Portland, Me., August 29th, 1860.
Dr. Quimby,
Dear Sir:
I have been sick since five years ago last July, having a great deal of pain in my back and limbs, “caused by blue pills taken two years before,” physicians said, giving me “spinal disease.” Very soon I was unable to walk, or even stand, and for months I was prostrate upon my bed and confined to a dark room, having neuralgia in the optic nerve, dyspepsia in its worst form, making me a great sufferer. After being for two years in the care of my uncle and brother, they decided medicine would not cure me, and took me to a Water Cure, at Hill, N. H. At this time I could not stand and was wheeled about in a wheel chair; my general health improved, and two years ago this fall I was able to walk about the room for two weeks only, and with this exception I have not walked in five years. The Water Cure physician decided there was no help for me there, concluding the spinal marrow was diseased.
Hearing of you, I set out at once to see you. Arriving at the United States Hotel in Portland, August 15th, A.M., I was carried up stairs to my room in my wheel chair, and in fifteen minutes after I saw you, Dr. Quimby, I was walking. I went down stairs to dinner without any assistance, and to my room again, and during the P. M., I took long walks of about forty steps and back again, and when you consider that in the morning of the same day, I could only stand for an instant, and take two or three steps with assistance, you will not wonder that I was wild with delight, or that I was to myself like one risen from the dead. The second day I walked on the street sixteen rods, and during the sixth day I walked four miles and a half, and in less than two weeks I walked into Portland from Falmouth, four miles. My disease is entirely gone, my back is perfectly well, and I have no fears of a relapse.
- Yours with much esteem,
- F. C. B.
Residence, Williamstown, Vt.
[To this testimony may be added that of Mr. Julius Dresser, restored to health by Mr. Quimby three months before and devoting himself to conversing with patients on “the Truth.” Mr. Dresser saw Miss B. in her invalid condition, then walked
