ON SICKNESSES, AND OF THE CAUSES THEREOF
DCCXXXIV.
When young children cry lustily, they grow well and rapidly, for through
crying, the members and veins are stretched out, which have no other
exercise.
DCCXXXV.
A question was put to Luther: How these two
sentences in Scripture might be reconciled together; first, concerning the sick
of the palsy, where Christ says: "Son be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven
thee." Where Christ intimates that sin was the cause of the palsy, and of every
sickness. Second, touching him that was born blind, where John says: "That
neither he nor his parents had sinned." Luther answered: In these words Christ
testifies that the blind had not sinned, and sin is not the cause of blindness,
for only active sins, which one commits personally, are the cause of sicknesses
and plagues, not original sin; therefore the sins which the sick of the palsy
himself committed were the cause of the palsy, whereas original sin was not the
cause of the blindness of him that was born blind, or all people must be born
blind, or be sick of the palsy.
DCCXXXVI.
Experience has proved the toad to be endowed
with valuable qualities. If you run a stick through three toads, and, after
having dried them in the sun, apply them to any pestilent tumor, they draw out
all the poison, and the malady will disappear.
DCCXXXVII.
The cramp is the lightest sickness, and I believe
the falling sickness a piece of the cramp, the one in the head, the other in
the feet and legs; when the person feeling either moves quickly, or runs, it
vanishes.
DCCXXXVIII.
Sleep is a most useful and most salutary
operation of nature. Scarcely any minor annoyance angers me more than the being
suddenly awakened out of a pleasant slumber. I understand that in Italy they
torture poor people by depriving them of sleep. `Tis a torture that cannot long
be endured.
DCCXXXIX.
The physicians in sickness consider only of
what natural causes the malady preceeds, and this they cure, or not, with their
physic. But they see not that often the devil casts a sickness upon one without
any natural causes. A higher physic must be required to resist the devil's
diseases; namely, faith and prayer, which physic may be fetched out of God's
Word. The 31st Psalm is good thereunto, where David says: "Into thine hand I
commit my spirit." This passage I learned, in my sickness, to correct; in the
first translation, I applied it only to the hour of death; but it should be
said: My health, my happiness, my life, misfortune, sickness, death, etc.,
stand all in thy hands. Experience testifies this; for when we think, now we
will be joyful and merry, easy and healthy, God soon sends what makes us quite
the contrary.
When I was ill at Schmalcalden, the physicians
made me take as much medicine as though I had been a great bull. Alack for him
that depends upon the aid of physic. I do not deny that medicine is a gift of
God, nor do I refuse to acknowledge science in the skill of many physicians;
but, take the best of them, how far are they from perfection? A sound regimen
produces excellent effects. When I feel indisposed, by observing a strict diet
and going to bed early, I generally manage to get round again, that is, if I
can keep my mind tolerably at rest. I have no objection to the doctors acting
upon certain theories, but, at the same time, they must not expect us to be the
slaves of their fancies. We find Avicenna and Galen, living in other times and
in other countries, prescribing wholly different remedies for the same
disorders. I won't pin my faith to any of them, ancient or modern. On the other
hand, nothing can well be more deplorable than the proceeding of those fellows,
ignorant as they are complaisant, who let their patients follow exactly their
own fancies; `tis these wretches who more especially people the graveyards.
Able, cautious, and experienced physicians, are gifts of God. They are the
ministers of nature, to whom human life is confided; but a moment's negligence
may ruin every thing. No physician should take a single step, but in humility
and the fear of God; they who are without the fear of God are mere homicides. I
expect that exercise and change of air do more good than all their purgings and
bleedings; but when we do employ medical remedies, we should be careful to do
so under the advice of a judicious physician. See what happened to Peter
Lupinus, who died from taking internally a mixture designed for external
application. I remember hearing of a great lawsuit, arising out of a dose of
appium being given instead of a dose of opium.
`Tis a curious thing that certain remedies,
which, applied by princes and great lords, are efficacious and curative, are
wholly powerless when administered by a physician. I have heard that the
electors of Saxony, John and Frederick, have a water, which cures diseases of
the eye, when they themselves apply it, whether the disorder arise from heat or
from cold; but `tis quite useless when administered by a physician. So in
spiritual matters, a preacher has more unction, and produces more effect upon
the conscience than can a layman.