io ENDOCRINE THERAPEUTICS 



patients, ' Fulfil the conditions of health, and 

 diseases will fall away from you of their own 

 accord.' " 



Except by surgery very few diseased structures 

 can be removed or annihilated : it is the soil on 

 which they grow that must command our attention 

 and that will get us our results. A clean land 

 will grow good crops fit for man's use ; foul land 

 will grow only useless weeds. Again, the good 

 crops will starve out the rubbish. Look at a 

 good field of wheat or potatoes : in farming 

 language they clean the land. A wise psycho- 

 therapist does not attempt to forcibly eradicate a 

 vice, for that would leave the soil empty, swept 

 and garnished and ready for another inhabitant 

 perhaps worse than the first, but he implants a 

 virtue, a healthy idea, which squeezes out the 

 morbid one ; he weeds out and cleans the mental 

 soil so that wisdom thrives. Much after this 

 method must we deal with physical infirmities. 



A great number of morbid conditions, perhaps 

 the majority, can be brought under the heading 

 of deficiency diseases. 



In childhood they are chiefly due, in over- 

 crowded cities, to oxygen deficiency and to food 

 or vitamine deficiency. These lead to red-cell and 

 haemoglobin deficiency. Then the endocrine glands, 



