Drugs are physical agents, and if they are diluted so as to destroy their chemical or physical properties, it is sheer nonsense to expect any physical result from them on the system. Chemical and physical facts conclusively prove the utter inertness of certain drugs either in themselves or in the manner in which they are employed, and the indisputable evidence of biological science demonstrates the natural curative tendency of nature observable in the lowest living thing to the highest, so that we should stultify our reason were we to arrive at any other conclusion than that the doctrine of this therapeutic creed is one of the most irrational delusions that ever befogged the mental horizon of a thinking being. The supposed cures effected through the employment of the Weapon Ointment, the Sympathetic Powders, the endless dilutions of the Hahnemann system, and, indeed, most other remedial agents from any school or source, whether offensive powders, mixtures, or patent medicines, or the more agreeable and tasteless pellets, have but _one role to play_, that is, to assuage the apprehensions of the mind while nature is performing the cure; that is, to engage the mind with the thought or idea that something tangible is being done to bring about a certain result. If the patient has pinned his faith to the curative value of mind alone, the mind is for the time being engaged with idea that _mind_ is performing the cure. This is a delusion quite similar to the previous one, in which medicines are taken, with only this difference, that while you pin your faith on drugs in the one case, you pin it to mind cure in the other. CHAPTER III. WHAT IS MIND CURE? THIS subject has given rise to an endless variety of contradictory discussions, and while it has won for itself fanatical devotees on one side, it has been ridiculed on the other. This is not at all surprising, when an inquiry is made into the competency of the parties to the controversy. To be informed in metaphysical philosophy, or fully equipped in scriptural lore, but without a practical study in the art and theory of medical science, precludes the possibility of presenting the theme in a logical manner, or establishing a relevancy between medical science and mind cure. A medical education that is based on strictly physical characteristics of disease, as they are studied at the bedside, or in a microscopical laboratory, is equally inadequate; for the question of mind cure goes beyond the physical into the metaphysical, and not until the operations of the mind have been closely followed to the bodily or organic functions, can the intimacy of their relations be thoroughly appreciated. Medical men betray their incapacity for observation if they contemptuously dismiss the subject of mind cure by some superficial, disparaging illustration, for there is much more in the subject than is dreamt of, even in the mind of the average college professor.