162 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



actions, or of one or more of them. Medicines, 

 therefore, with very few exceptions, such as those 

 which seem to cure by chemically combining with 

 and neutralizing the poison in the system which 

 produced the disorder medicines, with these few 

 exceptions, have no power over disease, excepting 

 as they have the power of increasing or diminishing 

 the activity of the nutritive actions absorption, 

 secretion, circulation, &c. 



When a man examines his patient, the question 

 with him is not, Has he got a fever ; or this, that, 

 or the other disease ? The question is, Which of 

 the living actions is going wrong? and how is it 

 going wrong ? Is it going too fast, or too slow ? 

 The patient has, perhaps, a foul tongue, a dry skin, 

 a quick pulse. But these are not the disease : 

 these are the symptoms the outward signs of the 

 disorder within. He has nothing to do with these, 

 except as signs by which he ascertains the cause 

 producing them. The question, therefore, is not 

 what is good for a foul tongue, a hot skin, and a 

 quick pulse ; but what medicine possesses the power 

 of controlling that particular living action a dis- 

 turbance in which has produced, in this particular 

 instance, the symptoms in question. I say, in this 

 particular instance; because, in others, the same 



