EFFECTS OF KINDNESS ON THE SICK.
Under all circumstances, man is a poor and pitiable being, when stricken down by disease. Sickened and subdued, his very lineaments have a voice which calls for commiseration and assistance. Celsus says, that knowing two physicians equally intelligent, he should prefer the one who was his friend, for the obvious reason that he would feel a deeper interest in his welfare. Kindness composes, and harshness disturbs the mind, and each produces correspondent effects upon the body. A tone, a look, may save or destroy life in extremely delicate cases. Whatever may be the prognosis given to friends, in all febrile cases, the most confident and consoling language about the ultimate recovery should be used to the sick, as prophecies not unfrequently contribute to bring about the event foretold, by making people feel, or think, or act, differently from what they otherwise would have done. Again, in chronic cases, as time is required for their cure, by explaining to the patient this fact, we maintain his confidence, we keep his mind easy, and thus gain a fair opportunity for the operation of regimen or remedies; in short, the judicious physician, like the Roman general, Fabius, conquers through delay, by cutting off the supplies, and wearing out the strength of the enemy. In large cities, where the mind is so much overwrought in the various schemes of private ambition, or of public business, anxiety is very frequently the grand opposing circumstance to recovery; so that while the causes which produced it are allowed to operate, mere medical prescription is of no avail. The effects of this anxiety are visible in the pallid face and wasted body. But if the patient be possessed of philosophy enough to forego his harassing pursuits; if he have not, from the contact and cares of the world, lost his relish for the simple and sublime scenes of nature, a removal into the country is of the utmost efficacy. The deformity and conflict of the moral world are exchanged for the beauty and calm of the physical world; and surrounded by all the poetry of earth and heaven, the mind regains its peace, and the health, as if by magic, is perfectly restored.—Dr. Armstrong's Lectures.