Produced by Bryan Ness, David T. Jones and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, AND NATURE OF SCROFULA OR KING'S EVIL, SCURVY, AND CANCER; WITH CASES ILLUSTRATIVE OF A PECULIAR MODE OF TREATMENT. [Illustration: "All Plants, from the Hyssop on the wall to the Cedar of Lebanon, have some essential parts."] BY J. KENT, _Stanton, Suffolk_. _Eighth Edition._ BURY ST. EDMUND'S: PRINTED BY W. B. FROST, 34, CHURCHGATE STREET. MDCCCXXXIII. PREFACE. In consequence of the extreme prevalence of Scrofulous, Scorbutic, and Cancerous Diseases, and the ignorance which exists on the part of the public, as to their causes, symptoms, and nature, I have been induced to reprint my observations on those subjects, and to send forth an Eighth Edition for the information of the afflicted. To these remarks, I have appended a relation of several cases, which have been cured by a peculiar mode of treatment which I have been in the habit of employing for twenty-six years; during which long period I have seen and treated an immense number of cases of the above description. These cases I have rendered very concise, preferring the main points in each to a verbose and tiresome description of the minutiae; and although the number might have been extended to many hundreds, I trust a sufficiency have been detailed to establish the success of my practice, and to show the afflicted the nature and modes of attack of the diseases above mentioned. I have confined myself to a simple relation of the facts of each case, and on those facts such case must stand or fall. I have not resorted to those _artificial props_ which some men are in the habit of employing because the cases themselves are too lame to stand alone; I allude to the practice of soliciting the attestations of the patients, and decoying the simple, the ignorant, well-intentioned, but deceived neighbours, to add their signatures to cases of which they know nothing, and of which the details are a series of bombast, falsehood, ignorance, and humbug. There are many of the cases which I have related to which I could have obtained the signatures of clergymen, Members of Parliament, magistrates, and other persons high in rank and station in life, without saying a word about overseers, churchwardens, and parishioners, the signatures of whom might be obtained at all times; but, established as my practice is, I would scorn to importune those gentlemen, and impertinently to place their names before the public in a position which every sensible man must declare to be that of extreme negligence, ignorance, or unbecoming officiousness.