In mortal epidemics, the physicians, who are alarmed at their danger, are ordinarily the first victims. Fear plunges the system into that state of debility, which predisposes it to fatal impressions, while the moral force of confidence, communicating its aid to physical energy, enables it to repel contagion.
I could cite many distinguished names of men, who attributed their cure, in desperate maladies, to the courage which never forsook them, and to the efforts which they made to keep alive the vital spark, when ready to become extinct. One of them pleasantly said, ‘I should have died like the rest, had I wished it.’[18]
Pecklin, Barthes and others think that extreme desire to see a beloved person once more, has sometimes a power to retard death. It is a delightful idea. I feel with what intense ardor one might desire to live another day, another hour, to see a friend or a child for the last time. The flame of love, replacing that of life, blazes up for a moment before both are quenched in the final darkness. The last prayer is accorded; and life terminates in tasting that pleasure for which it was prolonged. If this be true, the principle on which the most touching incident of romance is founded, is not a fiction.
I have no need to say that an energetic will to recover from sickness has no point of analogy with that fearful solicitude which the greater part of the sick experience. The latter, produced by mental feebleness, increases the inquietude and aggravates the danger. Even indifference would be preferable. If education had imparted to us the advantages of an energetic will and real force of mind, if from infancy we had been convinced of the efficacy of this moral power, we have no means to determine that it would not have been, in union with the desire of life, an element in the means of healing our maladies.
Medicine is still a science so conjectural that the most salutary method of cure, in my view, is that which strives not to contradict nature, but to second her efforts by moral means. I am ready to believe that amidst the real or imagined triumphs of science, those of medicine will, in the centuries to come, hold a rank to which its past achievements will have borne no proportion. But what an immense amount of experiment will be necessary! How many unfortunate beings must contribute to the expense of these experiments!
Contrary to the general opinion, I highly esteem physicians and think but very little of medicine. In the profession of medicine we find the greatest number of men of solid minds and various erudition; and the best friends of humanity. But they are in the habit of vaunting the progress of their science. To me it seems incessantly changing its principles, without ever varying its results. The systems of various great men have been successively received and rejected. Do we, however, imagine that the great physicians who have preceded us were more unfortunate in their practice than those of our days? Among the most eminent physicians of our cities, one practises by administering strong cathartics. Another is resolute for copious bleeding. A third bids us watch and wait the indications of nature. Each of these assumes that the system of the rest is fatal—and so, it would seem, it should be. At the end of the year, however, I doubt if any one of them all has more reproaches to make, as regards want of success, than any other.
From these facts, there are those who hold that it is most prudent to confide to nature, as the physician; forgetful that, if he could bring no other remedy than hope, he unites moral to physical aid. Yet, the very persons who, in health are readiest to maintain this doctrine, like children who are heroes during the day but cowards in the dark, when they are sick, are as prompt as others in sending for the physician.
Even if agitation and fear had not fatal effects, in rendering us more accessible to maladies, wisdom would strive to banish them, in pursuit of the science of happiness. Fear, by anticipating agony, doubles our sufferings. If there could exist a rational ground for continual inquietude, it would be found in a frail constitution. But how many men of the feeblest health survive those of the most vigorous and robust frame! Calculations upon the duration of life are so uncertain that we can always make them in our favor.
To him who cultivates a mild and pleasant philosophy, old age itself should not be contemplated with alarm. It may seem a paradox to say that all men are nearly of the same age, in reference to their chances of another day. Men are as confident of seeing tomorrow and the succeeding day, at eighty, as at sixteen. Such is the beautiful veil with which nature conceals from us the darkness of the future.