Force of Mind; or, 
 
 The Mental Factor in Medicine 
 by ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, M.D.,M.R.C.S. 
 Author of "The Unconscious Mind," 
 "The Springs of Character," etc. 
 
 iijrpo? (pt\ddog)oS iddQenf 
 
 NEW YORK: FUNK AND 
 WAGNAI,I,S COMPANY 
 44-60 EAST 23D STREET 1908
 
 TO THE MBMOBT OF 
 MY FIBST TEACHEB OF MENTAL THEBAPBUTI08 
 
 THE LATE 
 
 HENEY GAWEN BUTTON 
 
 PHYSICIAN AND PATHOLOGIST TO THE LONDON HOSPITAL 
 
 THIS LITTLE WOBK 
 IB AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
 
 PBEFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 THE fact that a second edition is already called for, 
 coupled with the kind way the book has been 
 received by the medical profession, shows a marked 
 interest in the Mental Factor in Medicine. The 
 author has always believed that, in spite of much 
 outward indifference, there is in the minds of many 
 thinkers a deep appreciation of the importance of 
 the union of mind and body which this volume insists 
 on. That the ' Force of Mind ' may be used scienti- 
 fically in the profession with greater effect is the 
 author's sincere hope and aim. 
 
 6 HAKLBY STREET, W. 
 October 1902.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIEST EDITION 
 
 THIS book is an endeavour to supply the information Boot 
 asked for on April 17, 1897, by the ' British Medical answer to 
 Journal ' in the following editorial note on an address MedicS 
 of mine to the Victoria Institute on the ' Scope of 
 Mind.' It runs as follows : 
 
 ' This is all very interesting, but some people 
 would perhaps like to know how this key to the 
 cause and cure of many, if not of most, diseases is to 
 be used ; and to have one or two diseases named in 
 which the unconscious mind plays the part of causa- 
 tion or cure ; and some suggestion as to the use of 
 the knowledge in respect to cure.' 
 
 This request, made five years ago, is thus the 
 ' exciting' cause of this book; the 'predisposing' 
 cause being found in the continual study of these 
 questions, necessitated in the treatment of functional 
 nerve diseases no two of which present the problem 
 in precisely the same light ; and it is written in the 
 hope that those who are really anxious to study the
 
 X THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 relations of mind and body with regard to disease 
 may get some assistance from the evidence I have 
 adduced on the subject. 
 
 Sense of I would next remark that in reading this book the 
 
 sense of proportion is necessarily lost between the 
 
 relative importance of this ' mental factor ' and all 
 the other causal factors of disease. It is inevitably 
 so in any book occupied exclusively with one side of 
 a question ; and it must not be supposed for a moment 
 that (as explained in the text 1 ) one does not fully 
 recognise that, after all, in many diseases the part 
 played by the mind is very small indeed, either in 
 cause or cure though we believe that to some extent 
 it is ever present. It may also be borne in mind 
 that a thousand books exist on the physical factors 
 in disease, whereas on the mental factor hardly a 
 work can be found. 
 
 Bunding And again, in defence of any zeal in pressing the 
 subject that may appear to some readers excessive, I 
 may be allowed to point out that I am only too con- 
 scious of standing in a very rapid scientific and 
 material stream, whose current sets against the 
 consideration of the subject here raised. 
 
 Under such circumstances I cannot be blamed for 
 not preserving the exact perpendicular of a neutral 
 and colourless mind. To keep one's balance one 
 must lean over against the current if one is to 
 counteract its force, and thus present a very one- 
 
 1 See Chapter IV.
 
 PBEFACE 3d 
 
 sided appearance ; for the subject has to be pressed 
 and arguments reiterated in a way that would be 
 quite unnecessary in still waters. 
 
 Having tried to explain my one-sided attitude and A notable 
 
 omission. 
 
 to account for any over-zeal that might be deprecated, 
 I should like to say one word about an omission that 
 is rather conspicuous. I have soundly rated (without, 
 I dare say, doing them much harm) our modern text- 
 books for their rigid adherence to a mere descriptive 
 level : wilfully oblivious of the moving and governing 
 central power that must exist to bring the multifarious 
 processes of the body into harmony. But it may well 
 be retorted that, though I trace these to a mysterious 
 agency which I am pleased to call the ' unconscious 
 mind,' I make no attempt to show whence this mind 
 is derived. This omission is not, however, due to 
 any want of belief in a First Cause, nor to any doubt 
 that this First Cause is indeed the ' God ' of Christians 
 and of Revelation, ' in whom we live, and move, and 
 have our being,' but solely to the fact that the 
 subject lies beyond the scope of this work, which is 
 limited to the powers and action of the mind in man, 
 and is not concerned with its origin or even with its 
 nature. 
 
 Finally, I would earnestly crave the indulgence of innumer- 
 the literary reader, not only for the many avoidable quotations 
 defects he will doubtless discover, but also for the rep 
 unavoidable drawback of having to make innumerable 
 quotations and extracts in the text. This cannot be
 
 xii THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 obviated, as it is absolutely necessary in seeking to 
 establish any new or doubtful point, to prove it by 
 whatever testimony one can secure ; and this cannot 
 be relegated to foot-notes. No doubt the result makes 
 the book less readable, but that is a small matter if it 
 makes it more convincing. To this end also I have 
 ventured to repeat in several chapters the same point 
 in different words wherever it is one of great moment, 
 knowing well from experience what a help this is in 
 these days of rapid reading. 
 
 impor- The whole subject is of such value to the medical 
 
 the C whoie profession, and so greatly neglected, that I should be 
 a jeo . m( j ee (j glad if the very defects of this monograph 
 might rouse some abler pen, convinced of the impor- 
 tance of the matter, to present it in a weightier and 
 at the same time more attractive form. 
 
