We had a great, an extraordinary Abundance of Fruit in 1759 and 1760, but scarcely any Dysenteries. It has been even observed to be more rare, and less dangerous than formerly; and if the Fact is certain, it cannot be attributed to any thing more probably, than to the very numerous Plantations of Trees, which have rendered Fruit very plenty, cheap and common. Whenever I have observed Dysenteries to prevail, I made it a Rule to eat less Flesh, and Plenty of Fruit; I have never had the slightest Attack of one; and several Physicians use the same Caution with the same Success. I have seen eleven Patients in a Dysentery in one House, of whom nine were very tractable; they eat Fruit and recovered. The Grandmother and one Child, whom she loved more than the rest, were carried off. She managed the Child after her own Fashion, with burnt Wine, Oil, and some Spices, but no Fruit. She conducted herself in the very same Manner, and both died. In a Country Seat near _Berne_, in the Year 1751, when these Fluxes made great Havock, and People were severely warned against the Use of Fruits, out of eleven Persons in the Family, ten eat plentifully of Prunes, and not one of them was seized with it: The poor Coachman alone rigidly observed that Abstinence from Fruit injoined by this Prejudice, and took a terrible Dysentery. This same Distemper had nearly destroyed a Swiss Regiment in Garrison in the South of _France_; the Captains purchased the whole Crop of several Acres of Vineyard; there they carried the sick Soldiers, and gathered the Grapes for such as could not bear being carried into the Vineyard; those who were well eating nothing else: after this not one more died, nor were any more even attacked with the Dysentery. A Clergyman was seized with a Dysentery, which was not in the least mitigated by any Medicines he had taken. By meer Chance he saw some red Currans; he longed for them, and eat three Pounds of them between seven and nine o'Clock in the Morning; that very Day he became better, and was entirely well on the next. I could greatly enlarge the Number of such Instances; but these may suffice to convince the most incredulous, whom I thought it might be of some Importance to convince. Far from forbidding good Fruit, when Dysenteries rage, the Patients should be encouraged to eat them freely; and the Directors of the Police, instead of prohibiting them, ought to see the Markets well provided with them. It is a Fact of which Persons, who have carefully informed themselves, do not in the least doubt. Experience demonstrates it, and it is founded in Reason, as good Fruit counter-operates all the Causes of Dysenteries. [77]