It will often happen that diseased action is found in parts where the patient was entirely unaware of its existence until the practitioner's fingers or other electrode revealed it. Again, it will sometimes be found that there is no disease whatever in parts where the patient supposed disease to be active. But when we find patients to be especially nervous, it is not always best to tell them immediately just what our examinations have revealed to us—how severely or how little we think them diseased. It is sometimes better to humor, more or less, the patient's own views for a time; lest, by exciting him or her, we make a difficult case out of one that might have been mastered with comparative ease. In this matter discretion should guide us.
But let me say farther, what I deeply feel, that neither do I think it right to persistently conceal from patients, especially those who are dangerously affected, a knowledge of their true condition. In my opinion, physicians often unwittingly incur an awful responsibility in this way, wronging their patients in the most vital and momentous of all interests—the interests involved in a due preparation for death. I believe the true way, in every such case, is for the physician himself, in a kind and soothing manner, to reveal to the patient, little by little, if need be, what he really thinks, or to ask the patient's pastor, or some other calm and judicious person to do it for him. I believe the visits of a discreet and affectionate pastor, or, in the absence of a pastor, of some other mild and Christian friend, to the bedside of the sick is, nine times in ten, not only no embarrassment to the patient's recovery, but positively favorable to it, and ought to be habitually encouraged, rather than restrained, by medical practitioners.
PRESCRIPTIONS.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
The author wishes to caution the reader not to rely merely on the forms of treatment here prescribed, but to study thoroughly the principles taught in the preceding pages, until he shall have mastered them, and can judge for himself of the correctness of these prescriptions. It should be remembered, however, that the diseases here considered are viewed in their simple or uncomplicated states. Where complications exist, the treatment must be modified according to the judgment of the practitioner.
In these instructions, it is always to be understood that the treatment prescribed is with cords of equal length, except when the long cord is especially mentioned.
In most of the local diseases here named, particularly those which are electrically negative, it is desirable to supplement the local treatment prescribed with occasional general tonic treatment, where, in the judgment of the practitioner, it can be given without detriment to the local affection.
In all treatments, the electrodes should be moistened with warm water.