 HABLEY STREET, W. ! 
 August 1903.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 MM 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION . . vii 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION . . iz 
 
 PAET I 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE MIND IN 
 CAUSING DISEASE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 1 
 
 'Though leaders in the profession have recognised 
 the mental factor in all ages, it is generally ignored to- 
 day.' 
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 25 
 
 ' As the action of the mental factor in disease is un- 
 conscious, it cannot be recognised as mental by those 
 who limit mind to consciousness. The word "mind" 
 must therefore be extended to include all psychic action.' 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 47 
 
 ' The double action of the " mental factor " on the 
 body in health consists generally in carrying on the 
 functions of life; and specially in physically express- 
 ing n.ental states.'
 
 xiv THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 rtarn 
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY ........ 67 
 
 4 The mental factor is present in some way or other 
 in all diseases.' 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MENTAL FAOTOB IN ORGANIC AND OTHEE DISEASES 
 We have examples of the mind as a causal factor in 
 most organic diseases.' 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THB CAUSE AND SYMPTOMS OF FUNCTIONAL NBBYB DIS- 
 EASE 98 
 
 'The mental factor in neurasthenia is generally 
 admitted.' 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE .ETIOLOGY OF HYSTERIA 112 
 
 'The mental factor in hysteria it the unconscious 
 
 CHAPTER VILE 
 
 PHENOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF HYSTERIA . . 182 
 
 ' The phenomena of hysteria are due to the perverted 
 action of the unconscious mind. 1
 
 CONTENTS xv 
 
 PAET II 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE MIND IN 
 CURING DISEASE 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MM 
 
 ON PSYCHO-THERAPY 147 
 
 ' The force of mind in therapeutics, so largely ignored 
 by the profession, is generally exploited by quacks for 
 their own ends.' 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE vis medicatrix natures 168 
 
 4 The testimony of the profession as to the presence 
 and importance of the " vis medicatrix naturae," and the 
 power of mind over disease.' 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF MENTAL THERAPEUTICS . . . 190 
 
 ' The effective agent in all faith-cures is the uncon- 
 scious mind.' 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CURATIVE POWER OF MIND . . 211 
 
 ' The force of mind is a therapeutic agent in every 
 disease.' 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MENTAL THERAPEUTICS IN FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES 225 
 
 ' Functional nerve diseases are mostly cured by 
 suggestions presented in various ways.'
 
 XVI THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TREATMENT OF FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES . . 
 'Success in the treatment of neurasthenia depend! 
 equally on psychical and physical details.' 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THH THERAPEUTICS OF HYSTERIA 268 
 
 'In hysteria the cure lies in restoring the healthy 
 action of the unconscious mind.' 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE PRACTICAL CONCLUSION 270 
 
 ' The neglect of the mental factor in medicine if a 
 source of weakness to the profession which should at once 
 be removed.' 
 
 LIST OF SOME WRITERS AND THEIR WOKB HiSLwm IK 
 
 STUDYING THE MENTAL FACTOR IN MEDICINE . 
 
 298
 
 PAET I. 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE MIND IN 
 CAUSING DISEASE
 
 THE 
 
 FOECE OF MIND, 
 
 OB 
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOE IN MEDICINE 
 
 * irjrpbs ^tXoo-o^os ro0eos ' 
 
 HIPPOCRATES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 TEE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 1 Though leaders in the profession have recognised 
 the mental factor in all ages, it is generally ignored 
 to-day.' 
 
 ONE of the most charming medical biographies recently 
 published is the Life and Letters of Sir James Paget James 
 by his son. It stands a model of what biographies Paget ' 
 should be, alike in its simple diction and the natural 
 manner in which we are allowed to see the character 
 of the man himself growing before our eyes ; revealed 
 perhaps most fully in his private letters to his friends. 
 Its greatest charm lies of course in the personality 
 it describes, and we may say that such a man en- 
 riches and ennobles the whole profession to which 
 he belongs. No one can rise from the perusal of this 
 book without feeling a better man, a sense of the 
 dignity of labour, and the certainty of the ultimate 
 reward of a consistent and straightforward life.
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 A letter 
 to Sir H. 
 Acland 
 
 i a mirror 
 of the 
 writer's 
 mind, 
 
 and of the 
 medical 
 mind of 
 1866. 
 
 We allude to it here because our subject is ' The 
 Mental Factor in Medicine,' and it chances that this 
 volume contains some remarkable testimony on this 
 head. 
 
 The sentence we would quote is part of a letter 
 from Sir James Paget to Sir Henry Acland written 
 in 1866, and reads as follows : l ' What unsatisfactory 
 . . . cases these are ! This clever, charming, and 
 widely known lady will some day disgrace us all by 
 being juggled out of her maladies by some bold quack, 
 who by mere force of assertion will give her the will 
 to bear, or forget, or suppress all the turbulences of 
 her nervous system.' 
 
 Now such a letter is absolutely invaluable, and for 
 this reason. Any conscious effort to reveal one's 
 mind or spirit mostly ends in failure. It is when the 
 conscious mind is diverted elsewhere, and the man 
 is unaware of being observed, that the unconscious 
 mind shows as in a mirror the true soul, the real 
 thoughts of the ego. A casual letter to a friend reveals 
 more, therefore, in its unstudied phrases than an elabo- 
 rate essay could do upon the subject. Every thoughtful 
 physician knows the real illuminating value of letting 
 a patient describe his symptoms in his own language, 
 however quaint ; and how he learns thereby more of 
 the inner working of the disease than by the most cun- 
 ning phrases which he puts into the patient's mouth. 
 
 It is so here. This illuminating letter pictures 
 unconsciously as in a glass the attitude of the medical 
 mind of 1866 towards mental therapeutics a mind 
 
 1 Sir James Paget : Life and Letters (Longmans, 4th edit. p. 277). 
 Extract of letter to Sir H. Aoland (we have given the whole 
 extract).
 
 THE FOECB OF MIND 3 
 
 which is not so very much changed in 1902. Many of 
 our readers will find their own thoughts reflected in it. 
 
 Translated into bald prose, it sets forth ' that the A bald 
 disgrace of the writer, of Sir H. Acland, and other frTns- 
 eminent colleagues is expected, owing to the power lation< 
 possessed by some " bold quack " to cure an attractive 
 patient of Sir James Paget's through her mind by 
 mere " force of assertion ; " the process of cure 
 apparently consisting of the lady " being juggled out 
 of her maladies." ' 
 
 Such an unconscious revelation of the thoughts of 
 a great and powerful teacher demands our closest 
 attention ; and an analysis will be found to well 
 repay the time it may require. 
 
