The importance of environmental and emotional factors in modifying the patient's reactions to rheumatic diseases and many other disease processes is well recognized. The wise physician will attempt to assist the patient in recognizing and overcoming these factors as part of the over-all program of disease control. The manner in which this is accomplished will depend in large measure upon the social background, mores, beliefs, training, and convictions of the physician. Dr. Swaim, in this very personal book written primarily for the patient, outlines his practices based upon his own deep convictions in Christian philosophy.
The author is revealed as a very kind, humble, and humane physician deeply interested in his patients as human beings. There is no doubt that many patients in a predominantly Judeo-Christian society would benefit by reading of how others have been helped to control their diseases by realizing and overcoming their underlying emotional conflicts through