THE POPULAR TERM "SICKNESS" 25 



by a strict adherence to inherited and early experience, 

 which would do credit to the most advanced elaborators 

 of dietetic tables and scales and the firmest adherents to 

 prescribed methods of living "Once bitten, twice shy" 

 thus proving successful in their rule of life. 



The vis medicatrix nature, utilising the incidence of 

 the sensation of sickness automatically, debars the further 

 supply of alimentary substances, until the effects of the 

 occurrence on which its existence was due have been 

 removed and the status quo ante restored, and proceeds 

 gently and gradually to renew the process of alimentation, 

 by first allowing the use of only the most digestible 

 materials in diluted form and small quantity. Art, there- 

 fore, whenever it is called upon to interfere in the supple- 

 menting of nature's work, if it is to be successful, must 

 carefully copy nature's methods and adopt nature's plans 

 of operation. 



It would thus seem that the "forcing" of medicine, 

 or anything else, into an unwilling stomach may not 

 always be justified, nor be successful in the accomplishment 

 of the object of its use, if the excitement of that safeguard 

 sickness be its most prominent result and its continual 

 attendant. In such cases the "cure may be really worse 

 than the disease," and the trusting of them a little more 

 to nature may be not only justifiable, but highly beneficial 

 and even curatively successful, besides certainly being more 

 humane to the patient, and, what is not to be despised, 

 agreeable to the "interested onlooker." After profes- 

 sional acquiescence in, it may take a long time to educate 

 lay public opinion into the necessity of recognising, and 

 acting on the truth of, these observations ; it will, how- 

 ever, we are convinced, be accomplished as the required 

 scientific knowledge, which is now the possession of the 

 few, becomes the possession, by early and everyday 

 education, of the many. 



Although the sensation of sickness is a very recognisable 

 sensation, the scientific realisation and description of its 

 various phenomena become the more difficult as we 

 attempt to focus our indefinite knowledge in an attempt 

 to obtain a clear view of it, and, to some extent, to 

 appreciate its real and true meaning, and, if possible, to 



