It is by combating the cause that the evil is to be destroyed; for as little as may every day be removed, of that cause, one may be pretty sure that the effect will disappear, without the danger of a return. If it is against the effect only that the procedure of the cure is levelled, the work of each day is not only of no service to the following one, but almost always detrimental. After having indicated what is to be avoided, there remains to examine what can be done. I have precedently specified the character that the remedies ought to have; to strengthen without irritating; there are some that can answer those indications; indeed the catalogue of them is not a long one, and the two most efficacious are, doubtless, _the bark and the cold bath_. The first of these medicines has been looked upon, for more than a century past, independently of its febrifuge virtue, as one of the most powerful strengtheners, and as an anodyne. The most celebrated of the modern physicians look on it as a specific in the disorders of the nerves. I have already shewn, that it was an ingredient in the prescription above quoted from BOERHAAVE; and M. VANDERMONDE employed it with great success in the case of a young man under his care, whom debauches with women had thrown into a deplorable condition[119]. M. LEWIS prefers it to all the other remedies; and M. STEHELIN, in that letter of his which I have more than once mentioned, says, he holds it the most efficacious of any. Twenty ages of exact and well considered experiences have demonstrated that the cold baths possess the same qualities. Dr. BAYNARD has more particularly proved the virtue of them in the disorders produced by self-pollution, and by excesses of venery; especially in a case, where, independently of the impotency and of the simple _gonorrhœa_, there was so great a weakness, augmented, indeed, by bleeding and by purgations, that the patient was considered as at the gates of death[120]. M. LEWIS does not scruple affirming yet more positively their efficacy. “Among all the medicines (says he,) whether external or internal, there is nothing can equal the virtue of the cold bath.... It cools the body more, strengthens the nerves better, and promotes perspiration more effectually, than any medicine taken down the throat can do, and will do as much service in the _tabes dorsalis_, prudently used, as every thing else put together[121].” It ought even to be remarked, that the cold bath has, as I have already said of the air, a particular advantage, which is, that its action depends less on the reaction, which is as much as to say on the vital forces of nature, than the action of the other remedies: these only act upon the quick, but the cold bath gives a spring even to the dead fibres.