Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/124

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120
QUACKERY UNMASKED.

present time show that mankind are extremely liable to be mistaken in regard to cures. Under every system and mode of practice, too much credit has often been given to medical means. A brief consideration of some well known principles of physiology will serve to explain the mystery of numerous (so called) wonderful cures.

Every one ought to know that in all diseases, even the most fatal, there is a tendency towards recovery. Every living animal body is furnished with organs designed to supply its waste and repair its injuries, and to maintain the whole system in a state of health. The ancients called this "The Vis Medicatrix Naturœ" and we consider it as a recuperative principle indispensable to animal life. When anything interferes with the economy of health, this power is immediately exerted to remove or overcome the disturbing cause, or to obviate its injurious effects, and in a very large portion of diseases this power is sufficient of itself, without assistance, to overcome the derangement, remove the disorder, and in due time to restore the system to its usual state of health. Many diseases are limited in their