[Health and comfort in old age : and the safety of immediate and entire discontinuance of spirit drinking described and exemplified; being the substance of a speech].

  • Shillitoe, Thomas, 1754-1836.
Date:
[1833]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Health and comfort in old age : and the safety of immediate and entire discontinuance of spirit drinking described and exemplified; being the substance of a speech]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    then recommended. Although the quantity was in- creased from time to time, they did not produce the effect I desired. I became alarmed at the consequences, not knowing where it would end. These not producing sleep, J was then advised to have recourse to laudanum. I began with ten drops, yet I found 1 was obliged to in- crease my dose three drops every third night, until I got to one hundred and eighty drops ; 1 left off at that quan- tity. In addition to my nervous attacks (I apprehend in consequence of my generous and high manner of living), I became bilious, rheumatic, and gouty; I frequently had very bad colds and sore throat; and I can only describe the situation I was brought into, by saying I went about, day by day, frightened for fear of being frightened, a dreadful situation indeed to be living in. I made a visit to a medical friend of mine in Hampshire, where I spent some time. This afforded him an opportunity of observing the state of my health, and the effect which my manner of living had on my constitution ; and before 1 quitted his house he advised me to make a general change in my manner of living, to abandon my beef-steak, to abandon the use of all fer- mented liquors, and to U3e animal food but very sparingly. At first it appeared to me as if human nature could hardly be willing to submit to my friend’s prescription, for my physician in London had desired me to double my portion of ale in the morning, saying my hypochon- driacal habit required it. At last I called upon him for his advice in as debilitated a state of body, I think, as I well coqld be to walk about. His advice to me was, to procure some of the oldest Madeira wine that could be got, and to take a bottle of it in as short a time as pos- sible. A friend of mine provided me some, which he told me was twenty years old. I believe it is best thus to go into the details of what I suffered. I took the bottle of wine between the hours of eight and ten at night, and it produced very little more effect (such was my state of debility) than if I had taken so much water : but feeling satisfied of the sincerity of my friend, who had enforced on me the necessity of a general change, I made up my mind to be willing to seek for help Irom Almighty God, that I might give it a fair trial, satisfied as I was, that nothing short of his help could enable me to endure the conflict I must undergo. When I returned 60