That the practice of medicine to-day is not what it should be, is due largely to the position of the laity on this point——their aversion to taking advice instead of medicine. They will consider the question of prevention, in the shape of anti-bilious pills, for example, but not at the expense of their lawful follies. If indeed physicians, generally, knew enough about the natural laws to retain their own health, how could they all derive an income from teaching the simple method by which all their neighbors would remain well? A patient, for example, is suffering pain, and sends for the doctor, who comes, examines, and finally says, “I find nothing serious here——this pain in the head will soon leave you——just keep about if you can; if not, remain quiet. Coming in from the fresh air, I observe that your room is very close, sufficient of itself to give you the headache——change the air and keep it pure; eat nothing more to-day: you are ‘ahead of your stomach,’ withal; in fact, that is the chief trouble. Take a quick sponge bath on retiring, and you will find yourself all right in the morning——you need no medicine.” Do you fancy he would get another call from her, or from her friends through her influence? Her _head aches_, and she is incensed at such heartless nonsense. She sends for another doctor, who will probably be sharp enough to treat her _disposition_, and endeavor to “control the symptoms” instead of teaching her to remove the disease by removing its cause; he gives her a “quieting medicine”——something to deaden her senses; she has several days’ illness, he gets several fees——as he ought, to be sure——and the good-will of the family; and so he rises in the profession, while the other falls into the shade unless he drops his hygienic nonsense. Thus, we observe, a premium on shrewdness and a tax on sincerity. “It is notorious that in proportion to people’s ignorance of their own constitutions and the true causes of disease, is their credulous confidence in pills, potions, and quackish absurdities, and while this ignorance continues, there will, of course, be plenty of doctors who will pander to it. And not the least of the benefits likely to follow the better diffusion of physiological and sanitary information will be the protection of the community from the numberless impostures of charlatanism, and a better discrimination of the qualifications of competent physicians.”[5] [Footnote 5: “Physiology and Hygiene,” Huxley and Youmans.]