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RE-INCARNATION
845
Now, if vitality were a fixed quantity which could not be augmented or re-inforced, health and youth would very soon come to grief. Fortunately, however, it is not a fixed quantity, but a fluctuating balance, generally on the credit side of the account. The rallying power of the organism is no less remarkable than its capacity to resist disease, though this power appears to diminish or dwindle away with each trial of strength between the forces of health and the elements inimical to physical well-being. In conditions characteristic of prostration and disease, the microbes of health '-if we may coin such a phrase seem to resemble the men who are unable and disinclined to work on account of mental listlessness, overfeeding or the paralysing effect of intoxicants and drugs. In some cases-generally the worst---all these three aspects are found together with symptoms characteristic of exhaustion and fatigue due to over-work for a long period of time. These are the cases of those who are past all hope of cure, and the question they suggest is not how much relief can any particular system of treatment afford to the patient, but how soon will death put an end to the misery of dragging out an existence which has nought but suffering and pain in store ?
Leaving these and some other similarly hopeless ases of extreme lowness of vitality out of consideration, there is every reason to believe that where no inroads are allowed to be made on the resources of the organism, and where the healthful energy of the system is properly husbanded by itsoccupant,' there is no cause to fear the coming into being of the conditions which usher ill-health, premature senescence and untimely death.
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