be correct. I therefore no longer speak with painful uncertainty on the subject of the treatment of what is called the second stage of the cholera ; but with all the confidence that the most unbounded success can justify, I now boldly and earnestly recommend what I at first timidly suggested ; differing from my first prescription, only, in the addition of a portion of cider vinegar to the salt water; for which improvement I am indebted to another person, as I will state fully in the sequel. 

When any one suffers a violent attack, and is taken witluhe worst form of the disease at first, or has neglected or mal-treated the diarrhoea till violent vomiting, and convulsive spasms and cramps in the body and limbs, and burning sensations in the epigastric regions, &c. &c. supervene, let the patient take to his bed, and let a kettle of water be boiled as quickly as possible, and then put into an ordinary sized tea-cup, or some other vessel of the same capacity, one tea-spoon-full of good, common table salt,and one table-spoon-full of good cider vinegar, (remember it must be good cider vinegar,) and fill the cup with boiling water, and let the patient swallow this dose as hot as he can without scalding himself, and without sipping. If he sips it down, it will be more likely to come up again : but if he swallows the whole dose, as it were, at a single draught, it will almost certainly remain on the stomach, and at once arrest the vomiting and purging, and violent spasms, and in a few minutes bring on a profuse perspiration. 

If, however, the first dose should be thrown up, give the second dose of the same kind, and even the third, and more if necessary ; — but when it is properly prepared and taken, the first dose is very rarely thrown up, and the second never. Albeit if the spasms in some measure continue, it is well, at intervals, to repeat small doses, though the first dose should entirely arrest the vomiting and purging. 

If the case should be still worse, nnd the patient should be in what is called the collapsed state, in which, besides the symptoms already mentioned, there is no perceptible pulse, — the voice very feeble or entirely lost, and the skin cold and clammy, and of a dark purple color, &c, let 



35 

ti hot water, salt and vinegar, be given in the same manner as above ected, and let a like preparation be injected freely into the intestines, hot as the patient can safely endure it ; and let flannels be dipped into me of the same, and laid hot upon the stomach and bowels, and let the lbs be briskly chnfed with hot flannels, till the patient becomes quiet* lichwill soon be the case, and then let him be well covered, so as to pro>te the perspiration, which in a few minutes will be seen gushing copiousfrom all the pores of the skin. If any spasmodic affections or pains relain, let the patient, at intervals of from fifteen to thirty minutes, as the mptoms may be, swallow small doses of the hot salt water and vinegar; hieh, in such cases, should be prepared in considerable quantities, in c proportions of one measure of salt to four of vinegar, and sixteen of iling water. 

By this mode of treatment, the vomiting and purging will be arrested Est instantaneously ; the spasms will be subdued ; a profuse perspin will follow in a very few minutes ; the pulse will soon be perceptiind in a short time be restored to a regular action ; the skin will nally resume its natural color and warmth ; and in a few hours the nt will feel entirely free from the disease. Now the judicious ician, or nurse, may find it proper to administer a gentle cathartic, ted in its kind, to the peculiar habits and condition of the patient : r a dose of rhubarb and calcined magnesia, or rhubarb and calomel, ilomel alone, or castor oil, and then always strictly observing the ; regimen that I have already prescribed for the diarrhoea, and w 0:1 with a judicious diet, and all will go well. 

The wonderful and entire success that attended this mode of treatment during the prevalence of the cholera in this city last summer, fully justifies the confidence with which I now recommend it. Hundreds were relieved from that terrible disease by it, and in many instances after the njlse had been gone for a considerable time, and every symptom denoted Be last and most irremediable stage of the disease. Indeed though I ¦Bye taken much pains to ransack the city and investigate this matter, I lave not been able to hear of a single case of death from cholera where (his modo of treatment was fairly tried. Doctor L ,of Delancy ftreet, assured me, that after having failed entirely in every other mode of treatment, and lost every patient he was called to, he adopted the mode of treatment which I now recommend, and did not lose another patient, during the season. I have called on a number of persons in the upper part of the city, who informed me that they had the "collapsed stage" of the cholera to such a degree that all medicine was ineffectual, and the attending physicians pronounced them past remedy ; and then, as a last experiment, they took the hot salt water and vinegar, and were almost immediately relieved ; and soon recovered health. » The salt water and vinegar was first tried by Mr. George Bond of Orchard street, who about eighteen years ago was very severely diseased with the bloody-flux, for which ho tried various remedies in vain, till some one recommended the hot water, salt and vinegar, as above prescribed ;he tried this, and was immediately relieved. This fact, together with the notorious case of the thieves who protected themselves from the plague in London by the use of vinegar, led Mr. Bond to suppose that the hot salt water and vinegar would cure the cholera : and he soon had an opportunity of trying hid rcmcJy in his own family. For on tho night 



36 

of the seventh of July, his wife, who had been laboring under a neglected diarrhoea for several days, was taken with all the terrible symptoms of the " second stage." He sprang from his bed, and aa soon as possible, prepared and administered his remedy : and to his great delight and even astonishment, found that the happy effect much exceeded his highest hopes. After this he devoted almost his whole time through the cholera season to the sick, and administered his remedy to hundreds with entire success. Mr. David Woodman, who was himself relieved from a violent attack by Mr. Bond, seeing the wonderful effects of this remedy, spent much of the cholera season also in prescribing it to the sick, with equal success ; even in filthy and damp cellars, and among intemperate blacks and whites.] 

Is the Cholera contagious ? 

The question whether this disease is contagious, has been warmly agitated ever since the disease has attracted public attention ; and the reelings which have been excited by the controversy, have, there isreason to believe,caused medical gentlemen to shape and color their statements and reports, according to their favorite theories of contagion or non-contagion : though I trust that this has always been done without the consciousness on their part, of any intentional misrepresentation. 

In the technical language of controversy, there is a difference between a contagious and an infectious disease. A contagious disease is taken by coming in contact with, or into the presence of, the person diseased ; or at least within the sphere of the action of the morbific effluvium from the body of the sick : but an infectious disease has a cause which exists independently of the bodies of the sick, and may be taken with equal certainty, without coming in contact with, or even into the presence of, any person diseased. 

The main practical difference, and which, if true, is of very great importance, is, that however infectious the disease may be, yet, if it be not contagious, there is no more danger in visiting and nursing the diseased, than there is in avoiding them ; and quarantine regulations are entirely useless. 

A majority of the physicians who have turned their attention to the subject, in Asia and Europe, and in our own country, are, I believe, decidedly of the opinion that the Spasmodic Cholera is not contagious ; and in their sense of the language, their opinion seems to be confirmed by many strong facts : — while on the other hand there are many important facts, which seem to prove that, if the disease is not absolutely and literally contagious, its infectious character is such as greatly to increase the danger by personal intercourse. 

On the subject of contagion, however, I apprehend there is a universal error. We are told that there are certain diseases which are absolutely contagious ; such as small-pox, hooping-cough, measles, &c. ; but lam not prepared to admit the correctness of this opinion. Ido not believe that any disease to which the human body has ever been subject, is absolutely contagious. I believe that there was a time, when the smallpox, for instance, was entirely unknown among mankind ; and that it was originated in the human body by the violation of those laws of life which appertain to the highest state of human weifarc ; and being once originated 



37 

it was contagious to all those who were in the same general predicament of vital condition and susceptibility, — which had then become the case with almost the entire species : and lam confident that this is all true of every disease which we call absolutely contagious ; and consequently, that the human constitution is still capable of being elevated above the susceptibility to any contagious disease : and that thus, all contagious diseases may be extirpated from the human family. — Why is the smallpox robbed of more than half of its virulence by passing through the vital economy of a cow, or any other strictly herbivorous animal ? Is it believed that it would be equally subdued by passing through the vital economy of a strictly carnivorous animal ? Ido not know but that the experiment has been made ; but if it has not, it certainly is worthy of a trial. 

Some diseases, however, become contagious at a much higher state of the constitution than others ; but this docs not prove that a disease which is contagious only at a very low state of the constitution, is not as truly contagious throughout its own level, and all below, as is the disease which becomes contagious at a much higher state of the constitution. The only difference is, that mankind are more likely to be universally, and at all times, in the predicament of the latter than of the former : and hence some contagious diseases may prevail at all seasons of the year alike ; others may prevail more at particular seasons of the year, and others may prevail only at intervals of many years, and at irregular periods, when the protracted operations of numerous causes have brought a larger or smaller portion of the race generally, into their peculiar predicament. Still, however, as every contagious disease may spread over its own level, and all below it, so the disease which may become contagious at a much higher state of the constitution, will, at all times, be more universally contagious throughout the whole human family, than the disease which becomes contagious at a much lower state of the constitution ; because the former embraces within the range of its capabilities, a much larger portion of mankind, than the latter. Nevertheless, I say, the latter is as truly contagious within the range of its capabilities, as the former. 

From the view which I have taken of the nature and of the epidemic cause of the disease under consideration, it appears that it does not necessarily depend on contagion, nor infection, to propagate it from place to place. Powerful panic, or mental action, with the co-operation of other causes, which I have named, may actually originate the disease; and tho disease, thus originated, may, in certain circumstances, which always exist, to a greater or less extent, in large cities and towns, generate an infection of v most malignant character, and extensive influence ; and this infection will lay hold of those who are somewhat above the level of its origin : and may be conveyed to places, and communicated to persons, who otherwise would have escaped. But the extension and prevalence of the disease, in any place, when communicated in this manner, by infection, depend entirely on the character of the place, as to airiness and cleanliness, and on the condition and habits of the inhabitants. On the whole, therefore, whatever view be taken of the question, the propagation of the disease depends less on the absolute power of any pestilential dr exciting cause, than on the predisposition of the human system ; and 

6 



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consequently, whether it be regarded as contagious or infectious, or even both, yet it is by no means absolutely so. But the fact whether it will be taken by an individual, depends on the coudition of his body ; and that condition depends very much, if not entirely, on his own voluntary conduct 

Panic and agitation, it is true, are involuntary, and, in very nervous people, will considerably disturb the functions of the system, in spite of their best resolutions and efforts to the contrary. Nevertheless, a proper regimen and correct conduct, and an entire abstinence from those pernicious preventives and remedies, which invariably predispose the body to disease, and very frequently become the causes of the diseases which they were taken to prevent, will very certainly preserve the body from any serious disorder. 

Means of Prevention. 

The topic which comes next under our consideration, is of a less uncertain character. Regarding the cause of the epidemic cholera as altogether mysterious, and the naturo of the disease as wholly inexplicable, the means of preventing it have been involved in equal uncertainty. Indeed, if I had not the utmost confidence in the honesty and even magnanimity of the Medical Faculty as a body, I should sometimes be compelled to suspect them of the most heartless and flagitious design and imposture, in order to produce a state of things greatly conducive to their pecuniary interest, if not their popularity. 

The bewildering and terrifying theories which have been promulgated by many in the medical profession, have been highly calculated to produce a state of the most painful uncertainty and distraction of the public mind, in regard to the course proper to be pursued for the prevention of this dreadful disease. The consequence must necessarily be, that in the general incertitude and trepidation, some will pursue one course, and some another : some will go to one extreme, and some to another ; while very few, in the Babel-confusion, will be fortunate enough to fall upon the truth. But the view which I have taken of this disease, distinctly indicates the mode of prevention : — a mode not only consistent in theory, but established by universal fact throughout the whole career of the disease. 

The rules to be observed, are plain, simple, and such as enlightened common sense, undisturbed by bewildering influences, would always dictate. In short, they are just such as would be proper to be observed at any other time, in order to preserve the body in the healthiest and best condition : with this exception, however, that our judicious caution to avoid disease, should always be equal to our liability to it. For instance : when we are in pleasant circumstances, and enjoying a cheerful state of mind, all the vital functions of the body arc performed with increased vigor and elasticity ; but when we are suffering grief, or painful anxiety, the functions are all depressed, and more easily disordered and deranged : — hence, substances, which the stomach may receive with impunity, if not benefit, in the former state, may cause indigestion and disease in the latter : — and therefore, we ought always, when oppressed with grief, or any other painful affection of the mind, to be more careful to keep up the good condition of our digestive organs and skin, by stricter propriety of diet, and by washing, friction and exercise, than when we are in a healthy and cheerful state of mind. And this is entirely true in 



39 

regard to all other causes, circumstances and influences, which depress the vital functions of the body : — and peculiarly so in relation to the Epidemic Cholera. 

Cleanliness of person, at all times highly conducive to health and comfort, is of the utmost importance, as a preventive of Cholera. During the prevalence of this disease, every thing tends to depress the functions of the depurating organs, and to render the purification of the blood less complete, and consequently, to predispose the system to disease. And when it is considered that the skin, in a healthy state, throws off, in the form of insensible perspiration, more than half of the impurities and effete matter of the blood, the importance of keeping it clean and invigorating it by friction, cannot bo doubted : and more especially when it is considered that the digestive organs partake of the* general condition, and sympathize with the affections of the skin. 

If, as I have endeavored to show, and as I fully believe, the Epidemic Cholera may be originated in any place where circumstances are favorable for it ; and if the action of the disease thus originated, may in consequence of filth, and confined and impure air, generate an infection which may become powerfully and extensively malignant and fatul, — then surely a clean and airy habitation, and street, and city, are also of exceedingly great importance, as preventives of this horrid disease. But this is a point of such obvious moment, that I need only to suggest it to reflecting minds. 

Exercise, of a proper character, and as often as maybe prudently, in the open air, is another preventive, which must not be neglected. By it, the circulation, and especially in the capillary vessels, is increased and invigorated ; a greater determination to the surface is caused ; respiration and insensible perspiration becomo more full and free ; the blood s more thoroughly purified and a larger portion of the oxygen of the atmosphere is digested and incorporated with the blood, increasing its vital energy and stimulating power ; the organs are strengthened, and all heir functions are more vigorously performed, and the tone of health, hroughout tho whole system, is improved : and thus the vital power of the body to maintain health and resist the action of noxious and pestilential agents, is greatly increased. 

A free intercourse with pure air, is of indispensable importance to health and comfort at all times, and more especially, during the prevalence of epidemic disease. Not only should every individual have access to pure air, if possible ; but every house, and particularly the sleeping rooms, should be well ventilated daily ; and the beds and bed-clothes should be thoroughly aired before the beds are made in the morning, that the impurities which they have imbibed from the body during the nighl, may pass off. 

It is also of the utmost importance that the natural appetites should be strictly regulated, and always kept in subordination to enlightened reason and moral propriety. These appetites are wisely and benevolently implanted in our natures, for the preservation of our lives, and for the continuation of our species : and when their exercise and indulgence are kept strictly within the range of their constitutional design, they contribute to our health, and are the rudimental sources of a very large amount of human enjoyment. 



But when, disregarding the constitutional laws on which they wero established, and the great ends for which they were instituted, we yield to an excess of their indulgence, and make sensual gratifications a principal object of our pursuits, and source of our enjoyment, they inevitably become the agents of disease and suffering to us : and always in proportion to the importance of the end for which they were implanted, and the extent to which their indulgence has transgressed the constitutional laws of propriety. Accordingly, we find thai, in the whole career of the Epidemic Cholera, dietetic intemperance and lewdness have been the grand purveyors to its devastating rage. In every couutry, the drunken and the lewd have fallen almost by hundreds and by thousands before this terrible destroyer ! — We are informed, that out of fourteen hundred lewd women in one street in Paris, thirteen hundred died of cholera ! In a single house, sixty of these wretched creatures perished by this disease. 

There is one point, however, connected with this general fact, which deserves more particular attention, as it has, 1 conceive, led to an erroneous, and to some extent, dangerous inference and conclusion. It is well known to those who have attended to the subject, that excessive indulgence in lewdness exceedingly debilitates the organs and general powers of the body, but the principle upon which this debility is induced is not generally so well understood. Simple debility has therefore been regarded as a predisposing cause of cholera, in those unhappy creatures : and hence, the general doctrine has been set up, that debility, by whatever cause, or in whatever manner induced, always predisposes to the Cholera ; and hence, again, the still more pernicious doctrine, that " a generors system of diet," (including a free use of animal food, and of wine, and even of brandy,) is the best preventive of the cholera. Thus one error springs from another, until there is a result of the most disastrous consequences to society, and then we begin to open our eyes to investigate the cause : but unhappily, we are too generally satisfied with ridding ourselves of tho immediate inconvenience, without ever pushing our inquiries to the generating principle ; and consequently, we continue on with no other real relief from the evil, than that which is found in a change of its mode or type. 

