Suppose it be the stone, the gout, nay, the rack itself; how many have endured it without so much as a groan or word speaking; without so much as asking for relief, or giving an answer to a question! Nay, they have laughed at the tormentors upon the very torture, and provoked them to new experiments of their cruelty, which they have had still in derision. The _asthma_ I look upon as of all diseases the most importunate; the physicians call it the _meditation of death_, as being rather an agony than a sickness; the fit holds one not above an hour, as nobody is long in expiring. Are there not three things grievous in sickness, the fear of death, bodily pain, and the intermission of our pleasures? the first is to be imputed to nature, not to the disease; for we do not die because we are sick, but because we live. Nay, sickness itself has preserved many a man from dying.