Business and social duties call for strong men and woman. You can"t reach mastership if you remain a slave.
Your first duty is to yourself, and success or failure is your reward exactly in proportion as you exercise your will power and handle your thought habits.
14.
[Sidenote: The Best Medicine.]
The doctors are giving less medicine and doing more in the way of suggesting diet and exercise rules, sanitation and preventive practices.
Medicine is mostly poison and its effect is to shock the organs or glands to bring about reaction. Nature makes the cure.
In emergency drugs are all right, but the doctor and not the individual should settle the matter of what drug to use and the proper time to use it.
When there"s a pain or disease, it"s due to congestion of some organ, to infection, or to improper nourishment, or improper habits.
Ninety per cent of aches, pains and ailments can be cured by a dominant mental att.i.tude and by proper attention to eating and exercise.
The habitual medicine user is not cured by the medicine but by nature; the medicine simply serves as a means to establish mental control and to create confidence in the sufferer that he is to get well.
Recently I spent much time in a large hospital visiting a relative who had been operated on. I know several members of the staff of doctors and nurses.
I have seen many operations, some very heroic ones, and my appreciation of the good work of good surgeons is greatly augmented by the wonderful helps I have seen them bring to suffering humanity.
I have talked with scores of patients and watched the progress of their cases.
I have by plausible logic, mental suggestion, and good cheer to the hospital patients, brought many a smile through a mist of tears.
I have seen the wonderful results of mental suggestion to the discouraged patients.
To show the effects that faith-thought will produce, I will relate some instances.
[Sidenote: Mental Sickness.]
One patient screaming for a hypodermic injection to relieve her pain was given an injection of sterilized water and the pain vanished. Another just could not sleep without her bromide. The nurse fixed up a powder of sugar, salt and flour; the patient took the powder and went to sleep.
That was mind control and mental longing satisfied.
Another patient had to take something to stop her pains; she got capsules of magnesia. The capsule satisfied her longing, established her faith and gave her relief; the relief was through her mind and not through the capsule.
[Sidenote: Changing Thought Direction.]
I have seen several weary, despondent patients fretting and wearing themselves out over their so-called weakness and run-down condition. I have placed copies of "Pep" in their hands and watched courage, faith, cheer and serenity come to them. It diverted their minds from self-thought and self-accusation to faith-thought, confidence and courage.
You can think of only one thing at a time, and "Pep" or any other book that can change the thought habit from fear to faith, from worry to peace, is doing a service.
I"ve been in shadowland in the hospital to see for myself the actual help that mental control will bring to sufferers, and the evidence is far above my powers to describe.
I"ve seen the patient"s eyes brighten up when the cheery surgeon came with hope, smiles and confidence on his face.
I"ve seen the drooping of spirits when well-meaning but poor-expressing friends came into the patient"s room and condoned and sorrowed with him.
Verily, "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Verily, good cheer and good thought are good medicines.
And to these truths all good doctors say "Amen!"
15.
[Sidenote: The Pill Fiend.]
How often we see the pill fiend. In his vest pocket he has a small apothecary shop--a collection of round paste-board boxes and little bottles. Every little while he dopes himself. If his stomach is on a strike, he pops in a pill. If his head aches, he takes a tablet. If he sneezes, he takes a cold-cure pill.
When anyone around speaks of a pain or ache, he hands the person a pill.
The pill eater is a hypochondriac, and very likely his doctor knows it.
His salvation is that the doctor probably gives him harmless stuff in pill form. The patient doesn"t know this, and it"s like a rabbit"s foot or a piece of pork rubbed on a wart--it satisfies the mind and nature makes the cure.
Often, however, the pills are not innocent; the pill fiend buys the tablets and pills direct from the druggist. The headache tablet is most likely one of the coal tar drugs like acetanilid, and that is positively harmful when taken too often.
There are times to take pills--in cases of emergency, when you can shock nature with a poison and bring a wholesome reaction.
These times are rare, and the doctor should be the sole judge as to when such treatment is necessary.
Exercise, diet, correct habits of living will prevent the congestion and clogging-up that causes illness and pain.
[Sidenote: A Dangerous Habit.]
The pill habit is nothing less than a drug habit, and the drug habit positively weakens the system. The headache tablet does not cure the headache; it only stops the pain; the evil is still there. The headache is merely nature"s signal that something is out of whack.
Headaches are generally caused by stomach disorders, eye strain, or neuralgia; the latter in turn is caused by too much uric acid in the system.
Eat fruit, drink plenty of water, and that will flush the system and stop stomachic headache.
See the optician if it"s eyes. If you have a frequent headache in the forehead, very likely it"s the eyes, even though you do not suspect it.
If it"s neuralgia, get a corrective diet from the doctor.
I know scores of men, and women, too, who take pills enough to kill a person. Their systems have been educated up to it; they are saturated with poison.
And the worst of it is they never get well while taking the pills; it is only a temporary deadening of the pain.