So the patient is entered in the doctor’s book as cured, and goes home to lead an ordinary life. The supposed success causes other ladies to be treated in a similar manner. If the doctor refrains from telling them how fanciful Miss So-and-so was, the nurse repairs the omission. In the meantime Miss So-and-so, little suspecting that she is being held up as a warning and an example,--perhaps even by name,--finds that her small stock of strength has not been sufficiently increased to enable her to bear the strain of an active existence. Perhaps she will break down under some well-known disease, in which case her friends will say, “How very unfortunate, just as Dr. ---- had cured her of her nervousness!” Perhaps she will give in and take to her bed again, and then the nurses will say to their patients, “She was all right as long as _we_ had her, but after she went home she took to her messy ways again, and now you see what she’s come to.” If I have heard this sort of thing said once, I have heard it a hundred times. In the days when I was even more ignorant than I am now, I used to argue with these worthy, misguided folks; but I have since realised the futility of trying to reason with people whose sieves have not pared and shaped them into a capability for reasoning correctly. Now you and I, and all cultured men and women in our community, have a voice in the meetings at the council-chamber of Public Opinion, and have power to modify the sieves through which these nurses pass. In fact, we are always modifying them in one way or another, whether we recognise the fact or not. And if we so far shirk our responsibilities as to allow the sieves to be formed badly, then we are very selfish, and that is infinitely worse than being ignorant and stupid. We shall not advance matters a single stage by throwing mud at individuals who have conscientiously done their best in very difficult circumstances. Here is another case of failure which ought to commend itself to our sense of humour. I recently met a young lady who showed the ordinary symptoms of nervous exhaustion. She had not collapsed entirely, but was forcing herself by sheer strength of will to undergo the painful dragging-about process. She informed me that she had just been consulting a physician who had labelled her “hysteria.”[2] How delighted we all are when we get hold of a label! I am, for one. Now this particular label is the concise and technical mode of saying, “Disease unknown;” and in these days of hurry, it is a great advantage to be concise.