American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-05-04
The Mind Cure.

IT is not new nostrum, nor "a
new SCHOOL in medicine. 1t is
old as the world, and besides it
is, as the advertisers of pills and
potions say, endorsed by the faculty"
The mind Cure" is recognized by all
learned doctors, and yet because it is the
oretically recognized and practically for
gotten, we wish to speak "a word by way
of admonition."
The hnest curative agency in the world
is the mind of the patient. We do not
mean to say that you can cure corns and
bunions by resolving to dispense with
them, or that you can restore your lungs
after disease has destroyed them by hav-
ing cheerful temper, or that cancer can
be eradicated by Il hopeful heart. The
mind Cure is not warranted to act as Il
specific" for everything. But there is
no medicine that is susceptible of such a
variety of uses as this. There is no dis
ease in which the state of the mind has
not much to do with the state of the
body.
The first thing to do, then, is to keep a
clean conscience. "a clean conscience
and a clean Shirt said our old school
master, ''make happy man." The man
who defiles his life with sin, suffers ter
rible retribution often in his body; not
that he feels any keen pang of remorse,
but everything that impairs ones self-re-
spect hurts the vitality and shortens the
life. One does not need to be killed by
such damned spot" as that which
stained the hands of Lady Macbeth in
order to suffer in life and health for sins
unshrived. 1t is enough that one cannot
look ones conscience in the eye, enough
to depress the thermometer of the heart,
and by subtle sympathy impair the life.
Physicians prescribe travel and SAM
taria; they send one man to Minnesota
and another to Florida, without taking
the temperament of the man into ac-
count. We have seen man acting
Chief of Police in st. Paul, who had
been carried ashore from the steamboat
on stretchers, so far was he reduced by
hemorrhages. Climate? Yes, and more
than climate. Doubtless the man was of
a hearty temperament, and enjoyed the
new and strange scenes about him. We
have seen 4 hundred invalids in the same
climate pine for home and older civiliZa-
ton, and die of nostalgia. Let it be I'M
derstood that no invalid is benefited by
climate when he stays in a place an hour
after that stay is enjoyable. If you are
an invalid, arrange your life SO that it
may be restful and happy to you, and
then enjoy it. We recall man, bridge
builder, who carried his consumption
over bleak and snowy prairies, who slept
in cold beds in frontier taverns, coughing
all night, who built bridges and drove
business when his lungs were all wasted
away. He said that he was happy at
W ork and that work kept him alive. And
it did. Year after year he managed to
spin out his broken life, happy always,
and making all about him happy, until he
became walking miracle. At last came
the catastrophe, and he died. If your
business amuses you, and you are sue
ceeding, and you can keep your temper
happy, then there is no better medicine.
But he who has distasteful business,
and who has not the will or the power to
adapt himself to it, is indeed to be
pitied.
Life insurance companies thump your
ribs and listen to the whispers of your
heart. They ask about your father and
your grandfather and your mothers SIS
ter and grandfather's brother. They want
to know whether you have had any or all
of the following diseases, etc. But when
did a life insurance company ever think
to ask about your clear conscience, your
heart, your business success,
your amable domestic relations, your re-
ligious faith, and all the rest that go to
make sunshine and clouds in your life.
Do not listen to anybody who tells you
to travel if travel is uncongcnial to your
temper. But if you enjoy it, then is
travel best of all medicines. An invalid
struggling for life should not have any
duties. The main business at such time
is to enjoy yourself Joy is Il tonic above
an-UeaIth and Uone.