nd condemnation of others whom he has to
take into his confidence for the same purpose. An element of moral
courage and a keen sense of personal responsibility help to make the
ideal patient in this disease. To meet a treatment appointment promptly
at the same day and hour week after week, to go through the drudgery of
rubbing mercurial ointment, for example, to say nothing of the
unpleasantness of the method to a cleanly person, night after night for
weeks, takes unmistakable grit and a well-developed sense of moral
obligation. The man who has been cured of syphilis has passed through a
discipline which calls for the best in him, and repays him in terms of
better manhood as well as better health.

The physician's cooeperation in the development of the necessary sense of
responsibility and the requisite character basis for a successful
treatment is invaluable. To the large majority of the victims of the
disease it is a severe shock to find out what ails them. Many of them,
without saying much about it, give up all hope for a worth-while life
from the moment they learn of their condition. Just as in the old days
the belief that consumption was incurable cost nearly as many lives as
the disease itself, by leading victims to give up the fight when a
little persistence would have won it, so among many who acquire
syphilis, especially when it is contracted under distressing
circumstances, there is a lowering of the victims' fighting strength, a
sapping of their courage which makes them an easy prey to the
indifference to cure that is so fatal in this disease. The person with
syphilis should have the benefit of all the friendly counsel,
reassurance, and moral support that his physician can give, and such
time and labor on the latter's part are richly repaid.

+The Average State of Mind.+--The average mental attitude stops
tantalizingly short of the best type of conscientiousness. Average
patients are good cooeperators in the beginning of a course of treatment
or while the symptoms are alarming or obvious, but their energy leaves
them once they are outwardly cured. The average patient only too often
overrules his physician's good judgment on trivial grounds, slight
inconveniences, and temporary considerations, forgetting that cure is
what he needs more than anything else in the world. The deprivations go
hard with this type of patients, and it is difficult, almost impossible,
to persuade them to stop smoking or to abstain fro