Los Angeles herald., 1910-06-05

DISEASES OF THE IMAGINATION
BY DIR. CHARLEs 81. HARPER.

l.
President of the Harper School Of Body
Building
This whole subject of Diseases of
the Imagination" might be disposed of
very shortly. There are none. 1t has
been the fetish of many new schools
to consider a great many diseases of
mental origin. Do you suppose for a
single instant that a well person is
going to imagine that he is sick?
Does 1t seem logical that a perfectly
healthy person, going about his work,
deeply interested In 1t, Is going to stop
some day just because his imagination
has been playing the vagrant? 1t Is
absurd
But let a disease start somewhere,
and the mind instantly becomes
alarmed. 1t is natural that 1t should.
1t acts like an automatic burglar alarm.
When the mind is alarmed, when the
nerves are irritated by some unwonted
condition, when the reflex action sets
in-and that is what most people mean
by imaginary disease. You may have
indigestion and toxic poisoning of the
nerves of the stomach. To relieve the
indigestion you may empty the stom-
ach, and still not convince the nervous
center in the spinal tract which con-
trolls its functions that everything is all
right Your digestion will not be i'm
proved until that part of the nervous
system relaxes and stops making dis
cord.
1t Is foolish to call this an imagin-
ary case of indigestion. 1t Is just what
indigestion is in nine cases out of ten.
Take a secondary instead of direct
cause. Perhaps you have been work.
ing under a nervous strain and gradu-
ally your backbone has bent and 'sagged
until your floating ribs are crowded
whole internal mechanism Is crying Tor
relief 1t somehow gets its message In
the nervous centers from which the
functions of the stomach are controlled.
without eating anything especially in
digestible you find that something has
gone wrong. Is this imaginary stomach
trouble?
1 am not arguing to convince people
that they are sick. Far from that. l
believe in every bit of suggestion that
will tend to get them away from that
idea. But what l do combat Is this
nonsense about disease being purely a
state of mind. l am not prepared TO
say that all we know of life is purely
a state of mind, but If that be the case
1t is Just as essential to make 1t
healthy state of mind, by accepting the
conditions in which we are placed, In
stead of trying to deny them. In order
selves from the conditions that pro-
duce 1t.
This brings me right back to the
proposition as 1 have stated 1T before,
that the law of renewal is the funda-
mental principle to which we must
turn. have been taking the great va
riety of complaints commonly classed
as indigestion as a case for Illustration,
because they are so common. l could
take a case of indigestion and treat It
from the two general directions which
are followed by others. could give
you sodas or pepsins or stimulants TO
stir up chemical processes, or could
alleviate the discomfort and perhaps
partially allay the trouble through the
nervous system. But suppose l apply
this law of renewal. l take the nat
ural channels of respiration and cir
culation. 1 purify the blood by proper
respiration. 1 carry this blood to the
stomach and the organs that assist II
in the function of digestion by simple
processes. / secure a relaxation of the
nervous system so that there Is no
more jangle. It's a cure, isn't 1t? AT
least / have never found the case In
which 1t was not.