"Ode to Health;

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[page 4]
doubt whether they have ever dug deep enough to get to the foundation of a system of medical practice, on which they
can at all times, and under all circumstances rest with
unshaken confidence. I have seen, and heard different persons on their bed of death lamenting that they had been deceived and injured by such pretended remedies. I have heard a young man say the night before he died that he had fifty dollars worth of such remedies on hand! but said I have been injured by relying on such means. He discovered his make when it
was too late. The failure however is often attributed to the
??? nature of the disease, or frequently to "Divine
Providence." In regard to the common fashionable med-
ical poisoning practice it is a greater mystery that any
recover under it, than that the greater number sick and die.
To day take the heartiest man that can be found, and let him
be treated with such poisons as the sick generally are, and
if by tomorrow he is not a very sick man, I shall be greatly mistaken; follow this course for a few days, and ten to one
if he ever gets well again. Is that the way to treat a man
who is already sick? Let common sense answer, or "Hark
from the tombs, a doleful answer from the tens of thousands who have been cut off in the bloom of life, and have been hurried there prematurely. The day of reckoning will surely come.["]

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