Chapter XIX: Cheyne. 1671-1743

One of the most esteemed of English physicians, and one of the first medical authorities in this country who expressly wrote in advocacy of the reformed diet, descended from an old Scottish family. He studied medicine at Edinburgh--then and still a principal school of medicine and surgery--where he was a pupil of Dr. Pitcairn. At about the age of thirty he removed to London, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and took his M.D. degree, commencing practice in the metropolis.

The manner of life of a medical practitioner in the first half of the last century differed considerably from the present fashion. Not only personal inclination, but even professional interest, usually led him to frequent taverns and to indulge in all the excesses of “good living;” for in such boon companionship he most easily laid the foundation of his practice. Cheyne’s early habits of temperance thus gave way to the double temptation, and soon by this indulgence he contracted painful disorders which threatened his life. An enormous weight of flesh, intermittent fevers, shortness of breath, and lethargy combined to enfeeble and depress him.

His first appearance in literature was the publication of his _New Theory of Fevers_, written in defence and at the suggestion of his old master Dr. Pitcairn, who was at war with his brethren on the nature of epidemics. The author, while in after life holding that it contained, though in a crude form, some valuable matter, wisely allowed it to fall into oblivion. The Mechanical or _Iatro-Mathematical_ Theory, as it was called, of which Cheyne was one of the earliest and most distinguished expounders, by which it was attempted to apply the laws of Mechanics to vital phenomena, had succeeded to the principles of the old Chemical School. On the Continent the new theory had the support of the eminent authority of Boerhaave, Borelli, Sauvages, Hoffman, and others. The natural desire to discover some definite and simple _formulæ_ of medical science lay at the root of this, as of many other hypotheses. Cheyne, himself, it is right to observe, ridiculed the notion that all vital processes can be explained on mechanical principles.

In 1705 he published his _Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion_, a book which had some repute in its day, apparently, since it was in use in the Universities. Between this and his next essay in literature a long interval elapsed, during which he had to pay the penalty of his old habits in apoplectic giddiness, violent headaches, and depression of spirits. Happily, it became for him the turning-point in his life, and eventually rendered him so useful an instructor of his kind. He had now arrived at a considerable amount of reputation in the profession. He seems to have been naturally of agreeable manners and of an amiable disposition, as well as of lively wit which, improved by study and reading, made him highly popular; and amongst his scientific and professional friends he was in great esteem. He had now, however--not too soon--determined to abandon his _bon-vivantism_, and speedily “even those who had shared the best part of my profusions,” he tells us, “who, in their necessities had been relieved by my false generosity, and, in their disorders, been relieved by my care, did now entirely relinquish and abandon me.” He retired into solitude in the country and, almost momentarily expecting the termination of his life, set himself to serious and earnest reflection on the follies and vices of ordinary living.

At this time it seems that, although he had reduced his food to the smallest possible amount, he had not altogether relinquished flesh-meat. He repaired to Bath for the waters and, by living in the most temperate way and by constant and regular exercise, he seemed to have regained his early health. At Bath he devoted himself to cases of nervous diseases which most nearly concerned his own state, and which were most abundant at that fashionable resort. About the year 1712, or in the forty-second year of his age, his health was fairly re-established, and he began to relax in the milk and vegetable regimen which he had previously adopted.

His next publication was _An Essay on the Gout and Bath Waters_ (1720), which passed through seven editions in six years. In it he commends the vegetable diet, although not so radically as in his latest writings. His relaxation of dietetic reform quickly brought back his former maladies, and he again suffered severely. During the next ten or twelve years he continued to increase in corpulency, until he at last reached the enormous weight of thirty-two stones, and he describes his condition at this time as intolerable.[140] In 1725 he left Bath for London, to consult his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, whose advice probably renewed and confirmed his old inclination for the rational mode of living. At all events, within two years, by a strict adherence to the milk and vegetable regimen his maladies finally disappeared; nor did he afterwards suffer by any relapse into dietetic errors.

