what I had heard I was expecting to find you abed. But you can't tell anything by gossip. You do not seem quite so well as when I saw you last.” “Oh, yes, fully as well,” you say. “Well, you know there are diseases which always flatter the patient. I suppose you have heard of the death of Mr.——” “No, when did he die?" “He died yesterday but was sick a long time. Sometimes he thought he was getting better, but I knew all the time he was running down. But you must not get discouraged because you are like him, for it is not always certain that a person in the same condition you are in has consumption.”
Here I make you nervous and you are glad when I leave. Knowing I am not welcome in that form I assume another character. I must now appear as a doctor. I sit down and count your pulse, look at your tongue, take a stick and examine the phlegm that you have raised. Then leaning back in the chair draw a long sigh, and ask if you have a pain in your left side.
The doctor is like a dog that wags his tail while you feed him but when your back is turned will bite you. If superstition is to be put down by scientific facts, it is useless to mince matters. If a person is aiding an enemy, he is as guilty as the thief. I want you to know that every word that is spoken is either matter or Wisdom. Opinions are condensed into a belief. So, if I [as a typical doctor] tell you that you have congestion of the lungs I impart my belief to you by a deposit of matter in the form of words. As you eat my belief it goes to form a disease like its author, my belief grows, comes forth, and at last takes form as a pressure across the chest. The doctor comes to get rid of the enemy and by his remedies creates another disease in the bowels. He begins to talk about inflammation of the bowels. This frightens you. The fright contracts the stomach so the heat cannot escape, and causes a flush in the face which you call a rush of blood to the head. It makes you feel sleepy and weak; you lie down; then the stomach relaxes and the heat passes down into the bowels, this causes pains. You call it “inflammation.”
All this is very simple when you know what caused it.
This letter is an essay for you to read, so good-night. Let me know how it works.
