Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-25
INFLUENCE OF FEAR IN DISEASE.
be, II. D., of New Orleans,

Our sanitariums are doing a good work
IN exploring the physical causes of dis
ease. and endeavering TO protect the in
dividual and the public health. But
there is higher and larger sphere of
causes which they have seldom penetra-
ted. and of whose existence even MANY
of them seem TO be ignorant. | allude
to the extraordinary influence of affec-'
ton and thought, or of emotions and
ideas in the causation and the prevention
of disease.
The body is mirror in which all the
states of the soul are reflected. We are
familiar with the wonderful effects of the
will, the passions. the emotions, of the
imagination. sympathy, hope. fear, faith
and confident expectation upon the phys
ical system. We are accustomed 10
regard these phenomena as illustrations
OF the fact, that the soul can, under GER
tain circumstances. act powerfully upon
the body, with thetacit assumption. how
ever. that as a general rule, the body
executes all its functions by chemical or
mechanical laws. without the necessary
Intervention of any mental influences
whatever. This is the great illusion of
the materialist.
The mind of man is constantly at work,
silently pervading every tissue of his
body by Its vital influence, repeating It
self IN every function, throbbing In the
heart, breathing in the lungs, rejecting
itself in the blood, weaving its own form
into every act of nutrition, realizing Its
own life LII every sensation, and working
its own will in every motion.
When we have constructed a true psy-
Geological pathology we shall understand
clearly why and how it is-that fear can
turn the hair gray in a single night: that
a mothers milk can be poisoned by
moment of terror that the hair may be
restored by a sudden JOY or sorrow, that
dyspepsia, paralysis and many other
diseases are produced by mental worry
and fret and the brain-fag of overwork
and anxiety. Yea. we will understand
that away back of all physical causation
the roots of our diseases originate In the
spiritual conditions of the race, in our
false religions, our false PHILOSOPHERS,
our false ways of thinking, our false re-
lations TO God and to each other.
The most extensive of all the morbid
mental conditions which reflect them
selves so disastrOusly on the human
system, is the state of fear. 1t has many
degrees or graduations, from the state OF
extreme alarm, fright or terror, down to
the slightest shade of apprehension of
impending evil. But all along the line it
is the same thing-a paralyzng i'm
preston upon the centers of life. which
can produce through the agency of the
nervous system a vast variety of morbid
symptoms i'll every tissue of the body.
We have very seldom reflected upon
the fact, that fear runs like baleful
thread through the whole web of our life
from beginning to end. We are born
into an atmosphere of fear and dread,
and the mother who bore us had lived
in the same atmosphere for weeks
and months before we were born.
We are surrounded in infancy..and
childhood by clouds of fear and
apprehension on the part of our parents,
nurses and friends. As we advance in
life we become lnstinctively or by expert
ence afraid of almost everything. We
are afraid of our parents, afraid of our
teachers. afraid of our playmates, afraid
of ghosts, afraid of rules and regulations
and punishments, afraid of the doctor,
the dentist. the surgeon. Our adult life
is a state of chronic anxiety which Is fear
in a milder form. We are afraid of fail
and mistakes. afraid of enemies, open or
public opinion, afraid of accidents. of
sickness, of death and unhappiness after
death.
That fear does produce all kinds of dis |
ease has been frequently observed and
fully substantiated by the medical pro-
fession. Dr. luke, in his admirable
II g h ha
Body" cites well authenticated instances
of the following diseases as having been
produced by fear or fright:
Insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various
muscles and organs, profuse prespira
tons, cholera, jaundice, turning the hair
gray in a short time, badness, sudden
decay of the teeth, nervous shock fol-
lowed by fatal anemia, uterine troubles,
of the embryo through
the mother, and even skin diseases, cry
sipelas, eczema and impretigo.
We observe in this list that fear affects !
not only the mind and the nervous and |
tissues, bat the molecular !
chemical transformations of the organic |
even to the skin, the hair and |
the teeth. This might be expected of a |
passion which disturbs the whole mind. |
which is represented or exteTnalized in |
the whole body.
DR.. luke reiterates the fact which has |
been so frequently observed, that epidem- |
les owe great deal of their rapid extern /
sion and violence to the panic of fear /
which exists among the people. When yell |
low fever, cholera, smallpox, diphtheria |
and other malignant diseases obtain a /
footing in "a community, hundreds and |
thousands of people fall victims To their
own mental conditions. which invite the
attack and insure its fatality. When the
disease is new and strange. as the yellaSnu
fever was to the interior towns il visited
in 1918, when the doctors were not fa-
miliar with it, the nurses not trained To
it. the people having no confidence in IT. .
lost hope. their fears.
agitated more and more by the constant
reports Of horrors on all sides. became
excessive, and the consequent mortality /
was frightful.
How does fear operate upon the body
to produce sickness: By paralyzing the
nerve centers, especially those of the
nerves, thus producing, not
only muscular relaxation, but capillary
Of all kinds. This condition
Of the system invites attack. and there
IS no resolyence or power OF resistance.
The gates of the citidal have been open
from within and the enemy may enter
at any point.
In the height Of his happiness and
job permitted himself 10
brood In silent fear over the possibility Of
osse5 and misfOrtunes, and he had at
asst to exclaim: The thing which |
greatly feared has come upon me
Fear is itself a contagious disease and
5 sometimes reflected from one n an