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_.