 The general picture it presents is at first sight An 
 
 , , . , . amazing 
 
 absolutely amazing. picture 
 
 We see these justly distinguished men sitting 
 down, and calmly awaiting their inevitable disgrace 
 (with a fatalism worthy of Hindoo fakirs), at the 
 hands of ' some bold quack,' in the cure of this 
 ' clever and charming lady,' whom they all seem 
 powerless to help. 
 
 Try and realise for a moment the horrid conceit it* effect 
 of the ' bold quack ' who reads this letter, and whose boia e 
 powers over this ' widely known lady ' are thus ac- quaob< 
 credited by the leaders of the medical profession, 
 themselves paralysed by impotence. 
 
 We must feel instinctively that ' something is 
 very wrong somewhere ' for such a grotesque picture 
 to be possible ; and the pathos is that it should be 
 drawn by the pen of such a man as Sir James Paget. 
 
 Surely, on consideration, the ' unsatisfactory case ' 
 of which the letter speaks is rather that of the
 
 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 The lady'g 
 view of the 
 matter 
 
 medical profession than of the charming and widely 
 known lady ; and this the word ' disgrace ' seems to 
 confirm. 
 
 The lady's own view of the matter would be most 
 interesting, and if medical men only practised a little 
 more the art of putting themselves in their patients' 
 place, they would not be surprised to find how widely 
 their views differ from their doctors'. The lady in 
 question doubtless would feel very grateful to. the 
 quack ; and, so far from thinking her case unsatis- 
 factory, would only apply this epithet to her previous 
 treatment by physicians, of whom we fear she would 
 say some unkind things. 
 
 Is it not extraordinary what value the public 
 attach to such a trivial matter as ' cure ; ' and yet 
 how utterly incapable they seem of grasping the 
 importance of ' diagnosis ' ? 
 
 What after all, then, makes such a picture possible ? 
 
 Can it be that the ' bold quack ' wields some power 
 heaimg called ' mere force of assertion ' that the physician 
 virtue lie ? either does not understand or does not condescend to 
 use? Does the virtue lie in the 'boldness of the 
 quack,' in the 'force of the assertion,' or in both? 
 In both probably; and I, personally, may assert 
 ' with some force ' that their acknowledged value by 
 such a man as Sir James Paget proves that, in his 
 opinion, the ' mental factor ' can not only cause, but 
 cure disease ; and that it can be made available ' by 
 force and boldness.' 
 
 The ' widely known lady ' does not know this, 
 and the 'bold quack* himself is probably equally 
 ignorant, and in neither case are we surprised ; but 
 we are amazed and justly indignant that a force so 
 
 'Cure 1 
 
 versus 
 diagnosis. 
 
 Where 
 does the 
 healin
 
 THE FOECB OF MIND 5 
 
 potent and so sure can be wielded with success by a 
 charlatan ; to the disgrace (to use his own words) of Why b 
 such a profession as that which Sir James Paget by 8gr 
 adorned. It is a sign of grace that it is owned to be v*yf 
 a disgrace ; and it is with the hope of being able to 
 do something to remove such a disgrace that these 
 pages are written. 
 
 It is, further, very significant of the psychological 
 standpoint of the period that this lady is cured by 
 ' being juggled out of her maladies.' The phrase is 
 most instructive, and the words show exactly what 
 was passing in the writer's mind. The maladies are what is 
 confessed, and not dubbed * imaginary' an added j^gieVr 
 insult which is unfortunately only too common in the 
 lips of inferior men. But they are cured by 'jugglery ' 
 another word for conjuring, or producing effects 
 without obvious means. A black draught and a blue 
 pill are noble, obvious, and palpable professional 
 remedies. But 'force and boldness* are such in- 
 tangible, such unorthodox drugs ! 
 
 And yet, sooner than stand disgraced by bold quacks, 
 it would be well if the profession tried such means ; 
 and more especially when their effects on the patient 
 are regarded so favourably by Sir James Paget ! 
 
 Why, in the name of J3sculapius, should the pro- 
 f ession have to look to a quack for boldness and force ? 
 Is there, then, no dignity and authority, no courage and 
 impressiveness in a physician's personality ? Are we 
 to believe that he has not sufficient command of 
 language to be able to make assertions of any 
 required strength ? There are many words besides 
 ' Abracadabra ' that will strike a patient with awe. 
 
 I admit, to the ignorant, and to those only accus-
 
 6 
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Mental 
 thera- 
 peutics 
 are not 
 ' jugglery.' 
 
 Disgust at 
 
 irregular 
 
 tactics. 
 
 The 
 
 'regular 
 and the 
 1 quack ' in 
 South 
 Africa. 
 
 The 
 
 wisdom of 
 learning 
 from the 
 nemy. 
 
 tomed to the heavy material methods of pharma- 
 ceutical therapy, the process may look like jugglery ; 
 but so would vaccination appear in the days of Jenner 
 to the ordinary medical mind of the period, as indeed 
 it does now to a large section of the laity. 
 
 Moreover, we cannot help feeling that this inter- 
 esting letter which we have considered, carries with 
 it a distinct impression beyond what is expressed 
 verbally. It is pervaded by a not unnatural feeling 
 of disgust that tactics so unprofessional in the hands 
 of an outsider prove successful where all orthodox 
 manoeuvres directed by experienced officers have 
 failed. 
 
 I couch the phraseology somewhat after a military 
 manner, for it seems to me well, before leaving this 
 instructive insight into the mind of a great man, to 
 draw the remarkable parallel that exists between 
 the disgust we notice in the letter and the same 
 feeling in a somewhat similar situation to-day. Let 
 South Africa itself represent the chronic invalid the 
 clever, charming, and widely known lady. In the 
 British Army we have the orthodox practitioner of 
 stereotyped pattern, while the bold quack stands con- 
 fessed in the wily Boer, who at one time might have 
 succeeded in annexing the charming patient by his 
 'jugglery.' (Perhaps the simile may seem clumsy 
 and laboured, but it is in the feeling of disgust common 
 to both that we shall justify the comparison.) 
 