In regard to the case of lewd women, two important facts are to be noticed. In the first place, ninety-nine hundredths of those unfortunate creatures, are excessive in their use of intoxicating substances; and such is the inactivity and indolence and irregularity of their habits, that these substances are exceedingly efficacious in destroying their constitutions. In the second place, the debility induced by excessive lewdness, is alwaysjfar more the result of excessive excitement and irritation than of any other cause ; and the alimentary canal is almost invariably the very first to suffer from these irritations ; and to be brought into a state of debility, morbid irritability, and even inflammation ; and not unfrequently, the very worst forms of gastritis and enteritis are induced by excesses of this kind. This species of debility, though differently induced, constitutes the obnoxious predicament of that class of sufferers, concerning whom so much is said about their " meagre diet." It ought to bo known that muscular debility of the voluntary organs, and functional debility in the organs concerned in the general office of nutrition, are by no means identical. It is often the case, that the very means by which we diminish the muscur 

40 



41 

hr power of the voluntary organs, increases the vital powers in the ncrf c* of organic life, on which tho body depends for its ability to resist the action of noxious agents. It is therefore true that the vital power of the body to resist the action of noxious agents, may be much greater in a. delicate female of little muscular power, than it is in a man of much greater muscular power. It may therefore be laid down as a safe doctrine, that that debility which results from excitement and irritation, whether caused by lewdncss, artificial stimuli, or any other means, exposes the system to the attacks of cholera and other diseases : while on the other hand, simple debility, not resulting from any of those causes which also induce a morbid excitability and irritability,— but constitutional, or caused by judicious bleeding, (if any thing might render it necessary) or by a regular course of abstemiousness, is almost infinitely more safe than that condition of the body which is produced by what is called v a generous system of diet." But it is not only the openly intemperate and the illicit, that injure themselves by their improper indulgences. No forms of civil law, or institutions of society, can save us from the evils which result from transgressing the constitutional laws of our nature. All excesses, therefore, beyond the real wants of our system, and purposes of our organization, — and equally when committed within or without the pale of civil institution — are dangerous to our bodily health and existence. Even things which in themselves are good and lawful when properly used, are, in their excesses, dangerous. The healthiest food which man can eat, may, by excess, become the cause of disease and death. 

Every appetite and every passion should therefore be held in strict subjection to enlightened reason, and moral propriety, if we would not increase our liability to be attacked by this terrible disease* A single paroxysm of anger, has been known to cause the most violent and even fatal bilious colic, and to bring on suddenly a severe attack of spasmodic cholera : and however modified in its degree, this passion never fails to disturb the digestive organs, and always tends U produce a morbid irritability of the nerves of organic life, and derangement of the stomach and liver ; and when frequent and violent, it often brings on inflammation of these organs. 

Of the effects of fear in predisposing the body to attacks of cholera, I have already spoken at large. This is the more dangerous, from its being, more than any other, an involuntary passion. Still, however, though we may not be able to suppress it entirely, we can do much to modify its action, and to counteract its effects. We cannot, therefore, be too deeply impressed with the importance of being on our guard in this respect ; for there is not a single premonitory symptom, if indeed there is a single symptom or effect, in the whole range of this disease, from its commencement to its termination in death, which may not be produced by fear ; and especially if, as is almost universally the case at such times, fear leads to the free use of the violent preventives and remedies ordinarily prescribed. 

During the prevalence of the epidemic spotted fever in New England, as I have before remarked, hundreds perished in this way : and instances were known in which, not only delicate and excitable females, but the most robust men, and even physicians, fell prostrate and almost lifeless, with all the apparent symptoms of a violent attack of that disease 5 but 



42 

which, according to their own subsequent confession, was entirely the effect of fear ; and had brandy and laudanum, in the enormous quantities then usually administered in such cases, been poured down their throats, they would inevitably have perished, as hundreds of others did, not with the spotted fever, but from overwhelming fear, and destructive quantities of brandy and laudanum. In this manner, beyond a question, thousands, if not millions of human beings have perished, during the prevalence of the present epidemic. 

Indeed, were I disposed to try the horrid experiment, I am confident that with the entire command of the press, and acquiesence of the physicians, druggists, &c. &c, I could produce five thousand cases of cholera, in the city of New York, in one week, — one half, at least, of which, would prove fatal ; and as little do I doubt, that if the cholera appears and prevails in this city, these agencies will, in no small degree, contribute to the calamitous result, even with the best intentions. 

It has been well said, that evils irremediable are best unknown ; and were the doctrine of fear, inevitable in its consequences, the public announcement of it would be Worse than cruel ; for it would be only aggravating, in the highest degree, the very evil which is deprecated. And from the manner in which some physicians have treated the subject, in regard to the epidemic cause, and the effects of fear, the most painful consequences have resulted. It is indeed, like taking children into a dark room, where nothing can be seen, and where the excited imagination is left to shadow forth the most horrid images, and solemnly telling them, that a hideous monster is in the room which has destroyed thousands of children, and will very probably attack them ; and few attacked by him ever escaped ; — how this monster moves — in what direction and manner he will come, and at what moment he will attack them, no one can tell ; nor can any one tell how they can avoid him : — but they must not be afraid of him in the least ; for if they are afraid of him, he will surely destroy there : nor must they hope to run away from him, for by such an attempt tiny might run directly into his open throat ! or when they least expected it, he might suddenly pounce down upon them from above. They must therefore stand still in thick darkness, and listen to all the terrible accounts of his havoc, and with perfect calmness await his mysterious approach. 

The view which I have taken of the general subject before us, presents this matter in a very different light, and renders it exceedingly important that it should be universally understood. For, while we are taught that fear increases our danger, we are also taught how it increases it, and therefore, how we can, to a great extent, if not entirely, counteract its effects. We see that fear seldom causes death directly, by its own overwhelming and exclusive power, excepting in those whose vital energies have previously been reduced very low by ruinous excesses or disease. We learn how it disturbs and depresses the functions of life, and arc taught how to counteract these effects by diet, exercise, cleanliness, employment, &c. And we learn, also, that fear may excite in our morbid sensibilities, and sympathies, most, if not all of what are called the premonitory symptoms, and therefore, we are warned against flying to the use of medicine for every pain or spasm we may feel, and taught that we must not prescribe for ourselves, except the simple regimen which I havo pointed 



43 

out, unless there is the most decided evidence of disease ; nor even then, if we can obtain the timely advice of a judicious and skilful physician, or some other intelligent person, whose judgment is undisturbed by our fears. 

Writers in Paris inform us, that almost every body in that city, has more or less of the premonitory symptoms of cholera, and therefore it is inferred that the epidemic cause is atmospheric : but it ought to be known that such a state of things may be produced by panic alone, without the action of any other cause ; and therefore, men ought not rashly to increase the horrors of this disease, by throwing the awfulness of mystery over the public mind. 

Finally, in regard to the mind and passions, we ought to endeavor to maintain the utmost composure and serenity ; and happy is that man who has that peace with God, which will enable him at all times, even in the hour of imminent peril, to cast himself upon the protection of his heavenly Father, with sustaining confidence. 

Diet. 

On the subject of diet, in relation to cholera, I have already said much ; but a correct system of diet is of so much importance as a preventive, that I consider it necessary to enter still farther into its details. 

One great truth in regard to this subject, should be constantly held in view. If the alimentary canal, with its functions, be not, by natural and >roper means, kept in a healthy and vigorous state, the health of the >ody cannot long be preserved. — As I have already remarked, almost all the habits and customs of civic life tend to debilitate the stomach and ntestines, and to impair their functions. The artificial modes of pre>aring food, and especially the pernicious compounds and concentrations, ire among the powerful means by which debility, indigestion, and habitual costiveness and diarrhoea are induced. 

It ought ever to bo remembered, that the human stomach and intestines are so constructed and adapted to their constitutional purposes, that there is between them and the food intended for them, fixed laws of relation, and these laws extend to the quality, quantity, and condition of the food ; and all violations of them, must inevitably result in injury to the organs, and through them, to the whole system which depends upon them for nourishment. Accordingly it has been fully demonstrated by the practical experience of all the generations of mankind, and by the most extensive and accurate experiments of science, that, when by artificial means, the simple, nutritious properties are separated from any article of food, and habitually used ibr any considerable time in the concentrated form, the stomach and intestines are debilitated, and their functions are impaired, and finally destroyed, unless the full effect is in some degree prevented by the use of some counteracting article of food at the same time. The potato, for instance, contains a certain proportion of nutritious matter: If the potato be well-grown, and properly prepared, it is a very healthy article of diet, and constitutes the principal subsistence of thousands of healthy and robust human beings : but if the nutritious matter should be artificially separated out, and given, however abundantly, to these same people, instead of the wholo substance of the potato, their digestive organs would soon become debilitated, and lose their 



44 

functional power; and their bodies would become weak and emaciated^ and die. 

The same is true of wheat, and all other kinds of proper food. Put any number of the healthiest and most athletic men .on a diet of the very best superfine flour bread, and water, and they could not very long survive. Debility of the alimentary canal, indigestion, costiveness, or alternate costiveness and diarrhoea, would ensue ; resulting in emaciation, general debility, and death. But if an equal number of men, of like character and circumstances, be at the same time put upon a diet of water and good bread, made of good, unbolted wheat meal, coarsely ground, their digestive organs will continue in the most healthy and vigorous condition, and the functions of the stomach and intestines will be regularly and healthfully performed, unless some other distinct and independent cause induces disorder. For a short time at first, these men may feel a sense of debility and lassitude from the absence of a more stimulating diet, to which they have been accustomed ; but this will soon pass away, and then they will begin to feel strong, and sprightly, and cheerful. 

This has ' been repeatedly demonstrated on the most extensive scale of experiment. The British army of more than eighty thousand men, according to the united testimony of all its officers and physicians, was relieved from almost every species of disease, and brought into a state of unusual health, by using bread made of coarse, unbolted wheat meal, for two years, near the close of the last century. 

A very intelligent sea captain of thirty years' experience in marine life, assured me he had always found that his men were much healthier and more active and vigorous, when they were fed on sea bread made of coarse meal, than when they used that which was made of fine flour. — Old whalemen declare that they always feel better and more vigorous and cheerful when they eat coarse bread than when they eat fine. 

I might go on and adduce facts by the hour to corroborate this doctrine : but it is not necessary ; it is so evidently and incontestibly true, that none but the culpably ignorant, and wickedly perverse, will contradict it. 

Bread is decidedly the most important article of diet used by civilized man; and so intimately is it connected with the corporeal and moral and intellectual interest of the human species, that it is scarcely possible to give too much attention to its kind and quality. The pernicious effects of superfine flour bread, in society, are considerably modified, and in some degreo counteracted by other articles of food used with it ; but still the evils resulting from the use of such bread, and especially when eaten fresh and warm, are vastly greater and more numerous than is generally supposed. 

If you would have bread which will in the highest degree contribute to your health and comfort, and prevent disease, you must take particular pains to procure the best of wheat, and have it thoroughly cleansed, and ground coarse, Without bolting ; and then have your meal, with sweet, lively yeast, made into light, sweet, well baked bread, which should be kept till it is at least twelve hours old, before it it is eaten ; and a greatei age would be better. 

If you will trust the public bakers to do all this for you, you may and you may not be well served. Ido not suppose they are worse than 



45 

other men, but they make bread and sell it for the profits of the business, and not for the sake of promoting your health ; and if they can increase their profits by usin£ an inferior kind of menl, they will be very unlike most other men, if they do not do so. Your only security, therefore, is in making your own broad ; for however honest and faithful the public bakers may be, their best bread is far inferior to the best domestic bread, and decidedly less wholesome. But whether you use the baker's bread or that which is made in your own house, you cannot be too careful to have it sweet, light, and well baked ; and of sufficient age before it is eaten. Heavy, sour, or musty bread, should by no means be eaten. 

There is no article of diet known in civic life, the use of which more invigorates the alimentary canal, and restores and keeps up the regular and healthful functions of the stomach and intestines, than tho bread which I now recommend. Unless counteracted by the concomitant use of the most pernicious articles, or by indulgonce in the worst of habits, it will relieve in a natural, and therefore, the only proper manner, the most inveterate costiveness, and habitual diarrhoea. In short, nothing is in itself more easy to digest, nor more healthfully and powerfully assists the stomach to digest other articles of food : while at the same time, it is one of the most nutritious and salutary articles received into the human stomach. 

I have frequently heard individuals complain of this bread, but I have, in every instance, been able, on examination, to trace the evils complained of, to other causes entirely distinct from the bread. We are told, however, that it is too relaxing to be safely used during the prevalence of the cholera. But the objection is founded in utter ignorance of the true principles concerned in the case. It will never relax the bowels, unless they are in a state in which such a relaxation is more healthful for them than otherwise, and then it never does it upon a principle which irritates or debilitates them, but the contrary ; and the laxness which it produces, is, during the prevalence of the cholera, almost infinitely more safe than the constipation which would obtain without it. In such a time, costiveness must be guarded against with as much care as diarrhoea ; but it cannot be habitually relieved by cathartic medicine without irritating and debilitating the alimentary canal, and thus increasing the liability to the disease. A single dose of salts, or any other improper or untimely cathartic medicine, may induce an attack. 

From the nature of thing 3, therefore, as well as from the most extensive experience and observation, I am fully convinced that no article of diet can be more safe and salutary, under all circumstances in which it >is proper to use solid aliment of any kind, and that none is more condu- I cive to the vigor, health, und good order of the alimentary canal ; and therefore, that none is better calculated to prevent the cholera, than the ¦ bread which I now recommend, when of such a character and used in such a manner as I have described. 

Objections which evince the most egregious ignorance, or stupid imbecility, or base dishonesty, have been raised against this bread by some who have happened to be permitted to be a discredit to the medical profession ; but happily their influence has been too limited to effect any considerable injury. 

Plain, boiled rice, coarse Indian-meal hominy, &c. eaten cold with a 

7 



46 

very little good molasses or sugar, or with a small quantity of good milk, are also excellent articles of diet. There are several other farinaceous substances, which, in proper conditions and quantities, and at proper times, are safe and salutary articles of food : remembering always to avoid the concentrated forms, and unwholesome conditions of all articles. If butter is used at all, it should be only the very best, and then very sparingly, on cold bread, &c. ; but no other grease should by any means be eaten in any form. Pastry of every kind should be carefully avoided. A few of the milder fruits of the season, such as strawberries and peaches, when perfectly ripe, fresh, and sweet, may be eaten as a portion of the breakfast and dinner, by those who in all other respects conform to the rules which I lay down : but they must not be eaten in the evening, nor if they have been prematurely gathered, or have become in any degree acid by fermentation. All crude and unripe fruits and vegetables, of every kind, such as pine-apples, cucumbers, radishes, &c. — in short, every green vegetable, and almost every kind of fruit, fresh and preserved, should be avoided during the prevalence of the cholera, particularly by citizens who depend on the markets and the confectionaries for their supplies, and whose digestive organs are accustomed to flesh, and stimulating condiments and drinks. No salt nor shell-fish, of any kind, should be eaten : and in this city even frcslt scale-fish had better be avoided. Lobsters, in particular, are among the very worst and most dangerous articles of food ; and clams are but little better. 

They who have sanctified themselves from the use of animal food of every kind, had by all means, better continue to do without it. But they who have always accustomed themselves to a free use of flesh, and shall continue to do so up to the time of the commencement of the cholera in this city — (if such a fearful time shall come !) — if they cannot leave it ofi entirely at once, without feeling the want of it exceedingly, may eat a little broiled or roasted beef or mutton once a day, without any made gravy, and without any seasoning but a little salt ; and no second course or dessert of puddings, pies, fruits, &c. should be taken after it. Soup 6 of every kind, and especially flesh soups, should be strictly avoided. — Flesh soup, at all times bad, is peculiarly pernicious at such a time. It is only the concentrated form of some of the nutritious properties of the flesh, held in solution by the water ; and when it is introduced into the stomach, the water is taken up by the absorbents, and the concentrated properties of the flesh, together with the viscious seasonings, are left to tantalize, and irritate, and debilitate the alimentary canal, and thus always predispose to the epidemic cholera. 