In the preceding year had appeared his first important and original work--his well-known _Essay of Health and a Long Life_. In the preface he declares that it is published for the benefit of those weakly persons who

“are able and willing to abstain from everything hurtful, and to
deny themselves anything their appetites craved, to conform to
any rules for a tolerable degree of health, ease, and freedom
of spirits. It is for these, and these only,” he proceeds, “the
following treatise is designed. The robust, the luxurious, the
pot-companions, &c., have here no business; their time is not yet
come.”

It is generally acknowledged to be one of the best books on the subject. Haller pronounced it to be “the best of all the works bearing upon the health of sedentary persons and invalids.” It went through several editions in the space of two years, and in 1726 was enlarged by the author and translated by his friend and pupil John Robertson M.A. into Latin, and three or four editions were quickly exhausted in France and Germany. In this book, while reducing flesh-meat to a _minimum_, and insisting upon the necessity of abstinence from grosser food and of the use of vegetables only, at the morning and evening meals, he had not advanced as yet so far as to preach the truth in its entirety. He arrived at it only by slow and gradual conviction. Expatiating on the follies and miseries of _bon-vivantism_, he proceeds to affirm that--

“All those who have lived long, and without much pain, have lived
abstemiously, poor, and meagre. Cornaro prolonged his life and
preserved his senses by almost starving in his latter days; and
some others have done the like. They have, indeed, thereby, in some
measure, weakened their natural strength and qualified the fire
and flux of their spirits, but they have preserved their senses,
weakened their pains, prolonged their days, and procured themselves
a gentle and quiet passage into another state.... All the rest
will be insufficient without this [a frugal diet]; and this alone,
without these [medicines, &c.], will suffice to carry on life as
long as by its natural flame it was made to last, and will make the
passage easy and calm, as a taper goes out for want of fuel.”

While the _Essay of Health_ added greatly to his reputation with all thinking people, it also exposed him (as was to be expected) to a storm of small wit, ridicule, and misrepresentation:--

“Some good-natured and ingenious retainers to the Profession,” he
tells us, “on the publication of my book on _Long Life and Health_,
proclaimed everywhere that I was turned mere enthusiast, advised
people to turn monks, to run into deserts, and to live on roots,
herbs, and wild fruits! in fine, that I was, at bottom, a mere
leveller, and for destroying order, ranks, and property, everyone’s
but my own. But that sneer had its day, and vanished into smoke.
Others swore that I had eaten my book, recanted my _doctrine_ and
_system_ (as they were pleased to term it), and was returned again
to the devil, the world, and the flesh. This joke I have also
stood. I have been slain again and again, both in prose and verse;
but, I thank God, I am still alive and well.”

His next publication was his _English Malady: or, a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all kinds_, which was also well received, going through four editions in two years. The incessant ridicule with which the _gourmands_ had assailed his last work seems to have made him cautious in his next attempt to revolutionise dietetics; and he is careful to advertise the public that his milk and vegetable system was for those in weak health only. Denouncing the use of sauces and provocatives of unnatural appetite, “contrived not only to rouse a sickly stomach to receive the unnatural load, but to render a naturally good one incapable of knowing when it has enough,” he asks, “Is it any wonder then that the diseases which proceed from idleness and fulness of meat should increase in proportion?” He is bold enough by this time to affirm that, for the cure of many diseases, an entire abstinence from flesh is indisputably necessary:--

“There are some cases wherein a vegetable and milk diet seems
absolutely necessary, as in severe and habitual gouts, rheumatisms,
cancerous, leprous, and scrofulous disorders; extreme nervous
colics, epilepsies, violent hysteric fits, melancholy, consumptions
(and the like disorders, mentioned in the preface), and towards the
last stages of all chronic distempers. In such distempers _I have
seldom seen such a diet fail of a good effect at last_.”

