102 PHYSIC 



another until it does succeed or is finally baffled, leaving 

 " no stone unturned" in its beneficent procedure, and only 

 yielding to compulsion. 



In this latter dilemma, if science and art come to its 

 aid, it behoves, in the first instance, that the natural history 

 of the * ' occurrence " in which it has been engaged should 

 be as fully mastered as possible, in order that the proffered 

 aid should come to its assistance in the way and by the 

 method best adapted to help its always beneficent inten- 

 tions and actions. In this way alone is it possible for the 

 ameliorative, curative, or preventive measures dictated by 

 science and applied by art to be made available for the 

 assistance of the vis medicatrix in its supervision and 

 maintenance of the health of the individual and the com- 

 munity, and for the attainment of that complete immunity 

 from disease, which has been the dream of the sanitarian 

 of every age, to be made a final reality over the whole 

 surface of the globe. 



It must also be borne in mind by the ardent student 

 and the conscientious busy practitioner, that "credit must 

 be given to whom credit is due," and, therefore, that the 

 vis medicatrix should be credited with performing the 

 major part of every operation and medical procedure hav- 

 ing for its object the removal of disease and the restoration 

 of health, and that it is the most arrogant and faulty 

 conduct to assign to science and art the entire credit on 

 the principle involved in merely post hoc, ergo propter hoc, 

 reasoning on, and estimation of, facts. 



Reasoning on, and estimating, the facts embraced in the 

 study of any morbid entity and its elimination on these 

 lines, we are persuaded that a much higher position will 

 be given to the influence of the vis medicatrix nature than 

 has hitherto been assigned to it, and that the interests of 



O 



medicine and surgery will be best served by their devotees 

 being saturated with a humble spirit of imitation and 

 subserviency in all their efforts to enlarge the boundaries 

 of their respective callings, both scientific and practical. 



It would, therefore, many a time be better were the 

 surgeon and physician to sit with ' ' folded arms " as intelli- 

 gently watching as he possibly can the progress of events 

 than by haphazard to venture into "the arena," where a 



