Extracts from the reports of the Asylum ... upon the medical principles / and under the imediate superintendence of Mr. Charles Whitlaw, 14, Finsbury Place, South.

  • Asylum for the Cure of Scrofula and Glandular Diseases
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extracts from the reports of the Asylum ... upon the medical principles / and under the imediate superintendence of Mr. Charles Whitlaw, 14, Finsbury Place, South. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/74 page 14
    i ■ at the same time to support my strength with wine and porter, until I fell into a confirmed dropsy, and lost all hopes of recovery. At length one of my friends, Mrs. Graham, as a forlorn hope, proposed to take me to the country house of a friend of hers, at Throgsneck, eighteen miles distant, to consult an Indian doctor. When the Indian first saw me and was asked if he knew the nature and cause of my disease, he answered, u he take too much sour, too much bitter, and too much mercury but he declared his confidence in curing me. His medicines at first affected me strangely, producing a degree of stupor which lasted all night, succeeded towards morning by a copious perspira¬ tion ; the first moisture felt on my skin during fourteen months. The remedies he administered soon removed the dropsical symptoms. The anxious care and unceasing at¬ tention of my kind hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, and of Mrs. Ogden and Mrs. Graham, deserve my warmest grati¬ tude ; of the latter lady in particular ; the history of whose misfortunes and domestic sufferings is already before the public. During my convalescence, and on recovery from the state of torpor to which I was reduced by the disease, my mind was actively bent on discovering the Indian’s remedies ; he would tell me nothing, however, but that they were very good. The particular kinds of food which be allowed and which he forbad, engaged my attention ; which on this occasion was first awakened to the importance of the study of aliments, as essential to the preservation of life and health, and to guard us from premature death and disease. On returning to New York I was at a loss to what subject or pursuit to direct my attention. My friends urged me to have recourse to my former profession of landscape gardening, but not having strength sufficient for that em¬ ployment, Mr. Williamson, to whom I made my circum¬ stances known, advised me to take a sea-voyage to the West Indies in the winter season to recover my strength ; and he not only relieved my immediate pecuniary wants, but generously offered me a shipment of potatoes, plants, shrubs, and seeds suitable for that market. The potatoes were packed in dry sand in barrels, a mode of packing for which I afterwards obtained the medal of the Society of Arts in London; and they arrived in the West Indies in such perfection, that they were sold for treble the price of European produce. At Jamaica, I was introduced to Dr. Brown, with whom I made many important experiments to prove the truth of certain conclusions, which I had drawn
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