Six years later, in 1740, appeared his _Essay on Regimen: together with Five Discourses Medical Moral and Philosophical, &c._ Since his last exhortation to the world Cheyne had evidently convinced himself, by long experience as well as reflection, of the great superiority of the vegetable diet for all--sound as well as sick; and, accordingly, he speaks in strong and clear language of the importance of a general reform. As a consequence of this plain speaking, his new book met with a comparatively cold reception. Perhaps, too, its mathematical and somewhat abstruse tone may have affected its popularity. As regards its moral tone it was a new revelation, doubtless, for the vast majority of his readers. He boldly asserts:--

“The question I design to treat of here is, whether animal or
vegetable food was, in the original design of the Creator, intended
for the food of animals, and particularly of the human race. And I
am almost convinced it _never was intended, but only permitted as
a curse or punishment_.... At what time animal [flesh] food came
first in use is not certainly known. He was a bold man who made the
first experiment.

_Illi robur et æs triplex
Circa pectus erat._

To see the convulsions, agonies, and tortures of a poor
fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to
gratify luxury, and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a
rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot
find any great difference, _on the foot of natural reason and
equity only, between feeding on human flesh and feeding on brute
animal flesh, except custom and example_.

I believe some [more] rational creatures would suffer less in being
fairly butchered than a strong Ox or red Deer; and, in natural
morality and justice, the _degrees of pain_ here make the essential
difference, for as to other differences, _they are relative only_,
and can be of no influence with an infinitely perfect Being. Did
not use and example weaken this lesson, and make the difference,
reason alone could never do it.”--_Essay on Regimen, &c._ 8vo.
1740. Pages 54 and 70.

Noble and courageous words! Courageous as coming from an eminent member of a profession--which almost rivals the legal or even the clerical, in opposition to all change in the established order of things. In Dr. Cheyne’s days such interested or bigoted opposition was even stronger than in the present time. From the period of the final establishment of his health, about 1728, little is known of his life excepting through his writings. Almost all we know is, that he continued some fifteen years to practise in London and in Bath with distinguished reputation and success. He had married a daughter of Dr. Middleton of Bristol by whom he had several children. His only son was born in 1712. Amongst his intimate friends was the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, a Scotchman like himself, and we find him meeting Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead at the bedside of his friend and relative Bishop Burnet. Both Dr. Arbuthnot and Sir Hans Sloane, we may remark in passing, have given evidence in favour of the purer living. His own diet he thus describes in his _Author’s Case_, written towards the end of his life:--

“My regimen, at present, is milk, with tea, coffee, bread and
butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with
tender roots (as potatoes, turnips, carrots), and, in short,
_everything that has not life_, dressed or not, as I like it, _in
which there is as much or a greater variety than in animal foods_,
so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any
fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid,
moist, or juicy.[141] Only after dinner I drink either coffee
or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a
glass of soft, small cider. The thinner my diet, the easier, more
cheerful and lightsome I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder,
though perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal
diet; but then I am more alive than ever I was. As soon as I wake I
get up. I rise commonly at six, and go to bed at ten.”

As for the effect of this regimen, he tells us that “since that time [his last lapse] I thank God I have gone on in one constant tenor of diet, and enjoy as good health as, at my time of life (being now sixty), I or any man can reasonably expect.” When we remember the complicity of maladies of which he had been the victim during his adhesion to the orthodox mode of living, such experience is sufficiently significant. Some ten years later he records his experiences as follows:--

“It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered
upon a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period,
this light food I took as my appetite directed, without any
measures, and found myself easy under it. After some time, I found
it became necessary to lessen this quantity, and I have latterly
reduced it to one-half, at most, of what I at first seemed to
bear; and if it should please God to spare me a few years longer,
in order to preserve, in that case, that freedom and clearness
which by his presence I now enjoy, I shall probably find myself
obliged to deny myself one-half of my present daily sustenance,
which, precisely, is three Winchester pints of new milk, and six
ounces of biscuit, made without salt or yeast, baked in a quick
oven.”[142]--[_Natural Method of Curing Diseases_, &c., page 298;
see also Preface to _Essay on Regimen_].

