But excellent as the label is in this respect, edifying as it is as an example of candour, it is, unfortunately, peculiarly discouraging to the patient, and therefore encouraging to the disease. So we are glad to learn that it has at length been respectfully put to its long, last sleep by our kind friend Dr. Tibbits; and, though we are willing to admit that refuges for our half-knowledge are necessary landing-places in our upward evolutionary climb, we must also regard this service rendered by Dr. Tibbits as by no means the least with which he has benefited humanity. In “Massage and its Applications,” pp. 20-21, we read as follows:-- “I would ask you to allow me to enter my protest against that refuge of destitute physicians and surgeons--the word ‘Hysteria!’ _What does it mean? What do you understand by it?_ I have looked up many definitions of it from all writers of repute, and I will not give you any one of them. _The thing is non-existent._ The word is, as I have said, a refuge for destitute medical practitioners, who, having to do with dreadfully harassing cases of functional nervous disorder, take _‘Hysteria’_ as their motto and their shield, and retire--or do not retire--from the case under its shelter.”[3] To go on with the story. The young lady was shut up and treated for fussiness, though the wrong party would seem to have been under treatment. And when the fuss was over, and the lady--with lightened purse--was mercifully let loose again, she stoutly maintained that she was no better than before. Her doctor, however, declared her to be cured, and attributed her want of recognition of the fact to “hysteria.” But then hysteria was the supposed disease for which the lady had been treated! So in this case the doctor had cured a disease which had no existence, while the lady, in consequence of the disease which had no existence and which had been cured, continued to consider herself as ill as before.