 The British Army, with its code of military tactics, 
 honour, and courage, stood bravely by its worn-out 
 manuals, marching in proper formation at regulation 
 intervals, to be shot down, not indeed like a dog in a 
 ditch, but standing erect, brave, and true, honourably
 
 THE FOKCE OF MIND 7 
 
 conspicuous against the skyline, until matters had 
 reached such a parlous state that it became absolutely 
 necessary to look into the tactics of the enemy. His 
 low, mean, contemptible dodges had long filled every 
 honest bosom with disgust in his lack of regular 
 uniform, in his sneaking, crawling advances, sniping 
 behind a stone, and his no less ignominious scuttlings 
 and scatterings when pursued. 
 
 But at last the lesson is learned, and we behold 
 an amazing sight ; a painful one perhaps, but in it 
 lies victory. The British Army, after all, is wise 
 enough to pocket its disgust when it perceives its own 
 code is wrong; and though Europe may look on, 
 discreetly smiling behind her hand, is not above 
 taking a leaf out of the enemy's book ; and the result 
 is, we behold the British Army lying prone upon its 
 ' abdominal parietes,' and wriggling from mound to 
 mound along the veldt as slimly as the Boer himself. 
 Without for a moment comparing the tactics of the Let the 
 Boer with the noble science of the relation of mind and 
 matter in disease, let our own medical profession, 
 following such an example, overcome any question of lesson. 
 feeling, and study in a philosophic and scientific spirit 
 the methods of ' the quack.' 
 
 We must make a definite advance in our position, 
 and no longer sit by, while bold quacks use before 
 our very eyes upon our own patients such rational 
 and effectual mental medicine as forcible assertion ; 
 and we must also cease to dub as ' jugglery ' success- 
 ful methods we may not at the moment under- 
 stand ; knowing ever how much greater is the sum of 
 truth than our very partial apprehension of it. Sir Vaine of 
 James Paget will not have penned this melancholy 
 
 letter.
 
 8 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 confession in vain if it leads us to the determination 
 that such a force shall not be left to be exploited by 
 charlatans, but shall be mastered and used by those 
 who seek to walk in the van of our profession. Is 
 it too much to hope that my readers will agree with 
 the spirit of these remarks, which is the spirit which 
 animates me to write these pages, however little they 
 may be able to accept the terminology I shall use 
 after all, a minor matter or to receive as evidence all 
 the illustrations and testimonies I shall give ? 
 Pay- Some time ago, at a meeting of the British 
 
 Medical Association, I had to read a paper bearing on 
 t ne connec tion of mind and body, and found myself 
 placed, and rightly placed, in the Psychological Section. 
 
 When I stood up to read, I faced an audience 
 composed, with hardly an exception, of alienists, or, 
 in other words, of those connected in various ways 
 with asylums. It was evident that medical psycho- 
 logy consisted chiefly of the study of diseased mind, 
 and practically included hardly any consideration of 
 the sane mind in relation to medicine. 
 
 Yet undoubtedly the action of mind in disease and 
 therapeutics is everywhere admitted, and vaguely, 
 tentatively, and often unconsciously used. 
 
 It is not, however, a subject which is studied in 
 our schools, or spoken of, or written about by our 
 teachers. In fact, if this book were called ' The Mind 
 in Medicine ' it would no doubt be regarded as a work 
 on insanity. The title, therefore, is ' The Force of 
 Mind, or the Mental Factor in Medicine,' which avoids 
 this danger. It is also more intelligible, and has a 
 further recommendation which we will unfold in the 
 next chapter.
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 9 
 
 The philologist would doubtless suggest to us that physicians 
 the first business of the physician is to deal with "nfinedto 
 physics and physic ; and that his healing art must 
 therefore rest primarily upon a material basis ; and 
 yet the philologist does not in this explanation exhaust 
 the meaning of the word ' Physician ; ' for there have 
 been few worthiest of the name who have not per- 
 ceived, it may be dimly, the presence of the ' Mental 
 Factor,' and recognised the importance of the psychic 
 element both to themselves and to their patients. 
 
 That mind and body are in some way connected Mind and 
 was known long before the Greeks associated a mental 
 state with a physical cause by inventing the term 
 'melancholy' (black bile). It is indeed only within 
 the last century that the practice of medicine has 
 been severed from its connection with the black Medicine 
 arts, witchcraft, astrology, phrenology, quackery, and p 8 e e e ud!l- om 
 knavery of all kinds ; most of these being more or less g[Jj o 
 psychological in their nature. 
 
 The medical man of the present day values too science 
 much his freedom from the errors and mysteries of 
 mediaeval medicine not to look with a somewhat 
 jealous eye upon anything that distracts him from his to-day, 
 physical studies. He knows too well what his profes- 
 sion owes to the inductive methods of diagnosis, to exact 
 observation aided by modern instruments of precision, . 
 to the advances in physiology, pathology, and bacterio- 
 logy, to be over-anxious to turn aside to the study of 
 the interaction of the physical with the psychic. 
 
 Yet, real as the advance has been, may I venture to 
 suggest that it has perhaps become too one-sided in 
 its character ? 
 
 In medicine, as in most human pursuits, progress is
 
 10 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 Medical too often like a journey on an Irish car accompanied 
 Eke^he 8 bv an unnecessary amount of oscillation from side to 
 STiridi * s ^ e ' ^ 8c * ence advances ; but in medicine par- 
 oar, ticularly the zigzag course of this advance due to 
 rival theories and schools of thought eloquently de- 
 monstrates the unstable equilibrium of the human 
 mind. 
 
 Medical Philosophy in medicine is not in fashion just now. 
 
 Lt of P iy The sternly practical and scientific character of the 
 
 fashion. me dical school training, the mechanical and chemical 
 
 plane on which our physiologies move, the strictly 
 
 material nature of modern pathology, all tend to 
 
 foster the belief that any consideration of the psychic 
 
 in medicine is archaic in character and futile in 
 
 result. 
 
 To talk of the patient's spirits in a case of phthisis, 
 when the bacillus swarms in the sputa, seems to 
 savour of ' idle words.' What folly to speak of mind 
 influences in typhoid fever, when the enteric ulcer 
 can be seen (post mortem) in the pathological theatre ! 
 We can catch and stain and double stain the microbes 
 of many infectious diseases ; what nonsense it seems, 
 then, to talk of fear as a causal factor ! 
 
