Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.
It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit.
Even when all is known, the care of a man is not yet complete, because eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise. For food and exercise, while possessing opposite qualities, yet work together to produce health.
The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.
It is better not to apply any treatment in cases of occult cancer; for if treated (by surgery), the patients die quickly; but if not treated, they hold out for a long time.