All stimulating, heating, and irritating condiments of the table, such as the various spices, pepper, mustard, &c. &c. &c, should be carefully avoided. Tea and coffee are decidedly pernicious to health, and predispose the body to disease : they debilitate the alimentary canal, and the nerves of organic life generally, and impair digestion and peristaltic action : — in short, they always diminish the healthy vital properties of the tissues on which they act, and become the auxiliary and sometimes the principal causes of some of the worst and most distressing forms of chronic and acute disease ! — If indulged in excessively, they will become powerfully predisposing causes of the epidemic disease which is at 



47 

?resent so much dreaded.* They who con cleanse themselves entirely rom their use, and recover from the effects of the change before the cholera breaks out here, will be fur better without them : and those who continue to drink them, should use th<?m very sparingly. All other narcotic and all alcoholic substances, such as tobacco, opium, distilled spirits, wine, malt liquors, and every other kind and sort, in every form and of every quality, should be entirely avoided, with the most rigid and inflexible scrupulosity. In short, every thing should be carefully avoided which is calculated to irritate, and debilitate, and inflame the alimentary canal, and through it the whole system, and thus certainly predispose the body to the cholera, and every other disease ; and sooner or later, if persevered in, will inevitably develope disease in the system. 

A plain, simple, nourishing vegetable diet is decidedly most conducive to permanent health and longevity- It is less stimulating, and therefore, does not wear out the susceptibilities and energies of the living tissues so rapidly, nor does it tend so powerfully to produce chronic and acute disease of any kind, as a free use of animal food. Hence it is in all respects a safer diet, during the prevalence of malignant and epidemic diseases, — and especially such as have their seat in the alimentary canal. 

Pure simple water is the only natural and fitting drink for man : — and lerfectly soft water is altogether the best. But in a city like New York, vhere the water is generally exceedingly bad, and where pure water annot always be obtained, more care should be exercised in regard to ie quantity used : and during hot weather, and more especially during te prevalence of epidemic disease, like the dysentery, cholera, &c. the traost caution should be used on this point. At such times, the hard and impure water should be boiled and poured upon some toasted bread ; or a small quantity of good wheat bran, or Indian meal, or oatmeal, or barley, may be boiled with the water twenty or thirty minutes, and then the water should be strained off and suffered to cool to the temperature of the atmosphere in the shade, before it is used ; and then it will be a safe and salutary beverage. But care should be taken that it is not used after it becomes sour. 

But you reply, that here you are bewildered by contradictory counsels : — that it has been asserted, that " it is notorious that the cholera originated, and raged with a mortality, far exceeding any example in its subsequent progress through other climes and nations, in the centre of India among the Hindoos, who live in a great measure upon rice, eat no flesh, and are the most temperate people in the world* That the moderate enjoyment of all the comforts of life, such as the constitution lias become accustomed to, so far from predisposing people to the disease, 

'\ * "I am generally told, that although the first victims of the cholera are the dissipated, it is not, so much as last year, confined to this class; that the strictly temperate fall before it. I have remarked, however, that those considered such are »cry great consumers of coffeo: and whether this, with the constant useoftobac•o, may not equally dispose the system to its attacks, I am not prepared to say ; but certain I am, that great caution is demanded in food and drink, and in every thing that affects the condition of the system."— [Letter from Cincinnati, dated June JS, 1833.] 

Another writer at the same place, and about the same time, says, — "The only employment going on here at present, seems to be coffin-making, grave-digging, Sod opium-eating." , 



48 

is one of the best preservatives : that the ordinary use of animal food » far better than confining ourselves entirely to vegetables, with a view of escaping the disease, or rendering it less malignant." — JVeto York Courier § Enquirer. 

" That the greatest mortality occurred umong those whose mode of living was particularly meagre and abstemious ; that cholera made its first appearance at Smyrna among the Jews, during one of their fasts, and committed great ravages : and that the occasional use of stimuli, in the shape of generous wine, brandy, or gin and water, was found highly serviceable during the prevalence of the cholera at Constantinople." — Dr. De' Kay's letter to the Evening Post. 

It is a matter of painful regret, that those, whose total ignorance of the subject utterly disqualifies them to give an opinion where such momentous interests are concerned, should have either the officiousness or tho means to publish, with an imposing air of authority, their gratuitous and erroneous assertions. And it is still more to be regretted, that those whose professional calling and character ought to entitle their statements and opinions to respect, should be so incautious and inaccurate in their publications : and most especially, on occasions like the present, when such publications may jeopard, if not destroy, the lives of thousands of human beings. 

By carefully examining these assertions which have been made concerning the diet of the Hindoos, and others in Asia and Europe amongst whom the cholera has committed its ravages, we shall find that many of the statements are false — that many of the conclusions are erroneous, — and that the whole has a very limited bearing on the condition of things in the United States. 

That tho Hindoos snbsist on vegetable food, and eat little, or no flesh, — and that the cholera commenced, and committed great ravages among them, is freely acknowledged. But are they " the most temperate people in the world V The best and most unquestionable authorities on the subject, give us very different accounts from this. The testimony of medical and military gentlemen, and others, who have travelled extensively in India, and resided for years among the people, and become well acquainted with their character, habits and condition, inform us, that the people of India generally, are exceedingly indolent, sensual, and licentious. " They eat rice and millet, mixed with sweet-meats, curdled milk, beans, and young leaves." But this food, they almost universally, from the oldest to the youngest, and in all conditions of life, season very highly with their favorite curry powder ; a composition made of cayenne pepper, black pepper, ginger, mustard, and several other ingredients of a very heating and irritating character, calculated to produce the worst disorders of the alimentary canal, and consequently, to reduce the vital energies^pf the nerves of orgaUic life, and impair all the functions of the system. Beside these stimulants with their food, almost every man, woman and child, habitually, and often to very great excess, chew a cud composed of opium checnam, or lime and beetle-nut, wrapped up in a sera-leaf of very acrid and pungent qualities. Tobacco, one of the worst of narcotics, whose effects are exceedingly pernicious on the powers and functions of organic life, is in almost universal, and generally, excessive use among them ; and a great portion of the natives make a free use of 



49 

arrack ; a very intoxicating, fiery and destructive alcoholic liquor. x And yet we are told by officious ignorance, that " these are the most temperate people in the world." Lieut. Colonel James Todd, — than whom, no better authority can be given, in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, or the central and western Rajpoot States of India, says, that ** to Baber, the founder of the Mogul Empire, India is indebted for the introduction of its melons and grapes ; and to his grandson, for tobacco : but forthe introduction of opium, we have no date, and it is not even mentioned in the poems of Chund. This pernicious drug has robbed the Rajpoot of half his virtues, and while it obscures these, it heightens his vices, giving to his natural bravery, a character of insane ferocity, and to the countenance, which otherwise beamed with intelligence, an air of imbecility. Like all other stimulants, its effects are magical for a time, but the re-action is not less certain : and the faded form or amorphous bulk too often attest the debilitating influence of a drug which alike debases mind and body. In the more ancient Epics we find no mention of the poppy juice, as now used, though the Rajpoot has at all times been accustomed to this intoxicating cup. The essence called arrack, whether of grain, of roots, or of flowers, still welcomes the guest, but is secondary to the opiate. To eat opium together, is the most inviolable pledge ; and an agreement ratified by this ceremony is stronger than any adjuration. If a Rajpoot pays a visit, the first question is, — have you had your opiate 1" 

The Calcutta (India) Gazette, describing the recent celebration of one of the Hindoo religious festivals, says, — the conception of the horrors with which these ceremonies strike every refined heart, is strong in our mind. We see the effeminate lust that inspires the Baboo to bring the first beauties into his house ; we see spirits and liquors of all sorts freely indulged in, and terrible tumults excited by their beat ; we see excesses of every kind, committed without hesitation, and boys of very tender age, freely allowed to ramble over nights and nights, and spend hours and hours in immoral pursuits : — we witness youth of fourteen or fifteen years old, indulging to excess in the stupifying and mischievous fumes of tobacco and other drugs ; we see goats, rams»and buffaloes, savagely butchered, and men rolling on the ground, besmeared with blood and dirt ; and at the time when the idols are thrown into the water, young men go upon the river with their lewd companions, and revel in all sorts of licentiousness. In short, if there be any action which is, to the utmost degree, degrading to the dignity of man, and demoralizing to his mind, it is perpetrated at these holidays. 

Mr. Jameson's Bengal Report of the Cholera, states that " two millions of persons had assembled to celebrate one of these religious festivals on the shores of the Ganges ; and the cholera broke out suddenly amongst them, while at their devotions, and in eight days, destroyed twenty thousand persons. But the pestilence was staid as soon as the multitude was dispersed." 

Besides all these life-destroying causes, " the poor people of India, which constitute a large proportion of the population, sleep in herds upon the ground — on damp mats, and under old sheds, exposed to every wind." With such insatiable desires for stimulation, and such habitual excesses of sensuality, indolence, exposure and filthiness, is it surprising, 



50 

that the people of India pay little attention to the quality of their food ; (hat they discover great lassitude and imbecility ; that they become prematurely old — or that they generate the most malignant and fatal diseases ? And yet, it is a most interesting and incontrovertible fact, that those natives of this same country, who subsist entirely on a vegetable diet of rice and other nutricious and healthy articles, with water only for their drink, and avoid all artificial stimulants, and all sensual excesses, are remarkable for their bodily strength and agility, and for their intellectual vigor and vivacity ; and for the placidncss of their tempers, and purity of their morals. They live exempt from disease, and attain to very great age. 

The assertion that the " greatest mortality occurred in Europo and Asia among those whose mode of living was particularly meagre and abstemious : and that cholera made its first appeal anco among the Jews at Smyrna, during one ef their fasts, and committed great ravages," will, however true in fact, prove on examination, to be wholly destitute of truth, in their bearing on things in this country. 

In the first place, there is no evidence whatever, that a meagre and abstemious diet, separate from filthiness and sensuality, and the use of artificial stimuli, which is habitual, and almost universally excessive among the class of people alluded to, is in any peculiar degree favorable to the ravages of cholera. It is very certain that a good diet is more salutary at all times and in all circumstances, than a poor one. Nevertheless, the evils to be apprehended from an abstemious, and even a meagre diet, with total abstinence from artificial stimuli, and with good habits in other respects, are almost infinitely less than would be s upposed from the vague speculations of superficial observers. A system which has not been debilitated in its functional powers, nor had its healthful susceptibilities impaired, by the continued irritations of artificial stimuli, and sensual excesses, is in vastly less danger from the presence of crude and offensive articles of food, in the alimentary canal, than is a system of contrary habits and condition. It is therefore yet to be ascertained whether the paramount cause of the greater ravages of the cholera, " among those whose mode of living was particularly meagre and abstemious," was not their free, if not excessive use of artificial stimuli) and their degrading sensuality. 

The interesting and important communication of Doctor J. P. Kay, concerning the operatives of Manchester, exhibits in a striking manner, how all-pervading, and all-prevailing this diseased love of stimulation is, among the lowest classes of human beings, as well as among the higher orders of their fellow creatures. And it is admitted that this excessive stimulation takes hold of these unfortunate creatures with more destructive power, than it does those whose habits and circumstances are, in other respects, much more favorable to health. 

In the second place, admitting all these assertions and conclusions to be correct, I ask what bearing the reasoning has on things in this country 1 Is there any portion of our whole population in a parallel condition ; except, indeed, that miserable class of beings in our large cities and towns whose worse than brutal sensuality and vice have sunk them to the lowest degree of human degradation ; and whose food is meagre and abstemious only (if so in fact) because their excessive use of artificial 



51 

and intoxicating stimuli has destroyed both their ability and their desire to procure any thing better ? If the statements which I am combating, had been published expressly to bear upon tho condition of this wretched portion of our population, and to call the attention of the public to the importance of endeavoring to remove this state of things, the publication would have merited the approbation of every philanthropist. But when it is considered (as beyond a question it is true) that they were published for the special purpose of destroying the confidence of the public in that system of diet which I have recommended, and of encouraging what i 3 called " generous living," which practically means, excess of food and stimulation, — the publication cannot'be too heartily deprecated, nor too severely reprehended by every one who has a regard for the cause of humanity and the welfare of society. 

In regard to the Jews of Smyrna, the truth should be fully ascertained on several points, before any inference from their case is erected into a doctrine. It should be known whether they did not habitually and freely use tea, coffee, wine, spirits, tobacco, opium, &c. &c. besides the ordinary stimulating condiments of the table ; and whether they did not, as is known to be the case with others in those parts, on such occasions, continue the use, and even in increased quantities, of some or all of these stimulants during their fast : and whether they did not, at the same time, crowd together in large assemblies ; and expose themselves to impure air ; and neglect personal cleanliness, and propriety of habits 1 

But supposing the contrary of all this ; and admitting the fact in its full force as stated, what conclusion can be legitimately drawn from it, except the single one, that abstinence from food, for too great a length of time, renders the human body more liable to the attack, and less able to endure tho violence, of the cholera. Now I ask in the name of common sense, what analogy of condition there is, between the degraded, filthy, grossly sensual, and miserably fed population of Asia and Europe, and the inhabitants of this city and this country, who are surrounded by abuni danee — who use animal food to excess — and more than nine tenths of ¦whom suffer from over-eating? Or what in the nature of things is I there, to justify the promulgation of the doctrine, that the people of the United States — the inhabitants of the city of New York — will find greater security from the attacks and ravages of the cholera by increasing the proportion of animal food in their system of diet, and by " the occasional use of stimuli in the shape of generous wine, brandy, or gin and water," than they can by a well-chosen vegetable diet, and a total abstinence from all narcotic, alcoholic, and other artificial stimulants, and every other pernicious thing which is calculated to irritate and inflame I the alimentary canal ? 

But it is said that the medical gentleman who advances this doctrine, ifcas had experience, which is better than theory, in these matters. And pray, what has been his experience ? — Why, forsooth, he was at Constantinople during tho prevalence of the cholera in that city, where he followed his own system of diet, and took the disease, — and did not die ! *rgo ; " wine, brandy, and gin, were highly serviceable" to him ! 

t But it happens that othor medical gentlemen have had some expenice in this matter also. Doctor Gcorgo Bethnor of our city was 



52 

several months in Batavia, in the Island of Java, when the cholera was committing its terrible ravages in that place. He was continually exposed to all the atmospheric, or whatever external, pestilential causes existed, — was out at all hours of day and night — drenched with rain and dews, and endured much fatigue and anxiety, yet he took neither brandy nor wine, nor animal food, to secure him from an attack of that fearful disease which he could not help but dread. He subsisted entirely on a plain, simple, vegetable diet of rice, bananas, and other fruits of the climate, which were soft and pulpy, and carefully abstained from all artificial stimulants, and he not only had not the slightest symptom of cholera, but, as he assures me, never enjoyed better health than he did during his stay on that island. 

The truth is, that mankind generally, entertain the most egregiously erroneous notions in regard to the comparative excellence of animal and vegetable food in sustaining the human body in the various circumstances and conditions of life. Animal food, I repeat, is more stimulating, and consequently imparts, for a time, a sense of greater strength, accelerates the functional action, more rapidly exhausts and wears out the energies and susceptibilities of the system, tends more strongly to chronic and acute disease, — as a general rule, abbreviates life — and its absence, in those accustomed to the use of it, causes a greater sense of lassitude and debility. A well-regulated vegetable diet is less stimulating, better adapted to the constitution and powers of the human organs, and is in every respect more conducive to the health, permanent strength, comfort and longevity of the body. 

The celebrated Dr. Jackson, of the British army, declared that he had been exposed to all climates, and all vicissitudes of weather, and endured all hardships of fatigue and exposure ; and, that, without the use of any animal food or intoxicating drink, he had worn out two armies in two wars, and believed he had stamina of constitution and vigor of body enough left, to wear out another army before he was old. With the same system of diet, he was enabled, without the least injury to his health, to endure fatigue and exposure in the West Indies, which he had before, in common with others, believed would prove fatal to any European; and he finally came to the confident conclusion, that an army of British soldiers, by adopting a similar diet, would be capable of going through the severest military duties in the hottest islands in the West Indies, with entire safety. 