 Advance in In urging some attention to the ' mental factor ' 
 
 reaUnd 6 ' I would not for one moment be thought to depreciate 
 
 great. " m &U j wav foe great and real advance in the art of 
 
 medicine ; nor to deny that it has undoubtedly been due 
 
 to a steady persistence in exact scientific observation, 
 
 with a rigid refusal of all d priori reasoning. Many 
 
 are perhaps quite unaware what a vast gulf as to this 
 
 separates us from the current thought of even fifty years 
 
 ago, until they happen to take up such a book as Dr. 
 
 George Moore's ' Use of the Body in relation to the
 
 THE FOECE OP MIND 11 
 
 Mind,' published by Longmans in 1852, and compare 
 it with a modern treatise on physiological psychology. 
 
 In spite, however, of all this, the psychic is ever afl 
 with us, and a sober consideration of the part it plays 
 in the human organism can never really be either out 
 of date, or futile, or beneath the attention of the busy 
 man. 
 
 It may be that one reason why an ill-concealed Reasons 
 
 J J . . for medical 
 
 impatience is often felt when psychic causes are dislike 
 pointed out to the skilled experimentalist, is that 
 they suggest a something which he can neither weigh 
 nor measure ; and he very naturally thinks that any 
 attention they receive is diverted from exact research 
 and the exclusive consideration of the material. 
 
 Another reason, surely, is the limitation of the 
 human mind, which, when it has spent a term of 
 years in the steady study of one class of phenomena 
 presented in medicine, finds it both painful and difficult 
 to consider another. 
 
 The 'British Medical Journal' (April 12, 1890) 'Britiah 
 suggests as a third reason the inherent difficulty of 
 the subject itself : 
 
 'The influence of the mind on the body is a 
 subject whose study involves so many of the funda- 
 mental and difficult problems in Nature, that it would 
 be strange if it were popular amongst men whose 
 first aim is to be practical.' 
 
 To the ' Journal ' (of that date) the study obviously 
 is not of practical value ; the ' practical ' being clearly 
 identified with the ' easy,' here, by implication, 
 associated with the ' material 'a fallacy that is still 
 sometimes repeated by those who regard men with 
 the eye of a mechanical engineer.
 
 12 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Pour other Yet another authority suggests that the ignorance 
 of the medical man of the period as to the mental 
 factors in medicine is due to four reasons : 
 
 1. Want of instruction in the subject in medical 
 schools. 
 
 2. The difficulty of the study without teachers or 
 text-books. 
 
 3. The uncertainty of the utility of the knowledge 
 when acquired. 
 
 4. The dread of being thought singular or old- 
 fashioned. 
 
 Modem The text-books of a period give great insight into 
 
 gieTpureiy the spirit of their time : and every thoughtful student 
 scientific. O f mo( j ern W0 rks on physiology and medicine must be 
 struck with the increase of the scientific tone at the 
 expense of the philosophic. The most recent physio- 
 logies agree in dealing solely with apparatus, structure, 
 mechanism, and function on a mere descriptive level, 
 characterised, it is true, by the most minute accuracy 
 of detail. But there is also such a complete absence 
 of all consideration of the necessary co-ordinating 
 and combining power which alone can make of these 
 diverse machines and many members one harmonious 
 unity, one perfect man, that the whole reads more like 
 a work on physics than the story of the somatic life 
 of a human being. 
 
 Source of And yet the unity in diversity displayed by the 
 
 SdiverXty body in general, and by its members in particular, as 
 
 iSed! 00 *" much postulates a central guiding force as the 
 
 co-ordinated evolutions of a large army prove the 
 
 existence of a commander-in-chief. Once this is 
 
 grasped, the importance of a study of this central 
 
 directing power will be no longer denied, and its
 
 THE FOKCE OF MIND 13 
 
 practical value will not be lessened if the power prove 
 to be mental rather than material. 
 
 Systems of medicine, however large and modern, Wor t s on 
 display the same character as the physiologies. A JJ^" 6 
 rather old book, Pereira's ' Materia Medica,' devotes recognise 
 three pages out of 2,360 to 'psychic therapeutics.' Sr^ 1 
 Dr. Shoemaker, of Philadelphia, in his ' System of P eutioB - 
 Medicine,' spares one page out of about 1,200 ; but most 
 of the others, including far larger works, devote none. 
 
 Every possible, and even impossible, aid to thera- 
 peutics is gravely discussed at length ; including the 
 values of obscure organic extracts ; of special artificial 
 forms of exercise under innumerable names ; of every 
 variety of light, heat, and Bontgen ray ; of German 
 synthetic compounds with barbarous polysyllabic 
 titles ; of patent foods, and of systems innumerable ; 
 while not one line is devoted to the value of the 
 mental factor in general therapeutics. 
 
 If we turn from the text-book to the class-rooms Hospitals 
 or hospitals, polyclinic or postgraduate course, we *&& lass - 
 find the same result. Students listen with rapt i^ore 
 attention to the latest methods in aseptics, the culture them * 
 of micro-organisms, the use of antitoxins ; they study 
 the powers of phenocoll, aristol, protargol, salophen, 
 and other well-advertised Teutonic drugs ; they discuss 
 keenly the rival merits of diverse forms of splints, 
 sutures, forceps, inhalers, and various instruments of 
 precision ; they are carefully shown the best methods 
 of physical diagnosis. All these necessary and impor- 
 tant factors in therapeutics are thoroughly exhausted, 
 while at the same time the omnipresent mental factor 
 is almost universally ignored. 
 
 We may even attend cliniques on functional nerve
 
 14 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Even in 
 nerve 
 diseases 
 it is often 
 ignored 
 
 In practice, 
 therefore, 
 it is 
 
 naturally 
 neglected. 
 
 Men 
 treated 
 on the 
 level of 
 
 machines. 
 
 The 
 
 round ' 
 doctor. 
 
 diseases where this factor is predominant both in 
 cause and cure ; and while listening for an hour to 
 the physical signs established by tendon and skin 
 reflexes, and trained and systematic observation, fail 
 to hear one word to show that the disease has had 
 other than a purely physical origin, or that it can be 
 cured by other than purely physical means. 
 
