It is also advised by Dr. Gideon Harvey to wash the eyes well twice a day in cold water, as the best remedy to prevent defluxions on them, and preserve the eye-sight, which it greatly comforts. And this I have found true for many years, my eyes being often apt to be dim and stiff, so that I could scarce open my eye-lids; which, upon washing for a minute with fair water, hath been felt no more for a good while after. Besides which benefit to the eyes, authors say, it is also good to preserve the memory, if the whole forehead be washed twice a day; and it is also a certain cure for itching in the eyes. And indeed, washing with water will free mankind from a troublesome itching in any other part of the body, let it be never so private; as Cook, in his _Observations on English bodies_, doth expresly declare from experience. And Wedelius affirms, that violent itching in a man’s cod was so cured by him; and, if the other sex would make use of it, a single life would be less uneasy than it seems to be to some. [Sidenote: _Callosity & sore feet._] Some people are troubled with a callosity, or hardness of the bottom of their feet, which is so troublesome, as to be a hindrance to their easy walking; for which a cure is prescribed by Dr. Cook, that is, to soak them well in warm water, till the hardness is softened, and then scrape it off with the edge of a knife: And if the feet burn with any unnatural heat, and are tender, it was advised by Mr. Rumsey, in his _Organon Salutis_, to bathe them daily in cold water. Others affirm, that to bathe tender feet often in hot water will cool them, by giving vent to that which is offensive; and it is useful in a cough. [Sidenote: _Scurvy._] The plentiful drinking of water is commended in the scurvy, whether hot or cold, by Dr. Pitcairn, to dissolve the scorbutic salts, and carry them out by urine; but this is a distemper that Dr. Cheyne affirms is difficult to cure, that nothing but a total abstinence from flesh, fish, and strong liquor, will overcome the scurvy, p. 127, whether they are acids or alkalies. But tho’ weakness and faintness commonly attends on this distemper, yet myself, who have been formerly extremely troubled with the scurvy, which often made me faint and weak, and my pulse so low as scarcely to be felt, found at last that the pulse would infallibly rise upon drinking a pint or more of cold water, and in a little time I should again become brisk and strong: for I have often observed, that, upon a disorder of the stomach, the strength of the bodily members soon would fail, and as easily be recovered when the disorder of the stomach was removed; which requires temperance and cooling diet, when distempered, especially in drink. [Sidenote: _Asthma & consumption._]