THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 197 



patients by attacking the outward symptoms of the disorder. Habitual 

 overeating produced a sick-headache : they applied a blister to the 

 head. Impure blood covered the neck with ulcers : they applied a 

 salve to the neck. The alcohol-vice resulted in a rheumatic affection 

 of the knee-joint : they covered the knee-pan with leeches. They sup- 

 pressed the alarm-signals of the disease, but, before the patient could 

 really recover, his constitution had to overcome both the malady and 

 the medicine. 



3. We risk to confound an appeal for rest with an appeal for active 

 interference, and thus to turn a transient and necessary suspension of 

 an organic function into an actual disease. Numerous enteric disor- 

 ders, or bowel-complaints, are thus artificially developed. The mar- 

 velous self-regulating principle of the human organism now and then 

 limits the activity of special organic functions, in order to defray an 

 unusual expenditure of vital energy. The after-dinner lassitude can 

 thus be explained : the process of digestion engrosses the energies of 

 the system. Mental labor retards digestion ; a strenuous muscular 

 effort often suspends it entirely for hours together. Fevers, wounds, 

 etc., have an astringent tendency : the potential resources of the organ- 

 ism are engaged in* a process of reconstruction. Perspiration is Na- 

 ture's effort to counteract the influence of an excessive degree of heat, 

 and, when the effect of sun-heat is aggravated by calorific food and 

 superfluous clothing, the work of reducing the temperature of the blood 

 almost monopolizes the energies of the system, while at the same time 

 the diminished demand for animal caloric lessens the influence of a 

 chief stimulus of organic activity. Warm weather, therefore, indis- 

 poses to active exercise, and produces a (temporary) tendency to cos- 

 tiveness. That tendency is neither abnormal nor morbid, and to coun- 

 teract it by dint of drastic drugs means to create, instead of curing, a 

 disease. If a foot-messenger ston^ at the wayside to tie his shoe-strings, 

 the time thus employed is not wasted. The sudden application of a 

 horsewhip would force him to take as suddenly to his heels, but dur- 

 ing his flight he might lose his way, and perhaps his shoes. 



With a few exceptions, which we shall presently notice, chronic 

 constijjation results from the abuse of aperient medicines. A spell of 

 dry, warm weather, sedentary work in an overheated room, a change 

 from summer to winter diet — perhaps a mere temporary abstinence 

 from a wonted dish of aperient food — has diminished the stools of an 

 otherwise healthy child. The simultaneous want of appetite yields to 

 a short fast, but the stringency of the bowels continues, and on the 

 third day the parents administer a laxative. That for the next twenty- 

 four hours the patient feels considerably worse than before does not 

 shake their faith in the value of the drug ; the main purpose has been 

 attained — the " bowels move." Properly speaking, that movement is 

 an abnormal convulsion, a reaction against the obtrusion of a drastic 

 poison, which has " cured " the stringency of the bowels as a shower- 



