Decbmbee 6, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



769 



dreams of the darkened soul. ... In afflictions of 

 disease and dread and death one must say "This 

 is a dream." Then it becomes a dream and we 

 rise above it into an atmosphere of perfect seren- 

 ity. . . . We need not deal with the body, for the 

 body does not exist. It is dull, heavy and aching 

 because it is the dead Besiduum of Dream. When 

 we forget it, it is no longer there. Treat a belief 

 in sickness as you would sin, with sudden dis- 

 missal. 



It is undoubtedly true that a serene 

 spirit is a valuable agency in the recovery 

 from disease. It is likewise true that sug- 

 gestion has a mighty potency when it is 

 rightly applied. It is a legitimate and rec- 

 ognized branch of therapeutics, which may 

 be destined to have a wide application in 

 the future treatment of disorders of the 

 nervous system. 



But it is likewise true that suggestion 

 heals no broken bones, a spirit unper- 

 turbed gives no safeguard against poisoned 

 mosquitoes and the power of the will and 

 the imagination is potent chiefly against 

 disorders of the imagination and the will. 



The first and most important thing in 

 any treatment is to find out what is the 

 matter and then, if may be, to remove the 

 cause from which the symptoms flow. No 

 system of philosophy, no cult of religion, 

 gives us any help as to matters of fact. It 

 does not strengthen our knowledge of the 

 demands of the body to deny the body's 

 existence. The whole fabric of modern 

 science, the whole fabric of modern civili- 

 zation, is based on the conception of the 

 reality of external things. The sanity of 

 life is conditioned on our belief in realities, 

 the mental state produced by contact with 

 external things as distinct from illusions, 

 those mental states arising from conditions 

 within ourselves. This distinction is the 

 foundation of safety in life. Our body 

 through its nervous system is cognizant of 

 realities. The defects in this nervous sys- 

 tem may cloud our view with illusions. 



The art of sound living is to discriminate 

 between the two sets of impressions. To 

 confuse reality and illusion is to confuse 

 life and death. To show that perception 

 and reason may sometimes be deceived is 

 not to add reality to the figments of imagi- 

 nation. It does not advance science to 

 doubt the things we know to be true in 

 order to give proof to propositions we know 

 to be false. 



We may be therefore certain that pro- 

 gressive medicine will still believe in the 

 reality of the human body and the rational 

 veracity of the world of sense. 



"We may be sure that medical science does 

 not grow in accordance with the theories of 

 any school of medicine or of metaphysics. 

 It is advanced by the study of things as 

 they are, by the use of tools of precision on 

 definite problems, by the microscope and 

 scalpel, the test tube and reagent, by the 

 culture of germs and the discovery of germ- 

 killers. It grows by probing the actual 

 causes of bodily disturbances and the ac- 

 tual removal of such causes. 



It grows as all sciences have grown by 

 the method of induction, by putting two 

 and two together and verifying the appar- 

 ent existence of four as a resultant. 



And in the future of medicine, the mere 

 removal of disease must play more and 

 more a subordinate part. Most disease can 

 be prevented. Above all therapeutics 

 stands sanitation. It is possible to remove 

 causes of disease long before any disease 

 begins. It is possible to heal our patients 

 before they are ever sick. Our knowledge 

 in many fields is now adequate for this re- 

 sult. No one can be attacked by an infec- 

 tious disease unless we have somehow or 

 other permitted the infection. 



In modern war, it now costs on the aver- 

 age about $15,000 to kill a man. In the 

 late Boer War, this expense ran up to 

 nearly $40,000. It is cheaper to save 



