tention to their ailments, and so at last it becomes hard to separate
the true from the false, and we are thus led to be too sceptical as to
the presence of real causes of annoyance. Certain it is that rest, under
proper conditions, is found by such sufferers to be a great relief; but
rest alone will not answer, and it is needful, as I shall show, to bring
to our help certain other means, in order to secure all the good which
repose may be made to insure.

In dealing with this, as with every other medical means, it is well to
recall that in our attempts to help we may sometimes do harm, and we
must make sure that in causing the largest share of good we do the least
possible evil.

"The one goes with the other, as shadow with light, and to no
therapeutic measure does this apply more surely than to the use of rest.

"Let us take the simplest case,--that which arises daily in the
treatment of joint-troubles or broken bones. We put the limb in splints,
and thus, for a time, check its power to move. The bone knits, or the
joint gets well; but the muscles waste, the skin dries, the nails may
for a time cease to grow, nutrition is brought down, as an arithmetician
would say, to its lowest terms, and when the bone or joint is well we
have a limb which is in a state of disease. As concerns broken bones,
the evil may be slight and easy of relief, if the surgeon will but
remember that when joints are put at rest too long they soon fall a prey
to a form of arthritis, which is the more apt to be severe the older the
patient is, and may be easily avoided by frequent motion of the joints,
which, to be healthful, exact a certain share of daily movement. If,
indeed, with perfect stillness of the fragments we could have the full
life of a limb in action, I suspect that the cure of the break might be
far more rapid.

"What is true of the part is true of the whole. When we put the entire
body at rest we create certain evils while doing some share of good, and
it is therefore our part to use such means as shall, in every case,
lessen and limit the ills we cannot wholly avoid. How to reach these
ends I shall by and by state, but for a brief space I should like to
dwell on some of the bad results which come of our efforts to reach
through rest in bed all the good which it can give us, and to these
points I ask the most thoughtful attention, because upon the care with
which we meet and provide for them depends the value which we will get
o