WE CAN ONLY SAY THAT HIS INITIALS ARE "J. D."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 17, 23 January 1891, Page 29

WE CAN ONLY SAY THAT HIS INITIALS ARE " J. D."

When a woman travels ten miles merely to ask a few questions we may assume that her curiosity is excited. in the year 1883, a story went forth from Leverstock Green, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, which aroused grea' i Jterest in all the region thereabout. People came from various directions to enquire into i he mitter ; what was alleged to have occured had to do mostly with one man. If the story turned out to be true some g>od was nkely to coma of it ; if false, it would only put the community more o i their gu *rd against all sorts of wild rumours. Among the women who were b >und to get at the foundation of it was one from St. Albans and a cook from Langley. How strangely things work out in this queer world. Beven years have passed and the facts are now to become generally public for the first time. It appears that about the first of January, 1883, an old resident of the place above named was said, and commonly believed, to be in a dying condition. For five months an able and clever physician had been attending him constantly, no medical nun could have done more, dis ailment was decided to be gout aud rheumatism, which are now held to be practically the same nulady differently located. Well, this, began back in July, 1882. As time r*n along the patieut grew worse. The doctor's ability and experience didn't seem to count. The sufferer's auklee, feet, and hand?, became badly swollen. We all know this taunt have been a scary symptom because that the fluids of his body (and the body i? nearly all fluid anyway) —instead of bi-iug carried off as they naturally should be, were flowing over th< ir channels an I louodatiDg the parts around them, just a 9 a stream does after heavy rains. Ibe doctor said, the danger of this state of things lay in the fac% that when the water reached the heart or lungs it might end in sudden deaih. The causs of dropsy is the refusal of the kidneys to carry off the water ; so much is p.ain. But what makes the kidneys strike work ? We now know the reason of tnat. It is because they are partially paralysed by a pois >v in the blood, arising from undiges ed food ia the s-omnch. In pam English, a chronic state of indigestion and dyspepsia was responsible for results which now threatened our unknown friend's life. Ii was reported— and of its truth there isn't a doubt— that his abaomen was blown like a bladder on account of the water which so .kei all through his flesh. In a conversation a few weeks ago he sai>l " All my triends now looked on me as a dying man." An i rt-asouably enough too ; for what chance is there for a man who is gradually drowning in this way ?-For that is what it was— drowning and uotning else in the world. Medicine appeared to be of co use, and the pnys cian suggested that possibly the poor man migiit be ben fited if he cou.d go away from horn; and try the baths, miufral wattrs, and change of £Ce.ne and air. — But nobody believed in that plan, and in honts" truth, it is hardly likely that the wise physician believed iv it himself. At all events the ideß wasn't put in o practice. About this time the patient's wife happened to be in the shop of a chemist at Hemel Hempttead, and he gave her a little book, a sort of small pamphlet, and said qbe might like to read it. She did read if, and found in it a full descripiion of the very complaint that was f at sending her husband to tne grave, and also the name of what was asserted to b a remedy for it. After some trouble she got him to consent to try it, and stnt for a bottle. He began, and kept it up for four months, taking twenty-six bottles altogether. At the end of thattimehe was a well, soundman, and is so to-day. The whole upon as no better than a dead man, set tongues wagging all around the country. He now says : " 1 should not have been here now, if it had not been for Mother S-igel's Curative Syrup, Our friend requests us not to publish his full name, but says we may print his initial^ which are "J. D." Address: Leverstock Green, Hemel Hempsteaci, Herts. H« will answer letters.