The last production of Dr. Cheyne was his “_Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending on the Body_. In three parts. Part I.--General Reflections on the Economy of Nature in Animal Life. Part II.--The Means and Methods for Preserving Life and Faculties; and also Concerning the Nature and Cure of Acute, Contagious, and Cephalic Disorders. Part III.--Reflections on the Nature and Cure of Particular Chronic Distempers. 8vo. Strahan, London, 1742.” It is dedicated to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, who records his grateful recognition of the benefits he had experienced from his methods. He writes: “I read with great pleasure your book, which your bookseller sent me according to your direction. The physical part is extremely good, and the metaphysical part _may be_ so too, for what I know, and I believe it is, for as I look upon all metaphysics to be guess work of imagination, I know no imagination likelier to hit upon the right than yours, and I will take your guess against any other metaphysician’s whatsoever. That part which is founded upon knowledge and experience I look upon as a work of public utility, and for which the present age and their posterity may be obliged to you, if they will be pleased to follow it.” Lord Chesterfield, it will be seen below, was one of those more refined minds whose better conscience revolted from, even if they had not the courage or self-control to renounce, the Slaughter House.

The _Natural Method_ its author considers as a kind of supplement to his last book, containing “the practical inferences, and the conclusions drawn from [its principles], in particular cases and diseases, confirmed by forty years’ experience and observation.” It is the most practical of all his works, and is full of valuable observations. Very just and useful is his rebuke of that sort of John-Bullism which affects to hold “good living” not only as harmless but even as a sort of merit--

“How it may be in other countries and religions I will not say, but
among us good Protestants, abstinence, temperance, and moderation
(at least in eating), are so far from being thought a virtue, and
their contrary a vice, that it would seem that not eating the
fattest and most delicious, and _to the top_, were the only vice
and disease known among us--against which our parents, relatives,
friends, and physicians exclaim with great vehemence and zeal. And
yet, if we consider the matter attentively we shall find there is
no such danger in abstinence as we imagine, but, on the contrary,
the greatest abstinence and moderation nature and its external laws
will suffer us to go into and practise for any time, will neither
endanger our health, nor weaken our just thinking, be it ever so
unlimited or unrestrained.... And it is a wise providence that
Lent time falls out at that season which, if kept according to its
original intention, in seeds and vegetables well dressed and not in
rich high-dressed fish, would go a great way to preserve the health
of the people in general, as well as dispose them to seriousness
and reflection--so true it is that ‘godliness has the promise of
this life, and of that which is to come,’ and it is very observable
that in all civil and established religious worships hitherto
known among polished nations Lents, days of abstinence, seasons of
fasting and bringing down the brutal part of the rational being,
have had a large share, and been reckoned an indispensable part
of their worship and duty, except among a wrong-headed part of
our Reformation, where it has been despised and ridiculed into a
total neglect. And yet it seems not only natural and convenient for
health, but strongly commended both in the Old and New Testament,
and might allow time and proper disposition for more serious and
weighty purposes. And this ‘Lent,’ or times of abstinence, is one
reason of the cheerfulness or serenity of some Roman Catholic
or Southern countries, which would be still more healthy and
long-lived were it not for their excessive use of aromatics and
opiates, which are the worst kind of dry drams, and the cause of
their unnatural and unbridled lechery and shortness of life.”

