Influence Of Mind On Body


The power of mind over body for the relief of symptoms has been

recognized, not only by physicians, but by the generality of men at

all times. Every one has had experiences of aches, or actual pains, or

discomfort quite annoying while one is alone, but that disappear while

in pleasant company or occupied in some absorbing occupation. Many a

headache that was painful enough to disturb us seriously while we

tried to appl
ourselves to something of little interest, and became

almost unbearable if we tried to do something disagreeable, and

actually intolerable if the occupation of the moment was a drudgery,

disappeared, at least for the time, when we turned to a pleasant game

of cards or indulged in some other favorite pastime. Our relief was

not, however, from an imaginary ill, for the symptoms usually

reasserted themselves when we got through with the pleasant

occupation, showing that they have been there all the time and that we

have only turned our mind away from them, and hence have ceased to

feel them. This is so familiar it seems almost too commonplace to

repeat, yet it constitutes the special phenomenon that lies at the

base of psychotherapeutics, or the mental healing of physical ills.



It is not alone the slighter, more or less negligible aches or pains,

nor the vague discomforts that thus disappear when our attention is

occupied, but even quite severe and otherwise unbearable pain may be

modified to a great extent. A toothache that is bearable, though it

nags at us constantly and never lets us forget its presence while we

are occupied with many other things during the evening, may become a

positive torture when we get to bed. This is not only because of

physical conditions modifying the pain, for there seems no doubt that

the warmth induced by the preliminaries for sleep and the bed-covering

have a tendency to increase congestion, but it is mainly because as we

doze off we are able, less and less, to inhibit our attention, or

divert it from the pain that is present, and so this is emphasized

until we have to do something for it or lose hours of sleep. This lack

of inhibition, which characterizes the dozing hours, represents the

state of mind in which people are who have no interest in their

occupations, and who have ceased to find recreation in the ordinary

pleasures of life, when pain of any kind comes to them.



Cabanis, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, under the title

of "The Influence of the Moral on the Physical," discusses what

we would now call mental influence on the body. He says:



The great influence of what one may call the moral or mental on what

may be called the physical is an incontestible fact. Examples

without end confirm it every day. Every man capable of making

observations finds proofs of it thousands of times in himself. Many

physiologists and psychologists as well as moralists, have collected

the evidence that brings out clearly this power of the intellectual

operations and emotions on the different organs and the diverse

functions of the living body. All of us could add new illustrations

to these collections. Men who are rude and credulous talk of the

effect of the imagination, and if they are not themselves its

playthings and its victims, at least they know how to observe its

effects In others.



As a matter of fact, the action of our organs can be in turn

excited, suspended, or totally inhibited, according to the state of

mind, the change of ideas, the affections and the emotions.



A vigorous, healthy man has just made a good meal. In the midst of

the feeling of satisfaction which diffuses itself over all his body,

his food is digested with energy and without any bother. The

digestive juices perform their work steadily and without causing any

annoyance. But let such a man receive some bad news; let some sudden

emotion come to excite him, and especially to shock him into

profound sadness, and at once his stomach and intestines cease to

act upon the food which they inclose, or they at best perform their

functions badly. The digestive juices, by which the food materials

were gradually being dissolved, are suddenly stricken with

inactivity. What might seem to be a stupor comes over the digestive

tract, and while the nervous influence which determines digestion

ceases entirely, that which tends to bring about the expulsion of

material from the digestive tract may become more active and all the

material contained in the digestive viscera may, in a short time, be

expelled.





Relief in Severe Injuries.--Even extremely severe injuries, which

inflict serious organic lesions that ordinarily would produce shock

and collapse, quite apart from the pain induced, may at moments of

excitement pass unnoticed. A soldier often does not know that he is

wounded until the flow of blood calls his attention to it, or perhaps

a friend points it out to him, or loss of blood causes him to faint.

The prostrating effects of even fatal wounds may thus be overcome for

a considerable time in the excitement of battle, or because of a

supreme occupation by a surpassing sense of duty. There is the

well-known story of the young corporal detailed to make a report to

Napoleon at a very important crisis of one of his great battles, who

made the report with such minute accuracy that it called forth a

compliment from Bonaparte, for it involved a very special exercise of

memory for details, yet who was actually on the verge of death when he

delivered the message. As his duty was accomplished the Emperor,

noticing his extreme pallor, said: "But you are wounded, my lad." The

young soldier replied, as if, now that duty was done, the

consciousness of his wound had just come to him, "No, Sire, I am

killed," dropping dead at the Emperor's feet as he uttered the words.



