Dr. John Brown and "Excitability"

Flip-flopping between Bernhard's Lime Works and Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower (via Bernhard, Kropotkin and Novalis, I got to Fitzgerald's "opus" -- wasn't sure about historical fiction, not my fave genre, but I figured it would be relatively short and informational: OK so far).

*

Anyway, Blue Flower kicked up Dr. John Brown.

From Blue Flower:

Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, had cured a number of patients by refusing to let blood, and by recommending exercise, sufficient sex, and fresh air. But he held that to be alive was not a natural state, and to prevent immediate collapse the constitution must be held in perpetual balance by a series of stimuli, either jacking it up with alcohol, or damping it down with opium.

From the online Britannica:



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