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

AS THE mind makes the body IL in.
habits using for that purpose the mate
rials II collects from the outer world. so
ats influence over the tenements it con-
structs is potent in the extreme. Every
emotion IT experiences eNerts q direct
influence upon some one or more of its
corporeal organs. Fear iniuriously af-
iects the heart and the skin; anger. the
hveri sorrow and anxiety, the digestive
organs and the alimentary canal; and
passion, the bloOd-vessels: extreme de-
preston will induce dysentery and
scurvy; and Bichat, the great French
anatomist, maintains that cancer OF the
stomach frequently owes its origin to
powerful emotions. There is a duly
authenticated case of man aged
twenty-seven, who for two wears was
exposed to perpetual worry and anxiety
oi mind and from whom his hair fell
OIL literally in masses, so that he became
completely bald, his very eyebrows and
eyolashes having disappeared. Medical
treatment proved unayailing; but when
his business troubles passed away, his
hair came back again. An eminent
physician says that he has "known the
teeth 20 decay in an extraordinary man
ner in few weeks, as the effect of
powerful emotion, more allied 10 fear
than any othern Another states that
"a young man in Paris had n musket
pointed at his breast; he became sud
denly deeply jaundiced, for which he
was taken to hospital, and died. Sir
Samuel Baker tells us fiat when he was
at Obbo, in Central Africa, "any severe
action of the mind, such as grief or
anger, was almost certain to be sue
ceoded by fever in that country" And
1t is fact familiar, ] suppose, to every
medical man that numbers Of infants
lose their lives owing to the deplorable
ignorance on the part of their mothers
OF the influence of mental emotion upon
the secretion Of milk.
The fear OF smallpox, cholera, the
yellow fever. or the plague, has repeat
edly induced one of these maladies in
persons oppressed with the apprehen-
sion Of il. Even dropsy has been oc-
casioned by terror. One of the most
remarkable cases OF this kind is that
reported by a hospital physician at
NarbOnne, in France. A boy, aged
eleven, a medical pupil, had lost his
father, and imagined in a dream that
he returned and embraced him, which
gave the lad great fright. Next morn
ing his abdomen was found to be dis
tended like balloon,n and very pain
full and tender Medicines having
failed 10 remove the elfuslon, the
surgeon drew of ten pints of clear
fluid, the cure being completed by
local friction and diuretics.
/ could quote scores of similar illus
trations of the power of mental emo
tion to produce physical disorder or
disease; but enough have been cited,
perhaps, 10 sustain my position. But
there is another side to the subject, viz,
the curative power Of the emotions, for
this is just as remarkable as their
morbid influences. Many persons will,
no doubt, remember what Voltaire said
about medical science, that sit is the
art of amusing the patients, while ma
ture performs the cure" But this Is
one of those half truths which pass cur
rent as whole truths, because they are
wrapped up in an epigram, and are
favored with wit. The polite ply
sician will do his best TO amuse the
mere naidde iDsdgiadire, and will throw
in few bread pills and harmless tinct-
ures in Difference to her-for such
patients are usually women-in defer
ence to her superstitious belief in the
efficacy Of physic; but the philosophical
practitioner who has real invalids to
deal with will do something more than
amuse them, or than administer medi-
cine He will endeayor TO restore their
health of mind, 10 encourage hope, to
inspire confidence, to dispel anxiety, to
promote cheerfulness, TO belittle the