Howard, the celebrated philanthropist, "in the period of sixteen or seventeen years, travelled between fifty and sixty thousand miles, for the sole purpose of relieving the distresses of the most wretched of the human race. The fatigues, the dangers, the privations, be underwent or encountered for the good of others, were such as no one else was ever exposed to, in such a cause, and such as few could have endured. He often travelled several nights and days in succession, without stopping, over roads almost impassable, in weather the most inclement, with accommodations the meanest and most wretched. Summer and winter, heat and cold, rain and snow, in all their extremes, failed alike, to stay him for a moment in his course ; whilst plague, and pestilence, and famine, instead of being evils that he shunned, were those with which lit was most familiar ; and to many of whose horrors he voluntarily exposed 



53 

llttmsclf: visiting the foulest dungeons, filled with malignant infection,—-" spending forty days in a filthy and infected lazaretto, — plunging into military encampments where the plague was committing its most horrid ravages, and visiting where none of his conductors dared to accompany trim :" and through all this, he subsisted entirely on a most rigidly abstemious, vegetable diet ; carefully avoiding the use of wine, and all other •lcoholic drinks, and advising others who were exposed to the plague, to abstain entirely from the use of animal food. v The abstemious diet, which, at an early period of his life, he adopted from a regard to his health, he afterwards continued and increased in its rigor, from principle, and from choice, as well as from a conviction of the great advantages which he derived from it :" and, after all his experience, near the close of his life, he made the following record in his diary: "I am firmly persuaded, as to the health of our bodies, that herbs and fruits will sustain ¦ature in every respect, far beyond the best flesh." Yet after all, there is every reason to believe that this good man fell a victim to his free use I tea. Substituting its deleterious stimulation for the sustaining nourishmt of food, he rushed, with the utmost temerity, into the presence of 5 greatest danger, when his body, by fatigue, cold, wet and exhaustion, ,s wholly unprepared to resist the virulent action of malignantly noxious ents, and then neglected the early symptoms of disease in his system, J perseveringly refrained from any efficient means of restoration. To one who has any just knowledge of the nature of things in regard himself, it would hardly seem necessary to offer a single argument to ove that a well-chosen vegetable diet is, at all times, and under all cirmstances, best adapted to the nature and wants of the human body, and it in times of prevailing and malignant epidemics especially, no other it can be so well calculated to preserve the health of the body, and enable it to resist the causes of disease. 

But why, then, I am frequently asked, did Paris suffer so much more by the cholera than London ? — Permit me to remark, that although the Evidences in relation to a doctrine of truth may not always be obvious, yet it is not prudent to come to the hasty conclusion, that, therefore, the doctrine is not true. On subjects which are connected with so much incitement and dubiousness as that which is now under consideration, a thousand circumstances and apparent facts concur to mislead the reasoner, who considers himself purely inductive. — At such a distance as tine are from London and Paris, and depending as we do for information on such vague conjectures, such exaggerations of excitement, such distortions of prejudice, and such ex parte views and testimonies, it is impossible for us to investigate the subject with that satisfaction to ourselves, and with that accuracy of conclusion, which we should be capable of, were we fully and intimately acquainted with the real nature, condition, id circumstances, of things in the two cities. Nevertheless, there are me well-known facts in the case, which will greatly assist us in the lution of the interesting question. 

Whatever may be the difference between the English and French in (he kinds of their diet, it is pretty certain that the English people generally, have greatly the advantage of the French, in regard to the condition of their food. That is, the English, I believe, are far more simple and natural in the culinary preparations of their food. Their beef, and other 

8 



54 

flesh— their potatoes and other vegetables, with whatever else constitute* their tare, are cooked and served up in a more simple and natural state, as separate dishes :— while the»French delight in mixtures, and compounds, and concentrations, with abundance of condiments. To roast a piece of beef, and boil a potato, turnip, &c. whole, and sit down and masticate them well before they are swallowed into the stomach, is incomparably more healthy and invigorating to the alimentary canal, than to take nil of these articles and mix them togetheuand stew them down into a thick soup, and eat them with little, or no mastication :— ln iact it may be laid down as an axiom in the science of human life, that all proper bolid lood which is received into the mouth in a condition that requires and receives the most perfect mastication, is most conducive to the health and vigor of the alimentary CftoU, and the integrity of its functions. \ll soups, as I have before remarked, and more especially those which contain only the concentrated properties of nourishment, are calculated to debilitate and disorder the digestive organs. The comparative degree of excess, in the use of artificial stimuli, by the citizens of London and of Paris, it would be very difficult for us to ascertain. It has been a favorite doctrine with some of our wine-loving countrymen, and one which they have zealously endeavored to promulgate that in wine countries there is little, or no intemperance, in the use of intoxicating liquors. But this is altogether erroneous. The excesses in Paris according to the number of the population, are at least equal, and probably much greater, than in London. An American gentleman in Paris writing to this country on the subject ol the cholera, says, » Narrow damp streets, houses that are dripping half the time in wet weather cold floor*, excessive dirt, and drunkenness, of which you have no conception in America, are the causes why the d.sease has been sobad hero There arc perhaps one hundred thousand souls in Pans that are intoxicated more or less, once or twice a week, and m this class the mortality has been fearful."* For excessive lewdnes?, which is another most powerful, predisposing cause of cholera, Paris has long been exceedingly notorious ; and we learn that it is among the unfortunate citizens of that character, that the disease has committed its most terrible ravages. TheiFiench^miliisterial papers inform us that, " in the year 1831, no less than 10 000 children were born out of wedlock, in the city of Paris : and that 7,749 of these, were abandoned by their wicked and unnatural parents, to the horrors of destitution, or the chance of compassion by the passers by. 

? « The Police reports reveal the fact, that 25,702 drunkards were committed to flriion in Pa is in the courte of lha year. Heave., only knows how many walk C Of I s Sumho r 10,290 u-ere vomen ! Now all tins has nothing to do with ; ?1 , r : or ," invalid', who are under military law. It ? probable that en hoaronddrunkardt died herewith the cholera last year. 1 rarely go into the SwiSl scung more or Id drunkards. I have no doubt fc*£J&g ... n centorl younff men addicted to drunkenness in Pans, as in New York ;,•,!;- 1 v ire S3 Been in public Tbo Dolk* here, is far from be.na.jd with 'rZrh, April 30, 1833. 



It is also a matter of common observation, that the lower and middling classes in Paris, are by no mean.* remarkable for their personal and domestic cleanliness ; and we are told that no small portion of the lower class are exceedingly filthy. 

But there are other facts of eqiril, if not more importance in their bearing on this subject. For a considerable time before the cholera appeared in London, great, and pomewhut extensive efforts had been made, in (he Temperance cause, against the use of all intoxicating liquors : and when the terrible disease was believed to be approaching that cily, every laudable measure was taken, to spread over the whole population, a solemn impression that every drinker of strong drink, and every one given to excess, must expect to fall a sure victim t) the cholera. Handbills advertising this, were posted up in every part of the city, and newspapers reiterated the warning in every quarter : and no medical gentleman came out with his professional advice, against the warning ; no physician renowned for his experience and knowledge of the disease, publicly recommended the use of " generous wine, and brandy, and gin." The happy consequence was, that there was, as with one consent, a simultaneous pause of indulgence in all classes of society. The rich and the noble cut short their excesses of the table ; the wine and strong drink bibber listened to the solemn remonstrance, and set down his intoxicating cup untasted, or, at least, undrained, and folded his arms in the coolness of rational reflection. Finding the city in this condition and attitude of resistance, the Destroyer sprinkled his wrath on a few unguarded wretches, and turned away to gather his energies into a fiercer shower of <leath over a more devoted metropolis. 

But Paris had known no efforts in the Temperance cause ! No warning oice of humanity had advertised the heedless multitude, that there was eath in their indulgence. And, worse than all, the Prefect of the Police aused to be posted up and widely circulated, instructions to the people, mong which were, " Let your food be principally flesh and flesh soups, nstead of drinking pure water, it will be belter to mix in it two tea-spoonuls of brandy to a pint. Water lightly mixed ivilh wine is equally rood." This was truly unfortunate advice ; to say nothing of the flesh, which was decidedly and extremely bad, the flesh soup was one of the worst articles of diet that could have been prescribed. The reasons I lave already stated.* 

* Dr. D. F. Condie, who was principal physician to one ofthe Cholera Hospitals in Philadelphia, infjrmed mo in May last, that,"lt was now satisfactorily ascertained, that one ot the principal predisposing and exciting causes of cholera in the Arch street prison of Philadelphia, last srason, where, for a short time, it committed such shocking ravages, was the precautionary mrasure of the Inspectors, in raising the diet of the prisoners, by an increase of flesh, flesh soup, and porter." 

I Dr. D. M. flees, of this city, whose pr.ictice and success in the Cholera last sumjner, were at least equal to any other physician's in New York, informed me, last November, that when the Cholera broke out here, and he was called to practise •mong it, he found that the disease was making its greatest ravages among tho excessive flesh-eaters, and that he consequently went home and requested his family to abstain entirely from the use of flesh during tho continuance of the epidemic in the city : and that he and his family subsisted wholly on a milk and vegetable diet, while the cholera prevailed, without having any thing of the disease, — excepting in one instance, noarthe close of the sickness, when Mr 9. R. without bi;i knowledge partook of flesh, and in a few hours after, was taken with diarrhoe*, 

55 



56 

But what shall we say of the brandy and wine prescriptions ? I knonr that the same set of instructions told the people that " the excessive use of strong liquors was very pernicious ,•" and that '' taking unmixed brandy when fasting, was equally so ; and therefore, if persons were in the habit of taking unmixed brandy, they must at least eat a piece of bread." But there is a fatal recognition of the doctrine, that a little alcohol is better than none, as a preventive ! And who, under the bewildering hallucinations of panic, and especially, if incited by tho power of appetite, will be careful to take his tea-spoon, and measure with precision, his prescribed allowance of brandy I Will it not rather be said, "if two tea-spoon-fulls will be good, surely four will be better 7" Will not the people go on in this way, from four tea-spoon-fulls to a wine-glass; and from that to n gill ; and from that to a half pint ; according as their systems shall suffer from the reaction of their stimulation, and feel the want of the stimulus to bring up the tone ? 

This was, in fact, precisely the case in Paris. *' A generous diet of flesh, and wine, and brandy," became the popular doctrine of conservation, and for awhile, was believed to constitute an insuperable barrier, over which the "vulgar disease," could not lift its destroying energies ; and behind which, he that was able to erect it, might stand in safety, and laugh at the storm that was raging below him ; or, for his amusement, ludicrously masquerade the dismay, and agonies, and convulsive sufferings of the " vulgar herd." 

But the respectable citizens of Paris, little thought that their "generous diet," which they deemed their bulwark of security, would prove the very means by which the " ignoble disease" would be enabled to elevate his enginery of death to a level with their own breasts! — Nevertheless, the consequences were inevitable ! Excesses in eating and drinking, were as universal in Paris, as the means of indulgence ; and thus, the higher classes of society brought themselves, in liability to the disease, on to the level with " the herd," whose sufferings they had treated with sneering commisseration, and compassionate ridicule. And the gay and reckless Parisians were the first to learn, and to demonstrate to the terrified world, that the cholera was not confined, in its work of death, to the destitute, the miserable, and the abandoned : — but it had the audacity to fold, in its unclean embrace, even persons of titled rank and distinction, and to breathe its pestilential breath into the very atmosphere that surrounded the throne ! 

While the higher classes of society were thus working out their destruction with eagerness and sensuality, the lower orders were crowding together in immense mobs, and giving themselves up to passion, and riot, and outrage, and every species of excess; and, at the same time, propriety of food, and cleanliness, and purity of air, and timely rest, and all salutary rules of prudence, were utterly neglected. Is it surprising, that in such a state of things, the cholera should slay its thousands in Paris ?—? — 

and other " premonitory symptoms." — He also stated to me, that so far as he had an opportunity among the families in which he usually practised, he advised them to be very sparing in the use of flesh, or abstain entirely from it, while the cholera prevailed; and that so far as they conformed to bis advice, they wholly escaped tht diaease. 

August, 1833. 



57 

But if the view which I have taken of this question is correct, then London owes her immunity to causes depending on the voluntary conduct of her citizens; and therefore should be exceedingly cautious how she trusts to any local or external causes for exemption, — lest, in the moment of supposed security, she yields to excesses of indulgence, and brings back the destroyer upon her, in a hurricane of wrath and vengeance. 

The absurdities into which mankind are ever precipitating themselves, would justify the conclusion, that there is not, in human nature, any inherent appetite nor aptitude for truth. Let sufficient obscurity shroud the objects of our contemplation, to render it possible for the imagination to predominate over perception, and be assured, our mystery and marvelloving propensity will lead us to body forth the most absurd, if not the most ridiculous forms of conjecture. We find this principle strikingly illustrated in the vague and whimsical speculations of the Spanish physicians, on the question under consideration. They are asked why the cholera prevails so much more extensively and fatally in Paris than in London. They gravely set themselves about the solution of the question, and finally come to the sapient conclusion, that " the general and constant use of tea, by the English, saved them from the severity with which the disease attacked the French ; and therefore they recommend the use of tea as a specific against the violence of the cholera." 

So far as tea prevents the use of alcohol, whether in the form of brandy, or the wines of France and Spain, it unquestionably prevents the violence of the cholera : or, at least, by so much as it is less pernicious than brandy, wine, &c. But to suppose that the constant use of a stimulating narcotic like tea, which invariably diminishes the vital properties of the living tissues on which it acts, always debilitating the stomach, impairing its digestive powers, and causing an increased irritability in the nerves of organic life throughout the whole system, — to suppose that this is absolutely, in any degree a specific against the violence of the cholera, is an absurdity which would be disreputable to the empirics of the nursery. 

It is very certain that the sour wines which are so habitually — so universally, and so abundantly used in Paris as a common beverage, predispose the body to the cholera far more than the weak tea generally used in England. But pure water, in reasonable quantities, is an infinitely better substitute for such wines than tea, or any other alcoholic or narcotic drink. 

From the view which I have taken of the whole subject before us, we see that the hue and cry which has been raised about a " meagre diet," has no bearing whatever, on that system of diet which I have recommended in my public lectures. The inhabitants of this land of abundance — excepting the miserable and degraded votaries of base sensuality and vice, which constitute the dregs of our cities — are at all times in incomparably greater danger, from an excessive, than from a meagre diet. And I repeat the assertion with confidence, — that, however meagre the diet, so that the articles of food are not intrinsically deleterious, and actual inanition and starvation are not caused, — if the habits and circumstances, in all other respects, correspond strictly with the laws of organic life, — comparatively little is to be feared from disease, — and especially from the cholera. The advice to the people of this country, and particularly to the citizens of New York, to increase the proportion of flesh and flesh-soup 



58 

in their diet, as a means of preventing the attacks of tho cholera, is therefore decidedly uncalled for, — unjustifiable and improper. 

But the most rash and fatally erroneous advice which has bwn published in this city, is that which prescribes M generous wine, brandy nnd pin," as preventives of the cholera. Depend upon it, tho worst of consequences will ensue !—lt! — It is in vain that the author has subjoined his caution against intemperance. Every man will judge for himself, of the signification of the term, in relation to his own quantity and circumstances and wants ! And who does not know, that even he who drinks his quart of brandy a day, never believes himself to be intemperate ? The most shocking excesses will result from this advice ! Thousands who. for a few years past at least, have mostly, or entirely abstained from the use of these poisonous drinks, will now with avidity have recourse to the prescribed preventives. The already intemperate, in the higher classes of society, will add a glass or two more to their usual quantity, to keep off" the cholera ; and that miserable portion of society, who feel themselves allotted by the universal voice of mankind, and the necessity of their condition, as the certain victims of the disease, will plunge with the reckless desperation of insanity, into the maddest excesses of indulgence, to find, in the oblivion of drunkenness, if not security from the ravages of the cholera, at least an unconsciousness of its horrors ! So fnr will such a state of things be from preventing the cholera, that it will tremendously tend to bring it on. 

All quantities of alcohol in every form of distilled and fermented liquor — whether used as articles of diet or preventives, necessarily tend to produce that very state of the body which is so much dreaded, and to bring on disease of a more or less malignant character. 

Our distinguished countryman, the late Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, long since declared, in his lectures to his students, that he had for many years observed, that there was regularly a very greaf increase of cases of acute disease on the fifth and sixth days of July, which he snid were undoubtedly induced by the excesses of the fourth. A very intelligent medical gentleman, who was several years a surgeon in our Navy, informed me that at a time when the yellow fever wan raging in the West Indies, one of our national vessels lying thereon duty, was almost entirely unmanned by that malignant disease ; and the frigate in which he was acting as surgeon, was ordered out to take her place. Before they arrived at their station, the surgeon assured the officers and men, that if they indulged in tho use of spirits, while in the West Indies, they would most certainly be cut ofFby the yellow fever. His warning was listened to, and the crew was saved. " But," said he, "in every instance, when any of the officers went on shore to dine, and drank wine, they were, the next day, on the sick list with a billious attack." 

