A COACHMAN’S STORY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XX, 19 May 1900, Page 920

A COACHMAN’S STORY.

“Rheumatism,” said a leading physician not long since, “may attack anybody, but is especially the disease of age and poverty. The immediate cause is an irritant poison in the blood, which, becoming lodged in those parts of the system where the circulation has the least force, sets up a more or less violent inflammation. This poison is always associated with impaired digestion on the part of the stomach and liver, and the amount of it in the system is increased by the inactivity of the excretive organs, particularly the skin, bowels, and kidneys.” Assuming the correctness of this view, the following conclusion is clearly deducible from it, namely, that to relieve or cure a case of rheumatism we should seek, first, to prevent the formation of the poison by correcting the impaired digestion, and, second, to stimulate the skin, bowels, and kidneys, that they may throw it off; or, in other words, we must try to purify the blood. Outward applications, although they may. and do. mollify pain at certain inflamed spots, cannot, in the nature of things, eradicate the cause of the disease.

The following case illustrates the truth of this theory, and should be attentively studied by all who are afflicted with gout and rheumatism — ihe two ailments being, under different names, practically the same thing.

Sixteen years ago I had an attack of rheumatic gout which affected all my joints, giving me intense pain. Sty hands, feet, and shoulders were puffed up and swollen, and for many weeks I suffered martyrdom. After this 1 was from time to time subject to rheumatism, which moved about my system, sometimes appearing in one part and then another. For five vears I suffered like this.

“In the autumn of 1885, whilst in the employment of a doctor at Bayswater as coachman, my eyes became affected and I was almost blind, not being able to see either the numbers or names of the streets I drove along. My eyes were like a piece of liver.

and the doctor I was with sent me first to an eye specialist, and afterwards gave me a note, and I went to St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, where I attended as an outdoor patient for nine months.

“I was so bad I had to give up my employment. The doctors at the hospital made a thorough examination of my eyes, and said they were sound, and that my affection was caused by the rheumatic gout. They gave me medicines and drops for the eyes; also placed blisters behind the ears and on the temples, but I was little better for anything.

“Some days 1 was better and then worse, and I feared 1 should lose my sight altogether. Tn July, 1886, my brother came to London on a visit, and urged me to try Mother Seigel's Syrup, as he thought it would drive the rheumatism out of my system. 1 got a bottle of this medicine from Whiteley's, in Westbourne Grove, ami after taking two bottles I was wonderfully better. My sight returned, and I felt better of myself. When I had taken six bottles T was well as ever, and have since been well. You can publish this letter, and refer anyone to me. (Signed) Joseph Parker,

21 Blonifield-street, Westbourne Square, Bayswater, July 1, 1896.” Mr Parker is a respectable man and worthy of implicit confidence, lie is now in the employment of Mr Whiteley, the famous purveyor, of whom he bought Mother Seigel’s Syrup in the time of his necessity. The cure is certainly remarkable, and demonstrates the truth of the proposition, now admitted by the highest medical authorities, that rheumatism is a disease of the blood, caused, at the loot of it. bv chronic dyspepsia and indigestion. Mother Seigel's Syrup, being the most successful medicine in the vorld for all ailments of the digestion. consequently prevents the further formation of the rheumatic poison, expels it from all places where it has produced inflammation in the body, and hence cures rheumatism. The reader will note that it is now ter. years since Mr Parker’s recovery, during which period he has had no relapse. Therefore the cure was real and radical.