My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

78 MY LIFEwhich he told us where to buy, and which I was touse three times a day for as many minutes as I couldwithout fatigue ;that I was to eat and drink anythingI fancied, be kept warm, but when the weather wasmild sit out-of-doors. I was to come back to him ina week.The effect of his treatment was immediate. I atonce began to eat, and though I could not breathethrough the tube for more than a minute at first, Iwas soon enabled to increase it to three and then tofive minutes. It was constructed with a valve so thatthe air entered freely, but passed out slowly so thatit was kept in the lungs for a few seconds at eachinspiration. When I paid my second visit to Dr.Ramage, he told me that I was getting on well, andneed not come to him again, that I was to continueusing the breathing-tube for five minutes three or fourtimes a day. He also strongly advised me, now I sawthe effect of deep and regular breathing, to practisebreathing in the same way without the tube, andespecially to do so when at leisure, when lying down,or leaning back in an easy-chair, and to be sure to fillmy lungs well and breathe out slowly. " The naturalfood of the lungs," he said, " is fresh air. If peopleknew this, and acted upon it, there would be no consumption,no lung disease." I have never forgottenthis. I have practised it all my life (at intervals), anddo so still, and I am sure that I owe my life to Dr.Ramage's treatment and advice.In about two months I was well again, and wentback to Kington, and after a little office-work mybrother and I went to the little village of Llanbister,near the middle of Radnorshire, the nearest townsbeing Builth, in Brecknockshire, and Newtown in