The people you see waiting in the lobbies of doctors’ offices are, in a vast majority of cases, suffering thru poisoning caused by an excess of food.  Coupled with this goes the bad results of imperfect breathing, irregular sleep, lack of exercise, and improper use of stimulants, or holding the thought of fear, jealousy and hate.  All of these things, or any one of them, will, in very many persons, cause fever, chills, cold feet, congestion and faulty elimination.

To administer drugs to a man suffering from malnutrition caused by a desire to “get even,” and a lack of fresh air, is simply to compound his troubles, shuffle his maladies, and get him ripe for the ether-cone and scalpel.

Nature is forever trying to keep people well, and most so-called “disease,” which word means merely lack of ease, is self-limiting, and tends to cure itself.  If you have appetite, do not eat too much.  If you have no appetite, do not eat at all.  Be moderate in the use of all things, save fresh air and sunshine.

The one theme of Ecclesiastes is moderation.  Buddha wrote it down that the greatest word in any language is Equanimity.  William Morris said that the finest blessing of life was systematic, useful work.  Saint Paul declared that the greatest thing in the world was love.  Moderation, Equanimity, Work and Love—­you need no other physician.

In so stating I lay down a proposition agreed to by all physicians; which was expressed by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and then repeated in better phrase by Epictetus, the slave, to his pupil, the great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and which has been known to every thinking man and woman since:  Moderation, Equanimity, Work and Love!

The Ex.  Question

Words sometimes become tainted and fall into bad repute, and are discarded.  Until the day of Elizabeth Fry, on the official records in England appeared the word “mad-house.”  Then it was wiped out and the word “asylum” substituted.  Within twenty years’ time in several states in America we have discarded the word “asylum” and have substituted the word “hospital.”

In Jeffersonville, Indiana, there is located a “Reformatory” which some years ago was known as a penitentiary.  The word “prison” had a depressing effect, and “penitentiary” throws a theological shadow, and so the words will have to go.  As our ideas of the criminal change, we change our vocabulary.

A few years ago we talked about asylums for the deaf and dumb—­the word “dumb” has now been stricken from every official document in every state in the Union, because we have discovered, with the assistance of Gardner G. Hubbard, that deaf people are not dumb, and not being defectives, they certainly do not need an asylum.  They need schools, however, and so everywhere we have established schools for the deaf.

Deaf people are just as capable, are just as competent, just as well able to earn an honest living as is the average man who can hear.