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DR. HASTINGS, OF WORCESTER.

and as if resolved to complete the stanza, the utterance was forced upon me of

Groans was my devotion,

And drugs done me no good.

What a tale of misery do these four short lines comprehend! And how frequently has it fallen to my lot, since I came hither, to have it illustrated in every variety of sufferer, and in every varied mode of expressing it!

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My reflections and my walk terminated at the door of my own house, on entering which I found a patient had sent for me. She was a sufferer from serious stomach disease-ulceration, and I fear almost total disorganization of that part. Pray," said I, “ "what has been done for you hitherto?" She replied; "The last thing I was advised to do, was to try several tumblers of cold water before breakfast: but it made me very ill indeed it oppressed and sickened me dreadfully, and gave me spasms and colic the whole day it seemed more than my stomach could bear:" "And who gave you this advice?" "DR. HASTINGS, OF WORCESTER!!"

And so, doctor, you have been nibbling at the Water-cure, this summer, when you found drugs

you

ATTEMPT AT THE WATER-CURE.

37

at a discount. Though you publish "no connexion with the person over the way," you have been trying your hand at his function. Why did you not continue it? I will tell you;-Because the patients would not allow you. They saw the attempt at the Water-cure, and they felt that knew nothing about it: in the case of the lady, her stomach told her so in a very disagreeable manner. Oh," said she, "if I am to undergo the Water-cure, I will place myself under Dr. Wilson; at all events, this mode of trying it will not do." And to Dr. Wilson she came. This I will acknowledge must have been very disagreeable to you-but how can I help it?

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Now, if I had had the paltry soul to busy myself with burning holes in my neighbour's coat, and then holding it up to the light for all the world to see what a ragged individual he was, I should have straightway penned a letter to some Journal, commencing with some general galimatias, in which sundry hard words, though well-worn expressions, such as "paradoxical systems," "incubating hypothetical notions," "therapeutic agents," gullibility," &c., were bandied about with the view of passing them off for "fine writing." I should then have observed that Worcester had

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38

66 MAUVAISE FOI."

long been the resort of one of those heroes who, not having the honesty openly to seek the truth, and acknowledge it when found, but desirous to try, on the sly, the “ practical application" of it "to the filling of his pockets," had, in the act of so doing, treated a case in such a manner, that "if death had occurred, the opinion might be hazarded (a mighty hazard truly!) that a jury of upright and honest men might, in the faithful discharge of their duty, have brought in a verdict of manslaughter against the author of this suffering and untimely death." I say I should have published all this and a great deal more malignant bombast-that is, if I had a paltry soul, or was a pitiful eaves-dropper. But as Providence has kindly organized me otherwise, I merely put the patient on the right plan of treatment, and thought nothing more about it, quent writing reminded me that ought not to be all on one side." tion it now in order to afford you another illustration of the homely proverb, "that they who live in glass houses should not throw stones."

until your elo"the reciprocity

And so I men

I mention it, moreover, in illustration of the mauvaise foi, (there are two translations of this into English-you may take either,) which so

THE CRAFT AND THE CRAFTY.

39

strongly characterizes all men who, sooner than receive a new fact, or abandon an old prejudice, in art or science, turn their intellect to the purpose of misrepresenting and maligning the promulgators of that fact. A former patient and friend of mine,* the Princess S-a, who had been above two years at Graefenberg, was struck with this feature in the conduct of some of the continental drug-doctors who visited her and Preissnitz, that she observed to me "Je puis tout pardonner à ces gens excepté leur mauvaise foi "-a remark emanating from one against whom no libellous papers had been published, and who, therefore, must have spoken from the conviction of disinterested observation. It is this want of moral courage to grasp, and the consequent tendency to distort and misrepresent, facts against which I protest as the besetting sin of those who, like yourself, raise the cry of "mad dog" when they behold anything that is likely to interfere with the craft-and the crafty. Luckily, the laity who essay the "Water-cure," feel that it is a mere mischief-making cry, and on your part a mean and sordid one. Therefore, ye may

howl until ye are hoarse.

* See the treatment of her children in my "Water-cure," p. 142.

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MEDICAL OPINIONS.

Yet there is corn amid the chaff: there are some gems in the rubbish. There are medical men who have gone on the continent, and some who have come hither with an earnest desire to investigate the merits of the Water-cure dispassionately;-aye, and who have the courage to speak out. Among these I would point out one, a stranger to me, who came voluntarily to live in my establishment, to submit to and observe the treatment, and who went away to give his public evidence, unknown to me also, to its simplicity, safety, and success: and he is a man your equal at least, doctor, in age, in experience, and in talent. MR. COOKE, of Cheltenham, (only three times more distant from Malvern than Worcester, doctor,) made the following publication in the Cheltenham Journal, of the 13th or 14th of September, and I here repeat it for your edification.

THE WATER CURE.

To the Editor of the Cheltenham Journal.

SIR,-As it is pretty well known that I have been spending the last fortnight at Malvern, partly for the benefit of my own health, and partly for the purpose of inquiring practically into the nature of the means now employing there for the prevention of disease,