“All that I have to regret in my present undertaking is the imperfect way in which it is executed. The adepts in medicine have gained their knowledge originally from the experience of the sick. I have taken my own sensations for my guide, and am myself alone responsible for the conclusions which I have drawn from them, the manuscript of this volume having been neither corrected nor looked over by any individual. While I make no pretensions to medical science, I cannot consent to be reasoned or ridiculed out of my feelings; nor to believe that to be an illusion, the truth of which has been confirmed to me by long-continued and repeated observation.” The use of distilled water was a cardinal article in the dietary creed of his friend Dr. Lambe, and upon this point Newton particularly insists. He appeals with much fervour, as we have just stated, to parents to have recourse to the natural means of prevention and cure, in place of vainly trying every available _artificial_ method by medicine and drugs. He instances, with minute particularity, the regimen of his children, whom he asserts to have been, up to the moment of his writing, perfectly free from any sort of malady or disorder, and to be-- “So remarkably healthy that several medical men who have seen and examined them with a scrutinizing eye, all agreed in the observation that they knew nowhere a whole family which equals them in robustness. Should the success of this experiment, now of three years’ standing, proceed as it has begun, there is little doubt, [he ventures to flatter himself] that it must at length have some influence with the public, and that every parent who finds the illness of his family both afflicting and expensive, will say to himself ‘Why should I any longer be imprudent or foolish enough to have my children sick?’ All hail to the resolution which that sentiment implies! But until it becomes general, I feel it necessary to exhort, in the warmest language I can think of, those who have the young in their charge to institute an experiment which I have made before them with the completest success. To those parents especially do I address myself who, aware that temperance in enjoyment is the best warrant of its duration, feel how dangerous and how empty are all the feverous amusements of our assemblies, our dinners, and our theatres, compared with the genuine and tranquil pleasures of a happy circle at home.” He presents an alluring picture of the health-producing results for the young of the natural regimen. He promises that