“Soon after I wrote my last letter to my dear child, I was seized with so violent a fever, accompanied with so many bad symptoms, my life was despaired of by the physician of Gottolengo, and I prepared myself for death with as much resignation as that circumstance admits:  some of my neighbours without my knowledge, sent express for the doctor of this place, whom I have mentioned to you formerly as having uncommon secrets.  I was surprised to see him at my bedside.  He declared me in great danger, but did not doubt my recovery, if I was wholly under his care; and his first prescription was transporting me hither; the other physician asserted positively I should die on the road.  It has always been my opinion that it is a matter of the utmost indifference where we expire, and I consented to be removed.  My bed was placed on a bancard; my servants followed in chaises; and in this equipage I set out.  I bore the first day’s journey of fifteen miles without any visible alteration.  The doctor said, as I was not worse, I was certainly better; and the next day proceeded twenty miles to Iseo, which is at the head of this lake.  I lay each night at noblemen’s houses, which were empty.  My cook, with my physician, aways preceded two or three hours, and I found my chamber, with all necessaries, ready prepared with the exactest attention.  I was put into a bark in my litter bed, and in three hours arrived here.  My spirits were not at all wasted (I think rather raised) by the fatigue of my journey.  I drank the water next morning, and, with a few doses of my physician’s prescription, in three days found myself in perfect health, which appeared almost a miracle to all that saw me.  You may imagine I am willing to submit to the orders of one that I must acknowledge the instrument of saving my life, though they are not entirely conformable to my will and pleasure.  He has sentenced me to a long continuance here, which, he says, is absolutely necessary to the confirmation of my health, and would persuade me that my illness has been wholly owing to my omission of drinking the waters these two years past.  I dare not contradict him, and must own he deserves (from the various surprising cures I have seen) the name given to him in this country of the miraculous man.  Both his character and practice are so singular, I cannot forbear giving you some account of them.  He will not permit his patients to have either surgeon or apothecary:  he performs all the operations of the first with great dexterity; and whatever compounds he gives, he makes in his own house:  those are very few; the juice of herbs, and these waters, being commonly his sole prescriptions.  He has very little learning, and professes drawing all his knowledge from experience, which he possesses, perhaps, in a greater degree than any other mortal, being the seventh doctor of his family in a direct line.  His forefathers have all of them left journals and registers solely for the use of their posterity,