commonly confounded with those which I describe--spectral illusions.
These latter I look upon as being no less simply curable than a cold in
the head or a trifling dyspepsia.

It is those which rank in the first category that test our promptitude
of thought. Fifty-seven such cases have I encountered, neither more nor
less. And in how many of these have I failed? In no one single instance.

There is no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly
reducible, with a little patience, and a rational confidence in the
physician. With these simple conditions, I look upon the cure as
absolutely certain.

You are to remember that I had not even commenced to treat Mr. Jennings'
case. I have not any doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in
eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended to two years. Some
cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every
intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the task,
will effect a cure.

You know my tract on "The Cardinal Functions of the Brain." I there, by
the evidence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, the high
probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism,
through the nerves. Of this system, thus considered, the brain is the
heart. The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves,
returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that
fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as I before
remarked, light or electricity are so.

By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents as green