 Turning from the teaching to the practice, we 
 cannot fail to see the natural result. That which is 
 ignored in physiology is not likely to be admitted hi 
 pathology; what is never taught in the clinique is 
 not often practised in the sick-room. For though the 
 influence of the mind over the body, as well as of 
 mind over mind, is everywhere seen and felt, it is at 
 the same tune neglected and ignored in out-patient 
 departments, in hospital wards, in consulting rooms, 
 and by sick-beds and hence the amazing spectacle so 
 constantly seen of men laboriously trained in all 
 the medical wisdom of the twentieth century patiently 
 investigating the causes of disease, or earnestly con- 
 sidering methods of cure, without a thought of the 
 ever-present mental factor ; and sometimes hardly 
 realising that the case is that of a suffering human 
 being, and not merely of a machine that is out of 
 order. Another factor that obliterates the ' man ' 
 from the physician's mind is over-specialism. This 
 has increased by such leaps and bounds that the good 
 all-round physician once so popular and so genial 
 has wellnigh passed away, and only hardy specimens 
 still exist scantily in isolated districts. To him has 
 succeeded the pale, spectacled, serious, and most pro- 
 foundly scientific student of one of the sixty or seventy 
 parts into which, I believe, we are now segmented.
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 15 
 
 It really becomes increasingly easy, as one listens to a The man 
 paper at a medical society, to forget that a ' man ' as in r fds tten 
 such still exists; while it is perfectly obvious that ^ enty 
 whole lives apparently centre round the ' appendix ' divisions, 
 and the ' posterior nares.' 
 
 It seems almost time that the ' man ' specialist A * man 
 appeared ; one who studies the ' altogether,' to use required* 
 poor Trilby's happy expression a physician whose 
 exclusive duty it should be to study men as men ; to 
 master the marvellous intricacies and dependencies 
 of spirit, soul, and body ; and to be skilled to know 
 when and how to call on the one to help the other. 
 With such men the profession would be complete ; but 
 it is hard to bid farewell to the ' all-round men,' having 
 only instead as their successors such semi -mechanical 
 scientists as we have pictured. Let it, however, be 
 remembered that the character of such successors is 
 not due to deficiency in the men, but rather to the 
 defective character of the training they have received. 
 
 And let it likewise be hopefully remembered that we 
 have everywhere amongst us those ' irregular regulars ' 
 who refuse to be bound by the traditions of the schools. 
 
 Our best have owned the rare dramatic power Not the 
 
 Which gives to sympathy its lifting hour ; bod y. bu * 
 
 Go learn of them, the masters of our Art, jg ^> 
 
 To trust that wise consultant called the heart. 
 There are among us those who haply please 
 To think our business is to treat disease, 
 And all unknowingly lack this lesson still. 
 'Tia not the body, but the man is ill. 1 
 
 Apart from the general character of a training that 
 produces a thousand careful observers for every exact 
 
 1 Dr. 8. Weir Mitchell, The Physician, Philad.
 
 16 
 
 THE FOECB OP MIND 
 
 Many 
 
 obserrers, 
 
 few 
 
 reasoners. 
 
 Morbid 
 minds and 
 meta- 
 bolism. 
 
 Monists or 
 dualists ? 
 
 Professor 
 Lodd on 
 reality of 
 mind. 
 
 reasoner, the whole trend of modern thought has long 
 been to force the psychical further and further away. 
 The mind is not only driven out of the body, but out 
 of the brain itself ; or, at any rate, is commonly 
 regarded as either a secretion of that organ, or a 
 curiously complicated mechanical reflex, dependent 
 on purely physical causes. 
 
 One paper read at the British Medical Association 
 at Cheltenham attempted to refer all morbid states of 
 mind to the action of various autotoxins arising from 
 imperfect metabolism, and, though the idea was 
 generally regarded as a reversion to the days when 
 mental symptoms and blue pill were inseparable, it 
 nevertheless expressed a view as to the material basis 
 of mind that is current amongst experimental 
 physiologists and their pupils. 
 
 And here we may pause a moment, before pro- 
 ceeding further, to make up our minds as to whether 
 we are monists, believing exclusively in either spirit 
 or matter ; or dualists, believing in both. 
 
 The former case includes both spiritualists and 
 materialists; the former holding that matter is a 
 function of spirit, and the latter that spirit is a func- 
 tion of matter. We need not consider either of these 
 positions here ; for in this book we definitely take the 
 place of Dualists, believing in both mind and body ; 
 without, however, dogmatising too curiously on the 
 nature of the former. While there is abundant room 
 for diversity of opinion, we may accept generally as 
 sufficient for our present purpose Professor Ladd's 
 latest deliberate statement on the subject when he 
 says : ' * The assumption that the mind is a real being 
 
 1 Professor Ladd, The Philosophy of Mind, p. 476.
 
 THE FOKCE OF MIND 17 
 
 which can be acted upon by the brain, and which can 
 act on the body through the brain, is the only one 
 compatible with all the facts of experience.' 
 
 Mind is therefore to us mind, and matter 
 matter. 
 
 ' We must firmly grasp the truth,' says Sir J. 0. 
 Browne, ' that mind is still enthroned apart, inac- 
 cessible save to itself ; that it has been in no sense 
 evolved from matter, and that it is altogether different 
 from the liberation of energy of the highest sensori- 
 motor centres. 1 Herbert Spencer, speaking of some Herbert 
 who fear that mind may possibly be interpreted in SnXa n 
 terms of matter, says : ' There is not the remotest matter - 
 possibility of so interpreting it.' 2 
 
 Generally speaking, we may regard the brain as 
 the principal seat of mind, although by no means its 
 exclusive sphere, which, indeed, extends throughout 
 the entire organism. It is curious to note here in 
 passing that Aristotle regarded the heart as the seat 
 of the soul, and the brain as an inert bloodless body 
 used to cool the heart ! 
 
 As dualists, therefore, the importance of our sub- The 
 ject is apparent the moment it is dispassionately 5S; tanoe 
 considered, unbiassed by its unpopularity important 
 because the mental is perhaps the one factor out of 
 many that is invariably present in some form in all 
 disease, while in functional nerve disease it has, of 
 course, a special and prominent place, and is there- 
 fore more readily recognised, whereas in general 
 cases it is easily overlooked. 
 
