Sec. 20. They are also further injured by the Quality, as well as the Quantity, of their Food. They are forced to sup strong Gravey Soups, Eggs, Biscuits, and even Flesh, if they have but just Strength and Resolution to chew it. It seems absolutely impossible for them to survive all this Trash. Should a Man in perfect Health be compelled to eat stinking Meat, rotten Eggs, stale sour Broth, he is attacked with as violent Symptoms, as if he had taken real Poison, which, in Effect, he has. He is seized with Vomiting, Anguish, a violent Purging, and a Fever, with Raving, and eruptive Spots, which we call the Purple Fever. Now when the very same Articles of Food, in their soundest State, are given to a Person in a Fever, the Heat, and the morbid Matter already in his Stomach, quickly putrify them; and after a few Hours produce all the abovementioned Effects. Let any Man judge then, if the least Service can be expected from them. Sec. 21. It is a Truth established by the first of Physicians, above two thousand Years past, and still further ratified by his Successors, that as long as a sick Person has a bad Humour or Ferment in his Stomach, his Weakness increases, in Proportion to the Food he receives. For this being corrupted by the infected Matter it meets there, proves incapable of nourishing, and becomes a conjunct or additional Cause of the Distemper. The most observing Persons constantly remark, that whenever a feverish Patient sups, what is commonly called some good Broth, the Fever gathers Strength and the Patient Weakness. The giving such a Soup or Broth, though of the freshest soundest Meat, to a Man who has a high Fever, or putrid Humours in his Stomach, is to do him exactly the same service, as if you had given him, two or three Hours later, stale putrid Soup. Sec. 22. I must also affirm, that this fatal Prejudice, of keeping up the Patients' Strength by Food, is still too much propagated, even among those very Persons, whose Talents and whose Education might be expected to exempt them from any such gross Error. It were happy for Mankind, and the Duration of their Lives would generally be more extended, if they could be thoroughly persuaded of this medical, and so very demonstrable, Truth;--That the only things which can strengthen sick Persons are those, which are able to weaken their Disease; but their Obstinacy in this Respect is inconceivable: it is another Evil superadded to that of the Disease, and sometimes the more grievous one. Out of twenty sick Persons, who are lost in the Country, more than two Thirds might often have been cured, if being only lodged in a Place defended from the Injuries of the Air, they were supplied with Abundance of good Water. But that most mistaken Care and Regimen I have been treating of, scarcely suffers one of the twenty to survive them.