In all of the great theater fires examples of this kind are recorded.

A woman who barely escaped with her life from a theater fire some

years ago had an ear torn off, very probably by some one grasping it

in the crowd. She knew nothing of this until it was called to her

attention after she got out of the theater, and then she promptly

fainted from the pain and shock. Under such circumstances men walk

with broken legs or limp even with dislocations, utterly unconscious

that anything serious has happened to them. Men have been known to be

unaware of a broken bone or even more serious conditions,

ordinarily quite painful and disabling, while laboring to help others

in an accident.





Suppression of Reaction.--This side of the influence of the mind on

the body is so interesting that its effects have often been noted and

studied. While we do not quite understand the mechanism by which it

accomplishes its marvels of anesthesia and even of motility under

apparently impossible conditions, there is no doubt that severe pain

may utterly fail to reach the consciousness, though the nervous system

is uninterruptedly carrying the messages just as it did before. The

lack of attention suppresses the ordinary effect upon the personality.

Evidently the messages originate and are carried to the nerve centers,

but find no attention available for them, and so pass unnoticed. The

study of phases of this phenomenon of suppression of reaction forms a

good basis for the use of mental influence, and shows its marvelous

power to overcome disturbing physical factors.





Amputation Stump Aches.--An interesting example of the influence of

mind over body, when circumstances favor its exercise or emphasize it,

and at the same time a striking illustration of the potency of

suggestion in the cure of discomfort, is found in the stories that are

so common of cases of pains in amputation stumps. Any number of weird

tales are told of men who complain of feeling cramps in the toes of an

amputated limb after this portion of their body had been buried. The

discomfort is common enough. In the special stories, however, the

limbs have been dug up, the toes straightened out--according to the

story, they were always found cramped in some way--and then the

patient is at once restored to ease. In the good old times they

probably believed in some direct connection between the straightening

out of the toes of the amputated member and subsequent relief of pain.

For us it is but an example of the power of suggestion. It is not the

sort of suggestion that one likes to think of employing, though it has

a certain dramatic quality which adds efficiency to suggestion.





The Mind and Motility.--We have spoken thus far almost exclusively of

painful conditions as relieved by suggestion or mental influence, but

disturbance of motor function may also be favorably affected. There

are any number of cases on record in which patients who had been

utterly unable to walk were restored to motility by a shock. Many such

patients have, in the midst of the excitement of a fire, or the scare

caused by the presence of a burglar, got up and walked quite as well

as ever, though sometimes they have been for years previously confined

to bed. The San Francisco earthquake is said to have exerted such an

effect on a number of patients, and, while such unusual disturbances

cannot often be provided for the cure of these ailments, there can be

no doubt at all of the power of a shock to the mind to overcome

functional incapacity that has resisted every possible form of

treatment.



Ailments of this kind, which involve inability of the will to control,

or rather to initiate, movements of the body, receive their best

explanation on the neuron or neuroglia theory. (See the chapter on the

Mechanism of Suggestion.) The central neurons become either quite

separated from certain of the peripheral neurons, or at least the

connections are not made with that nice adjustment necessary for the

proper passage of nerve impulses. The shock communicated to the

nervous system by fright is sufficient, however, to restore these

connections, and consequently to enable the patient once more to

exercise motor functions that have been in abeyance for some time.







Astasia-abasia.--Any one who has had to deal with the cases for

which the French have invented the rather impressive Greek name of

astasia-abasia--how much better it would be to call the condition

simply what we know it to be, nervous inability to stand or

walk!--appreciates how almost a miracle is needed to improve them. The

incapacity for station or movement to which the disease owes its name

is so complete in many cases, and the patients' lack of confidence in

self so absolute, that no ordinary remedial measure is capable of

doing any good. These cases are usually a severe trial to the

patients' friends. Indeed, the patients themselves maintain their

nutrition so well and, as a rule, enjoy such good health, or, as has

been said, enjoy their bad health so well, that it is for their

attendants the physician feels most commiseration. Yet generally he is

quite unable to do anything. It is certain, however, that with care

and authoritative suggestion there would not need to be an earthquake,

or a fire, or even a burglary, as a therapeutic measure in these

cases. As a matter of fact, their cure when it occurs is always

brought about by some strong mental influence.





