San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-08
MODERN MIRACLES.
Delicate Relations of Mind and Matter-A
Moral for Doctors. .-


Moral for Doctors.
Without any affirmation or denial of "mi
racles," there is one way of accounting for the
cures reported from Boston, from Lourdes,
from Paris, and just now by Canon Wilber
force. May we not be on the track of some
notable discovery as to the influence of the
mind over the body2 The late DR.. w. B. Car
penter, very skeptical and unimaginative
man, records in one of his scientific works o
singular incident of impressionability.
A lady saw heavy window sash falling
on the fingers of her child. She screamed,
but she was too late; the little fingers were
terribly bruised But as she took up and
soothed the sufferer she saw that her own
fingers were bruised exactly the same way.
The mental impression produced a physical
result. When blush comes to boys or
girls face as the result of a word or thought,
we seem to have milder form of the same
thing, and the birthmarks on newly born
children, the consequence of some fright sui.
fered by the mother months before, are indica-
lions of similar susceptibility. DR.. Carpenter
also records how a man prisoned in his chair
for ten years by paralytic attack rose and
rushed up stairs on hearing of the sudden i'll
ness of his favorite child Here we had what
would be called a miracle if it had b9en
preceded by prayer
The question is, how far does intense men,
tai expectancy account for some of the cases
of cure recorded in modern timesg If man
Is told by Boston healer, French priest or
q Partisan doctor that at a certain day and
hour he may look for a change, does the mind
triumph over the bodily ailment and dispense
itl Both patients and physicians are well
aware that quite apart from their drugs some
doctors seem to bring healing with them
Their presence Is more potential than their
prescriptions Is this magnetism, or does the
mind of the patient, acted upon by the genial
strength Of his physician, work out the curei
1t is also certain that sometimes when the
regular doctor retireS man called quack
will produce a result. Does he do so by elic-
iting faith-by making the patient believe
that he is going to be curedl
The faith healers' begin their process, ac-
cording to American accounts, by telling the
patients that they are victims to delusion:
they are not i'll at all; it is a diseased fancy,
nothing more So the invalid walks across
the room wherein for months he fancied him
self pOwerleSs. irregular practice physicians
frequently meet with the curious phenomena
of simulated disease. A hysterical girl as.
sures her doctor that her right Knee is so
tender she cannot bear even the pressure of
thin sheet, and if he attempts to touch it
she screams aloud in what seems agony-and
is to her real though purely mental pain
II, however, the doctor can get her attention
diverted he can press unseen, with all his
force, on the seat of the imaginary disorder
and intlict no suffering. The moral of all
the facts would seem to be that medical men
should ncSloco 10 department of their art,
and that it is their business to study the
minds as well rs the bodies of their patients
for in the occult connection between the two
may lie the secret of all the ages.-London
Telegraph.