died of it.

Others are unwell, but while taking proper treatment they brood gloomily,
and get worse instead of better as they should and _could do_.

Cheap medical and pseudo-medical works are not an unmixed blessing, for
many a person who knows, and needs to know, nothing about disease, gets
hold of one, and soon has most of the ills known to the faculty and some
which are not.

If a patient be an optimist and persuades himself he is improving, he
_does_ improve. This is the explanation of "Faith moving mountains", for
the curative power of prayer, Christian Science, laying-on of hands,
suggestion treatment and patent medicine, depends on man's own faith, not
on the supernatural.

A doctor in whom a patient has perfect confidence, will do him far more
good with the same medicines, or even with no medicines at all, than one of
riper experience in whose skill he has no faith.

Eloquent, though often inaccurate accounts of the benefits derived from
patent medicines are persistently advertised until the mind is so
influenced by the constant reiteration of miraculous cures, that, either
because the healing forces of the body are thereby stimulated, or because
the disease is curable by suggestion, the patient is benefited by such
medicines.

Thinking of pain makes it worse and vice versa.

The curative effects of auto-suggestion were demonstrated at the Siege of
Breda in 1625. The garrison was on the point of surrender when a learned
doctor eluded the besiegers, and got in with some minute phials of an
extraordinary Eastern Elixir, one drop of which taken after each meal cured
all the ills flesh was heir to; two drops were fatal.

The "learned doctor" was a quick-witted soldier, and the elixir was
_coloured water_ sold by order of the commander. Its potency was due to the
faith of all, who persuaded each other they were getting better, and an
epidemic of infectious wellness followed ills due to depressed spirits.

One man after reading a list of symptoms said in great alarm: "Good
Heavens. I have got that disease!" and, on turning the page, found it
was... _pregnancy_.

As the great Scotch physiologist, Reid, said seventy years ago:

"Hope and joy promote the surface circulation of the body, and the
elimination of waste matter and thus make the body capable of
withstanding the causes which lead to disease, and of resisting it when
formed. Grief, anguish and despair enfeeble the circulation, dimin