" It is worthy of remark," says one of our city papers which is the most zealous advocate for " a generous die/," — " it is worthy of remark that the Canricks, the vessel which it was supposed brought the cholera to Quebec, although she had thirty-nine deaths in the first part of her voyage, had none for a month, previous to her arrival, and then the health officer at Quebec, reported there was no disease on board." Yet the belief in Quebec is, and undoubtedly the truth is, that the disease broke out among the Irish emigrant passengers of this same vessel again, soon after they 



59 

landed. What other reasonable explanation is there fur these facts, than the plain, common-sense one, that the passengers indulged in the use oi' spirits before they left their native homes, — that they brought a quantity of whiskey with them on board the Carricks, and while this lasted, their indulgence, and irregularities, and confinement, in spile of the purity of the sea air, developed the cholera: — that when their whiskey was all gone, and their habits became regular, the cholera disappeared, and health reigned for a month, — and that when th«>y landed in Quebec and began (as th-'v unquestionably did) to drink whiskey again, the cholera returned among them. And yet our citizens are advised to drink " generous wine, brundv, and gin," to keep off* the cholera! — I would not be the author of this advice for the wealth of New York ! 

Scarcely less erroneous in its nature, and pernicious in its tendency, than the alcoholic proscription, is tin; public recommendation to the citizens, to provide themselves with medicine for the cholera, that they may be prepared to administer according to prescription, at the very first indication of an attack. 

For six month* past, our newspapers have teemed with accounts of the cholera, with all the horrific details that can possibly be given. Every symptom of the disease lias been described and republished, times without number ; and those symptoms have been made to cover almost the whole fi^ld of our sympathies ; so that it is hardly possible to feel a pain or an direction, which does not come within some of the classifications of premonitory symptoms. 

The people of this country, have been contemplating the ravages and advancements of tliil disease, and expecting its appearance among themselves, with a fearful anxiety, whose influence on their bodies has been like that which impels the charmed victim of the serpent, to fly with horror into the open jaws of destruction ! — Thousands have deeply shuddered at the suggestion of their own fears, " 1 shall surely die with this awful disease !" 

It is impossible that such a state of things should long continue, without producing in every individual, a greater or less degree of morbid sensibility and morbid sympathy. And the mind, with unusual vigilance, will instinctively notice every pain and afiection of the body. Nothing more is wanting than the panic which will be produced by the announcement of the fata! presence of the terrible destroyer, to induce in thousands, and hundreds of thousands, sympathetically, most or all of the premonitory symptoms ! 

Are such people in a proper slate of mind or body, to prescribe or administer to themselves 1 But suppose a real attack, — what shall the sufferer take ? Have the medical fraternity prescribed to us v specific for this disease, in all its forms and stages ; and in all persons, habits, and conditions ? Through the whole fifteen years' career of this devastating disease, in Asia and Europe, and now in Canada, the most extreme differences of opinions, and modes of practice, and kinds of remedies, have been adopted by medical gentlemen of equal professional experience and reputation. Hundreds of experiments have been made, and scores of remedies have been publicly recommended by physicians. All this has found its way, of course, into the columns of our newspapers : and the Dumber of preventives and remedies, has been greatly augmented by the 



60 

gratuitous prescriptions of every meddling empiric and every officious editor in the community : — and to fill up, even to overflowing, another Pandora's box, without hope at the bottom, — that execrable portion of society — those wholesale venders of death — those tolerated butchers of thousands, the specific mongers, are advertising in our respectable papers, and in glaring hand-bills, posted up in every part of the city, their panaceas, and catholicons, and hygean pills, &c, as sure preventives and certain cures for the cholera ! 

In such a time of excitement and awful uncertainty, how shall the people ascertain which prescription is the best ? Alas ! they have erroneously concluded that the safest way is to procure all the different preventives and remedies and specifics, recommended by any and every body ! More than a million of dollars have been worse than thrown away by the citizens of New York within a few days past for medicines which are more to be dreaded than any pestilential cause of cholera. Thus supplied, as almost every citizen is, with an arsenal of self-destruction, — while drug and grogshops are yawning at every corner of our streets like so many craters of hell, to vomit out the lava of death on all who come within their range, — what more, I ask, is wanting than a powerful panic, to set this vast and complicated machinery of destruction into violent motion, to produce the most horribly calamitous results in this city? 

I tell you, my hearers, if there is not an interference of proper medical and civil authority, to arrest the course which these things are now taking, and will take in this city, the mischief which will ensue, should the cholera appear amongst us, cannot be calculated nor imagined ! 

But you ask again, — What shall we do ? we cannot avoid excitement, and we may not be able to keep free from panic in such a time of terror ! Follow the advice I have already given you. Carefully adapt your food, in quality and quantity, to the condition of your body and digestive organs and powers, partaking only of that which is plain, simple, nutritious and easily digested : — avoiding all concentrated forms and artificial mixture — all crude, heating, and irritating articles ; in short, carefully avoid in food and drink, every thing that is calculated, by any means, to produce an unhealthy irritation or irritability in the alimentary canal : remembering always that the greater your panic, the more peculiarly liable are you to such an irritation, and therefore, that many things which you have at other times indulged in with apparent impunity, may now prove fatal to you — and make it a regular duty to take your proper exercise, and to sponge and bathe your body, and rub your skin freely all over with a coarse towel, or good flesh brush, and endeavor to apply your mind to proper subjects, and avoid all improper exposures, and you will with great certainty be able to counteract all the causes of disease, both internal and external. " But shall we not be prepared for sudden attacks 1" Yes, so far as a proper government and conduct of body and mind can prepare you : and then you have nothing to fear from an attack which will not allow you ample time either to take such restorative measures as I have suggested, or to call in some experienced, temperate physician in whom you have confidence. 

" But suppose you should be suddenly attacked, what would you take, among the numerous prescriptions that are given to the public ?" Not knowing the peculiar state of your system, nor the precise nature of your 



61 

disorder, the medicine which you would take, might be more dangerous than the disease ! An ordinary diarrhcea or cholera morbus, which, by proper treatment would be easily managed, might, by a powerful dose of brandy and laudanum, be exasperated into the most malignant form of spasmodic cholera. Again I say, therefore, live properly — Tet preventives and remedies alone, and mind your own businsss ; and when the disease comes, it is time enough for you to call in a temperate and judicious physician. This advice however applies to citizens whose physicians are at hand, and who have apothecary shops within a few rods of them. People living in the country, and at a distance from a physician, may with propriety keep a few drugs on hand, but the emergency should be great, to justify their administering medicine without the special advice of a physician, unless it be something comparatively harmless, such as a dose of rhubarb and magnesia, or of castor oil, in case of diarrhcea. 

The Gentlemen of the Corporation of this City, will pardon me if I now take the liberty of pointing out to them, some of the important bearings of the general argument before us, on their public functions for the preservation of the health of the citizens. 

If I am correct in the view which I have taken of the subject, the cholera may, in certain circumstances and conditions, be communicated either by contagion, or infection, or both. The distinction, however, between contagion and infection, is of little importance in relation to the public duties of the Guardians of the City, in establishing precautionary regulations and restrictions. Notwithstanding therefore, all that has been said by medical gentlemen against quarantine regulations, there are many weighty reasons, in favor of their proper enforcement. It is true that this disease may break out and prevail in a place which is guarded by the most vigilant and rigorous quarantine and sanatary regulations : but this is far from proving that such regulations are useless. It only proves that while so much care Tins been given to the protecting of the place from imported disease, there has been too little care to prevent the causes which may originate the disease within the place. For, as I believe I have clearly shown, the disease may be both imported and originated in certain conditions and circumstances. A place therefore, in which it would not be originated, may be saved from the disease by proper sanatary regulations ; and a place in which it would be originated might be saved by a timely prevention and removal of the originating causes, and by proper quarantine and other sanutary regulations. But aa the cholera can neither be originated nor communicated absolutely, by any causes independent of the voluntary conduct of man, the more important duties of public functionaries appertain to the internal condition and conduct of society. 

Unfortunately however, in this land of glorious democracy and individual sovereignty, the civil power is much more competent to enlarge the privileges than to restrain the pernicious indulgences of the governed. It may therefore be useless for me to designate those duties of the corporation which are of paramount importance, if they would effectually preserve the city from the ravages of the cholera. Nevertheless, lam inclined " to speak boldly ns I ought to speak." 

In the work of purification, it is well enough to strew lime abundantly along the gutters, and in every unclean place throughout the city, in 

9 



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order to neutralize those principles which cause offensive odors : but if the filth be suffered to remain, or if it is only gathered into heaps in the middle of the streets, for the carts to run over and disperse again, in clouds of dust, which settle upon the side walks, roll into every open door and window, and almost suffocate the citizens even at their tables, very little good will be effected by the use of disinfecting powders. But this, though of much importance in itself, is of very small consideration when compared with other evils existing in this city. It is in vain that you ransack every street, and lane, and alley, and yard, and private place, and cellar, and house, and strew your disinfecting powders like a snowstorm ; and scrape and sweep and v(ash, till every thing is clean enough to eat from, if stiil, those abominable seminaries of disease and death — the grog-shops, whether under the name of Groceries, or Taverns, or Coffee-houses, or Hotels, are permitted to deal out doses of destruction to the deceived and infatuated people. Unless the civil authorities of this city can shut up these places, or at least, stop ihe sale of intoxicating liquors, whatever else they may do to prevent the ravages of the cholera here, will be in effect, but little more than a public farce. But this is not all ! Our Augean stable is by no means cleansed, even when intoxicating liquors are removed. The drug-shops, if not entirely closed, should be open only to those who come with a recipe from a regular physician, and a rigorous injunction should be laid upon all apothecaries, druggists, and empirics, forbidding them to advertise or sell, any specifics, preventives, remedies, or medicines for the cholera, without permission from the Board of Health or from a properly constituted medical authority. 

The Press also should be silent on Ihe subject of the cholera, excepting in the publication of those statements, accounts or reports, which are made out by the Board of Health or by responsible physicians. All private communications, recommendations and prescriptions in tlie newspapers ; and all editorial articles or comments, excepting such as seek to allay the excitement, and encourage the people in a strictly temperate and virtuous course, should be entirely withheld. lam fully aware of the sensibility of the editorial corps, in regard to their rights and liberties in "this land of freedom,'" but I have also too good an opinion of most of them, not to believe that if they had a just apprehension of the mischief which flows from improper publications, and well-meant editorial officiousness, on such occasions, they would acknowledge the propriety of my remarks, and receive them, as they arc expressed, in the spirit of benevolence and philanthropy. 

But furthermore : the Corporation should strictly forbid the sale and exposure for sale within the limits of the city, of all pine-apples, cucumbers, radishes, and all other unripe, crude, and improper fruits and vegetables. In short, if the Corporation would be effectual in their efforts to preserve the city from the cholera, they should, if possible, prevent the use of every improper article of diet, both solid and liquid :—: — keep the city clean — introduce good water — facilitate the means of bathin — promote personal and domestic cleanliness and comfort — get the poor out of damp cellars, and other unhealthy places — not suffering them to crowd too many into a house, nor be exposed to confined and impure 



63 

air, — see that they have enough of plain simple food — keep everything calm — and rigidly enforce proper quarantine and other sanatary regulations. 

Before I close my lecture, I must caution my audience not to misunderstand me in regard to my dietetic recommendations. Let it be remembered that my advice is adapted to the present state of things. As yet the cholera is at a distance from us : whether it will appear in this city, or how soon, it is impossible for us to tell. I have supposed that you might have time enough to adopt my advice, and recover from whatever temporary prostration might result from any change in so doing, before the disease appeared among you. 

Were the cholera already here, and even now committing its ravages in the city, my advice would be, in some respects, different. I should say to you, beware of great and sudden changes under the influence of panic: beware of extremes !—lf! — If you have eaten flesh freely up to this hour, I would not say, abandon it totally at once ! but, diminish its quantity : let its quality be good, and let it be plainly and simply prepared, and eaten without made gravies, or much seasoning, and not more than once a day. — If you have used tobacco freely up to this hour, and cannot forsake it at once, without suffering greatly from its absence, diminish your quantity as fast as you can, prudently, and get clear of it entirely. — Tobacco has been said to be a good preventive, but such a notion is destitute of all truth. Cleanse yourselves therefore from this abominable and deleterious narcotic !—ln! — In like manner, also, get rid of your tea and coffee : in moderate quantities they are decidedly pernicious — in excesses they will powerfully predispose to cholera, and every other disease. — If you have drank distilled or fermented liquors freely up to this hour, and cannot abandon them totally at once, without prostrating the organic functions of your system, your condition is an unhappy one. If you go on and do not perish, your escape will be almost a miracle. It cannot be more dangerous to stop short, and let yourself down as fast as you can, with good tender beef-steak (well seasoned with salt and red pepper,) and good bread — such as I have recommended, taken in moderate quantities, as often as the stomach can easily dispose of its contents, and gradually diminishing the quantity of flesh and seasoning — and get down to the vegetable and water level as soon as you possibly can, and then pursue the system I have recommended in my present lecture. 

Finally, those who can adopt the system I have recommended, without a change which would seriously letdown, for a time, the functional action of their body, should enter into it at once ; but those who cannot, should get into it as soon as they prudently can. — Such, I say, would be my advice if the cholera were now raging around you and among you; but as it is not, my earnest entreaty now is, — remain not an hour in the Sodom of your pernicious habits and indulgences ! " Escape for your lives ! — Look not behind you ; neither stay ye in all the plain ! — escape to the mountain, lest ye be consumed !" 





APPENDIX. 



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The common opinion which prevailed in New York, for a considerable time preceding and succeeding the appearance of the Cholera in that city, was, that a generous diet of flesh and flesh soups, with brandy, port wine, and porter, was the best preventive measure that the citizens could adopt, to save themselves from the awful ravages of the disease : and while some of the physicians took a manly and noble stand against this ruinous error, too many of them on the other hand, gave decided countenance to it. Dr. Rheiulander, one of the physicians sent by the city to Canada to ascertain how to treat the disease, published his advice, cautioning the people against the use of distilled spirits but recommending the use of port w ive, and thus caused thousands of gallons, of a vile mixture of whiskey, logwood, and other abominable things, to be sold and drank under the name of port wine ; which was incomparably worse than the clear whiskey itself. This was soon followed by the appearance of an article in the Courier and Enquirer from Dr. Felix Pascalis, in which he says that " the ravages of the Cholera will probably increase in the city, until it has decimated, or even extirpated the whole class that subsist with little or no animal food." And again; — "as for preventive remedies, the reader will remember that the Delta of the Ganges is called the cradle of the Cholera, and that there the inhabitants do not live upon animal food ; that in China where animal food is scarce, the pestilence was most unspanng, and that at Hurdwar in 1783, 20,000 of the fasting pilgrims were cut off in less than a week, &c." The reasoning and deductions of the whole article were extremely loose and inconclusive and erroneous, — but they were ad captandum vulgus, and together with Dr. De Kay's and Dr. ftheinlander's prescriptions of brandy and wine soon became the vox populi of the city : while the columns of the news-papers daily contained advertisements recommending Swaime's Panacea, Hygean pills, and other whole* sale instruments of death, as sure preventives and remedies for the cholera. 

In such a state of delusion, and depravity, and panic, it was Very natural that tho most clamorous out-cry should be raised against the dietetic doctrines which I had (aught in my lectures. Every dealer in intoxicating liquors, including Hotels and Coffee Houses, — every druggist, and almost every butcher, and baker, and tobacconist and grocer, and flour dealer, and " free liver" in the city, felt deeply interested to save the people from the ravages of cholera by virtue of a " generous diet" of flesh, flesh soups, brandy, wine, porter, tobacco, coffee, tea, fine bread, &c therefore all were generously willing to lend their voices in the cry, that all the " Grahamites" were dead and dying with the cholera. The most egregious misrepresentations and unblushing falsehoods, were daily fabricated and busily circulated throughout the city, and even physicians who hold a respectable standing in society, boldly asserted, as a matter 01 their knowledge, that the " Grahamites" were dying by hundreds with cholera. At the same time the bakers who had undertaken to furnish the citizens with the kind of bread which I had recommended, in some instances, there is reason to believe, from the basest of purposes, and in others, from culpable negligence, suffered their bread to degenerate into the vilest stuffimaginable, and thus brought it into very great disrepute, and undoubtedly, in many instances, caused it to become seriously injurious to them that ate it. Such a mighty conspiracy against the cause of truth was' surely enough to try the courage and firmness of its friends in such a time of terror and death. Nevertheless there were some hundreds in the city whose steadfastness neither public clamour, and misrepresentation, and falsehood, nor professional assertions, nor any other cause could shake. They strictly pursued the course which I had pointed out, and calmly kept about their business, or humanely devoted themselves to the alleviation of the sufferings of the sick. Nor did they idly listen to tho misrepresentations and falsehoods which were daily kept on tho wing. Whenever these things received a definite form and locality, they were promptly investigated, and ascertained to be destitute of truth, and generally destitute of honesty. Mr,. Goodell, 



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tlio Editor of the Genius of Tomperancr, ferreted them out, and exposed them, with a diligence and boldness which were worthy cfthe cause of truth and humanity. On my return to the city, I made it my tirst business to ascertain us far as possible what had been the real effect of my dietetic system, in relation to the cholera. I immediately called at all those places where it had been said that " Grahamites" had died of that disease: and also culled upon all those physicians who, I was informed, had asserted that the " Grahamites 1 ," were all dying with cholera. Tho result of my inquiries was as follows : — The family of Mr. B — , in Madison street, had attended my lectures during the preceding winter, and partially adopted the dietetic system which I taught ; hut they continued in it only a short time ; and, some months before the cholera appeared in the city, the whole family, except the oldest daughter, returned entirely to their former habits of living, and were, most or all of them, cut off by cholera, except the oldest daughter, who continued pretty strictly on my system, and wholly escaped. The family of Mr. A , in James Street, had attended my lectures during the preceding winter, and left off coffee and tea, and did not use so much flesh as before ; yet, notwithstanding, he was, and long had been, habitually costive, he and his family continued to eat the fine, bakers' bread. After the cholera commenced, he continued to eat his beefsteak, roast beef, puddings, &c. and to eat only the fine flourbread, though very costive. He was a dyer, and dyed some | clothes of those who had perished of cholera. He took a dose of medicine as a preventive — became worse — sent for a physician — took his medicine, und was soon in a collapsed state, and died. Two of his children und an intemperate apprentice died also ; but whether of the cholera or the medicine, or both, is uncertain. 

