It is astonishing how often people are relieved by knowing a truth which we shrink from imparting. I recently examined at a Red Cross Dispensary in Paris an old lady in face of whose troubles I was a little daunted when I came to carrying out the principle of telling the truth as I have long preached and tried to practise it. She had a chronic asthma. She suffered a good deal from it both night and day, and I could not see the slightest prospect that she would ever be any better, because in people past middle life asthma is for all intents and purposes an incurable disease. When I had finished examining this old lady and faced my task of telling her the truth, I did not feel comfortable about it at all. But I gave her the facts. The outcome was striking. "Oh, yes," she said, "I rather thought that my asthma is incurable. I did not expect that you could do anything to cure it. All I wanted was to make sure that I had not got tuberculosis on top of it." About this fear of tuberculosis she had said not a word to the history-taker. It came to light quite unexpectedly. But when I assured her that she had not got tuberculosis on top of her asthma, she seemed quite contented and hobbled away very happily, puffing and blowing as she went. That illustrates the relief that comes to people from finding that a deeper-concealed fear is groundless. Again and again I have pushed myself up to the task of telling people what I knew they had to know, and then found that instead of prostrating them I had relieved them of torturing uncertainty.