Mental Influence on Organs.--The Heart.--The influence of mind can

be noted on practically every organ of the body in a concrete way. It

might be thought that the heart, the first living thing in the animal

being, the pulsations of which begin before there is any sign of the

nervous system, might be free from this influence. On the contrary,

the heart is so readily affected by mental states that, taking effect

for cause, the old popular, and even scientific idea with regard to

it, was that it was the organ of the emotions. The heart is stimulated

more by favoring circumstances, and suffers more from depression, than

almost any other organ. In the melancholic states it usually beats

less frequently and is sluggish. When individuals are tired out and

the heart has become weakened in its action, new courage will first be

noted as having its effect upon the heart action. As the whole

muscular system is much influenced by the mental state and, as the

control of the arterial system depends on the muscles in the arteries,

it is easy to understand how much the general bodily condition may by

mental influence be modified for good and ill.





Digestive Tract.--The stomach and intestines, though their functions

might be presumed to be dependent entirely on physical conditions, are

almost completely under the control of the mental state. At moments of

depression, just after bad news has been received, the appetite is

absent, or is very slight and digestion itself proceeds slowly and

unsatisfactorily. On the other hand, when there is mental good feeling

appetite is vigorous and digestion is usually quite capable of

disposing of all that is eaten. If after a period of rejoicing in the

midst of which food is taken abundantly bad news is brought, the

mental influence on digestion can be seen very well. It is not alone

that depression interferes with digestive processes, but apparently

some favorable factors for digestion consequent upon the previous

state of mind are withdrawn, and now what would have been a proper

amount of food proves to be an excess and the digestive organs find it

difficult to deal with it..





Nervous Inhibition.--The mind can actually inhibit certain of the

involuntary processes of the body by thinking about them, and, above

all, by dwelling on the thought that they are going wrong. This

becomes easier to understand when we recall how, in the same way, we

may disturb many habitual and more or less unconscious actions that we

have grown accustomed to. There are any number of actions

requiring careful attention to details which become so habitual that

we do not have to think of them at all. Not infrequently it happens

when we try to explain to others how we do them, we disturb the

facility of performance and have to repeat the acts several times

before we succeed in performing successfully what a moment before we

did without any thought. The story of the centipede who was asked how

he walked with all his hundred legs, and who tried to describe how

easy it was and got so mixed up that he was unable to move at all, is

a whimsical symbol of conscious attention disturbing actions which go

on quite well of themselves if only we do not allow ourselves to think

consciously of each and every phase of them.



How much the mind may influence the body under certain conditions when

trance-like states either assert themselves or are brought on, has

often been noted. Lombroso in his book "After Death What?" [Footnote

11] says of Eusapia Paladino the "medium," that "when she is about to

enter the trance state the frequency of the respiratory movements is

lessened just as is the case with the Indian fakirs. Before the trance

she will have been breathing eighteen to twenty times a minute; as the

trance begins the number of respirations is gradually reduced to

fifteen; when the trance is fully developed she breathes twelve times

a minute or less. On the other hand, at the same time the heart beats

increase. Normally her pulse is about seventy, but during the early

trance stage it rises to ninety, while during the course of a deep

trance, it may go as high even as one hundred and twenty. The passing

from a more or less rigid state to that of active somnambulism is

marked by yawns and sobs and spontaneous perspiration on the

forehead." The observation of these phenomena is, of course, entirely

apart from any theory one may hold with regard to mediumistic

manifestations, and it provides evidence of mental influence that is

very striking.



[Footnote 11: Small, Maynard & Co.. Boston, 1909.]



Imaginary Drug Effects.--Drug effects may be produced through the

imagination. Physicians know that when patients are persuaded that

certain effects are to be expected from a particular medicine, the

effects may follow all the same in sensitive, imaginative people, if

that medicine is replaced by some inert compound. Many a physician who

has used bread pills or other placebos to replace a drug that he did

not want the patient to acquire a habit for, has thus been able to

allow good effects to go on without interruption, where the stoppage

of medicine had previously interfered with the continuance of the good

habit that had been formed. Very few physicians have not seen the

effect of a hypodermic of pure water when a hypodermic of morphine is

demanded, and when the patient would not sleep without having the

hypodermic injection. Sleeping powders of various kinds can sometimes

with distinct advantage be replaced by inert materials, because the

patient's mind is fixed upon the idea of sleep coming after a certain

time and they, in consequence, compose themselves to rest.





