Natásha is ill through the Summer. She is treated by ineffectual doctors.
Summary:
On receiving news of Natásha’s illness, the countess went to Moscow with Pétya and the rest of the household, and the whole family settled into their Moscow house. Natásha was so ill that it was impossible for the family to consider in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help her. Doctors were called in. Tolstoy, we learn, is very skeptical of doctors’ ability to physically cure anyone. Rather, he says, they merely satisfy the human need to feel something is being done. So, while the doctors and medicines used for Natásha had no physical benefit, their mere presence was a great comfort to Natásha and her family. The symptoms of Natásha’s illness were that she ate little, slept little, coughed, and was always low-spirited, and had to remain in Moscow over the Summer. Eventually, however, Natásha’s youth won out. Her grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, ceased to press so painfully on her heart, gradually faded into the past, and Natásha began to recover physically.
quote from the chapter:
Their usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of those who loved her-and that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering.
Book 9, Chapter 16
Natásha is ill through the Summer. She is treated by ineffectual doctors.
Summary:
On receiving news of Natásha’s illness, the countess went to Moscow with Pétya and the rest of the household, and the whole family settled into their Moscow house. Natásha was so ill that it was impossible for the family to consider in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help her. Doctors were called in. Tolstoy, we learn, is very skeptical of doctors’ ability to physically cure anyone. Rather, he says, they merely satisfy the human need to feel something is being done. So, while the doctors and medicines used for Natásha had no physical benefit, their mere presence was a great comfort to Natásha and her family. The symptoms of Natásha’s illness were that she ate little, slept little, coughed, and was always low-spirited, and had to remain in Moscow over the Summer. Eventually, however, Natásha’s youth won out. Her grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, ceased to press so painfully on her heart, gradually faded into the past, and Natásha began to recover physically.
quote from the chapter:
Their usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of those who loved her-and that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering.
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