Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/246

540 but in mere jollity. Being thus forsaken, dejected, melancholy, and confined in my country retirement, my body melting away like a snow-ball in summer, I had a long season for reflection. Having had a regular and liberal education, with the instruction and example of pious parents, I had preserved a firm persuasion of the great fundamental principles of all virtue and morality; namely, pure religion ; in which I had been confirmed from abstract reasonings, as well as from the best natural philosophy. This led me to consider who of all my acquaintance I could wish to resemble most, or which of them had received and lived up to the plain truths and precepts contained in the gospels, or particularly our Saviour's sermon on the Mount. I then fixed on one, a worthy and learned clergyman ; and as in studying mathematics, and in turning over Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical works, I always marked down the authors and writings mostly used and recommended, so in this case I purchased and studied such spiritual and dogmatic authors as I knew this venerable man approved. Thus I collected a set of religious books of the first ages since Christianity, with a few of the most spiritual of the moderns, which have been my study, delight, and entertainment ever since, and on these I have formed my ideas, principles, and sentiments, which have never been shaken." Dr Cheyne further informs us, that this reformation in his religious temperament, contributed greatly to forward the cure of his nervous diseases, which he perfected by a visit to Bath.

On his return to London, Dr Cheyne commenced living upon a milk diet, which he found remarkably salutary; but after a long course of years he gradually relapsed into a freer style of living, and though he never indulged to the least excess either in eating or drinking, his fat returned upon him, and at last he weighed upwards of thirty-two stone. Being again admonished of the evil effects of his indulgences, he all at once reverted to his milk diet, and in time regained his usual health. From this moderate style of living he never again departed; and accordingly he enjoyed tolerable health till 1743, when, on the 12th of April, he died at Bath, in full possession of his faculties to the last, and without experiencing a pang.

Besides the works already mentioned, Dr Cheyne published, in 1705, his "Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion, containing the Elements of Natural Philosophy, and the Proofs for Natural Religion, arising from them." This work he dedicated to the earl of Roxburgh, at whose request, and for whose instruction, it appears to have been originally written. He also published "An Essay on the True Nature and Due Method of treating the Gout, together with an account of the Nature and Quality of the Bath Waters," which passed through at least five editions, and was followed by "An Essay on Health and Long Life." The latter work he afterwards published in Latin. In 1733 appeared his "English Malady, or a Treatise on Nervous Diseases of all kinds, as Spleen, Vapours, Lowness of Spirits, Hypochondriacal and Hysterical Dis- tempers." From the preface of this work we have derived the particulars here related respecting his own health through life. In 1740, Dr Cheyne published "An Essay on Regimen." His last work, which he dedicated to his friend and correspondent the earl of Chesterfield, was entitled, "The Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the Human Body, and the Disorders of the Mind attending on the Body."

Dr Cheyne was eminently the physician of nervous distempers. He wrote chiefly to the studious, the voluptuous, and those who inherited bad constitutions from their parents. As a physician, he seemed to proceed, like Hippocrates of old, and Sydenham of modern times, upon a few great perceptible truths. He is to be ranked among those who have accounted for the operations of medicine, and the morbid alterations which take place upon the human body, upon me-