Osage Valley banner. (Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo.) 1879-1881, 1880-08-26

malady in the estimation of the suffer
err and to enlist on his side as medical
and curative agents the mental faculties
OF his patients. And he will succeed
in proportion RS he does this. l have
one such practitioner in my minds
| eye at this moment--a friend of two
and-twenty years standing, TO whom
the obligations OF my family and my
self for this rational and beneficial
KIND OF treatment are such rs cannot
pe cancelled by a mere money paw
ment; and | am sure that his profes-
sional experience has been full of signal
illustrations Of the power OF the mind
over the body in the psychopathic di-
rections have indicated. Many such
illustrations Rrs TO be found ia the
medical books; aud they serve to ex-
plain the astonishing cures which have
often been effected by apparently the
most preposterous remedies. SO wise n
man as Bacon believed in spells and
amulets. Cato the Censor seriously re-
corded an Incarnation for setting dis
located bones; and numbers of persons
are reported 10 have been healed of
scorbutic affections by the imposition
OF royal hands from the time of Edward
the Confessor down TO the days of
Queen Anne. The grease OF a roasted
hedgehog was formerly regarded as
eilicacious for the removal of deaf
ness. Apickled herring. applied TO the
soles of the feet, was said TO Danish
ague. A mouse, skinned, dried in an
oven, reduced to powder, and then
mixed with ale, was prescribed as q
remedy for the whooping- cough. "A
wine of earth-worms, with a little
scraped ivory and English saffron" was
reputed TO be n marvellous specific
for the yellow jaundce; and a small
bone taken from the knee-ioint of
the hind-leg of hare was the nos
trum recommended To persons suffering
from cramp. At first we are astonished
at making the discovery that people
frequently benefited by the adoption of
such extraordinary prescriptions; yet
when we come to understand, however
imperfectly, the power of the mind
over the body, we cease TO wonder at
these phenomena, because they then
admit Of an easy explanation. Patients
recovered their health, not because
there was any efficacy in the often ex-
travagantly-rid medicines pre-
scribed, but because they implicitly be-
lieved in their salutary character. This
worked the cure. AS DIR. Tuke con-
csely puts it, "As in health certain
mental states may induce disease, so in
disease certain mental states may re.
store health" He himself has furnished
two very striking yeriiications of the
second part of his proposition. He
says EVERY one has heard the story
of the doctor who left his prescription
on the table for lady who suffered
from pleuro-dynia, saying, put this to
your side' and how the patient literally
did so instead of obtaining the pre-
scribed plaster; but, in spite OF this mis-
take, derived great benefit from the
application. A parallel case of collie is
mentioned by DIR. John Brown. of Ed
inburgh. He ordered a laboring man
some medicine, and giving him the pre-
scription said, Take that, and come
back in u fortnight, when you will be
Well As he returned at this time
hearty and well, free from the collie
and sinking at tthe stomach of which he
had complained, and with clean
tongue, cool hand and happy face,
Dr. Brown was very proud of the Won
ders his prescription had effected, and
said, Let me see what | gave YOU
Oh said he, Il took it, Yes, /
know you did; but where is the pre-
scriptionp l swallowed it,. He had
made pills of the paper, and his firm
faith in the doctors promise had done
the rest.n
With facts like these before us, and
with the individual experience of each
of us to appeal to for their partial cor
roboration, | do not think there can be
much doubt remaining in the minds of
the most skeptical as to the potent in
tluence of mental emotion upon our
bodily health, by exciting, modifying, or
altogether suspending various organic
We have II on the authority
of one of the first psychopaths of the
day that "pleasureable emotions increase
the amount Of gastric juice secreted,"
the opposite effects being produced by
passions. DIR. Beaumont
found in the man with the istulous
opening into the stomach " that anger
or other severe mental emotions would !
cause its inner or mucous
coat TO become morbidly red, dry, and |
Occasioning at the same time /
a temporary fit of indigestion" And |
suppose il has been the misfortune of a
good many of my readers TO have eaten
meals under the pressure of great |
trouble or anxiety, and TO have felt how
tasteless and innutritous they were
under such circumstances, and how the |
of the stomach were altogether |
Of digesting and assimilating 4
the food then presented TO them. This, /
too, in a greater or less degree, is one
of the injurious consequences of worry.
1t attacks the very foundation of health. |
and strikes at the root of our physical |
well-being. -Harper'S Weekly.
L.. L. a