River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-02-27
SUGGESTION.

not necessarily verbal, but is some
thing you can see, smell, hear, touch,
or taste The mind can be stuffed,
starved or poisoned as truly as the
body.
/ have every reason to believe that
there is not a disease known to man
which cannot be remedied if the mind
of the patient were prevented from
retarding the recovery of health.
Friends and sympathetic relatives
also have, unintentionally, of course,
killed many persons by misdirected
kindness and over-anXiety.
Suggestive therapeutics is an es-
tablished fact. 1t is rapidly taking it's
place as a remedial agent. Wherever
we go, and in every case of sickness,
we witness the power of suggestion.
Suggestive therapeutics is more
than Christian Science" more than
faith cure" more than divine heal
ing" more than any 'pathy" or ism"
Suggestive therapeutics, however, is
not infallible, says Bernheim, al
though it gives good results in a very
large number of cases. 1t may fail
even when it is intelligently and per-
sistently managed. The cause of the
failure is inherent; sometimes in the
disease, sometimes in the subject.
One who uses suggestion never has
need to deny the existence of disease,
but positively and truthfully asserts
that the disease is amenable to cure
and that recovery will follow as the
result Of the treatment.
That there is inherent in all man
kind a psychic power presiding over
the functions, conditions and sensa-
tions of the body, and that the power
can be invoked and controlled at will,
under proper conditions, is no longer
a matter of doubt by reasonable inves
tigators.
This inherent power, known as the
subjective mind, runs the entire hui
man machinery when the objective
mind is either asleep or in allegiance;
in fact, it runs the machinery of life
all the time, but runs it better when
not interfered with by the objective
mind in the form of adverse sugges-
tiOns. 1t has absolute control over all
the INSTRUMENTATION waste, all Sc
cretions and excretions, the action Of
the heart in the circulation Of the
blood, the lungs in respiration, and in
all cell life, cell changes and develop
ment.
| do not pretend says Bernheim,
that suggestion" acts directly upon
the diseased organ. Diseases are
cured, when they can be cured, by
their natural biological evolution. Or
binary therapeutic methods consist in
putting the organism in a condition
such that the restitutio ad integrim
may take place. We suppress, says
Bernheim, the pain, we modify func-
tiOns, We let the organ rest, we calm
the fever, we retard the pulse, we in
duce sleep, we encourage secretion
and excretion; and, acting thus, we
permit nature (the healer), or, to
speak in modern language, we permit
the activity of the forces and the
properties inherent in the biological
elements to accomplish their work.
Every element of the organism has,
so to speak, its center of action bor-
dering upon the brain Sensibility,
movement, nutrition, secretion, excre-
ton and calorification are governed,
or at least influenced, by this central
organism which presides over the
complex mechanism of animal physi-
ology.
Suggestion" is of special value to
physicians. l think DR.. Parkyn is
quite right in declaring that physi-
clans study the anatomy and physi-
ology of the brain. but they sadly neg
lect the study of its functions.
The chief and greatest function Of
the brain is to receive, associate and
store away all impressions received
through the senses and to reproduce
these impressions when necessary.
Through the mind every organ of the
body may be assisted, and it is through
unconscious action of the mind upon
the body that so many diseases are
produced and so many cured
A study of psychology and sugges-
ton will enable a physician, when a
patient first consults him, to ascer.
tain the part imagination plays in the
complaint. Imaginary or not, it is
real to the patient
Every careful observer knows that
the functions of the human body NAV
be greatly disturbed through mental
influences, and that such disturbances
If prolonged, result in fixed, function.
al or nervous diseases, and that these
functional arrangements often termin-
ate in organic disease and sometimes
in death.
That mental activities are capable
OF producing chemical and anatomical
changes in our bodies is a demonstra-
BILE fact. 1t is also true that, while
properly directed thoughts are always
conducive to conditions Of health, per-
verted mental conditions as certs inly
produce functional and organic dis.
ease.
Alcoholism Is now justly regaI ded
as a perverted mental condition Of
which the uncomfortable drink habit
is the outward manifestation. The
fact that alcoholism yields so readily
to suggestive therapeutics is proof
positive of its mental origin and, on
this account, its rational treatment
can be accomplished only along the
line of psychic methods.
Power of Thought in Auto-Suggestion
Auto-suggestion (self-suggestion) is
as potent in its influence as when eX-