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SYMPTOMS OF HEALTH. 225
CHAPTER XV.
SYMPTOMS OF HEALTH.
Our medical books are filled with descriptions, symp
toms, and causes of disease. I wish, if possible, to give
a clear description, enumerate the symptoms, and
guide my reader to a knowledge of the conditions of
Health.
This has not been done, because it is no part
of a
doctor's business. He is not required to do it ; he is
not paid for doing it, consequently he is not educated
to do it. Philanthropy is, doubtless, a fine thing, and
physicians are as philanthropic as the members of any
other profession, when they can be so in a regular and
legitimate way. Doctors give service, and advice, and
drugs, more or less poisonous, to thousands freely,
with no reward but a good conscience. But teaching
people how to keep well is not in their line. Even if
they were inclined to do it against all precedent, and
in-opposition to the interests of the whole medical pro
fession, and to their own peril of starvation, they would be
considered by most people as impertinent intermeddlers
with what did not concern them. I thank God that my
bread, and the bread of my family, does not depend
upon people being sick. If it did, I hope I should do
my duty ; but the fact that it does not, probably makes
that duty somewhat easier to perform