It is in this respect with consumption, however, as
it is with other diseases. In a strictly pathological sense, no disease
is ever entirely cured. In one way or another its effects are apt to be
permanent. The only important difference, in this particular, between
consumption and other diseases, is, that since the lungs are vital
organs, more essential to life and health than some other organs or
parts, the injury inflicted on them is apt to be deeper, and more likely
to shorten, with certainty, the whole period of our existence.

Connected with this subject, viz., the treatment of consumption, there
is probably much more of quackery than in any other department of
disease which could possibly be mentioned. One individual who makes
pretensions to cure, in this formidable disease, and who has written and
spoken very largely on the subject, heralds his own practice with the
following proclamation: "Five thousand persons cured of consumption in
one year, by following the directions of this work." Another declares he
has cured some sixty or seventy out of about one hundred and twenty
patients of this description, for whom he has been called to prescribe.

Now, if by curing this disease is meant the production of such changes
in the system, that it is no more likely to recur than to attack any
other person who has not yet been afflicted with it, then such
statements or insinuations as the foregoing are not merely groundless,
but absolutely and unqualifiedly false, and their authors ought to know
it. For I have had ample opportunity of watching their practice, and
following it up to the end, and hence speak what I know, and testify
what I have seen. But if they only mean by cure, the _postponement_ of
disease for a period of greater or less duration, then the case is
altered; though, in that case, what becomes of their skill? No book
worthy of the name can be consulted by a consumptive person without his
deriving from it many valuable hints, which if duly attended to may
assist him in greatly prolonging his days; and the same may be said of
the prescriptions of the physician. Yet, I repeat, it is a misnomer, in
either case, to call the improvement a cure.

Consumptive people continue to live, whenever their lives are prolonged,
as the consequence of what they do to promote their general health. One
is roused to a little exercise, which somewhat improves his condition,
and prolongs his days. Another is induced to pay an inc