Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. Last Days. T will, perhaps, come as an astonishing fact to the reader, after our recital of the chief accomplishments of the grand old Prestonian, to be told that throughout his life Joseph Livesey suffered much from illness. Yet such was the fact. From his mother he had inherited a tendency to rheumatism, and the damp cellar of his early working days had provided the conditions favourable to its development. He had been afflicted with rheumatic-fever four or five times, and had suffered greatly. This was the cause of his relinquishing his literary work on several occasions, but as soon as he was convalescent he commenced something else. As we have seen, this was his reason for giving up the Staunch Teetotaler at the end of 1868. His beloved wife was ill at the same time, and her complaint terminated fatally in June, 1869, when she was seventy-three years of age. At the beginning of 1871, he lost his son Franklin, at the age of thirty-five. Livesey had had the attentions of a different doctor in each illness, but he stated that none of them did him any good. At last he heard of the hydropathic treatment, and determined to try it. He received very great benefit from it, and used to tell his readers that without the water cure they would have had no Staunch Teetotaler. From that time he would have nothing to do with physic, "not even an aperient pill occasionally." In his later years he also adopted the vegetarian diet, and found it very beneficial. He was thus temperate in all things--except work. In reply to the expressions of wonder that he could find time to do so much, he wrote, "Whatever I engaged in I pursued with as much energy as if the success depended upon my exertions alone." This was the secret of Joseph...
