ts frequently break down in high school. And many of the
finest boys that I know have this dreadful "thing" fastened firmly upon
them just at the very beginning of their lifework.

You may think I am a little vehement, but to me one of the most damnable
and disgusting things in the world is that the medical profession
remains so ignorant concerning the _real cure_ for such cases. I believe
the late Sir William Osler was the greatest physician of his generation.
He was not only a man of talent, he was a genius, and his knowledge of
medicine almost passes understanding. Yet Osler himself was as much in
the dark concerning the _real_ cure for so-called _neurasthenia_ as the
physicians who read his works on practice. If one wants to find out how
ignorant the whole profession is on the subject of a permanent cure,
let the thing get hold of him, and then let him make the rounds of the
physicians, follow out their advice, and see where he comes out!

I have said that even the sanitariums of this country--and for that
matter I might have said of any other country--do not _permanently cure_
these people. I have ample proof of this statement. I have met these
people everywhere and no doubt you have, too. Quite recently the subject
was brought up anew to me. I had written an article on the subject for
one of the magazines, a magazine having a large circulation. In a very
short time my mail was literally flooded with letters. Every incoming
mail brought great numbers of them. They came from physicians of the
regular school, and from physicians of many other schools, too. I won't
mention any of them, for this is a treatise on a dreadful affliction and
how one may get rid of it; it is not intended as a criticism of anyone.
I have no desire to criticize and I haven't time. I am stating facts
interwoven with my own life. If the cure is real, the people will find
it out after they have tried it; if it is not, they will also find that
out. In fact, it's exactly as Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, said to the
men of Israel when they would have slain the apostles for teaching
Christ's sayings, "Refrain from these men and let them alone: for if
this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught: but if it
be of God, ye cannot overthrow it." And it's exactly the same way with
this healing art. The very fact that physicians of all schools of
medicine--physicians who were sufferers from "nerves"--wrote me, shows
plainly that they could