Dr Priestly (sic) was once very ill with gall stones & was cured by abstinence from Butcher meat. ... fish & vegetables & butter or fat did not hurt him when taken in moderation, but his Doctors must know better than I do what is good for him.
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"I have spent more time fixing other men's mistakes than making my own."
From a letter to his cousin Mrs. James Campbell, discussing Joseph Priestley's diet
Date: 1804
Food & DrinkFound in 1 providers: gemini
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Watt recounts that Joseph Priestley recovered from gallstones by cutting out red meat, while fish, vegetables, and moderate fat caused no harm. The closing line carries dry skepticism: doctors may disagree, but the empirical result speaks for itself. He is prioritizing observed outcome over professional authority — a practical, evidence-first view of health and diet that trusts what actually worked over what was officially prescribed.
Watt and Priestley were close friends and fellow Lunar Society members, bonded by shared empiricism. Watt spent his career solving problems through careful observation and testing, not deference to theory. His wry aside — 'his Doctors must know better than I do' — reflects his lifelong habit of trusting measurable results over credentialed opinion, the same instinct that led him to improve the steam engine by studying actual heat losses rather than accepting Newcomen's design as settled.
In late-18th-century Britain, medicine still leaned on humoral theory and interventions like bloodletting and purging. Dietary cures were folk knowledge, often dismissed by trained physicians. The Enlightenment, however, was eroding blind deference to authority across every field. The Lunar Society circle — Watt, Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood — embodied this shift: apply reason and observation to everything, including the body, and let outcomes, not credentials, decide who is right.
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