And sure enough, usually within a few days after such a conversation the patient is down in the slough of despond. His digestive organs are in a wretched condition. He is nauseated, his tongue is coated, he is suffering from headache and from a multitude of other symptoms according to his individual condition. In fact, many of the old aches and pains which he thought already cured come up again with renewed force. Healing crises, representing radical changes in the system, are always accompanied by physical and mental weakness, because every bit of vitality is drawn upon in these reconstructive processes. The entire organism is shaken up to its very foundation; deep-seated, chronic disease taints are being stirred up throughout the system. The eliminative processes of the healing crises are often accompanied by great mental depression and a feeling of strong revulsion to the natural regimen and everything connected with it. The patient thinks that, after all, Nature Cure is not for him, that he is growing worse instead of better. In proportion to the severity of the changes going on within him, he becomes disheartened and despondent. Often he exhibits all the mental and emotional symptoms of homesickness. In these critical days it requires all our powers of persuasion to keep the depressed and discouraged patient from giving up the fight and from taking something to relieve his distress. He insists that "something must be done for him," and cannot understand how he will ever get out of his "awful condition" without some good strong medicine. If our patients were not continually and thoroughly instructed regarding the Laws of Crises and of Periodicity and if we did not strongly advise and encourage them to persevere with the treatment, few of them would hold out during these critical periods. This explains why so many people fail to be cured and it also explains why natural living and self-treatment often do not meet with the desired results if carried on without the instruction and guidance of a competent, experienced Nature Cure physician. So long as the improvement continues, everything is lovely and hope soars high. But when the inevitable crises arrive, the sufferer believes that, after all, he made a mistake in taking up the natural regimen, especially so when friends and relatives do their best to destroy his confidence in the natural methods of cure by ridicule and dire prophesies of failure. Frightened and discouraged, the patient returns to the "flesh-pots of Egypt" and to the good old pills and potions and ever afterwards he tells his friends that "he tried Nature Cure and the vegetarian diet, but it was no good." Mother Nature remains a "book sealed with seven seals" to those who mistrust, despise and counteract her, who rely on man-made wisdom and the ever-changing theories and dogmas of the schools.