The family of A. C , in Pearl Street, had attended my lectures during the preceding winter and spring; — they adopted my system, to a considerable extent, and Mr. C. and his wife found their health much improved by it. When the choleia broke out, however, they all, but one son, so fur yielded to what seemed to be medical authority, as to return to what was called a more "generous diet," and took their flesh dinners, with desserts, &c. The whole family, except the son, who strictly followed my rules, were taken with diarrhea 1, which, however, by being attended to, was soon checked, in all but the worthy old gentleman, who neglected his disorder, and suffered it to run on, occasionally taking some astringent or cathartic medicine, and continuing about his business, and eating as usual, and regularly taking two or three cups of strong coffee every morning before he rose. About the ninth day he took his regular dinner of flesh, &c , and after it ate freely of a flour pudding, with wine sauce, and to prevent any bad effects, took three glasses of port wine, according to the public advice of Dr. Rheinlander. The next morning he was very sick, and took his coffee as usual — grew worse through the day — fell under medical treatment, and died in a few hours. The death of this excellent man, caused more consternation than any other death which took place in the city during the sickness; because he was supposed to be a "strict Grahamite." There were a few other cases which were about as near to my regimen as those I have detailed : and these were the " hundreds of Grahamites who had dii;d of cholera." 

I then called on the physician who had asserted that hundreds of Grahamites had died of the cholera ; and asked him if he knew of a single MM of a person's dyingof cholera, who had strictly followed my system. He replied that he did not, and then gratuitously added, "and I never said that I did." Every other physician on whom I called, gave me the same negative answer, excepting one, who very confidently assured me that he had lost one such patient. I asked the name and number, and, on investigating the matter, found that the said patient had never attended my lectures, and in no respect any farther adop'ed my system, than to abstain from the use of ardent spirits : but the brother of the deceased, who took care of him through his sickness, without any touch of the disease himself, had heard some of my lectures, and to a considerable extent adopted my system of diet. 

The result of my inquiries was, that I could not ascertain that a single individual had died of cholera during the sickness in the city, who had, with any tolerable degree of strictness and propriety, followed the regimen which I had prescribed in my lecture on the cholera. Nor was I able to ascertain that more than two or three such persons had even had the slightest symptoms : while, on the other hand, there were hundreds who strictly followed my rules, many of whom were exposed in the utmost degree, and ytt not one of them had a symptom of the disease. 

I then advcitiscd in most of the papors of the city, that a public meeting would be 



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held at the Chatham Strret Chaprl, on which occasion I would expose nnd repel the various misrepresentation!" and calumnies which had been raised Igtfcwt my system, in relation to the cholera. The meeting was very large, nnd I met the objections which had been raised ; and challenged any one, to prove a single instance ofan individual's having died of cholera, during the prevalence of that disease, who had strictly and properly followed the regimen proscribed in my lecture on the cholera. This silenced the public clamor: but ever and nnon the smothered multerings of particular ones were indistinctly heard. I then addressed two letters to Philip Hone, Esq. through the Commercial Advertiser, in one of which I held the following language : " 1 have called, and still call, for the statement and substantiation of facts against my system ; but 1 shall not bo satisfied with popular and vulgar clamor, nor with indefinite and anonymous publications. 1 ask credible persons, under their own true signatures, to enme out and specify cases, if they know of any ; nnd give names, streets and numbers : — and 1 will honestly examine them, and if I find them true, I will publicly acknowledge them." 

Yet no one met this call, and with all this public and private inquiry, I have not been able to ascertain a single instance in which any individual has suffered either from cholera or any other disease, who has strictly and properly pursued the regimen prescribed in my Lectures. The following testimonies, on the other hand, are mostly extracts from much longer statements which 1 have received from the individuals whose names are given. 

Mr. Graham. Sir, — In stating my views of simple diet, as a means of preserving health and preventing disease, I must necessarily be brief for want of time. I think I have the most ample evidence of its salutary und conservative effects in my own person, of which, for the sake of the testimony — though 1 would not appear obtrusive — I will give some account. I had been afflicted, both before and during my medical studies, with that worst of diseases, chronic dyspepsia, from which I never obtained any permanent relief, until about eighteen months since, when I put myself on the simple mode of living recommended in your Lectures. For nearly a year, I subsisted principally upon coarse wheat-meal bread and milk, with great advantage to my health j when, happening to get some milkwhie.h tasted andsmelled of garlick, 1 became so disgusted with it, that, in May last, I exchanged my milk for spring water, which, with the coarse bread, has constituted my diet since. — During the past summer, and especially the cholera season, my professional duties were exceedingly arduous, and I often felt myself nearly worn out for want of rest and sleep. Yet through the whole sickness, I subsisted on one pound per day of coarse unleavened crackers, with some fruit and spring water, and experienced no disorder of the stomach or bowels, but enjoyed, and still continue to enjoy, better health than I have experienced before for the last fifteen years. 

On looking over my Notes of cholera cases, taken at the bedside of the patients, I find that the occasion of the disease, could be traced, in a very large majority of cases, either to confirmed habits of intemperance, or to come prominent act of imprudence. I speak here, of patients in both Hospitals and private practice. And furthermore, — in treating the disease, my experience is in favor of the most simple practice, and altogether unfavorable to the opium treatment. Many people — and among them, some of my own profession, have asserted that simple vegetable diet was conducive, to, and in many cases, had actually produced cholera. I have taken considerable pains to investigate these matters, and in not a single instance have I been able to verify their assertions: — but on the contrary, I have uniformly found that every person who has strictly and judiciously followed the system ot diet and regimen recommended by yourself, has not only escaped the cholera, but enjoyed very general good health. Yours truly, 

AMOS POLLARD, M. D. 

JV«w York, JVoc. 30, 1332. 

Sir, — Having attended your lectures in New York, last winter, and to a considerable extent adopted your system of living, I went to Montreal, and was there from the time the cholera broke out, until it had nearly ceased ; and although I did not in all respects live so simple as I ought to have done, and as 1 wished to do, 



68 

yet such was my confidence in the regimen I observed, that notwithstanding the very great numbers of dead and dying which I daily saw around me, I iVIt not the slightest alarm, till the destroyer entered our boarding house, suddenly snatched away two of its inmates, and so terrified the. rest, tlmt they all left, except myself and my cousin, who was also partially a disciple of yours. Even then my confidence was not diminished. Two letters which I wrote on the prevention and treatment of cholera were published in tho Montreal Gazette ; for their contents I was chiefly indebted to you. Your Ob't Serv't, 

JAMES DRYDEN. 

52 Monroe St., New York, Jan. 10, 1833. 

Mr. Graham. Sir, — After having been grievously afflicted several years with dyspepsy, I attended your Lectures, adopted your system, and entirely recovered my health. Through the cholera season, I subsisted almost entirely on Graham bread, and water, and enjoyed the most perfect and uninterrupted health, nnd gained several pounds of flesh. Our family, consisting of ten members, who lived on what the doctors call a more "generous diet" of flesh, coffee, tea, fine bread, &c. all had pretty severe attacks of cholera, and some of them two and three attacks. My brother David, who lived as the rest of the family did, but used no spirits, went with me three several times through the cholera hospitals, to Bee the sick, and during the night following each-time, he had a severe attack of cholera, while I hod not even a premonitory symptom of the disease through the season. 

Yours truly, 

ALBERT WOODMAN. 

New York, May 16, 1833. 

Sir, — Myself, wife and sister, hod all been ofiiicted with poor health, and particularly my wife and sister, for many years before we heard your Lectures, ana adopted your system of living. Neither of us has eaten any flesh-meat since; which is now more than a year. We spent the past summer in the city, and never enjoyed better health than we did through the whole cholera season. That dreadful disease raged all around us, and cut off' many of our neighbors, and even came into our own house and attacked our mother, who did not live on your system, but ate flesh, &c. and I was much amongst the dying and the dead, and assisted in laying out and putting into their coffins at least a dozen bodies of those who had died of cholera, yet neither myself, wife, nor sister, had the least premonitory symptom of cholera, nor any other illness during the whole season. 

Respectfully Yours, EVANDER D. FISHER. 

No. 19, Essex Street, New York, Jan. 7, 1833. 

Dear Sir, — Beside the many other and great advantages which myself and family have derived from your valuable lectures, I will add, that we remained in the city during the cholera season last summer, and living near one of the cholera hospitals, we daily caw the dying and the dead carried by our door ; yet having attended your lecture on cholera, and living strictly on your plan, we felt so much confidence in your views that we had no dread of the disease : and we did not spend one cent at the drug-shops for preventives : and what is still more remarkable, — the, report was, that the Grahamites were dying like rotten sheep, and that in our family there was only one Grahatnile, and she had the cholera very bad ; and the rest of the family, who were not Grahamites, escaped : whereas, the truth is, that we were all living on your plan most strictly, except my mother, who thought she required the " more generous diet" to which she had always been accustomed, and she had a very severe attack of the cholera, while the rest of us had not a symptom, but enjoyed the best of health. Your sincere friend, 

WILLIAM MITCHELL. 

No. 437j, Broadway, New York, March 20, 18.13. 



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Sir, — Four members of our large family lived strictly on your system during the cholera season, last summer, eating no flesh, and subsisting principally on Graham bread ; they enjoyed excellent health, and none of them had the slightest symptom of cholera during the season ; while every other member of tho family had more or less of that disease. Yours, &c. p JVb. 13, Nortlimore St., JVew York, March 22, 1533. 

Sir, — During the prevalence of the cholera last summer, all our family had more or less of that dreadful disease, except myself: they ate flesh, &c. and I ate none ; but lived strictly on your system. And what, in nil probability, would have been my case, if that awful epidemic had found me in that condition of body in which I was, before I adopted your system of living ?— I verily believe, that, but for you, I should not now be among the living on earth. But, blessed be God ! lam not only living, but well. I have scarcely known an hour's indisposition during the past twelve months. And what a change is this, after having been afflicted as I have been for more than twenty years. Yours respectfully, Bowery, near jforth St., JV. Y. Feb. 19, 1833. H. WHEELER. 

Sir, — Since about the year 18 18, 1 have been afflicted with very feeble health. In the autumn of 1831, 1 commenced attending your lectures, and soon began to adopt your system of diet, and lived very strictly on it during the cholera season ; eating no flesh, and using the Graham bread. My health improved very much, and continued fiood through the summer. I saw many cases of cholera, and stood over several patients, and administered to them, and rubbed them, but had not a symptom of the disease myself. Yours, with sincere respect, 

F. L. WILSEY. 

JVew York, Jan. 17,1833. 

Sir, — Myself and wife had long been in very feeble health, and laboring under many serious symptoms of pulmonary consumption, when we adopted the system of living recommended in your Lectures; since which time, our health has improved exceedingly. Wo, and our children, and other members of our family, spent the cholora season in the city ; all living strictly on your system. Our immediate neighborhood was very sickly. The cholera was all around us, and the people died on every side of us. One man died nextdoor, so near to us, that I could reach my hand out of my window into his room; and the offensive smell of his body, after death, came in and scented our house ; and yet none of us had any thing of the disease. 1 have two apprentices both of which lived strictly on the Graham system through the worst of the cholera season, without the least indisposition. The older one then went into the country, where he spent two weeks, and lived quite generously on animal food, &c. and then returned to the city, and took the cholera immediately ; and had three doctors to keep him alive. The younger one continued in the city, living Btrictly on the Graham system. His health improved very much indeed during the summer, and he had not the least symptom of cholera, nor any other disease. 



Very respectfully yours, 

EDMUND VAN YORK. 

98, Clinton St., JV«w York, Jan. 26, 1833. 

Sir, — Having been relieved, by your system of diet, from a miserable state of health with which I had been afflicted for years, I continued to live strictly on your system through the cholera season, making Graham bread the principal article of my food : and through the whole sickness eating fruit freely ; taking care, however, to get good fruit. I enjoyed excellent health through the season, without having a single premonitory symptom of cholera, or an unwell hour : nor have I had an hour's indisposition since : and at present, I enjoy the most perfect health. 

Yours with respect, 

S. VAN YOltX. 

JVo. 268, William St., JVtw York, June 17, 1833. 

Sir, — After having been afflicted with miserable health for many years, I was induced to adopt your system of diet ; and by degrees became more and more strict in my regimen, till I got on to a diet of Graham bread and rain water, exclusively. This regimen I observed rigorously through the whole cholera season, and not only 

10 



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became wholly relieved from all my pains and ailments, but recovered, and enjoyed the most entire and perfect health; feeling strong, and active, and cheerful. My sleep was as swoet as a babe's ; and when I rose in the morning, I always felt fresh, and clear, and vigorous, and sprightly, as ever I did in my boyhood. During the cholera season, I was very much among the sick of that terrible disease. Several times a day, I visited a family who occupied a house belonging to me, (No. 62, James St.,) and of which five members died. I stood over the beds of the sick, handled their bodies, assisted in taking care of them, &c. and after the house was deserted, and others wore afraid to enter it, I went into the hgjuse, took up the beds, clothes, and other things appertaining to the rooms, from which the dead bodies had been removed, and carried them out of the house ; and was there three or four times a day, handling the things, &c, After this I visited several other families who were sick of the samedisease, — sat beside the sick by the hour, watched with them, rubbed them lifted them, &c. ; yet through the whole cholera season, I had not the least touch of the complaint, nor the slightest indisposition of any kind. 

Yours, &c. DAVID I. BURGER. 

JVeto York, Jan. 2, 1533. Cornor of Mott and Pell Streets. 

Sir, — Having been relieved from chronic disease of long standing, and restored to good health by adopting, pretty rigidly, your system of plain and simple diet ; myself and wife continued on the same regimen through the cholera season, and enjoyed the best of health, w.ithout a symptom of that or any other disease, until the cnolera season was nearly over, when we were induced to dine on fresh lumb. This brought upon me, a diarrhoea and severe pain in the breast ; my wife was more severely handled than I was; but by timely attention to our disorder, we were soon restored to health. A single dose of castor oil .was all we required ; and that is all the disease I have had, and all the medicine I have taken since I adopted your system, which is now two years ; during which time 1 have enjoyed most excellent health. Respectfully yours, 

HENRY R. PIERCY. 

JVew York, June 15, 1833. Office of the Genius of Temperance. 

Sir, — Benjamin Tjtler, who is, and has been for a considerable time, in my employ, has lived many years according to your strictest principles, and enjoyed remarkably fine health and spirits. He is now in his sixtieth year, and is still quite active and elastic. About five years ago, he went to England, where he staid five or six weeks. While there, he used animal food, which, he says, brought on a severe disorder of the bowels, and caused him considerable sickness. He has used no animal food since, but lived entirely on vegetable food in its simplest forms. During the cholera last summer, he enjoyed perfect health : and hearing it often asserted that the "Graham system" would not answer in cholera times, he used almost daily to walk through and about the Five Points, where the disease was raging in its most malignant and destructive character. He was often asked why he thus unnecessarily exposed himself. His reply was, " I wish to try the Graham system fairly: they say it will not answer in cholera times, and I wish to see whether it will or not." The old gentleman, however, had not the least symptom of the disease during the season. Yours, &c. 

