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CURATIVE AGENCIES. 287
it is the intelligent soul that first forms the body, and
presides over all its processes, which struggles against
disease, overcomes it, and casts it out of the system.
No device of man can accomplish such a work as this ;
and man's efforts to assist nature have, in most cases,
been full of error and mischief.
In all cases of disease, when the vital force is suffi
cient,
nature effects a cure. When there is more
disease than this vital force can overcome, nature sinks
under the effort, and the patient dies ; sometimes after
a violent and brief struggle, sometimes after a weak and
protracted one. The well-meaning but very ignorant
doctor, in most cases, mistakes the enemy. Instead of
attacking the disease, if, indeed, he had any means to
do so, he begins a violent assault upon nature; he attacks
and weakens the vital energy, using poison and steel
against her, bleeding, blistering, and drugging, until he
ch-anges the wholo aspect of affiirs ; and nature, who
was strong enough to cope with disease, as Hungary
may have been with Austria, sinks under the power of
the doctor Czar. Or it may be a drawn battle ; nature,
overpowered by drugs, gives up the struggle, and each
party— nature, disease, and drugs—occupy the disputed
territory, and patch up a peace.
But this does' not last
long. Nature renews the struggle, the doctor renews
his mischievous interference ; and life is made a long
agony by this intestine war.
When nature is left alone to cope with disease, the
struggle is brief in proportion
to its violence. The
matter of disease is cast out by some sharp crisis—vom
iting, diarrhoea, or sweating— and there is a quick re
covery. I believe that a much larger proportion of