The Nerves and Tissues.--Cases occur where disturbances of vitality

are noted as a consequence of nervous affections, though no gross

lesion of the nervous system is demonstrated. Certain nervous people

suffer from ulcerative conditions of their hands, and it is evident

that in some the nervous impulses that would ordinarily keep the

skin surface in good, healthy condition are insufficient. Some people

who use a typewriter have no difficulty at all with the ends of their

fingers, while others are subject even to loss of skin or ulcerative

conditions that make it almost impossible for them to go on with their

work. In some this is true in the winter, in others in the summer.

There are a number of skin conditions which are due to nervous factors

and these evidently point to the influence of the central nervous

system in keeping the forces of our body in such health, and resistive

vitality, as will enable us to carry on whatever work we may wish to.

This is, of course, a very individual matter. Some people chap very

easily, some suffer from chilblains, or are frost-bitten even on

slight exposure, and these peculiarities are evidently dependent on

the intensity of the nervous impulses as well as the tone of the

circulation, which itself depends on the nerves to a great extent.



It is evident that some of these disturbances are not enduring, but

are only temporary and therefore are due to functional disturbances of

the nervous system. Physicians often see hysterical patients suffering

from intense pain that requires an injection of morphine, yet after a

series of such incidents, the physician is able to give an injection

of plain water and produce just as good an anodyne effect. In these

cases some influence of the will is enough to correct the painful

disturbances. Occasionally a single member loses sensation, or motion,

or both, yet the fact that its nutrition does not suffer shows that

there is only disturbance in the motor connections between it and the

central nervous system and not in the sensory nor trophic tracts, and

that this functional defect may be restored by some favorable

influence.





Nerve Supply and Health.--We know now that when a part of the body

is cut off from its connections with the central nervous system, it

begins at once to be lowered in vitality and gradually tends to

dissolution. This will be true in spite of the fact that the

circulation continues as actively as before. It is not necessary,

indeed, that the nerve trunk to a part should be cut, if it is

sufficiently compressed its function is stopped and various

disturbances begin to appear in the vitality of the part which it

supplies. A typical example is to be seen in certain fractures of the

clavicle, where a fragment presses on one of the nerves leading to the

arm. After a time pains develop in the arm, a burning feeling is

noticed in the skin, which becomes shiny and cold and of distinctly

lowered vitality. Even a slight injury to the arm will now produce a

serious ulcerative condition. There are evidently important influences

for life that flow down through the nerves from the central nervous

system, quite as important in their way as the nutritional elements

which flow through the blood.



How these influences of the mind on the body are accomplished is a

portion of that larger mystery of the influence of mind, or soul, or

principle of life, on the material elements of which our body is

composed. Why a man receives a shock of lightning or a charge of

electricity at high voltage, and without a mark on his body or a

change in any cell that we can make out, be dead, though he was living

an instant before, is another of these mysteries too familiar for

discussion. There is no change in the weight of the body, nothing

physical has happened, but what was living matter with the power to

accomplish the functions of living things is now simply dead material,

unable to resist the invasion of saprophytic micro-organisms which

will at once, unhampered, proceed to tear it down, though the

preceding moment resistive vitality was completely victorious. The

mystery remains, but the mechanism of the influence can now at least

be studied with much more satisfaction than was the case a few years

ago.





Death and the Mind.--The extent to which the mind can be made to

influence the body is apparently without limit. While the doctor is

frequently disturbed by the fact that death occurs when there is no

adequate physical reason for it, just because the patient has looked

forward to it with complete preoccupation of mind, there is no doubt

that occasionally death may be put off in the same way. We talk about

people living on their wills. This is a literal expression of what

actually occurs in certain cases. On the other hand, without the will

to live, it is sometimes extremely difficult to keep alive patients

who are in a run down condition. If one of an old married couple dies

when the other is ill, we conceal the sad news very carefully from the

survivor. This is done not alone to put off the shock and sorrow for a

time, but because often, under such circumstances, there will be no

will to live.



