VII. MEDICINE 



"Those who imagine that the medicine of Paracelsus is a system of 

 superstitions which we have fortunately outgrown, will, if they once 

 learn to know its principles, be surprised to find that it is based on a 

 superior kind of knowledge which we have not yet attained, but into 

 which we may hope to grow." — Lessing, Paracelsus, 



The practice of medicine is the art of restoring the sick 

 to health. Modern medicine is, to a grent extent, looked 

 upon and employed as if it were a system by which man 

 by his cunning and cleverness may cheat Nature out of 

 her dues and act against the laws of God with impunity, 

 while, to many persons calling themselves physicians, it 

 is merely a method of making money and gratifying 

 their vanity.-^ Instead of seeking to know the divine 

 laws in Nature, and to help to restore the divine order 

 of things, the highest aim of medical science is at present 

 to find means to so poison the body of man and make 

 it pestiferous by inoculation as to render it " immune," 

 which means, to make it incapable of reacting upon the 

 introduction of a similar poison. This system corre- 

 sponds in religion to that which succeeds in quieting 

 the voice of conscience by never paying any attention to it. 



Four hundred years ago Paracelsus spoke the follow- 

 ing words to the physicians of his times, and we leave 

 it to the reader to judge whether or not his words may 

 find just application to-day. He says : — 



" You have entirely deserted the path indicated by 



^ Is not even now the scientific world continually engaged in seeking 

 for means by which man may lead an intemperate and immoral life without 

 becoming subjVct to the natural consequences thereof? Are not even 

 now many of our •' doctors " poisoning the imagination of their patients 

 by frightening them instead of seeking to instil hope and confidence into 

 their minds ? 



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