The lesson begins at the patient’s first encounter with a complete up-to-date routine health examination. His reactions during his journey through a modern clinic are far from placid, and not free from a resentment--expressed with playful seriousness--which any person, lay or professional, can easily understand. The author displays a keen appreciation of the humorous side of the modern system of diagnosticating disease in a scientific manner; although he does not admire the detail. Being a layman, he cannot be expected to follow the relation between the determination of the amount of free hydrochloric acid in a stomach that was digesting everything without known complaint, and a kidney which at times was the seat of a pain. Nor does he realize that he may make a better convalescence if a blood test is made which some scientist unknown to him, has determined can decide whether any ancestor has had hard luck with his diseases. Mr. Harper describes his experiences from the unusual viewpoint of an invalid’s bed, giving the humorous impression that the joke is on him, without realizing that all these jokes, little and big, were training him to go to the operating room with a feeling of elation and courage for the outcome, and there to climb on the operating table unassisted. But the physician can learn from this story what the author has taught, all unconsciously: he can learn to omit unnecessary examinations made purely for scientific curiosity or record alone, and not for diagnosis; also to listen considerately to the complaints of his patients; to appreciate that a patient’s feelings during convalescence may have more value in determining treatment than all the physical signs of disease or of well-being which he can discover by fingers, eyes and ears, or by instruments of greater or less precision; to beware the use of new and non-official remedies, even when endorsed by manufacturers of honest intent; to look twice at remedies which are patented for the personal profit of an exclusive chemist or sometimes, I regret to say, for pecuniary gain to some member of my profession.