Regency Health and Medicine: A Dangerous Remedy for Corpulence

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DANGEROUS REMEDIES FOR CORPULENCE Those who are admirers of dwarfed lap dogs are aware that by giving them brandy or any other strong spirits in the morning fasting they can stint their growth and insure leanness The same treatment has been pursued by ladies affected with corpulency but at the risk of health and perhaps of life We must speak no less strongly against the most common perhaps of all the remedies for corpulence vinegar Dr Darwin justly remarks that it is much more likely to injure the health than to reduce corpulence and Wadd in his book on corpulence is inclined to agree with old Zacutus that vinegar is much safer and perhaps no less effectual when applied externally with long con tinued friction than when drunk at the risk of
health Friction is itself a powerful remedy for corpulence and ought never to be omitted As a beacon to those who may be induced by popular prescription to try the internal use of vinegar we shall give one case out of many of its dangerous effects A young married lady of Lombardy being threat ened with corpulence and afraid of losing her fine figure took much exercise diminished her food and drank daily a large quantity of vinegar After persevering in this plan for about a year she became seriously affected with indigestion and other stomach complaints with hysteria dry cough burning heat acute pain in the left side of the chest difficulty of breathing and spitting of blood These symptoms increased till slow fever and exhausting night perspirations came on accompanied with copious expectoration indicating so clearly as it was thought the last stage of consumption that she was given up by the attending physicians The celebrated Professor Frank was called in and after learning that the disease had been brought on by acids taken to keep down corpulence he came to the conclusion that it was not the usual form of con sumption but decline from lack of nourishment By prescribing a diet of yolk of eggs shell fish and capon broth in small quantities and repeated every two hours and by giving three ounces of the
The Art of Beauty; Or, the Best Methods of Improving and Preserving the Shape, Carriage, and Complexion. Together with the Theory of Beauty. (1825). United Kingdom: Knight and Lacey … and Westley and Tyrrell, Dublin.

I think this is a good example of quack weight loss remedies (brandy, vinegar) and eating disorders, but I am hung up on the thing about dogs. They were doing what to lap dogs?

While I have found lots of mentions of brandy used in human medicine, still can’t find another reference of dog breeding and brandy from the era.

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