When the vital forces have run down to such a degree that it seems

impossible, so far as ordinary medical reason goes, to look for

anything but dissolution, patients still cling to life if there is

some reason why they want to live until a definite time. It does not

happen so much with the acute diseases but is quite common in chronic

cases. Patients will live on expectant of seeing a friend who is known

to be hurrying to them, or for some other purpose on which they very

strongly set their minds. In the life of Professor William Stokes, the

Irish physician, to whom we owe the introduction of the stethoscope to

the English medical world, and many other important contributions to

medicine, there is a striking story that illustrates this power of the

will to maintain life until a definite moment.



An old pensioner, a patient of Stokes' in the Meath Hospital whose

life was despaired of, and whose death was hourly expected, was one

morning distressed and disappointed at observing that Stokes, who

believing that the man was unconscious at the time, and that it was

useless to attempt anything further as his condition was hopeless,

was passing by his bed. The patient cried out: "Don't pass me by,

your honor, you must keep me alive for four days." "We will keep you

as long as we can, my poor fellow," answered Stokes; "but why for

four days particularly?" "Because," said the other, "my pension will

be due then, and I want the money for my wife and children; don't

give me anything to sleep for if I sleep I'll die." On the third day

after this, to the amazement of Stokes and all the class, the

patient was still breathing. On the morning of the fourth day he was

found still breathing and quite conscious, and on Stokes' coming

into the ward, he saw the patient holding the certificate which

required the physician's signature in his hand. On Stokes

approaching him, the dying man gasped out. "Sign, sign!" This was

done, the man sank back exhausted, and in a few minutes after

crossed both hands over his breast and said, "The Lord have mercy on

my soul," and then passed quietly away.





Dread and Death.--Dr. Laurent in his little book, "La Medecine des

Ames," [Footnote 12] has a story of similar kind but from a very

different motive:



[Footnote 12: Paris, Maloine, 1804.]



They brought to the prison infirmary one day an old burglar, an

incorrigible offender, who was undergoing a long sentence. He was

suffering from cancer of the stomach, and was already in a very

advanced stage of the affection. The poor devil seemed to realize

his condition very well, and felt that it was only a question of a

short time until he should die. He had made up his mind to that with

the resignation which so often characterizes people of this

kind. Only one thing put him out very much, and that was the fear of

dying in prison.



"I know well that I have to pass in my checks," he said over and

over again; "but I do not want to die here. I do not want to be cut

up after I am dead."



He still had two months of his sentence to undergo. Every day the

disease made notable progress. His cachexia became more profound.

Life was passing from him drop by drop. At the end of five weeks he

was scarcely more than a living skeleton. Every morning we expected

to find him dead, or at least in his last agony. Nevertheless, every

morning, by an effort, he was able to recognize me and a little life

shone out of his sharp, small eyes that seemed like those of a bird

of prey.



One morning he said to me: "Oh! you need not watch me. You shall not

have my carcass. I do not want to die in prison. I shall not die

here." He lived on till the end of his sentence. The morning of his

freedom he said to me, "I told you that I did not want to die here,

and that I would not die here."



By an effort of his will he aroused himself enough so that his

friends were able to take him out of the prison. It was the last bit

of energy he had, however. His will power was at an end. A few hours

after his arrival in the house of his son he went off into a

profound depression, and would not talk even to his own. Then his

death agony came on, and he died that same evening. The strange and

surprising struggle of this man against death, the marvelous force

of physiological resistance which the fear of autopsy, if he died,

gave him, struck me vividly at the time. What intimate and

mysterious bond connects mind and matter that the one is able to

react in so much energy upon the other. How wonderful to think that

the fear, lest his abandoned body should be cut up, should actually

keep body and mind together until after the danger of that dreaded

event was passed.





Suggestion and Death.--On the other hand, there are many stories

that show us how the giving up of hope of life seems to even hasten

death. We have many stories of the death on the same day of husband

and wife, or of brothers and sisters who thought very much of each

other. Some of these are mere coincidences, but there are too many to

be all explained on the score of coincidence. It seems clear that the

living one, on hearing of the death of the other, feels that now there

is nothing more to live for, and gives up the struggle. Hence the

important rule in medical practice that a seriously ill patient should

not be told of an accident, and, above all, of the death of a near

relative.



