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I Received Yours of the 5th and the two, ham, & plan by
Matthew all in good order. --- I am Sorry I cannot send
you such agreeable accounts of my health, as I could wish, which
on the contrary seems every day to decline, notwithstanding
all my efforts to reestablish it. So great is the weakness of
my stomach that the smallest quantity of food, of any kind
even though diluted in limewater, immediately sours upon it
and never digests, but is thrown up by a vomiting of blood and
slime which siezes me every eight or ten days; after suffering
the most extreme agony which continuously adds fuel to the
disease and which Dr Alexander says he cannot remove having
he says never seen any Stomach so weak ---- It is certainly a very
deplorable situation, when the nourishment which Nature has
likewise constituded as one of our chief enjoyments, is made the
instrument of our greatest uneasiness and instead of affording aliment
to the body, becomes the source of its greatest uneasiness in almost every
other disease the comforts of life being relished, serve as a counterpoise
to the pain which the sufferer endures, and enables him to bear it
with more patience. Dr Sandy I consider the human body as
one curious Machine any of the wheels of which being disordered

immediately affects those parts to which it gives Motion; ¹
and the stomach being the first power from which they all
draw that nourishment, which keeps them in motion; any
alteration in the oeconomy of it consequently affects the Motion
of the whole machine more than any other cause whatsoever,
while it witholds its Aliment the Nerves not being supported
become languid, the fibres relaxed, and the animal spirits not
being exhilirated, by the wonted flow of blood about the heart,
become sunk and oppressed: this I have found from experience--

The only thing I regret is my not knowing a proper regiment of
diet while my stomach retained Strength sufficient to have agreed
with any certain thing which would have nourished without oppressing
it for in that consists the whole cure: but I was always so averse
to being thought an Invalid, that I stiffled the most dangerous
symptoms of my disease, and while any strength remained used
myself too freely ---- I have now got my machine ² . almost
compleated, tomorrow is the day appointed for beginning to set
it up, so that a very short time will determine whether my labours
shall be crowned with the reflection, of having been of singular use
to my Country, or of having bestowed all my trouble upon a refrac¬
tory child, that has repayed me with disobedience. However I have
flatter myself that I have put it out of any other persons power, ever
to succed in such a Machine if mine miscarry, as I think I have

omitted nothing in it which could help to make it succed. I fear much
against my Inclination I will be [fo]rced to leave this place when it is
finished, as I intended to have spent the summer here previous to
my leaving the country, which would have been of great enmolument
as well as advantage by practicing me in carrying on works, and
properly directing them, which no Theory can teach, but as I find
my health dayly declining I am not able to undergo the the fatigue
so it would be needless to stay here Idle.

To--
Mr Alexr: Nisbet
Potterrow-Port
Edinr:

Archd. Nisbet
March {illeg} 1779.
9. p. 139