Denouncing the general practice of the Profession of encouraging their patients in indulging vitiated habits and tastes, he reminds them:--

“That such physicians do not consider that they are accountable
to the community, to their patients, to their conscience, and to
their Maker, for every hour and moment they shorten and cut off
their patients’ lives _by their immoral and murderous indulgence_:
and the patients do not duly ponder that suicide (which this is
in effect) is the most mortal and irremissible of all sins, and
neither have sufficiently weighed the possibility that the patient,
if not quickly cut off by both these preposterous means, may linger
out miserably, and be twenty or thirty years a-dying, under these
heart and wheel-breaking miseries thus exasperated; whereas, by the
methods I propose, if they obtain not in time a perfect cure, yet
they certainly lessen their pain, lengthen their days, and continue
under the benign influence of ‘the Sun of Righteousness, who has
healing in His wings,’ and, at worst, soften and lighten the
anguish of their dissolution, as far as the nature of things will
admit.”

Not the least useful and instructive portions of his treatise are his references to the proper regimen for mental diseases and disordered brains, which, he reasonably infers, are best treated by the adoption of a light and pure dietary. He despairs, however, of the general recognition, or at least adoption, of so rational a method by the “faculty” or the public at large,

“Who do not consider that _nine parts in ten_ of the whole mass
of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet (of farinacea,
fruits, &c.), or pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of
their senses, limbs, and faculties, without diseases or with but
few, and those from accidents or epidemical causes; and that there
have been nations, and now are numbers of tribes, who voluntarily
confine themselves to vegetables only, ... and that there are whole
villages in this kingdom whose inhabitants scarce eat animal food
or drink fermented liquors a dozen times a year.”

In regard to all nervous and brain diseases, he insists that the reformed diet would

“Greatly alleviate and render tolerable original distempers derived
from diseased parents, and that it is absolutely necessary for the
deep-thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties
ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of life;
and that it is the true and real antidote and preservative from
wrong-headedness, irregular and disorderly intellect and functions,
from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and senses, as far
as the ends of Providence and the condition of mortality will
allow.”--(_Nat. Method_, page 90.)

This benevolent and beneficent dietetic reformer, according to the testimony of an eye-witness, exemplified by his death the value of his principles--relinquishing his last breath easily and tranquilly, while his senses remained entire to the end. During his last illness he was attended by the famous David Hartley, noticed below. He was buried at Weston, near Bath. His character is sufficiently seen in his writings which, if they contain some metaphysical or other ideas which our reason cannot always endorse, in their _practical_ teaching prove him to have been actuated by a true and earnest desire for the best interests of his fellow-men. One of the merits of Cheyne’s writings is his discarding the common orthodox _esoteric_ style of his profession, who seem jealously to exclude all but the “initiated” from their sacred mysteries. One of his biographers has remarked upon this point that “there is another peculiarity about most of Dr. Cheyne’s writings which is worthy of notice. Although there are many passages that are quite unintelligible to the reader unless he possesses a considerable knowledge, not only of medicine but also of mathematics, yet there is no doubt but that the greater part of his works were intended for popular perusal, and in this undertaking he is one of the few medical writers who have been completely successful. His productions, which were much read and had an extensive influence in their day, procured him a considerable degree of reputation, not only with the public, but also with the members of his own profession. If they present to the reader no great discoveries (?) they possess the merit of putting more prominently forward some useful but neglected truths; and though now, probably, but little read, they contain much matter that is well worth studying, and have obtained for their author a respectable place in the history of medical literature.”[143]

Our notice of the author of the _Essay on Regimen_, &c., would scarcely be complete without some reference to his friendship with two distinguished characters--John Wesley and Samuel Richardson,[144] the author of _Pamela_. It was to Dr. Cheyne that Wesley, as he tells us in his journals, was indebted for his conversion to those dietetic principles to which he attributes, in great measure, the invigoration of his naturally feeble constitution, and which enabled him to undergo an amount of fatigue and toil, both mentally and bodily, seldom or never surpassed. Of Cheyne’s friendship for Richardson there are several memorials preserved in his familiar letters to that popular writer; and his free and naïve criticisms of his novels are not a little amusing. The novelist, it seems, was one of his patients, and that he was not always a satisfactory one, under the abstemious regimen, appears occasionally from the remonstrances of his adviser.