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._