The Washington bee., 1899-07-01
MENTAL PICTURES.
The Mistake One Man Mad e and the
ReauIt,

did you ever notice tha. when an
idea. becomes fixed in the mind it is
very difficult to change it, especially
in the case Of extremely sensitive and
highly nervous persOns?" asked
Brooklyn expert on nerves. mot long
ago / had visit from a maH who was
afraid he was losing his reason because
OF very simple persistence of GER
tain thought or idea which he could
not shake off. The history Of the case
is one often found in cases OF hypo-
chondriasis developed from using the
telephone. My patient for about
years time had occasion to telephone
every day to a trade customer in New
1ork-Manbat attain, il you like. Tne
New Yorker had a peculiar high tenor
squeak to his voice, and somehow my
friend got to picturing him as little
chap with a thin face. This habit
grew day after day until the customer
took real shape and form in the mind
OF my patient all based, OF course, up
on his voice. AS he talked over the tel
ephone there always was mentally pic
tured that little chap with the thin
face and squeakv voice Well. one day
New York customer, and as he walked
into the place and saw a tall, fat man
weighing nearly 300 pounds he could
scarcely believe his eyes. When the
fat man opened his mouth and talked,
my patient says, the squeaky voice
with which he was familiar sounded
strange and unnatural He told the
owner OF the absurd voice. in view
NJ h CT oh hox xin nio i'm
as a little thin person, and there was
a good laugh over the odd difference
OF the reality.
But the next day when my friend
used the telephone and the squeaky
voice came to him, he had to struggle
to get away from thinking Of his fat
patron as being little and thin. He
talked the matter over with his wife
and laughed about it, but soon there
came time when he forgot all about
the actual existence of his customer
and the little thin-faced chap was
again talking to him over the wire.
Then ii was that he came TO see me.
He feared, he said, that his mind was
giving away, because OF the persistence
OF the odd picture of the thin man.
/ thought the case was easily disposed
OF. and told my friend to go to New
York every day for a week and visit his
fat customer. This he did, but every
time he telephoned the squeaky voice
would bring up the mental picture
formed before he had set eyes on its
owner
81 was in despair and my patient was
growing gray from worrying when |
hit upon the happy eXpedient of plac-
ing photograph of the fat man on
the telephone, where the eye of the
patient could rest upon it as he
talked The result was the disappear
ance forever Of the thin chap. My pa
tient, in looking at the picture Of the
owner Of the squeaky voice. got his
mind working upon the same lines that
would have been followed had he met
the fat man face to face the first time
he heard his voice. These cases are
common every day. We form queerly
opposite pictures of men and women
We hear over the telephone and never
see. but in the great majority Of in
stances. the impression is a momen-
tary one, and ii is seldom that the
mistake is ever forced upon us in the
startling way described by the patient
j told of.
THE telephone. by the way, has pro-
duced very many queer cases of neu-
rasthenia that remain unaccOuntable
excepting on the hypothesis that the
new habit brings them into existence.
] have had very many patients who
had to give up the use OF the phone
altogether where it had been used to a
great extent before"