old. But except a few simple rules
such as I have just given, let your health take care of itself so long
as it behaves decently. If you want to be sure not to reach threescore
and twenty, get a little box of homoeopathic pellets and a little book
of homeopathic prescriptions. I had a poor friend who fell into that
way, and became at last a regular Hahnemaniac. He left a box of his
little jokers, which at last came into my hands. The poor fellow had
cultivated symptoms as other people cultivate roses or chrysanthemums.
What a luxury of choice his imagination presented to him! When one
watches for symptoms, every organ in the body is ready to put in its
claim. By and by a real illness attacked him, and the box of little
pellets was shut up, to minister to his fancied evils no longer.

Let me tell you one thing. I think if patients and physicians were in
the habit of recognizing the fact I am going to mention, both would
be gainers. The law I refer to must be familiar to all observing
physicians, and to all intelligent persons who have observed their
own bodily and mental conditions. This is the curve of health. It is a
mistake to suppose that the normal state of health is represented by a
straight horizontal line. Independently of the well-known causes which
raise or depress the standard of vitality, there seems to be,--I think
I may venture to say there is,--a rhythmic undulation in the flow of
the vital force. The "dynamo" which furnishes the working powers of
consciousness and action has its annual, its monthly, its diurnal waves,
even its momentary ripples, in the current it furnishes. There are
greater and lesser curves in the movement of every day's life,--a series
of ascending and descending movements, a periodicity depending on the
very nature of the force at work in the living organism. Thus we have
our good seasons and our bad seasons, our good days and our bad days,
life climbing and descending in long or short undulations, which I have
called the curve of health.

From this fact spring a great proportion of the errors of medical
practice. On it are based the delusions of the various shadowy systems
which impose themselves on the ignorant and half-learned public as
branches or "schools" of science. A remedy taken at the time of the
ascent in the curve of health is found successful. The same remedy taken
while the curve is in its downward movement proves a failure.

So long as this biological law exists, so l