erhaps, in unusual cases, there is absolutely
nothing by which people know that they are going to be properly mated.
If a man with a tendency to neurasthenia breaks down and is tied to a
nagging wife, that is usually the last straw in the way of his
recovery.

This is just as true of the woman who breaks down and has a nagging
husband. There are, I regret to say, thousands of such cases all over
the country. On the other hand I have had a man come to me and say that
he was willing to do anything on earth to aid his wife, but he could not
get her to diet or even to make a serious attempt to get well. I am
always tremendously sorry for such a man because he has a mighty heavy
burden to bear. Such a wife should try to get well as much for the man's
sake as for her own. She should understand that she is needlessly
torturing the one best friend she has on earth.

A woman of this kind should remember that, no matter how much she may
suffer, she is hopelessly selfish if she will not do all in her power to
diet and to obey other necessary rules that will enable her to get rid
of the malady. Sometimes when a physician puts this before her kindly
but firmly it results in her making a beginning and by and by getting
well. I have seen this happen many times. And I wish to say right here
that while I believe I was born with some natural tact, yet if I had not
gone through all this horrible suffering myself I should not, I know, be
able to say the things that would induce these people to do that which
it is their duty to do.

And here is one big difficulty I have always had to contend with. Some
of these people have tried so many so-called nonsense cures--eating
buttermilk tablets, for instance--and have had no benefit from them,
that they are unwilling to try the one and only thing that will cure
them--the thing that will cure them as sure as the sun shines. I wonder
why it is that since the time of Christ people are always looking for a
sensational or miraculous cure. Our life and everything pertaining to it
is miracle enough, if we only had the sense to see it.

The woman or the man with "nerves" is not going to get well eating
buttermilk tablets or taking patent dope while lying on a couch and shut
in a house. You must bestir yourself. You must get out of doors, and
above all, you must eat right. Today thousands of these people are
languishing in hospitals and sanitariums, and most of them will come out
only to go back again