argely based
on the power which they possess of dulling pain, relieving disturbances
of the blood-balance, and soothing bodily and mental excitement.
Fever-panic or pain-panic, like a banking panic, though it has a genuine
and substantial basis, can be dealt with and relieved much more readily
after checking excessive degrees of distrust and excitement. An opiate
will relieve this physical pain-panic, just as a strong mental
impression will relieve the fright-paralysis and emotional panic which
often accompany it, and thus give a clearer field and a breathing space
for the more slowly acting recuperative powers of nature to assert their
influence and get control of the situation.

_But neither of them will cure._ The utmost that they can do is to give
a breathing spell, a lull in the storm, which the rallying powers of the
body, if present, can take advantage of. If the latter, however, be not
adequate to the situation, the disease will progress to serious or even
fatal termination, just as certainly as if no such influence had been
exerted, and often at an accelerated rate. In fact, our dependence upon
opiates and mental influence have been both a characteristic and a
cause of the Dark Ages of medicine. The more we depended upon these, the
more content we were to remain in ignorance of the real causes of
disease, whether bodily or mental.

The second physical effect produced by mental influence is probably the
most important of all, and that is _the extent to which it induces the
patient to follow good advice_. We as physicians would be the last to
underestimate the importance of the confidence of our patients. But we
know perfectly well that our retention of that confidence will depend
almost entirely upon the extent to which we can justify it; that its
principal value to us lies in the extent to which it will insure prompt
obedience to our orders, and intelligent and loyal cooeperation with us
in our fight against disease. The man who would depend upon the
confidence of his patients as a means of healing, would soon find
himself without practice. We know by the bitterest of experience that no
matter how absolute and boundless the confidence of our patients may be
in our ability to heal them, no matter how much they may express
themselves as cheered and encouraged by our presence, ninety-nine per
cent of the chance of their recovery depends upon the gravity of the
disease, the vigor of their powers of resistance, and