Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 16.

Health and Temperance.

Hope as a Remedial Measure.

It is perfectly useless for us to attempt to portray the influence that "hope" exerts upon mankind. It is a proverbial fact that a man without hope in the fight for life is already half whipped. The sick man without hope is desperately ill indeed, however slight his physical ailment may be. It is equally as true that there is a very slight chance for the undertaker to be benefited in the case of a patient who has no disposition or idea of dying. The whole system, digestive, circulatory, and nervous, is directly under the influence of the mind; and if we will ever bear this in mind in treating our cases, we will often have a more potent remedy, easy of administration and more pleasant to give and take than anything found in the country doctor's saddle-bags or upon the shelves of our metropolitan pharmacists. Bad news, grief, or sudden disappointment has been known to reduce the circulation to a minimum, to cause a strong man to become as helpless as a child, and to arrest the process of digestion and assimilation as suddenly as if the patient's throat had been cut. Just the reverse of this may be observed under the influence of pleasant emotions, and the life-giving power of bright, Heaven-born hope.

My young friends, never enter a sick-room unless your countenance, manner, and words are such as to comfort and cheer your patients. However slight their hope may be, make use of that little; encourage and stimulate them to exercise that fortitude coupled with reasonable hope which has tided, and will tide, many a patient over dangerous shoals where medicine would have been utterly ineffective.—Southern Clinic.