On the other hand, strong expectation of death at a definite time,

especially if accompanied by suggestions with some physical signs, may

bring about actual dissolution. We have a number of well authenticated

stories to illustrate this.





Renewal of Hope.--How much energy even the slightest hope may

furnish, when apparently all power of effort is exhausted, is well

illustrated by what happens to men who are lost at sea or in a desert.

After the lapse of a certain length of time human nature seems utterly

incapable of further effort and they sink down exhausted. The

appearance of a light at a distance, a hail, any communication that

gives them even the slightest hope will renew their energy and enable

them to draw on unsuspected stores of vitality after the end seemed

inevitable. It may be said that the exhaustion in these cases is more

apparent than real, that discouragement prevents the release of even

the energy that is present, and might be used under more favorable

circumstances, but that is exactly the argument which favors the

deliberate employment of psychotherapeutic motives to enable patients

to use the energies which they possess. In the midst of disease, or

the struggle for life, when vitality is being sapped, hope is

lost or obscured, just as it is when a man is alone in the desert or

struggling far from help on the ocean. If we can prevent this

discouragement from sapping his powers there will always be a

prolongation of life, and often this will be sufficient to enable

vital resistance to overcome exhausting disease.





Law of Reserve Energy.--Prof. William James [Footnote 13] called

particular attention to the law of reserve energy which recent studies

in psychology have emphasized. This law of reserve energy is a

conclusion from certain facts which are very familiar to men and have

been observed as long as the memory of man runs, yet the full

significance of which has never been read quite aright. Applied to a

very limited range of actions, it has been applied only half-heartedly

in ordinary life, and to its full extent only under the pressure of

absolute necessity. This law holds out the best promise to

psychotherapy. It shows that there are reservoirs of surplus energy in

man which, if they can be successfully tapped, present possibilities

of resistance to fatigue--and fatigue in many more ways than we used

to think resembles disease. Besides, this law represents a very

wonderful capacity for withstanding pains and aches and conquering

disinclination that would otherwise seem impossible. If it can be made

to apply to ordinary life as well as it does to extraordinary events,

then the conscious deliberate use of psychotherapy or mental

suggestion should prove to have wonderful remedial power. Prof. James

said:



[Footnote 13: American Magazine, Sept., 1908.]



Everyone knows what it is to start a piece of work, either

intellectual or muscular, feeling stale--or "cold," as an Adirondack

guide once put it to me. And everybody knows what it is to warm up

to his job. The process of warming up gets particularly striking in

the phenomena known as second wind. On usual occasions we make a

practice of stopping an occupation as soon as we meet the first

effective layer (so to call it) of fatigue. We have then walked,

played, or worked enough, so we desist. That amount of fatigue is an

efficacious obstruction on this side of which our usual life is

cast.



But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward, a surprising

thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point,

when gradually it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We

have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by

the fatigue obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer

of this experience. A third and fourth wind may supervene. Mental

activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in

exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue

distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves

to own--sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because

habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those

early critical points.



He then states what has come to be called the law of reserve energy.



It is evident that our organism has stored up reserves of energy

that are ordinarily not called upon, but that may be called upon;

deeper and deeper strata of combustion or explosible material,

discontinuously arranged, but ready for use for any one who probes

so deep, and repairing themselves by rest as well as do the

superficial strata.



There is, then, a marvelous reserve power in men and women which can

be used in emergencies and in times of severe strain, to enable men

and women to accomplish what looks impossible and which has often

contradicted the prognosis of the physician. History is full of

applications of this law which, however, does not come into action,

unless especially called. Men and women may die simply because

they give up the struggle. Men and women who will not give up seem

able to overcome severe illness that would take away ordinary people.

It has often been said that tuberculosis takes only the quitters and

that men of character constitute the typically favorable patients for

tuberculosis sanatoria. Psychology is now getting at the explanation

of many events that were formerly quite inexplicable. The science has

come to recognize the reservoir of reserve energy in human nature

which may be tapped under special favoring circumstances. The

physicians of the past have often succeeded in tapping it deliberately

as well as unconsciously. There is large room, however, for the

further development of medicine along this line, to the great

advantage of therapeutics and probably the most promising field at the

present time in view in therapy lies in this direction. Hence the

necessity for more deliberate conscious use of it in every possible

suitable form.



More

;