Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/86

 upon me in camp like a thief in the night without any premonitory symptom, and when fast asleep. I had as narrow an escape with life as possible, yet I have looked forward to the issue of some trifling aliment with as much concern.

Experience will show that too much solicitude about one's health is seldom of any service. One is never so apt to catch a cold, as when guarding most against predisposing causes, and it is a well ascertained fact that none are more frequently victims of cholera than those who are always taking precautions against it. Another great error strangers a reliable to fall into,is the habit of taking medicine, and drugging themselves into a state of disease. Not contented with letting nature take her own way they force her to take a way of theirs, and drive her so hard in their new regime, that she in time forgets her own,and only recovers her normal functions with great difficulty.

10. THE VIS MEDICATRIX NATURÆ is an imperious dame that won't bear dictation, and seems to resist any officious interference with her constitution; a regular coquette, not to be won by direct addresses and straightforward courtship. Ask her for sleep at a given hour, and she will most likely deny it, and perhaps perversely pester you with it at a time when most wanted; when you are most thirsty you will be farthest distant from the well, when