Nerves can form bad habits and they can form good habits, but of all
the bad habits formed by nerves perhaps the very worst is the habit
of being ill. These bad habits of illness engender an unwillingness
to let go of them. They seem so real. "I do not want to suffer like
this," I hear an invalid say; "if it were merely a habit don't you
think I would throw it off in a minute?"
I knew a young physician who had made somewhat of a local reputation
in the care of nerves, and a man living in a far-distant country,
who had been for some time a chronic invalid, happened by accident
to hear of him. My friend was surprised to receive a letter from
this man, offering to pay him the full amount of all fees he would
earn in one month and as much more as he might ask if he would spend
that time in the house with him and attempt his cure.
Always interested in new phases of nerves, and having no serious
case on hand himself at the time, he assented and went with great
interest on this long journey to, as he hoped, cure one man. When he
arrived he found his patient most charming. He listened attentively
to the account of his years of illness, inquired of others in the
house with him, and then went to bed and to sleep. In the morning he
woke with a sense of unexplained depression. In searching about for
the cause he went over his interviews of the day before and found a
doubt in his mind which he would hardly acknowledge; but by the end
of the next day he said to himself: "What a fool I was to come so
far without a more complete knowledge of what I was coming to! This
man has been well for years and does not know it.
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