Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-26
DOCTORS AND NERVES
BY H. Arlington Bruce
medical treatment of functional
nervous disorders still leaves much 10

nervous disorders still leaves much 10
- be desired is a fact of common KNOW
edge. The average general practitioner often
experiences such difficulties in dealing with
nervous patients that, though they constitute
a large proportion of his clientele, he is per-
haps over-WilIing to refer them to the nerve
specialist.
And nerve specialists themselves are not
always as successful as they might be IN
coping with nervousness. AS is eY1nced by
the way many patients drift from specialist
to specialist, perhaps finally resOrtlng in de-
spair to some irregular" healer with the =
suit not infrequently of a miraculous" cure
Partly this unfortunate situation is due to
the complexities of nervousness Still more,
however, it is due to shortcomings in med1cF
education, shortcomings which have the et-
feet of leading physicians q cla;S to place
undue reliance in drug therapy and to ignore
or underestimate the part played by menta
states in causing the inSomnias, dyspeps1as,
and more serious troubles of the functionally
nervous.
Nor can it be expected that there will be a
change for the better until in every medical
school professorships are established for the
express purpose of instructing medical stu
dents in the interrelationsAips of mind and
body as factors in the causes of disease, and
of the importance of reckoning with these
in the practice of medicine.
Research more and more surely is eStaD-
fishing that, to be on the safe side, there
should be treatment of both mind and body
when it is question of functional nervo. s
trouble. The fact that many patients respond
to purely mental treatment, while many 9TH
ers do we'll under purely medicinal and by
gienic measures, does not affect the desirable
ity of taking both physical and psych1cal con-
ditions into account when combating nervous
ness.
This for reasons recently well stated by
/ Prof. William McDougall, of Harvard uni
sity, a most competent student of the prob
lens nervousness raises. After mentioning
as contributory physical causes, fatigue, endo-
crime gland disturbances, the toxins of 1ndi-
gestiOn, infectious diseases, ETC., Prof. NC
Dougall goes on:
at may be doubtful whether these or any
other physical influences would of themselves
produce, in man otherwise in good bodily
and mental health and of good constitution:
a condition which could probably be diagnosed
as a neurosis.
"But any departure from bodily health
may, by inducing anxiety in the mind OF the
patient perhaps secret, unexpressed, or even
subconscious anxiety, favor the onset OF
neurosis.
ION the other hand, it may equally be
doubted whether, in man in perfect physical
condition and of good constitution, any of the
mental disturbances, conflicts, and dishar-
monies which play SO great part in inducing
neurosis could OF themselves bring about this
result of they did not in some degree, by de-
privation of rest, disturbance of circulation,
or some other bodily function, evoke the CO.
operation of bodily factors"
| So that:
"The main thing in this connection is to
realize the intimate and constant action and
reaction between mind and body, and their
reciprocal dependence for all healthy living"
In other words, in developed cases of nerv-
BUSINESS physicians are confronted with what
is known as a vicious CIRCLE" the breaking
of which may require much psychological in
sight as we'll as medical knowledge and skill.
To give them the latter has been the great
objective of the instruction provided in med
ical schools. To give psychological insight
should equally be medical school objective,
| and must become such if nervous patients are
to receive the balanced medjco- psychological
care on which their restoration to health so
| frequently depends. 1as....