Sir John Floyer also, in his _treatise of cold baths_, p. 109, edit. 5, affirms, that water-drinkers are temperate in their actions, prudent and ingenious; they live safe from those diseases which affect the head, such as apoplexies, palsies, pain, blindness, deafness, gout, convulsions, trembling, madness: And the drinking of water cures the hiccough, fætor of the mouth, and of the whole body; it resists putrefaction, and cools burning heats and thirsts, and after dinner it helps digestion.--And if the virtues of cold water were seriously considered, all persons would value it as a great medicine, in preventing the stone, asthma, and hysteric fits; and to the use of this, children ought to be bred up from their cradles. And, in page 434, he saith, That as water is in chief the universal drink of the world--so it is the best, and most salubrious. And, in page 434. That he hath known where a regular drinking of spring-water hath done considerable cures by washing off the acrid, scorbutic salts from the blood, and strengthening the coats and fibres of the stomach and bowels, and hath brought on a good appetite, and a strong digestion. And I add, that it will infallibly do it in all curable cases. [Sidenote: _Cold Water strengthening._] Having read over an old book written by Sir Thomas Elliot, intituled, _The castle of health_, he there declared from his own experience, that in the county of Cornwall, tho’ it was a very cold quarter, the poorer sort, which in his time did never, or but very seldom, drink any other drinks but water, were strong of body, and lived to a very great age. To which relation that of Sir Henry Blunt’s is very agreeable, who affirmed, in his book of travels into the Levant, (where under the Turkish government the use of wine was forbid, and where the common drink is water) that he then had a better stomach to his food, and digested it more kindly than he ever did before or since. [Sidenote: _Digestion considered._] And in the _treatise of the vanity of philosophy_, written by Dr. Gideon Harvey, it is affirmed, that it is not heat that causeth a good digestion, but a proper ferment, or liquor provided by nature, to dissolve the food into a substance like unto pap made with fine flour; which dissolvent, he saith, is much depraved by hot spirituous liquors; and therefore he commends water above all other drinks to promote digestion. [Sidenote: _Gout and Hypochondriac Melancholy._]