o give up something he could do the month
before--oh! spare such sufferers your chattering hopes. You do not know
how you worry and weary them. Such real sufferers cannot bear to talk of
themselves, still less to hope for what they cannot at all expect.

So also as to all the advice showered so profusely upon such sick, to
leave off some occupation, to try some other doctor, some other house,
climate, pill, powder, or specific; I say nothing of the inconsistency--
for these advisers are sure to be the same persons who exhorted the sick
man not to believe his own doctor's prognostics, because "doctors are
always mistaken," but to believe some other doctor, because "this doctor
is always right." Sure also are these advisers to be the persons to
bring the sick man fresh occupation, while exhorting him to leave his
own.

[Sidenote: Wonderful presumption of the advisers of the sick.]

Wonderful is the face with which friends, lay and medical, will come in
and worry the patient with recommendations to do something or other,
having just as little knowledge as to its being feasible, or even safe
for him, as if they were to recommend a man to take exercise, not
knowing he had broken his leg. What would the friend say, if _he_ were
the medical attendant, and if the patient, because some _other_ friend
had come in, because somebody, anybody, nobody, had recommended
something, anything, nothing, were to disregard _his_ orders, and take
that other body's recommendation? But people never think of this.

[Sidenote: Advisers the same now as two hundred years ago.]

A celebrated historical personage has related the commonplaces which,
when on the eve of executing a remarkable resolution, were showered in
nearly the same words by every one around successively for a period of
six months. To these the personage states that it was found least
trouble always to reply the same thing, viz., that it could not be
supposed that such a resolution had been taken without sufficient
previous consideration. To patients enduring every day for years from
every friend or acquaintance, either by letter or _viva voce_, some
torment of this kind, I would suggest the same answer. It would indeed
be spared, if such friends and acquaintances would but consider for one
moment, that it is probable the patient has heard such advice at least
fifty times before, and that, had it been practicable, it would have
been practised long ago. But of such considerat