40 NATURAL HISTORY. 



of palsies, lunacies, &c. are most dangerous at the 

 first : therefore a wise physician will consider whe 

 ther a disease be incurable ; or whether the just 

 cure of it be not full of peril ; and if he find it to be 

 such, let him resort to palliation ; and alleviate the 

 symptom, without busying himself too much with 

 the perfect cure : and many times, if the patient be 

 indeed patient, that course will exceed all expecta 

 tion. Likewise the patient himself may strive, by 

 little and little, to overcome the symptom in the 

 acerbation, and so, by time, turn suffering into 

 nature. 



Experiment solitary touching cure by excess. 



62. Divers diseases, especially chronical, such as 

 quartan agues, are sometimes cured by surfeit and 

 excesses : as excess of meat, excess of drink, extraor 

 dinary fasting, extraordinary stirring or lassitude, 

 and the like. The cause is, for that diseases of con 

 tinuance get an adventitious strength from custom, 

 besides their material cause from the humours ; S o 

 that the breaking of the custom doth leave them only 

 to their first cause ; which if it be any thing weak 

 will fall off. Besides, such excesses do excite and 

 spur nature, which thereupon rises more forcibly 

 against the disease. 



Experiment solitary touching cure by motion of consent. 



63. There is in the body of man a great consent 

 in the motion of the several parts. We see, it is 

 children s sport, to prove whether they can rub upon 