DANIEL FANSIIAW. 

JV'eto York, Jan. 19, 1833. 

Sir, — In the autumn of 1813 I spent three months at Batavia, in the island of Java in the East Indies, where, by the use of bad water or some other means, my bowels became much disordered, and soon after I left there, a very troublesome diarrhoea set in, and, in spite of every thing I could do, it became an established chronic disorder, which has afflicted me with more or leas severity and constancy ever since, till I strictly adopted the system of diet which you teach in your lectures ; since which time — now about one year — I have not been troubled with that unpleasant complaint. Conscious, however, of this predisposition of my body to bowel complaints, I was fully apprehensive of my liability to suffer an attack of cholera, while that disease was prevailing among us ; and therefore, while I carefully aimed to take all proper measures to preserve my life and health, I at the same time endeavored to hold myself in readiness for any event. I lived strictly on what is called 



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the "Graham System," and, through the goodness of Divine Providence, I went through the sickly season, amidst uncommon cares and anxieties of business, without being at all disturbed in my own body by the cholera. 

Yours truly, WILLIAM GOODELL. 

.Yew York, June 17, 1833. Office of the Genius of Temperance. 

Esteemed Friend, — After having been sorely afflicted, for nearly thirty years, with n chronic diarrhoea, which was at times so severe, that it often confined me to my bed, ond sometimes brought me extremely low, I have been so much benefited by thy system of diet and regimen, that I was enabled to remain in the city through the cholera season, and not only to enjoy an entire immunity from that disease, but also, by virtue of my simple and salutary diet, to enjoy better health through the summer and autumn, than I had done before for more than twenty years. Thy friend, P. CORLIES, JVetc York, 6th month 17, 1833. No. 86, Madison Street. 

Sir, — I arrived in this country from Scotland, in November, 1831, in a very impaired state of health. I was tormented with continual head-ache, and was extremely weak ; and was so costive that I was obliged to take cathartic, medicine every day. As often as once a month, or six weeks, I was sevprely afflicted with diarrhoea, which hung on a week or ten days, and was exceedingly debilitating. My spirits were dreadfully depressed, and my miseries were very great. These difficulties, which had troubled me for some time in my own country, increased upon me here, and my wretchedness was intolerable, when I commenced attending your lectures, in April, 1832, and soon after began to live according to your dietetic rules for invalids. In a very short time after the adoption of this regimen, my complaints were all removed, and my health restored. During the cholera season I boarded in a section of the city where the cholera prevailed to a considerable extent ; and there was much of that terrible disease, also, wtiere I %vas employed as an engineer ; and most of the company employed with me were more or less troubled with it. The people in the house where I boarded, were constantly complaining and sick, but through the whole season I remained perfectly well, and had not the least indisposition, nor need of a particle of medicine. During the sickness I lived entirely on Graham bread and water, and occasionally fruit. I increased much in strength, and became quite vigorous, and able to perform much labor without fatigue. Yours, with sincere respect, JAMES WHITELAW. JVew York, Feb. 16, 1833. 

Sir, — I was living strictly on your system of diet and regimen, in excellent health, in New York, while the cholera was prevailing in the city, when I heard that my wife's family at Poughkeepsie, were afflicted with the cholera. One of her sisters had already had the disease, and was recovering, and her father had just died with it. I hastened to their assistance, taking care to carry with me a good quantity of Graham bread and crackers, upon which I subsisted while there; during which time another sister of my wife was .taken, and in a short time died. I was with her nearly all the time she was sick, and performed much of the labor about her after her death. I came off unscathed, and in the enjoyment of good health, wimout a single symptom of the cholera : while others, less exposed, were falling around me ; and all were more or less affected. 

Yours respectfully, 

JVew York, Jan. 12, 1833. 

JEFFERSON CRUGER. 

Office of the Genius of Temperance. 

Sir, — Myself, wife and children, having adopted your system of living, continued strictly upon it during the cholera season, and all enjoyed most excellent health, without a single premonitory symptom of that awful disease : while a young woman staying in our family, who had never heard any of your lectures, and was exceedingly prejudiced against you, and whose diet was roast-beef, beef-steak, mutton chops, &c. with bread, black tea, port wine, brandy and water, was attacked with every symptom of cholera. She was subjected to the camphor treatment, and the disease was arrested for a while i but about, the sixth day she was 



72 

taken again, — ngain became convalescent, — and ugain taken down, and with much difficulty saved. Her constitution appears to have been much shattered by the diseas*, or treatment, or both, for she cannot bear the least exertion without fatigue^ nor is she able to endure cold as before ; and until lately she has been obliged to resort to camphor or brandy, to assuage the pain she has felt. Yours, with every sentiment of respect, WILLIAM COOKE, No. 219, Hudson St., JVeto York, Jan. 14, 1833. 

Sir, — After having suffered in the most painful manner for more than three years, from what my physicians callatl a " disorder of the heart," I was restored to perfect health, by adopting your system of diet. My older sister, who had been subject to frequent turns of a billions complaint, also adopted your system with me, and was entirely relieved, and we went on together for some time, enjoying the most perfect and uninterrupted health, till my sister was tempted to break in upon her simple regimen, by taking a cup of tea, and then, in spite of my remonstrances, she repeated her transgression, and soon returned to her coffee, flesh, &c, till, in less than a week, she had entirely relapsed into all her former habits of living. But I inflexibly held on alone, in my straight and narrow path ; and by and by, the cholera appeared in our city, and in the midst of its fearful ravages, my sister was attacked. I stood over her night and day, administered all her medicine, rubbed her body, took her breath, and when she lny in a state of collapse, and said to me amidst her agonies, " Sister, kiss me," I pressed my lips to hers, and kissed her several times ; yet during the whole season of sickness, I had not even a symptom of cholera, nor any other indisposition. Yours, with respect and gratitude, A. M. PRIMROSE. AVw York, Feb. 19, 1833. No. 33, Rose Street. 

Dr. Tappan informed me that out of twelve house-pupils (students of medicine and young physicians) who assisted him in the Park Hospital during the prevalence of the cholera, Mr. Sharrock, who had lived more than a year very strictly on my system, was the only one who entirely escaped all symptoms of the disease. All the others being afflicted more or less, and some, pretty severely. Jan. 7, 1833. 

Dr. Lawrence, of Delancy St. informed me that he was acquainted with a young man who lived on the " Graham System" during the cholera season, and who took a great deal of pains to be amongst the disease, and to expose himself, for the purpose of proving the virtues of the system, and that he did not have a symptom of cholera through the whole season. June 15, 1833. 

I could multiply these testimonials to a hundred, from the statements which I have now on hand, received from persons of the most unquestionable veracity ; but I have already given enough to satisfy every candid reader that the hue and cry about the " Grahamites' all dying with the cholera," was not only without any foundation in truth, but was directly contrary to tho truth. In selecting the testimonials that I have sjivon, from the large number of statements which I have on hand, it will be observed that I have in many instances presented the cases of those whose previous health and state of body rendered them peculiarly liable to the action of any morbific causes which might induce cholera. 



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LETTER FROM MR. GEORGE BOND. 

Mr. Graham. Sir, — A bout eighteen years ago, I had a very severe turn of bloody flux, which proved exceedingly obstinate and unmanageable. The skill of my physician was completely baffled, and his medicine seemed wholly ineffectual. Clear blood ran from my bowels in alarming profusion, and nothing seemed to have any effect to stop it. My physician finally declared that he could do nothing more for me ; and to all human appearance I must die with the complaint. At this crisis, some one recommended the internal use of salt and vinegar and hot water. I know not why it was, but I was very favorably impressed by the suggestion, and had a great desire to try the prescription. My physician said it could do me no hurt, if it did me no good. I therefore had some immediately prepared in the proportion of a tea spoon full of salt, a table spoon full of good cider vinegar, and a tea-cup full of boiling water, and I took about half a table spoonful of this mixture every five minutes. I was immediately benefited by it, — the flux ceased, and I was soon restored to health. 

As soon as I heard the cholera was in this country, I began to read the accounts of it, and it struck me that the salt and vinegar and hot water would be the best possible remedy for it. With thi3 impression, I called on Dr. L , (at the corner of Sheriff and Delancy streets) and asked him if there was no cure for this disease. He said there were various modes of treating it, but no specific remedy had yet been found out. I told him, I believed I could cure it. He asked me how. With salt and vinegar and hot water, said I. Dr. B , who had come in while we were talking, replied that vinegar would not answer at all in the cholera. I told him that I wished to Heaven that some of my own family might have the cholera that night, so that I could try my remedy ; for I was very confident it would cure the disease. This was sometime in the latter part of June, near the last of the month. My wife had been about nine years afflicted with poor health, and a partial alienation of mind; and had been subject to frequent turns of diarrhoea. About the fourth of July, a diarrhoea came upon her, which we thought one of her ordinary turns, and paid no particular attention to it. On the night of the seventh, at about one o'clock, she woke me, and with a perfectly rational mind, said to me, "I am dying." I laid my hand oa her, and found she was cold as death,, and covered with a cold clammy sweat, and soon ascertained she was violently vomiting and purging, and dreadfully cramped and convulsed. I sprang from my bed and as quick as possible, kindled a fire and put over a kettle of water ; and then called up my little son and sent him for doctor L . In the mean time my wife was so terribly handled with the disease, that I could not mistake its character. I was sure it was the cholera, and I was exceedingly alarmed at its awful violence ; for I feared that nothing on earth could control it. As soon as the water boiled, however, I prepared a dose of salt and vinegar and hot water, and gave it to her ; and with equal astonishment and delight found that it arrested at once the vomiting and purging ; I then dipped some flannel in a mixture of the same kind and put it hot over her stomach and bowels, and in less than fifteen minutes her cramps and spasms were all removed, and she was in a very profuse perspiration, and quite at ease. I repeated the dose of salt and vinegar and hot water once or twice afterwards to keep up the perspiration. My son returned and said that the doctor told him that he knew nothing what to do if he came, and therefore it would be of no use for him to come. 

By morning, my wife was able to sit up, and after the operation of a dose of castor oil, was soon restored to her ordinary health ; with much less alienation of mind however than before. I was now fully confirmed in my confidence in the efficacy of the salt and vinegar remedy for the cholera ; and called again on Dr. 



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L , to state to him the results of my experiment. He was much surprised to hear that my wife was still living and doing well, and that I had treated her,only as I had. The cholera now began to prevail pretty extensively in the city, and I devoted the greater part of my time through the whole season of sickness, in visiting the sick, and administering my simple remedy to them : and invariably with entire success, in every stage of the disease ; and many who were cured in this manner went out also, and administered the same remedy to the sick with the same success ; so that I may safely say that hundreds were the subjects of this treatment. No less than fourteen, of my own and my brother's families, were severely attacked with the cholera, and all were cured by this simple remedy. My son, 12 years old, and the son of our neighbor, Mrs. D , a widow lady, about 14 years old, were together, and ate green apples one afternoon, and at about four o'clock, the next morning, both of them were violently attacked with cholera. I gave my son the hot salt water and vinegar, which soon relieved him, and in two days he was able to be about his business again. Mrs. D sent for a physician for her son, and he was put under medical treatment, and very soon went into 

a collapsed state. I called the next morning to see him, and found him in a most awful condition. His symptoms were extremely violent; death-like coldness, violent vomiting and purging — powerful spasms all over ; and the doctor told me that the pulse had been entirely gone for five hours. I ordered some boiling water, and put in my salt and vinegar in due proportions, and administered it in the form of a 

potation and injection, and dipped flannels in it, and applied them to his body, and rubbed his limbs with hot flannels ; and the violent vomiting and purging and cramps were soon arrested, and the patient began to perspire very profusely, and in forty-fivt minutes, his pulse beat sixty times in a minute with a full, fair stroke ; and the patient was doing as well as could be wished. Some slight spasms remained in the extremities, but they were fast yielding to the influence of my treatment. At this juncture Dr. C came in, and ordered the boy, profusely sweating as he was, to be stripped and rubbed all over with mercurial ointment. Healso ordered large doses of mercury. I told him the boy was doing well, and as sure as his directions were followed the boy would not live an hour. But he disregarded my remonstrance and persisted in his course. The unhappy boy entreated his 

mother not to follow the doctor's prescription, and said it would kill him ; but she, full of anxiety and alarm, yielded to the doctor's authority. The poor boy begged me to come to him, which I did, and he threw his arms around my neck and kissed me, and said — " you have done all you could for me and I thank you for it." In a short time after he took the powder which Dr. C ordered, his 

vomiting, purging, and cramps, returned upon him and soon became as violent as ever, and his pulse again ceased. Dr. W now came in, and seeing the state of things and learning what had been done, he turned to Dr. C and said to him, " you have killed that child !" Then turning to me he asked if I could 

not raise him again. — I told him it was too late. In forty-five minutes after the patient was put under the treatment of Dr. C — , he died. Soon after this Dr. R. came for me about midnight and wished me to go with him and see a patient (in Suffolk Street) which he said was very bad, and he could do nothing with her. He said he had had a number of patients in the same neighborhood, and they had all died in spite of every thing he could do. I went with him and found a woman in the most terrible agonies I ever witnessed. She was vomiting and purging with shocking violence, and her body and limbs were horridly drawn up and distorted with cramps. Several persons were trying to relieve her by rubbing her, but she seemed as though she was possessed by an infuriated fiend which was endeavoring to torment her to the utmost. I treated her in the same manner I had Mrs. D 's son, and in less than twenty minutes she was quietly perspiring in her bed, and the neat day she was able to be about house : and in two or three days more, was well. — On the same night, a woman died in the room above her, of whose case I did not know till after her death. A. P., in Grand Street, had the cholera with great virulence ; several physicians visited him, but Dr. R. had the principal care of him: but none of them were able to arrest the disease in the least degree, and the patient sunk into an 

extreme state of collapse ; and Dr. R. said he must die in spite of all earthly meant 

to save him. In this state of things, I was sent for, and administered my simple. 



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remedy, and the patient was almost instantly relieved ; and in a few days was about his business. His wife also had the cholera, and was cured in the same way. — Soon after this I was in at Dr. L.'s office, and a Mrs. D. of Willet Street came in for some medicine, and said that her husband had the cholera very bad indeed. She said he had been out on watch the night before, and as he did not come home at his usual time in the morning, she felt uneasy about him, and went down town after him, and found him in a back yard in a dreadful state of the cholera: he was unable to stand, and she got a hack and brought him home, and called in a physician as soon as possible ; but the doctor had not yet been able to check the disease, and she feared lie would die. Dr. L. told her she had better ask me to go and see him. She was afraid of offending her physician — Dr. D., and did not then request me to go, but soon sent after me. I found Mr. D. in a truly shocking state : his skin was a dark violet-blue, — his vomiting, purging, spasms, and other symptoms, were awful beyond description. Dr. D. was giving him powerful doses of medicine, but without the least favorable effect. Soon after I came in, he gave orders how to give the medicine, and said he must go and see some other patients, and would be back as soon as he could. The Dr. had scarcely left the door before I ordered some boiling water, and without loss of time administered my simple remedy to the sufferer. When the doctor returned he found his patient lying quietly in his bed, perspiring profusely, — no vomiting, no purging — no spasms, — skin natural, and scarce a symptom of cholera about him. 

The doctor was surprised and delighted at the happy effect of his medicine, and said it had done wonders, and the patient was doing finely, and would get well. He thin told us how to proceed, and again went to visit other patients. But his second orders shared the fate of his first — not a particle of his medicine was given during his absence, nor any thing else but the salt, and vinegar, and hot water. Mrs. D., however, thought it not best to let him know any thing about it; and when he came again, he pronounced the patient safe, and congratulated himself very much on his success in such a very violent case. I now left the house in company with the doctor, and oegan to talk to him concerning the treatment of the cholera, and told him I believed I could cure every case, if I could have a fair and timely opportunity. The doctor turned and looked at me with an air of great contempt, and exclaimed, in a sneering and emphatic manner, " How, in the name of God, can it be that you, an unlearned man, should know how to cure the cholera, when our most learned and eminent physicians cannot do it?" Having said this he left me abruptly, and there our acquaintance ended. — William A. D. however, soon recovered his health, and is now living and well. 

J. V., who had always habitually made a free use of ardent spirits, had the cholera very severely. The cramp in his limbs was so excessively violent that it drew his flesh all up into knots, some of which remained for six weeks. He took various medicines without the least effect, and when it was supposed that he was past all possibility of relief, he took the hot salt water and vinegar, and was almost instantly relieved, and soon got well. 

