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

—308 MY LIFEundertake three separate works, involving a considerableamount of labour, were very curious, and to mevery suggestive, and I will now give a connectedaccount of them.When in 1896 I was invited by Dr. Lunn to givea lecture to his friends at Davos, I firmly believedthat my scientific and literary work was concluded.I had been for some years in weak health, and hadno expectation of living much longer. Shortly afterreturning from America I had a very severe attackof asthma in 1890, and a year or two after it recurredand became chronic, together with violent palpitationson the least sudden exertion, and frequent coldsalmost invariably followed by bronchitis. Any attemptat continuous work was therefore very far from mythoughts, though at times I was able to do a fairamount of writing.But the very next year I obtained relief (and upto the present time an almost complete cure) in analtogether accidental way, if there are any " accidents "in our lives. Mr. A. Bruce-Joy, the well-knownsculptor (a perfect stranger to me), had called on meto complete the modelling of a medallion which hehad begun from photographs, and I apologized fornot looking well, as I was then suffering from oneof my frequent spells of asthma, which often preventedme from getting any sleep at night. Hethereupon told me that if I would follow his directionsI could soon cure myself. Of course, I was altogetherincredulous ;but when he told me that he had himselfbeen cured of a complication of allieddiseasesgout, rheumatism, and bronchitis—of many years'standing, which no English doctors were able even toalleviate, by an American physician, Dr. Salisbury ;that it was effected solely by a change of diet not