When the body is well nourished, the general system well toned up, and the mind cheerful and active, the repair work proceeds rapidly. But when the physical system is run down, the body poorly nourished, and the mind depressed and full of fear, the work is retarded and interfered with. It is this healing power inherent in the cells that physicians speak of as the _vis vita_ or _vis medicatrix naturae_, or "the healing power of nature." Of it Dr. Patton says: "By the term 'efforts of nature' we mean a certain curative or restorative principle, or _vis vita_, implanted in every living or organized body, constantly operative for its repair, preservation and health. This instinctive endeavor to repair the human organism is signally shown in the event of a severed or lost part, as a finger, for instance; for nature unaided will repair and fashion a stump equal to one from the hands of an eminent surgeon.... Nature, unaided, may be equally potent in ordinary illness. Many individuals, even when severely ill, either from motives of economy, prejudice, or skepticism, remain at rest in bed, under favorable hygiene, regimen, etc., and speedily get well without a physician or medicine." Dr. Schofield says: "The _vis medicatrix naturae_ is a very potent factor in the amelioration of disease, if it only be allowed fair play. An exercise of faith, as a rule, suspends the operation of adverse influences, and appeals strongly through the consciousness, to the inner and underlying faculty of vital force (_i. e._, unconscious mind)." Dr. Bruce says: "We are compelled to acknowledge a power of natural recovery inherent in the body--a similar statement has been made by writers on the principle of medicine in all ages.... The body does possess a means and mechanism for modifying or neutralizing influences which it cannot directly overcome." Oliver Wendell Holmes says: "Whatever other theories we hold we must recognize the '_vis medicatrix naturae_' in some shape or other." Bruce says: "A natural power of the prevention and repair of disorders and disease has as real and as active an existence within us, as have the ordinary functions of the organs themselves." Hippocrates said: "Nature is the physician of diseases." And Ambrose Pare wrote on the walls of the great medical school, the Ecole de Medicine of Paris, these words: "_Je le ponsez et Dieu le guarit_," which translated is: "I dressed the wound, and God healed it."