Medical Fads and Fancies 29 
spines, than did cigarettes, yet a very good case might 
be made out along these lines nevertheless—simply a 
difference in point of view. 
Reference was made a moment ago to evidence that 
suggested that our deductions drawn from superficial 
examples as to the curative efficacy of certain measures 
were probably often incorrect. There seem certain rea- 
sons for this that are less easy for people generally to 
understand. There are certain physical reactions that 
make it possible for all sorts of isms, cults and irreg- 
ular specialized methods of healing to flourish, appar- 
‘ently through successful results. We patter about the 
influence of mind over matter, and there is no doubt 
that there is such a great principle. But there is an- 
other less obvious factor making for the success of ap- 
parently irrational methods of treatment. This prin- 
ciple might be defined as the elevation of our coeflicience 
of resistance. It is true that few if any of us are en- 
tirely well. We all have our infirmities, visible and in- 
visible. Now our feeling of well-being, or the lack of it, 
represents a balance between the unfavorable influence 
of our infirmities, and the favorable influence of our 
natural resistance—just in the same way that one might 
strike a balance in auditing the books of a commercial 
concern. When we are very ill our physiological re- 
sistance capital is exhausted. When we feel very well 
our physiological balance is in a prosperous condition. 
Now if in attaining our physiological balance there oc- 
curred either a factor making strongly for betterment, 
a heavy credit, or a single factor making strongly for 
disaster, a considerable debit, the acquisition of the 
one or the other would throw the final, balance either on 
the favorable or unfavorable side. Since it seems hardly 
possible to put this clearly in a few words, may I re- 