I could detail a great number of similar cases, but suffice it to say that in more than a hundred instances where I administered this remedy, I never knew it to fail of complete success in one case. I went oneday with Dr. R. into Slam's buildings in Delancy and Suffolk Streets, and there I saw the most horrid scenes I ever witnessed on earth. AH kinds and colors were crowded together, — the sick, the dying, and the dead. In one vacated room, the dead body of a negro lay rotting on the floor ; — Mr. S. of Second Avenue, went and covered it over. — Another man came and looked in at the door, and the next day he died. Mr. S. was continually in the midst of the cholera, and in the filthiest places where sickness and suffering were to be found. He used the precautionary measure of washing his body frequently in vinegar, and, I believe, wholly escaped an attack. — But I have dwelt long enough on these scenes of suffering and horror. 

Yours respectfully, GEORGE BOND. 

JVexo York, Jlpril 7, 1833. 



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' P. S. I ought to hare stated, that after having extensively proved the success of the salt and vinegar remedy for the cholera, I went to a number of our city editors, and tried to get them to publish it, but they all refused to do so, except Mr. Webb, of the Courier and Enquirer. He published it, and not long afterwards received a letter from Norfolk, Va., stating that the salt and vinegar remedy had proved the most successful in that place, of any thing which had been tried. 

G. B. 

Note. Most of the persons referred to by Mr. Bond as having had the cholera, I hare called on, and heard from them a full confirmation of Mr. Bond's statement. 

S. G. 

From the Genius oj Temperance. 

GRAHAM MEETING. 

We give below, the proceedings of the meeting of the friends of the Dietetic system, taught by Mr. Graham. These proceedings will serve as a memorial, at home and abroad, of the views of a portion of our citizens, on a subject which haselicited no small degree of feeling in this city, and elsewhere. To persons unaccustomed to notice the winding labyrinths of human nature, it would appear strange that the advocacy of a particular system of diet, should encounter the opposition, misrepresentation, and prejudice, that have recently been witnessed. The result now recorded should serve as an encouragement to those who are called upon to advocate unpopular truths, and as a salutary warning to such as are liable to use and — peradventure — expend their stock of influence, in the fruitless task of retarding popular improvement. 

idPMeeting of the friends of Mr. Graham's Lectures. — The undersigned, a committee appointed for the purpose, hereby invite a meeting of the friends of the Dietetic System taught by Mr. Sylvester Graham, to be held at the lecture room in Clinton Hall, on Thursday evening, the 18th met. at half past 7 o'clock, to adopt resolutions expressive of their regard for the principles taught by him in his late course of lectures, and to afford him some testimonial of their high sense of his important labors. 

Abraham Bell — Austin Dickinson — Walter Underhill — Arthur Tappan — Solyman Brown — Eleazer Parmley — James Hall — Robert G. Fairchild — Joseph Titcom — Samuel J. Hunt — William Mitchell — John B. Jansen — Smith Lawrence — George Corlies — William Doane — F. L. Wilsey — James Smith — A. Sanger — Henry A. Lambert— Albert Woodman— John West— R. Griffith— R. L. Smith — Abijah Smith— Mahlon Day— A. A. White— John Burdell— A. A. Fairbanks — William B. Van Nortwick — Samuel Sloan — T. J. Sawyer — Jehiel Parmley — Truman Roberts — David Wood — Amos Keekr — Amos Pollard — Elihu Blake — R. N. White — Henry Fitz — A. B. Durand — Joseph Perkins — John Dodgson — Jonathan Thorn— John H. Ferris Howard— H. R. Piercy— William Goodell — J. C. Jenkins — Joseph Allen — Jarvis F. Hanks — R. I. Polhamus — William C. White. 

JVew York, April 16<A, 1833. 

Agreeably to the previous notice, the meeting was held at Clinton Hall. 

Abraham Bell, Esq. was called to preside, assisted by Messrs. Robert L. Smith and William B. Van Nortwick. — Messrs. Eleazer Parmlet and Jarvis F. Hanks, were appointed Secretaries. 

Mr. Samuel J. Hunt, submitted to the meeting the Resolutions copied below, which were read by one of the Secretaries, and seconded by Mr. Soltman Brown, who sustained them in a beautiful and appropriate speech, when they were unanimously adopted by the meeting. 



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On invitation, Mr. Graham then entered tbe Hall, and was presented, by Mr. E. Parmly, on behalf of the committee and meeting, with an elegant silver vase, in token of their regard for his important services. 

In accepting the vase, Mr. Graham returned his thanks to the donors, on behalf of the cause, of which he was the servant, and entertained the audience for some time, in advocating its claims. 

A certificate was then read, signed by a large number of citizens, attesting the personal benefits they had received from a conformity to the dietetic rules of Mr. Graham, and commending his system to the attention of their friends and the public. 

The meeting was then adjourned, sine die, after having proved a very pleasing entertainment for above two hours. 

The following are the Resolutions above mentioned. 

At a meeting called by a number of individuals who have attended the lectures given at Clinton Hall, in the city of New- York, by Mr. Sylvester Graham, on the SCIENCE Of HUMAN LIFE. 

1. Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting, the subject embraced in Mr. Graham's course of lectures is one of great and general interest to the human race ; and more especially to the inhabitants of populous cities in which the prevalence of luxury, connected with the sedentary habits of most of the population, induces inevitable disease. 

2. Resolved, That while we rejoice as individuals of the great American family at the progress of Temperance in our country as relates to alcoholic liquors, it is the opinion of this meeting that the work of reformation should be prosecuted with equal zeal as to the quality and quantity of food, exercise, medicine, and other kindred subjects intimately connected with the health, the usefulness and the happiness of man. 

3. Resolved, That it is the sentiment of this meeting that Mr. Graham is not less happy in his general mode of illustration, than in the fortunate selection of his subject ; and that he has shown himself to be eminently qualified, as well by nature as by education, to impart a deep and permanent interest to the science of* dietetics and to those correlative sciences, so forcibly and beautifully illustrated in 3 the progress of his lectures. 

4. Resolved, That whatever speculations may exist, in relation to abstract theories, and whatever shades of difference may obtain in men's minds in respect to minute practical details, it is the decided opinion of thjs meeting, that the general doctrines and dietetic rules of Mr. Graham, are not only correct, but exceedingly important, and that actual experiments in this city, especially during the prevalence of epidemic disease, has fully demonstrated this truth in triumphant ascendancy over the representations that have been made to the contrary. 

5. Resolved, That the central position of this city, its easy communication with " the east, the south, the north, and the west, its intimate connection with the interior, and with Europe, and the great number of its visitors, and transient population, render it the most commanding, eligible, and important location, in which the principles of Mr. Graham can be first established in consistent practice, and best communicated to our countrymen, and to the great family of man — and that it is therefore desirable that, the important labors of Mr. Graham should be : continued in this city. 

6. Resolved, That these resolutions be signed by the President, and countersigned by the Secretaries of this meeting, and published. 

Abraham Bell, President. 

Robert L. Smith, )v . n ... Wm. B. Van Nortwick, 5 Vlce Pre " dent °- 

Eleazer Parmlt, ) « . . Jarvis F. Hanks, \ Secrete us. 

II 







RULES AM) UKUI LA TIOiVS 

OF THE GRAHAM BOARDING HOUSE, 

IN NEW YORK. 

The following Rules were hastily drawn up by me, May 30th, 1832, for the use of the Graham Boarding House, in the city of New York, at the mutual request of the individual who keeps the house, and of the boarders at whose instance the house was opened. They are therefore specially intended for a city Boarding House. S. G. 

Rule 1. The morning bell for rising should be rung during the months of January, February, November, and December, precisely at five o'clock every day ; — during the months of March, April, September, and October, at half past four ; — and during the months of May, June, July, and August, at four o'clock. 

Rule 2. The breakfast bell should be rung precisely at seven the year round. 

Rule 3. The dinner should be served up and the bell rung precisely at one o'clock every day in the year, unless a unanimous wish of the boarders, consented to by the keeper of the house, shall permanently or occasionally change the hour for dining. 

Rule 4. The supper, or third meal, should be served up and the bell rung, at such an hour as seasons and circumstances shall render most convenient for the boarders : and the hour should be established by a vote of at least three fourths of all the boarders: provided, however, that the hour be not frequently and capriciously changed, and that it be at least two hours before bedtime. 

Rule 5. The bell for retiring to bed should be rung precisely at ten o'clock at night, the year round ; and it is recommended that no boarder, without very special and unavoidable reasons, be out of his bed after 1 1 o'clock at night.* 

Rule 6. No boarder should sleep on a feather bed during any part of the year ; but his bed should be hair, moss, or a straw mattrass, or any thing harder if he chooses. 

Rule 7. Breakfast. No flesh-meat of any kind (including fowl and fish — salt and fresh) should be brought on to the breakfast table ; nor should any such food be eaten by any of the boardeia for their breakfast. But the best bread that can be made or procured, of unbolted and coarsely ground wheaten meal, shouid always be provided for the table ; also rye, Indian, barley, and oatmeal bread may be eaten at each and every meal ; but these varieties are not all to be used at the same meal, and they should be regulated by a rule of the house, established by a majority of the boarders, so as to protect the keeper of the house from unreasonable and capricious demands for change and variety. 

The bread should not be eaten until at least twelve hours after it comes from the oven, and it is better at twenty-four hours old ; and if toasted, it should not be buttered before it is quit* cold : and no warm cakes — buckwheat nor any other kind, should be brought upon the table at any time. Indian samp, hominy and mush, and plain boiled rice, with milk, sugar or molasses, but without butter, may be taken at breakfast, or either of the other meals. Slightly boiled eggs may be eaten, but not exceeding two, (and one would be preferable,) by each boarder at a meal. Fruit of various kinds, according to the season, should be uniformly furnished for the breakfast table; such as stewed, dried or fresh apples, peaches, pears, 

* Th» first five rule* may bo varied, according to circuiiutances, in the country. 



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themes, plums, cranberries, &c. &c. And in their season, a reasonable quantify Of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, &c. &c. should be furnished tor the table, if the quantity in the market will afford them at a reasonable price. 

The butter used upon the table, should always be of the sweetest and best kind that can be procured, and very sparingly eatan ; and only on such bread and other things as will not melt it. 

Butter at best is a questionable article, and should be very sparingly used by the healthy, and not at all by the diseased. 

tRuLE 8. Dinner. The dinner table should be furnished with great neatness, linness and simplicity. If flesh-meat is used at all, (which is not necessary nor st,) not more than one kind of flesh should be brought on to the table at the same meal, and that should be either boiled, roasted, broiled or baked, and furnished only with its own juices as a gravy ; nor should ally other article of seasoning be used upon it in cooking, nor by the boarders in eating, besides a moderate quantity of •alt. Black and red pepper, mustard, and such kinds of seasonings, together with all made gravies, should be totally and utterly excluded from the table and from the kitchen. 

IN. B. — Veal, Young Pork, Geese and Ducks, should never be brought upon the ble. Pork of any kind, should be sparingly [eaten. Good Beef and Mutton 5 the best kinds of animal food, dung-hill fowls and turkies are allowable ; also, occasionally, fresh fish, boiled or broiled, and eaten with salt only. 

Good bread, plain boiled ripe and mealy potatoes, rice, Leans, peas, beets, carrots, turnips, onions, parsnips, squashes, cabbage, greens, &c. &c. may be used with the flesh, but not exceeding two vegetable articles besides bread, at one and the same meal ; and they without mashing, and only seasoned with salt, and some of the articles with a very little vinegar, (if desired) but without butter. Those who eat flesh for their dinner, should use but little at a meal : and those who do not choose to eat flesh at all, should be furnished with bread and milk, samp, hominy, mush or rice with milk, or with sugar or molasses, as they shall prefer ; they should also be furnished, if they desire it, with such fruit as is prescribed for the breakfast table. But those who use flesh, with potatoes, or other simple and appropriate vegetables, should make their full meal on this course ; and by no means partake of the samp, hominy, &c. with milk, sugar, or molasses, nor of the fruit at the same meal. No second course or dessert should be prepared for the table, nor Cen by the boarders. No Pastry should ever be furnished ; and those who use lasses or sugar, should use it very sparingly. 

Plain custards, Indian puddings, bread puddipgs, and rice puddings may be occasionally served up, and eaten not very warm, with molasses or sugar, but no butter, and always to the exclusion of flesh, for that meal, with those who partake of these dishes. Stale bread should always be eaten with these custards and puddings. But when bread is eaten as an accompaniment with other articles, no butter should be used upon it. A little good cheese may be eaten with the bread instead of butter, unless the state of health forbids it- In short, the greatest plainness and simplicity are always to be observed at each and every meal. Carefully avoid mixing togetner heterogeneous substances in the stomach at the same mea^ and let the dish be simple. Either take flesh, bread and potatoes ; or hominy, or rice and milk ;or hominy, or rice and molasses, or sugar ; or bread and fruit, or some other equally simple dish, and make the meal on it ; but do not mix these different dishes together. Let the variety be from meal to meal, and not at the same meal, and the food should always be eaten slowly and cheerfully. 

Rule 9. Supper. The supper or third meal, should consist of plain bread and butter, or bread with milk, or samp, hominy, or mush with milk, sugar or molasses ; or of simple Indian meal, or oatmeal, or barley gruel, with or without bread. No flesh, fish or fruit, should be used at supper; nor should a fourth meal or lunch be taken between the third meal and retiring to bed. 

Rule 10. Tea, coffee, chocolate, and all fermented, malt and distilled, alcoholic and narcotic liquors, and tobacco, should be totally and utterly excluded from 



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the house ; and if any one or more nfthe boarders, is or are known to indulge in the us« of either or any of llie above proscribed articles, he, she or they should be requested to leave the house. . , RuLfc 11. Drinks. The first and best at all times, and- indeed the only fitting drink for mankind is pure soft water, and this isi earnestly recommended, as the exclusive drink of a Graham Boarding House. Filtered rain water is always the best, and iaf easily procured. It is the most salutary drink that can be used by man in all circumstances. But where this cannot be had, and the water is poor or hard, invalids may use boiled water turned upon some carefully toasted broad, with a little milk and sugar if they choose, but always cool. Drink for breakfast, dinner and supper, soft water only. Good water of the kind described '.should be always furnished freely a3 a drink for the boarders. N. B. It is better to drink* but little during the meal, and drink more freely one or two hours after, if thirsty. Bathing and Exercise. Rulk 12. Cleanliness. Every boardfer on rising in the morning, should make a free use df cold water on his hands, face, neck, and ears; and it would be still better if after this, he would dip a large sponge in cold water, and pass it briskly over his whole body and limbs, from his head to his feet, and then rub himself off very briskly and smartly with a very course towel or flesh brush, or both, till his skjrt feels in a comfortable glow. He suonltl also, without fail, apply cold water to hit* mouth and teeth with a godH topth brush, taking care to pass the brush over the inside as well as the outsitfe of the teeth, to prevent the tartar from accumulating on the teeth, and disordering the gums, and thus causing the teeth to decay and become painful and perhaps loose. Every boarder should immerse liis whole body in water, at least once a week ; especially if he does not use the sponge bath : and during very warm weather it I be well to bathe at least ?hree times a week. If he bathes in the river i bath, let him plunge in, and not remain in over five minutes at a time j i coming out, let him rub his skin orFbrisKly with a coarse towel. But no lould bathe soon after a m< al. h boarder should apply a 110 ¦ t brush to his skin freely from head to foot, an In the morning, and on rcti> ; ng in the evening. -k 13. Exercise. Every ¦ boarder should walk or ride on horseback, c some other active exercise, iVom thirty to sixty minutes every morning before breakfast, in the open air, when the weather will permit, and when it will not, gymnastic ejrprcises shouldibe within doors. Brisk walking, continued till a gentle ]*u»piration is prbduced, is perhaps the best exerci»e for the human body, especiaW, if it be varied with an occasional leap, run, hop, &c. to give increased exercise Jo the abdomftfal and thoracic viscera. Horseback riding is very good, if well re wlo ted — there: is great art in riding, so as to derive the greatest advantage to flic bowels, &c Still, however, smart walking, running, wrestling, boxing, &c. c.i<efully avoiding all violence and excess, are decidedly the most natural and heoltW kinds of exercise. The exercise should be taken a<lnuch as possible in the open air, and as often as may be convenient, in the -o pea country. Great cheerfulness should be cultivated during the hours or moments of-cxercise. JJfceerful conversation, singing, and hearty laughing, are well calculated to increase tihe buoyancy and elasticity of the animal spirits, and give a livelier and fuller action .to the organs, and thus tq produce a salutary acceleration of the vital functidns, and greatly increase the advantage« of exercise.