 In spite of the general apathy of which I have so 
 
 1 Sir J. 0. Browne at Leeds, 1889. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, First Principles of Psychology. 
 
 I
 
 18 
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 recognised 
 by many 
 medical 
 leaders. 
 
 By 
 
 Brodie, 
 Browne, 
 and Tuke. 
 
 Medical 
 neglect 
 encourages 
 quackery. 
 
 loudly complained, the psychological side of disease 
 has been recognised by many leaders in the profession. 
 Hunter, Laycock, Gairdner, Bastian, Beale, Clouston, 
 Holmes, Maudsley, Paget, Clark, Beynolds, besides 
 many others, speak of it. 
 
 Sir B. Brodie says : ' It is the business of medical 
 practitioners to study, not only the influence of the 
 mind on the body, but also that of the body on 
 the mind.' Dr. Lockhart Bobertson points out 
 that ' all engaged in the practice of the healing art 
 must learn to search out and understand the mental 
 and moral as well as the material causes of disease.' 
 
 Sir James Crichton Browne says: 1 'Medical psycho- 
 logy belongs to our whole medical profession . . . the 
 general practitioner cannot ignore it.' 
 
 Dr. Hack Tuke, in a fine passage, says : ' I want 
 medical men, who are in active practice, to utilise this 
 force, to yoke it to the car of the son of Apollo, and, 
 rescuing it from the eccentric orbits of quackery, force 
 it to tread with measured step the orderly paths of 
 legitimate medicine.' 2 
 
 This last remark is all -important, and especially 
 when considered in the light of Sir J. Paget's letter, 
 with which this chapter opens. There can be no 
 doubt that, had the mental factor in medicine been 
 recognised and studied by the profession, quackery 
 would never have attained the position it has in our 
 day. The more the range of influence of the mind on 
 the body in health and disease is ignored or narrowed, 
 the more charlatanism flourishes and credits itself with 
 cures really due to the mental factor for which we plead. 
 
 1 Leeds, 1889. 
 
 1 Dr. H. Take, Mind and Body, 2nd edit., voL L p. xiv.
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 19 
 
 The serious study of this power in therapeutics 
 was never more pressing than to-day. 'What we 
 need and want in medicine,' Dr. A. H. Carter 
 said not long since, ' is something corresponding to 
 those splendid flashes of imagination which yielded 
 the heliocentric theory of the planetary system, the 
 theory of gravitation, the undulatory theory of light* 
 the theory of evolution, and the germ theory of 
 infective disease some fundamental and far-reaching 
 generalisations in pathology and physiology which 
 would vivify and vitalise some part at least of the J^ 1 " 1 8 
 mass of dead material facts which have been accumu- material, 
 lated.' 
 
 Any student of a modern medical text-book, say on 
 physiology, can well understand how the mass of dead 
 material facts which fill its pages would be ' vitalised ' 
 if their dependence on the central directing force were 
 laid bare, and the unity that underlies diversity in man 
 demonstrated. 
 
 Plato vitalises the material when he says, 1 * The ^ e ^ a 
 good soul improves the body ; ' Professor Calderwood cbuston 
 when he says, 2 ' Mind and body form a unity of life. ^^ fl 
 Mind so acts on body that . . . the body performs 
 only a limited range of its functions without intelligent 
 direction. The unity is that of a rational life, mani- 
 festing itself in a rationally directed physical life.' 
 
 Professor Clouston, speaking of Dr. Laycock, the 
 teacher of Hughlings Jackson and Ferrier, points 
 out 3 that all the advantages are not with the students 
 of to-day. In Laycock's time examinations might 
 
 1 Plato, Republic, Book iii. 403. 
 
 * Professor Calderwood, The Relations of Mind and Brain, p. 817. 
 
 1 T. S. Clouston, Address Roy. Med. Soo. Edin., Oct. 1895.
 
 20 
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Also 
 
 Professors 
 Gairdner 
 and de 
 Fleury. 
 
 The philo- 
 sopher, 
 priest, and 
 alienist. 
 
 Wise 
 
 physicians 
 should 
 understand 
 spirit, soul, 
 and body. 
 
 have been less, but there was more speculation. To 
 him medical psychology and modern neurology owe 
 far more than they acknowledge. No man, before or 
 since, has had so wide a grasp of the position and 
 functions of the brain and its relation to mind, to 
 development, to bodily function, and to pathological 
 processes. 
 
 Professor Gairdner, as President of the British 
 Medical Association, says : ' We must acknowledge 
 the spiritual element in man is brought necessarily 
 into the sphere of the physician's daily work.' 
 
 De Fleury, observing that the medical treatment 
 of mind is yet a science in its infancy, says : ' The 
 modern doctor must understand the pathology and 
 hygiene of the intellect. There can be no doubt that 
 the fields of psycho-physiology, psycho-pathology, and 
 psycho-therapeutics are as yet almost untouched.' 
 
 The study of mind is now mainly relegated to the 
 philosopher, the priest, and the alienist ; but a sound 
 specialism after all can only be built on a solid and 
 broad generalisation. Philosophers and priests, how- 
 ever, are students of the mind and soul, and alienists 
 of the diseased mind ; what we need are physicians 
 trained in the knowledge of mind and body, and who 
 thus would prove better specialists than any of the 
 three. 
 
 Philosophy, theology, and medicine touch each 
 other to-day as they have ever done at certain points, 
 and there is a transition ground which is common to 
 all. On this ground the physician should stand with 
 as much authority as the priest or philosopher. The 
 Church no longer treats the soul and ignores the man ; 
 but the case of the human being as a whole spirit,
 
 THE FOECB OF MIND 21 
 
 soul, and body is increasingly coming to the front. 
 And in the same way the wise physician must grasp 
 the underlying unity of the spiritual and material, 
 and recognise that if the body may and does influence 
 diseases of the soul, so does the mind influence states 
 and diseases of the body. 
 
