Needless to say, the only rational standpoint in this matter must be that it is better to be sure than to be sorry. The impression is very prevalent now that at least the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist should be administered to the sick whenever there is even the possibility of a fatal termination of the illness. Extreme Unction is more usually delayed until there is some positive sign of {136} approaching dissolution. Delay in its administration, however, not infrequently leads to this sacrament being given when the patient is unable to appreciate its significance. This would seem to be very far from the intention of the Church. The idea has been constantly kept in mind, then, so to advise the clergyman with regard to the liability of a fatal termination as to secure, if possible, the administration of Extreme Unction while the patient is still in the full possession of his senses. Assured prognosis, that is, positive foresight as to the course of any disease, is the most difficult problem in medicine. Nearly 2400 years ago, when Hippocrates wrote his chapter on the progress of diseases, he stated that the hardest question to answer in the practice of medicine is, will the patient live? That special chapter of his book remains, according to our best authorities, down even to our own day, a valuable document in medical literature. It can be read by young or old in medical practice with profit. While our knowledge of the course of disease has advanced very much, the wise old Greek physician anticipated most of the principles on which our present knowledge of prognosis is founded. This fact in itself will serve to show how unsatisfactory must be any absolute conclusion as to the termination of any given disease. Our forecasts are founded on empirical data,--that is, they are the result of a series of observations,--and the underlying basis of all the phenomena is the individual human being, whose constitution it is impossible to know adequately, and whose reaction to disease it is impossible, therefore, to state with absolute certainty. With this warning as to the element of doubt that exists in all prognosis, we may proceed to the consideration of certain organic affections which make sudden death frequent.