Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/375

 AT THE APPETITE CURE

anxiously, * My water ! I am walking off my water! please don t interrupt, and goes stumping along again. Eats a candied rose-leaf. Lies at rest in the silence and solitude of his room for hours; mustn t speak, mustn t read, mustn t smoke. The doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his stomach, and listens for results through a penny flageolet ; then orders the man s bath half a degree, Reaumur, cooler than yesterday. After the bath, another egg. A glass of sewage at three or four in the afternoon, and promenade solemnly with the other freaks. Dinner at six half a doughnut and a cup of tea. Walk again. Half past eight, supper more butterfly; at nine, to bed. Six weeks of this regime think of it. It starves a man out and puts him in splendid condition. It would have the same effect in London, New York, Jericho anywhere.&quot;

&quot;How long does it take to put a person in con dition here?&quot;

&quot;It ought to take but a day or two; but in fact it takes from one to six weeks, according to the character and mentality of the patient.&quot;

&quot;How is that?&quot;

&quot;Do you see that crowd of women playing foot ball, and boxing, and jumping fences yonder? They have been here six or seven weeks. They were spectral poor weaklings when they came. They were accustomed fco nibbling at dainties and deli cacies at set hours four times a day, and they had no appetite for anything. I questioned them, and then locked them into their rooms, the frailest ones to

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