Diseases > Domestic medicine

will often cure the disease after every other medicine
lias failed.
Nor is an attention to other things of less import
anee than to diet. The strange infatuation which
has long induced people to shut up the sick from all
communication with the external air, has done great
mischief. Not only in fevers, but in many other
diseases, the patient will receive more benefit from
having the fresh air prudently admitted into his
chamber, than from all the medicines which can be
Exercise may likewise in many cases be considered,
as a medicine. Sailing, or riding on horseback, for
example, will be of more service in the cure of con¬
sumptions, glandular obstructions, &c. than any
medicine yet known. In diseases which proceed
from a relaxed state of the solids, the cold bath, and
other parts of the gymnastic regimen, will be found
equally beneficial.
Few things are of greater importance in the cure
of diseases than cleanliness. When a patient is
suffered to lie in dirty clothes, whatever perspires
from his body is agaih resorbed, or taken up into it,
which serves to nourish the disease and increase the
danger. Many diseases may be cured by cleanliness
alone : most of them may be mitigated by it, and in
all of them it is highly necessary, both for the patient
and those who attend him.
Many other observations, were it necessary, might
be adduced to prove the importance of a proper
regimen in diseases. Regimen will often cure diseases
without medicine, but medicine will seldom succeed
where a proper regimen is neglected. For this reason,
in the treatment of diseases, we have always given the
first place to regimen. Those who are ignorant of
medicine may confine themselves to it only. For