and allows people to go ahead straining themselves, when they ought to have been compelled by nature's warnings to stop. Perhaps it is because so many "tonics" contain alcohol that people have not got over the idea that there is any such thing as a real tonic, which abolishes, not the awareness of fatigue, but the fatigue itself. The promise to "_cure you in spite of yourself_," then, is the bait by which the quack attempts to tempt us, and his lie shows exactly the line in which we, as social workers or as physicians in a dispensary, ought to labor. We must try to show people that fatigue, strain, worry, and other natural causes have brought them where they are, and that there is no possible getting out of their troubles without following the line of common sense. No drug, no tonic, can take the place of obedience to common sense. We see people who have varicose veins, for instance, and whose work forces them to stand a great deal on their feet. They often come to us hoping to get cured _in spite of the fact that they are standing all the time_, and inviting the force of gravity to produce stagnation of blood in their legs. In advising such people we have two courses open to us, quite characteristic of the courses which may be followed in all such matters: 1. We can say, "Well, I understand that you really cannot arrange to get off your feet. All right. The varicose veins will not get cured. But, on the other hand, they are not very dangerous; the consequences of neglecting them are not very serious. The number of cases when an over-distended vein breaks and causes a serious hemorrhage is not great. The chances of ulcer are not _very_ great." Force the patient to face the danger and realize what will happen, in case he does not make any change in his habits; it is then perfectly proper in certain cases for a person to go on violating hygienic common sense provided he has counted the cost and faced it. Each of us comes to some point in his life when he makes up his mind that for a good cause he will smash his health. I do not believe in the worship of health. There are many better things in the world than health. Many a man makes up his mind to do what he knows will probably cost him a number of weeks or a year of his life. That is all right; only we must face it, in peace as well as in war. Or (2), when people come to us for the relief of skin abscesses, boils, and demand some drug which will cure these abscesses, we must ask the important questions, Whence did you get them? Why did they come? Presumably not because the patient has failed to take a drug. We must find the fault in hygiene, generally constipation or overwork, or lack of sleep, causing a lowering of the body's vital resistance, whereby the germs, the staphylococci, which are deep in our skin and never to be rubbed off by any washing or sterilization, begin to multiply. The soil has become such that they can multiply.