Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/90

 of disease; yet the climate gets a great part of the blame.

The passions of manhood and the penalties entaded upon their gratification are causes of more broken constitutions than all other indiscretions put together. Lues everywhere abounds and occupies a large figure in every sick report. This is the Scyda of European life in India; the Charybdis is left-handed alliances with native females; and the "medio tutissimus ibis" is either through the Straits of Continence or of Matrimony.

If sickness should supervene, the young Assistant-surgeon should take the advice of his seniors. Few medical men are good patients, and they are still worse prescribers in their own cases. They are very liable to run into extremes either to underdo or to overdo, and rarely have that composure of mind, that impartiality of judgment,that uncompromising system of treatment which would guide them in similar cases entrusted to their own care. Should he, as will often happen, have no one near to consult, then he must, if possible, divide himself, the intellectual from the corporeal, and endeavour to weigh matters impartially and correctly; neither putting off necessary operations that may be painful, nor procrastinating the taking of medicine that ought to be taken without delay.