440 
rOPULAE SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
sequence of the uncertain continuance of circumstances which 
are not usual in the common course of things. When, then, 
the body is again under the influence of normal circumstances 
only, since its particular state of ill-health wants now its 
maintaining cause, this state must give way to others, and 
according to the degree of essential deviation from a healthy 
condition which the body has undergone, it may be supposed, 
will be its fitness for reassuming, through a series of tran- 
sitions, the state which ordinary circumstances induce and 
maintain — the natural or healthy state. Such seems to us to 
be the rational interpretation of the well-known tendency of 
the body to get well spontaneously, as it were. 
However, the tendency to get well has long been ascribed 
to a kind spirit, akin to those who once were thought to 
govern every other impressive natural phenomenon — to a 
spirit yclept Vis Medicatrix Naturce.” Is a man wounded — 
it wisely excites such actions of his body as are suited for 
healing up the wound ; is his blood infected with poisonous 
matters, it incites the system to excessive discharges with 
the purpose of getting rid of them — in a word, is he ill, this 
kind spirit is actively at work in restoring him to health. 
Although a production of nature, if, indeed, not a part of the 
goddess herself, it is a very imperfect production j it does its 
best, but it often fails, often makes mistakes, only half does its 
work sometimes, and needs assistance. Such is literally the 
curative power of nature,"’^ as its character is to be made out 
from the medical writings of many authors ; and such is the 
supposed cause of our getting well either without physic, or 
else with its assistance. It is a kind and attentive guardian ; 
but its will to do right far exceeds its knowledge and power. 
But we must leave it to the praise and admiration of a certain 
few who are more gifted with faith than ourselves, to treat of 
recovery of health under medicinal influence. 
Of the many ways in which the employment of medicines 
may aid in restoring health, it is not actually necessary to our 
present subject to say anything, except of that one in which 
medicines aid in giving tone to the body ; nor could this be 
done with advantage without a most undue infringement on 
our space. In most diseases there are only one or two 
materially injured parts, the unhealthy condition of the rest of 
the body having arisen in some way from these, and much of 
the ill-health which remains after the material disease has 
been removed or much lessened is due to the interference 
with the proper nutrition of most parts of the body, which, 
has occurred dmflng the illness. Perhaps food could not be 
digested, or be sufficiently prepared for the purposes of nutri- 
tion ; or the blood received abnormal matters into it, or was 
