OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, AND NATURE
OF
SCROFULA OR KING'S EVIL,
SCURVY, AND CANCER;
WITH
CASES ILLUSTRATIVE OF A PECULIAR MODE OFTREATMENT.
BY J. KENT,
Stanton, Suffolk.
BURY ST. EDMUND'S:
Printed by W. B. Frost, 34, Churchgate Street.
MDCCCXXXIII.
CONTENTS
ON STRUMA,SCROFULA, OR KING'S EVIL.
CANCER, ITS NATURE AND SYMPTOMS.
PREFACE.
In consequence of the extreme prevalence of Scrofulous, Scorbutic, andCancerous Diseases, and the ignorance which exists on the part of thepublic, as to their causes, symptoms, and nature, I have been inducedto reprint my observations on those subjects, and to send forth anEighth Edition for the information of the afflicted.
To these remarks, I have appended a relation of several cases, whichhave been cured by a peculiar mode of treatment which I have been inthe habit of employing for twenty-six years; during which long period Ihave seen and treated an immense number of cases of the abovedescription.
These cases I have rendered very concise, preferring the main pointsin each to a verbose and tiresome description of the minutiæ; andalthough the number might have been extended to many hundreds, I trusta sufficiency have been detailed to establish the success of mypractice, and to show the afflicted the nature and modes of attack ofthe diseases above mentioned.
I have confined myself to a simple relation of the facts of each case,and on those facts such case must stand or fall. I have not resortedto those artificial props which some men are in the habit ofemploying because the cases themselves are too lame to stand alone; Iallude to the practice of soliciting the attestations of the patients,and decoying the simple, the ignorant, well-intentioned, but deceivedneighbours, to add their signatures to cases of which they knownothing, and of which the details are a series of bombast, falsehood,ignorance, and humbug. There are many of the cases which I haverelated to which I could have obtained the signatures of clergymen,Members of Parliament, magistrates, and other persons high in rank andstation in life, without saying a word about overseers, churchwardens,and parishioners, the signatures of whom might be obtained at alltimes; but, established as my practice is, I would scorn to importunethose gentlemen, and impertinently to place their names before thepublic in a position which every sensible man must declare to be thatof extreme negligence, ignorance, or unbecoming officiousness.
It may be readily supposed, that from the long career of success whichI have had in the treatment of scroful