ion in his fate. Such a
relationship leads to the all-important and generally recognized trust
in the doctor. This faith, in all cases, leads to the improvement,
often even to the elimination of symptoms, of the disease. Here we
have clearly before us the great significance of thymogenetic
automatism.
Academic physicians should not dismiss this because we do not know its
biochemical aspects. (We must beware of regarding something as
unacceptable because it is not measurable in exact terms, he warns.)
We see its practical results, and, therefore, thymogenetic automatism
must stand in the first rank as of overwhelming significance. Thus,
also, the principle, strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude) stands
firmly as an inescapable natural law.
We see the practical country doctor spreading courage and confidence.
For years too few doctors have seen clearly that gymnastic tourism and
sport do more for health than all doctors taken together. And now we
face the fact that a single man, a non-medical man (Hitler) through
his great qualities, has opened up new avenues of health for the
eighty million folk of Germany.
In the majority of cases things so happen that the doctor must act
before making a diagnosis, since only the mis-educated patients, the
one-sided intellectual patient, wishes in the very first place to know
the diagnosis. But the unspoilt and properly ordered type of person
wishes only to be relieved of his pain. For him the diagnosis is an
interesting side issue but not the principle thing. We can thus also
understand why we always meet the desire for a diagnosis placed first
by the over-intellectualized Jewish patient. But that is not the case
with most Aryan patients. They, from the first, come to meet the
doctor with more trust. They do not entertain as many after-thoughts.
And I cannot help but remark that after-thoughts are hardly conducive
to right results.
(After a discussion of the sterilization of the unfit and of
inheritable diseases he turns to the subject of child bearing.)
It has been estimated that every couple should have four children if
the nation's population is to be maintained. But we meet already the
facile and complacent expression of young married people, "Now we have
our four children and so have fulfilled our obligations"--What
superficiality! Today we must demand a much higher moral attitude from
the wife than previously. Earlier it was taken for granted that a
woman would bea
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