In course of time a case came to me, driven because of the ceaseless importunities of a friend. It was a young lady from the highest social circles. During many years she had eaten all her meals as a sense of duty, and not from pleasure or hunger. She had appealed in vain to medical science; she had tested the numerous highly advertised specifics, and the outcome was that her luckless stomach had reached a condition that prohibited all solid food. For more than a year her life had been sustained by liquid foods, such as broths, soups, meat, tea, etc. She came to me hopeless of relief and only to silence the importunity of her friend.

Without fully seeing the physiological reason behind the method, a strict fast was enjoined until there should be developed real hunger, and then to begin with the solid food that was most indicated. I succeeded in making such an impression that she left the office not a little enthused, and all the more as dosage was not involved.

This was my first marked case. This lady entered upon her fast, and, by a due prolongation, was able to handle a light solid meal with no painful efforts of digestion as formerly, and by studied care, she became in a few weeks able to eat two substantial meals daily without discomfort; and in time was able to say, “I have no words to express what it is to me to eat what I will, with keen relish, and not have to suffer for it."

Her life became quickened in every way, her intellectual force became increased, and ultimately her learning, her culture and her power over the expression of written thought began to adorn the pages of our high-class monthlies. But I was not able to suggest a plausible theory why the inevitable breakfast should be

abandoned-nor was she able to meet her friends with arguments, who were astonished, even confounded, over a change that presumed to come through a method that seemed to deserve not consideration, but ridicule.

This case caused a good deal of discussion in the city, but it gave me more of ridicule than of credit; that such an end should be achieved by such means—well, it staggered belief-and because it had not behind it the mysticism of dosage.

The Syrian leper was simply disgusted with his prescription; he wanted a miracle and not a succession of baths; and the Jordan was inconvenient, and no purer than Abana and Pharpar.

In the case of this lady there were no associated conditions of disease that I became aware of, and there was no actual disease of the stomach; it had been kept only functionally overpowered year after year. And medical science had only been directed to a result and not a cause, and hence it inevitably failed. There was only the one visit to my office, and afterwards the chance meetings upon the street. And as to the method, she informed me that she was able to say to all, "As long as I keep in line with the method, I am all right, and when I do not I am all wrong."

For a long time after I began to advise patients in this way, I saw nothing but the stomach, structurally or functionally disabled, to be relieved, and with only general improvement to be expected. But, as the scope of my vision began to enlarge and to clear, there began to be results noticeable that needed to be explained, that must be explained, and the very first that met me was a loss of weight.

LECTURE XII.

AN EVOLUTION OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE-(Continued).

My Friends the Readers :

My attention to a loss of weight, while a cure seemed to be going on, was incited by a case that caused a great deal of discussion in high circles in the city. It occurred in an infant of four months that seemed to be fat, of full weight and well nourished, which had had a bowel trouble from birth; and, though not supposed to be sick, yet had been under light dosage every day of its life. It was the first-born of a young mother who was capable of convictions: and who had all the needed resolution and perseverance to carry them out.

By some chance a friend sent her a little book from Boston written by a Doctor Page, which advised only three feedings per day for infants-three nursings in 24 hours, only!! And the next day after reading this advice she began with three nursings, six hours apart, rigidly carried out.

In less than two days the bowel trouble ceased, and in every other way the improvement was marked; but it was not very long before there was such a decline in weight as to cause some uneasiness to the parents, and a hurricane of disapprobation among the army of relatives, because of the starving method; and I was called because of known views in some harmony with the condemned book. After a careful history of the case before and after the reform-diet method was

adopted, I could but believe that the waste that was manifestly going on was not revealing any danger symptoms; and so I advised the method to be continued, and hence put myself within the storm circle as an aider and abettor of criminal stupidity. I watched over this case for some weeks, and saw that every attempt to interfere with the regularity of the six-hour meals, was followed by an immediate digestive disturbance.

An additional adviser was called only to be confounded over the result, but was not able to advise a change of the plan. We all had to accept the fact that the loss of weight was in no way a process of disease, for the child grew into sturdier health that was steadily maintained, and physiological law triumphed over unreasoning prejudice. But why or how the loss? That was beyond my reasoning out, for a time.

Next came the case of a young lady in close social relations with my family, an only daughter. She was advised to abandon food in the morning, not because of disease, or apparent weakness of the stomach, for of this she never complained; but because of a feeling of languor, of inability to attend to her affairs with any energy of body or mind.

She was finely formed and with not an ounce of "flesh" to spare for harmony of proportion. In the course of a very few weeks there was some alarm all through the house because of a loss in bulk, and I could not account for it; the clothes were becoming too loose for due fitness. But here was another fact, the general health had become so improved that she could go about with elastic steps, and with an energy and cheer that was a revelation to all; in fact she could run upstairs without getting dizzy and out of breath, whereas she could only walk slowly on this account before. How was this to be explained?

The clue came for a solution by a chance recalling of the bloated, dropsical feet and limbs of old people, and those of broken and weak constitutions, who have this difficulty to contend with after illnesses that have confined them to the bed for a long time. Here we have thin blood, thin, lax blood-vessels, the elastic or contractile fiber in the vein walls so stretched by loss of tone, as to permit the veins to become dilated into elongated sacks; and these sacks have to hold their contents against the force of gravity.

In this sense there might be put this appendix on many a small headstone, in the cities of the dead: "Died from unrecognized cruelty." And it would be true in a frightful percentage of instances.

In the case of the young lady, the loss was accounted for in the same way, a long time after apprehension had ceased.

Years after this I had a most striking illustration of the soundness of this theory of loss of weight. I was called to take charge of a case of general and abdominal dropsy in a farmer, past his 60th year.

Very learned counsel was duly called, exceedingly skilled in the diagnosis of disease, and who carried in his mind a wealth of medical lore. He exhausted his powers in a search for the cause without getting a ray of light. It was his opinion that there was not less than a gallon and a half of water in the abdominal cavity. His suggestions as to treatment did not prevail with me, because too destructive of digestive power, and then it was only aimed at a condition, at a symptom.

For weeks after, though the patient was able to be about the house, and the sleep was not interfered with by any difficulty of breathing, yet the case seemed be