It is very unfair to judge of the gravity of a condition by the readiness with which health is restored. Such a patient quite probably would have remained, like thousands of others, an invalid, for an indefinite time, had he been treated by the usual stereotyped processes.

But it is the height of folly to urge the importance of rest upon a patient, perhaps send him to bed, and then administer tonics and stimulants which promote activity and prevent rest. It is the practice in medical rest-resorts to give the patients drug stimulants or hot and cold baths, massage, electrical stimulation and the like. Such patients do not rest--they are exhausted. "Whether it be calomel for the liver, digitalis for the heart, or whiskey for the general system--whether it be cold baths or hot baths, electricity or anything else, whatever arouses vital activity, and especially vital resistance, is exhausting to the patient's power, and is preventive of recovery not promotive of it," wrote Dr. Walter,--Life's Great Law, p. 201.

A "rest-cure" is not the ultimate cure. What is the advantage of a rest to restore you to normal vigor if you are only going to return to the former dissipating mode of living and again exhaust your vital fund? Unless you learn how to live properly, and then live what you have learned, you will be forced to go back occasionally for another "rest-cure." Rest is only a means of recuperation. It cannot be expected to make you disease-proof.

A few years ago the good Queen Victoria died. One day the bulletins announced: "The queen is sinking. She is unable to take nourishment. Her medical attendants declare that she can live but a few hours."

Next morning: "The queen has rallied and is able to take nourishment. The doctors declare that there is a chance for her recovery, barring complications."

A few hours later: "The queen is sinking. The rally of this morning was followed by a sinking spell, and she is again unable to take nourishment. Heart tonics given hypodermic-ally keep what little life there is from ebbing away. Only the superhuman skill of the doctors prevents death from claiming the great woman as its bride."

"Superhuman skill of the doctors!" Did the reader, in his wildest moments, ever dream that physicians possess superhuman skill? They kept death from claiming the great woman as its bride. Such colossal conceit! A school boy can see that they killed her. They built the complications that prevented her recovery. They did it keeping her life from ebbing away by hypodermic injections of poisons.

Next morning: "During the night the doctors watched at the bedside of the distinguished patient, watching with bated breath the ebb and flow of the declining energies. Once or twice the family was aroused to view the grand queen and mother of the greatest empire on earth, while there was still a little life left in her body. All effort at keeping life in the aged queen was abandoned at midnight."

After these fellows with the superhuman skill abandoned their efforts at "keeping life in the aged queen" she should have died without further ado. But she didn't. A little later the bulletin announced: "Most extraordinary, the unexpected happened! The queen rallied, and at this cabling is taking nourishment. The doctors, fear, however, on account of the queen's great age and the weakness of her heart, that the rally will only be temporary. Sir John Blatherskite, an eminent heart specialist, was called in consultation, and favors strychnine for the heart. This heart tonic will be given in the place of digitalis, which has served long and well."

Any intelligent layman could have read these bulletins and seen that the queen rallied every time feeding and drugging were discontinued, and relapsed every time these were resumed. Except for the "superhuman skill" of the great specialists, and their "superhuman efforts" to "keep what little life there is from ebbing away," if they had not been so skillful in "keeping life in the body"; if they had not stimulated her life away and then announced that she was "sinking" ; if, when she revived, they had not resumed their "scientific" efforts to "sustain" her heart, the queen may have recovered. Their skill was all exercised in combatting every effort of the body to restore health.

Dr. Jennings relates a very similar case to that of the Queen: "A number of years since, I attended a young lady in Oberlin, sick with a typhoid affection, to whom I gave simple hygienic treatment while she was under my care. She ran down pretty low, with temporary suspension of the mental function; was taken from under my charge and put under the care of another physician. Active medication soon demonstrated by a general improvement of symptoms that there was still a good stock of restorative energy at, or that should have been left at the disposal of the vital economy for renovating purposes. After a few days, however, the symptoms declined, and on Saturday the case was given over as hopeless; and the medicine withheld, as there seemed to be no support for treatment--no favorable response was received from medicine. Through Sunday there was but little change. On Monday there was an encouraging revival of symptoms, and medicine was resumed. On Thursday the young lady died."--Tree of Life, p. 172

Certain superficial and not well founded objections to the "rest-cure" have been offered by Physical Culturists, who regard exercise as the panacea for all ills and as the creator of human energy. These objections demand a brief notice at this point.

First, there are the psychological objections. People are said often not to realize that they are seriously sick until they are ordered to go to bed and their ailments are materially aggravated by being ordered to bed. Going to bed is also said to be "giving up" and acknowledging that your ailment has gotten the best of you. It is declared that one should not "give up" but that he must mentally "struggle against" his ailment.

Both of these objections are puerile and very wide of the mark. No patient is frightened or made worse or caused to worry over his troubles by going to bed if the reasons for going to bed are explained to him. If the patient is told "you are a very sick man, you go to bed at once," he may be made worse by such advice but only a fool would give advice in this manner.

An "aggravation" of symptoms does not always mean that the patient is getting worse. It more often means that he is getting better. He who lacks an understanding of the nature of "disease" will naturally think that the "aggravation" of symptoms means that the patient is growing worse.

An ailment is not something to struggle against. It is not something to fight. This objection to the "rest-cure" is based on the primitive idea that "disease" is an unseen dragon tearing at the vitals of the patient. "Disease" is something to cooperate with. "Giving up" to it simply means allowing it to carry forward its work more freely. Two objections brought forward have not the slightest relation to going-to-bed per se. One of these is that three square meals a day in bed would result seriously. It is true that the patient in bed has no need for such food, but it is equally true that many patients who cannot eat one square meal a day while active, without suffering, may consume three square meals a day in bed without discomfort. However, so far as we are aware, only medical men and milk diet enthusiasts ever advocate gorging a bed patient. The next of these objections is that people are afraid of a draft and menacing symptoms are sometimes induced by poor ventilation. This is an objection to poor ventilation. I know of no Hygienist who ever advocated keeping patients in poorly ventilated rooms. Dr. Walter had his patients lay on cots out doors. Aside from this, the fear of drafts is much more easily overcome in bed than in a chair. Any man who has had experience with patients knows this. Indeed, people who keep their windows closed through the day, in winter, sleep with their windows open at night.