must wear the sort of hat their patients wear. The doctor may lay
down the law despotically enough to the patient at points where
the patient's mind is simply blank; but when the patient has a
prejudice the doctor must either keep it in countenance or lose
his patient. If people are persuaded that night air is dangerous
to health and that fresh air makes them catch cold it will not be
possible for a doctor to make his living in private practice if
he prescribes ventilation. We have to go back no further than the
days of The Pickwick Papers to find ourselves in a world where
people slept in four-post beds with curtains drawn closely round
to exclude as much air as possible. Had Mr. Pickwick's doctor
told him that he would be much healthier if he slept on a camp
bed by an open window, Mr. Pickwick would have regarded him as a
crank and called in another doctor. Had he gone on to forbid Mr.
Pickwick to drink brandy and water whenever he felt chilly, and
assured him that if he were deprived of meat or salt for a whole
year, he would not only not die, but would be none the worse, Mr.
Pickwick would have fled from his presence as from that of a
dangerous madman. And in these matters the doctor cannot cheat
his patient. If he has no faith in drugs or vaccination, and the
patient has, he can cheat him with colored water and pass his
lancet through the flame of a spirit lamp before scratching his
arm. But he cannot make him change his daily habits without
knowing it.


THE REFORMS ALSO COME FROM THE LAITY

In the main, then, the doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the
superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result