626 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



patient, through ignorance, imagines the symptoms to 

 be of little consequence, and thinks that they will pass 

 away without special attention; or it may be that he 

 is deterred by shame or false modesty from communi- 

 cating the facts of his condition to his medical adviser, 

 and thus a disorder which at the beginning might 

 have been promptly corrected by the employment of 

 the simplest measures, or perhaps would have required 

 nothing more than a few words of good advice, by long 

 continuance acquires a chronic form, and through the 

 occurrence of tissue changes, becomes so thoroughly 

 fixed that the most skilful and persevering treatment 

 is necessary to effect its removal. 



The popular idea that time cures most diseases, is 

 erroneous. The fact is, time does not cure. Nature 

 cures, but time kills. Such acute maladies as active 

 congestion, fevers, inflammations, and the like, pass 

 through a regular cycle of changes, and by the unaided 

 efforts of nature, will usually end in recovery. Chronic 

 maladies, on the other hand, to which belong most sex- 

 ual diseases, are of a different character. Chronic 

 disease tends almost invariably to the production of 

 changes in the tissues which serve to propagate and 

 intensify the disorder, thus leading farther and farther 

 away from the standard of health. 



The difference between acute and chronic disorders 

 has been very aptly compared to that between a 

 straight line and a circle. One traveling a circle, 

 sooner or later arrives at the starting-point. This is 

 the course of an acute disease. One who travels in a 

 straight line, is continually increasing the distance 

 between himself and the starting-point. This is the 

 course of a chronic disease. We wish to protest against 

 the popular fallacy referred to, which leads hundreds 



