MEDICINE 183 



man produces healthy or morbid effects. It will poison 

 the essence of life and cause diseases, or strengthen and 

 purify it after it has been made impure, and restore the 

 health." 



" All diseases, except such as come from mechanical 

 causes, have an invisible origin, and of such sources 

 popular medicine knows very little. Men who are 

 devoid of the power of spiritual perception are unable 

 to recognise the existence of anything that cannot be 

 seen externally. Popular medicine knows, therefore, next 

 to nothing about any diseases that are not caused by 

 mechanical means,^ and the science of curing internal 

 diseases consists almost entirely in the removal of causes 

 that have produced some mechanical obstruction. But 

 the number of diseases that originate from some un- 

 known causes is far greater than those that come from 

 mechanical causes, and for such diseases our physicians 

 know no cure, because, not knowing such causes, they 

 cannot remove them. All they can prudently do is to 

 observe the patient and make their guesses about his 

 condition ; and the patient may rest satisfied if the 

 medicines administered to him do him no serious harm, 

 and do not prevent his recovery. The best of our 

 popular physicians are the ones that do the least harm. 

 But, unfortunately, some poison their patients with 

 mercury ; others purge them or bleed them to death. 

 There are some who have learned so much that their 

 learning has driven out all their common sense, and 

 there are others who care a great deal more for their 

 own profit than for the health of their patients. A 

 disease does not change its state to accommodate itself 

 to the kuowledge of the physician, but the physician 

 should understand the causes of the disease. A phy- 

 sician should be a servant of Nature, and not her enemy; 

 he should be able to guide and direct her in her struggle 



^ Such as are caused by overloading the stomach with food, constipa- 

 tion of the bowels, obstructions, &c. 



