 What is a major theme of the story?
The gleaming rod extended above his head about a foot, the wires from it leading down into his collar, along his spine and finally out his pants leg to a short metallic strap that dragged on the floor. The people we treat are on one side of the line and we're on the other. "I dunno, Henry, but staying on our side is a pretty good way to keep sane Do you know that what we are doing is really the most primitive medicine in the world? But now I know we're semi-mechanics, semi-engineers, semi-inventors, semi lots of other things, but certainly not even semi-psychiatrists. His mind went back to the first gyro ball he had ever issued; the remembrance of his pride in the thing sickened him. Floating before him in memory was the vertical hoop and the horizontal hoop, both of shining steel-impervium alloy. The gyro actually passed over a man's shoulder, through his legs, under his arms. Any time he felt the walls creeping in to crush him, he could withdraw his head and limbs into the circle and feel safe. "That's just one thing, the gyro ball. "You know, Henry, not all of our Cures are so—so—not all are like that. Or suppose he's walking down a railroad track and hears a train whistle—if he can hear anything over that verbal pablum gushing in his ear." But what about the severe case where we have to burn a three-dimensional smiling mother-image on the eyes of the patient with radiation? With that image over everything he sees and with that insidious voice drumming in his head night and day, do you mean to say that man's senses will only be impaired 23 per cent? Why, he'll turn violently schizophrenic sooner or later—and you know it. Infield stepped into the main stream of human traffic and tried to adjust to the second change in the air. Many "Cures" were not readily apparent. A young man with black glasses and a radar headset (a photophobe) was unable to keep from being pushed against Infield. A clean-cut young man with mouse-colored hair was moving toward the stubble-chinned, heavy-shouldered man quivering in the center of a web of impervium cables stuck secure to the walls and windows of buildings facing the street, the sidewalk, a mailbox, the lamp post and Infield. This was revealed, as he turned his head, to be a small metal cube above his left ear.
 Sometimes a 'cure' can end up causing more distress and pain than living with an affliction
 Placebos can be just as powerful as engineered medications and cures  Not every illness should be cured through a western, pathology-focused approach to healing  The more people believe there is something 'wrong' with them, the greater lengths they will go to hide or repair their 'flaws'  Sometimes a 'cure' can end up causing more distress and pain than living with an affliction