Letters to a sick friend containing such observations as may render the use of remedies effectual towards the removal of sickness, and preservation of health. By J. M.

LETTER XXVII.

SIR,

I Received yours the 12^th instant, where∣in you complain exceedingly of the ill Effects of the Waters at Epsam this Summer: I beseech you inquire whether the Cause be not from your own irregu∣lar Use of them; and also take notice, whether you do not drink more Wine than Water: For those Symptoms you complain of, give a greater suspicion of the former, than the latter, being used; sure I am, the Doctor that recommended them to you, understood their fitness for your Constitution and Disease, therefore if you follow his Direction, in the use of them, I question not but they will have their desired Effect. I know there are more go thither to gratifie Curiosity, than to serve the end of Health; and Pleasure is more frequently propounded than Ease. But let me tell you, those physical Waters by the preposterous use, often prove like the Waters of Jealousie, they make Peo∣ples Bodies to swell, and their Thighs to rot, and lay the foundations for many di∣stempers,

as Dropsies, Agues, Gouts, and the like: Many long as much to drink them, as King David did to drink of the Water of the Well of Bethlehem, but men venture their Lives in so doing, as they did in that case, especially by the unrea∣sonable quantities many men take. I have larely known one come home swelled with a Dropsie, another tinctured with a Jaun∣dice, and a third shaking with an Ague. All immoderate Evacuations are very de∣structive to Nature: There are hundreds that Drowned themselves in Wells, that are never mentioned in the weekly Bills. Nature is destroyed by all Extreams, too much Food, or too long Fasting; too much Rest, or too much Motion; too much Sleep, or too much Watching; too much Joy, or too much Sorrow; too much Heat, or too much Cold; too much Wine, or too much Water Quantities shorten Life more than Qualities. Many who were only wan∣tonly Sick, become really so; and that which was intended for a Cure, many times becomes a Surfeit. At those Wa∣ters men are served like the Impostor who fained himself Blind, that the Arrian Bi∣shop might work a Miracle in his Cure; and when he would have opened his Eyes, could not, but was ever after really Blind.

People depending upon the cleansing Ver∣tue of those Waters, and neglecting the use of proper Remedies to render them Effectual, do but like an improvident Laundress, who thinks to wash her Lin∣nen white and clean with Water without Soap. They should be chiefly used as Pos∣set-drink to a Purge. Indiscrect Persons think to take off the Mischief of too great Quantities of Wine, by drinking plentiful Draughts of Water; but this is to run Nature out of one Extream into another, and to render mens Bodies more subject to Diseases and Putrefaction; like Timber that lyes sometimes in the wet, and some∣times in the Sun, more subject to Rot. There are thousands that purge their Souls out of their Bodies by immoderate Evacu∣ations one way or other. Sir, I shall con∣clude this Discourse of Mineral Waters with a hearty wish, That you may ever find them successeful, untill you come to Drink of that Well of Life which makes glad the City of God: Where I hope you will be accompanyed by

Your true Friend, J. M.