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CURATIVE AGENCIES; 293
ably, to aid nature in her three-fold work of cure ? In
the answer to this question lies the basis of all thera
peutical science.
The first thing we must learn—the first principle of
medicine, and the one oftenest disregarded, is to do
no mischief. It is not true that we must do something.
Unless we know what to do, it is always safer and bet
ter to do nothing. If we are not sure that we can aid
nature, we must not run the risk of hindering her with
our blind and stupid interference. All experience
shows that, in a great majority of cases, she effects a
cure without assistance, and even in spite of ignorant
and mischievous interference.
But the moment any one is taken sick—that is, the
moment nature begins the operation of expelling some
matter of disease—
every body wants to be doing some
thing to the patient. Every old woman rushes in with
her infallible nostrum, and nature, who has honestly set
to work to cure a disease, finds herself hindered on
every side. When the stomach is incapable of diges
tion, it must be deluged with gruels, rice water, and
barley water, as if the moment one was taken sick, he
was in imminent danger of starvation. Then comes the
doctor, and if one of the common sort, the attack begins
in earnest. Out comes the lancet, and follows its rude
gash a quart
of blood. Poor nature, feeling the work
she has to do, and needing all her strength, gasps
at this
murderous sacrifice ; but the next, attack is to cover
fifty square inches of the skin with a torturing blister,
and at the same time to pour down the throat a dose
of one of the most virulent poisons
of the materia
medica. This process goes on, and when nature finally