Examples showing the Power of the Mind over the Body. - Anaesthesia produced by the Imagination without Chloroform. - Cures effected by the Imagination and by Mental Emotions. - Illness and Functional Disorders induced by Morbid Direction of Thought. - Organic Changes possible from the Same Cause. - Illness, and perhaps Death, caused by Suggestion of Symptoms. - Auto-Suggestion. - Simulated Death. - Cures at Shrines and Holy Places. - Touching for the King's Evil. - Modern Instances of Efficacy of Royal Touch. - Cures by Wesley and Other Religious Leaders.

All who have given any attention to the subject acknowledge what immense power the mind - acting in conjunction with or apart from the will - has over the body, forcing it at times to unusual or even extraordinary effort. This power is exercised both in health and disease, but is peculiarly evident - perhaps because it is more closely observed - in the latter condition. Everyone, the physician and psychologist especially, knows some curious instances illustrative of its effects; such as the story of the hospital patient to whom the consulting physician gave a prescription, with the remark, 'Take this, it will do you good.' At the man's next visit, he, being asked for the prescription, replied that he had swallowed it as directed, and it had, according to promise, done him 'a power of good.' There is nothing new or strange in that, for the administration of boluses made of pieces of paper, upon which are written texts from the Koran, forms an important part of medical treatment in Mohammedan countries. Hack-Tuke * gives a number of cases in which drugs have acted not according to their proved properties, but according to the expectation of the patient.

For instance, a student having asked for an aperient pill, the dispenser, by mistake, gave him one composed of opium and antimony, which, instead of producing the usual effect of inducing perspiration and drowsiness, acted in the way the student expected. Every medical man can quote examples of this sort from his own practice, and if sometimes he is wrongfully accused of having produced baneful effects, he is indemnified at others by having marvellously good results ascribed to very simple measures.

* 'The Influence of the Mind upon the Body,' London, 1884.

There are few cases of this kind more remarkable than one related by Mr. Woodhouse Braine, the well-known anaesthetist. Having to administer ether to a hysterical girl who was about to be operated on for the removal of two sebaceous tumours from the scalp, he found that the ether bottle was empty, and that the inhaling-bag was free from even the odour of any anaesthetic. While a fresh supply was being obtained, he thought to familiarize the patient with the process by putting the inhaling-bag over her mouth and nose, and telling her to breathe quietly and deeply. After a few inspirations she cried, ' Oh, I feel it; I am going off!' and a moment after her eyes turned up, and she became unconscious. As she was found to be perfectly insensible, and the ether had not yet come, Mr. Braine proposed that the surgeon should proceed with the operation. One tumour was removed without in the least disturbing her, and then, in order to test her condition, a bystander said that she was coming to. Upon this she began to show signs of waking, so the bag was once more applied, with the remark, ' She'll soon be off again,' when she immediately lost sensation, and the operation was successfully and painlessly completed.

This girl had taken ether three years before, so that expectation and the use of the apparatus were sufficient to excite her recollection, and call back the effects of the drug as then experienced.

But this recalling of a past impression does not explain the experience of Dr. A., who is anaesthetist to a large dental hospital. He tells me that he often pretends to give gas without doing so, and he finds many patients become anaesthetic when he simply places the apparatus over their face, tells them to breathe deeply and go to sleep. He finds anaemic girls are the best subjects for this harmless deception.

It is told that when Sir Humphry Davy was investigating the properties of laughing-gas - as nitrous oxide was then called - he proposed to administer it to a man who was suffering from tic-douloureux, but before doing so he tried his temperature by putting a thermometer into his mouth. The man took this instrument for some new and subtle remedy, and in a few minutes exclaimed that the pain was cured. The same belief in the efficacy of the thermometer remains to this day among the uneducated, as a friend of mine found to his cost when he was hospital-clerk to a well-known physician. It was his duty to take each morning the temperature of every patient; but on one occasion, being pressed for time, and knowing by experience that a certain patient's temperature was always normal, he saved a few minutes by leaving it untried. Later in the day, when the physician asked this man how he felt, he replied that he was much worse, as might be expected considering the way in which he was neglected. On inquiry it came out that the potent charm of having the glass tube in his mouth for three minutes had been omitted, and my friend got a reprimand.

The late Sir Francis Cruise, physician to the King in Ireland, who made much study of hypnotism, believed in its efficacy, and used it in his extensive practice, told me that many years ago he was engaged in a series of experiments with an early form of sphygmograph in a Dublin hospital. Among the patients was a man incurably ill with phthisis and dilated heart. He improved considerably with treatment and rest, but he assured inquirers that what did him most good was the appliance the young doctor used to put round his wrist.

Laycock (' Nervous Diseases of Women,' p. 184) quotes the case of a gentleman suffering from quotidian ague who became so interested in conversation on one occasion, that the hour for his paroxysm passed without his perceiving it, and he escaped the attack. This story gives one ground for believing a statement frequently made - that the time of the recurrence of attacks of intermittent fever may be altered by moving the clock-hands unknown to the patient, and thus arousing expectant attention.