 I utterly refuse to regard the definite recognition No re . tr - 
 of the ' mental factor in medicine ' as a retrogression, bat an 
 It is, on the contrary, a step, and a great step, in 
 advance ; for the day is past when a physician can 
 bound his knowledge or his practice by the physical. 
 Laycock says : ' The most eminent and successful 
 physicians have all been psychologists ; for a know- 
 ledge of a practical science of mind is fundamentally 
 necessary to the practice of medicine.' 
 
 Sir J. C. Browne said at Leeds in 1889 : ' Success Success 
 or failure in a practitioner often depends as much on may 
 
 his expertness in moral treatment as on his skill in 
 simples ; ' while Sir H. Acland, speaking of the knowledge 
 ideal consultant, thus points out his mental qualities. 
 ' He is a great artist (German, Arzt), always genial, 
 always possesses his patient with the belief that hie 
 malady is of personal interest to his adviser.' 
 
 I do not wish to be too pessimistic in tone, for we 
 have reason to believe that medical practice is in- 
 creasingly influenced by the conception that man is 
 an organic whole, partly psychical, partly physical ; 
 not a mixture, but a compound of mind and matter, 
 so intimately united that the body cannot be moved 
 without the spirit, nor the spirit without the body. 
 
 I remember some little time ago, when addressing The clergy 
 a large number of London clergy on behalf of the r 
 
 man as a 
 
 National Health Society, impressing upon them that whole '
 
 22 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 if the physician cannot fully treat the body without 
 any reference to the spirit, neither can the clergy 
 care for the soul without any regard for the body. 
 Considerable impatience was shown by my audience 
 at my spending any time in elaborating a point which 
 to them seemed so obvious ; and afterwards they 
 told me that the day was past when the conception 
 of Christianity was limited to the soul. 
 
 theoreti- It may, indeed, be so in theory, but I have some 
 
 L practice. doubts whether the influence of the body upon the 
 mind is any more practically recognised by many of 
 the clergy than that of the mind on the body by 
 many physicians. True, the former have more 
 excuse for the neglect than the latter ; for, while the 
 mind is to some extent studied by the physician as 
 well as the body, there is no study of the physical (at 
 present) in a divinity course. 
 
 The So far we have been engrossed with the needs of 
 
 physician a ^ Q p a ^ en ^ an( j w ^jj fa e <j enc i enC y O f our training in 
 
 reference to him, but is there not a mind in the 
 physician as well as in the patient ; and may not 
 one mind have some power over another mind, as 
 well as mind over body ? In other words, may mind 
 not be used in therapeutics objectively as well as 
 subjectively ? 
 
 Curiously enough, this question is, as a rule, neither 
 asked nor answered in our schools, text-books, hospitals, 
 or consulting rooms. 
 
 Most Still, there lurks in the mind of every doctor who 
 
 reads these pages a suspicion that he has a something 
 
 perceive about him which is of value to his patient over and 
 
 they have 
 
 a personal beyond the outward and visible sign of his faith in 
 drugs, as obscurely manifested in the crabbed hiero-
 
 THE FOECB OF MIND 23 
 
 glyphics on his prescriptions. And there is a 
 consciousness, too, in every actual or potential patient 
 who may scan these lines, that there is a something 
 about his doctor that does him more good than the 
 medicines, which indeed he rarely takes. And the 
 doctor he likes is the one he sends for ; in spite of 
 the fact that the other doctor in the town has a 
 greater scientific reputation, and a longer string of 
 letters after his name. 
 
 It is, I think, sufficiently clear that one great cause, Psychic 
 if not indeed the chief one, of the difference between 3 1 " 
 a successful and an unsuccessful practitioner of similar succesB - 
 medical attainments must lie in the contrast of their 
 respective psychic qualities. A man's physique is 
 something, even the dress and carriage are something, 
 but neither is to be compared with the mind and 
 character as elements of success. 
 
 How often do we find ourselves puzzled to account These are 
 for the phenomenal fame and rapid rise of some re^caSse 
 medical brother, which, perhaps, with that touch of 
 professional jealousy rarely, alas ! wholly absent, we 
 put down to his ' cheek,' or ' push,' or ' advertising 
 methods,' all of which of course we scorn; when 
 the truth is that his success is due to the value of the 
 mental factor in medicine, therapeutically used by 
 him, consciously or unconsciously, in benefiting his 
 patients' bodies by influencing their minds. 
 
 How many distinguished ornaments of our profes- 
 sion are wholly unconscious of the real agent which 
 has placed them in their exalted position ! 
 
 There are two mighty powers for good in every Aphy- 
 physician worthy of the name what he knows and assets are 
 
 what he is ; but, alas ! as a rule he only values the 
 
 what he is.
 
 24 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 former ; this book is written that he may better value 
 the latter. 
 
 I venture to think my opening thesis is now 
 fully proved, that ' though leaders in the profession 
 have recognised the importance of the mental factor 
 in medicine in all ages, it is generally ignored to-day.'
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE UNIT7 OF MIND 
 
 'As the action of the mental factor in disease is 
 unconscious, it cannot be recognised as mental by those 
 who limit mind to consciousness. The word "mind" 
 must therefore be extended to include all psychic action.' 
 
 I HAVE now striven at some length to show the impor- One 
 tance of the mental factor in medicine, and pass on to 
 first consider the essential point raised in the sentence 8ettled - 
 that heads this chapter before I proceed to examine 
 how this power can be practically used for the 
 benefit of our patients. It appears to me that no true 
 grasp of any science can be really obtained until its Combining 
 deep underlying principles and their laws are grasped. 
 The superficial diversities are apparent enough, and 
 easily lend themselves to endless analyses and descrip- 
 tions and investigations ; but the deep foundation- 
 unities are hidden, and require some searching to find 
 them. The law of gravitation was one of these, and 
 its discovery gave to the motions of the heavenly 
 bodies, amid all their apparent diversity, an underlying 
 unity that explained the movement of every star and 
 planet in the heavens. It did no less for dynamics. 
 It is this force, so far inscrutable, that determines the 
 position of every molecule of matter in the universe.
 
 26 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 In physiology, amid the bewildering surface multipli- 
 cities of organs and processes, we cannot but recognise 
 also a deep underlying somatic unity preserved by some 
 The unity inscrutable force. In the science of psychology, if it 
 physiology. ^ ever to rise from the chaos of isolated facts, so 
 pitilessly described by James as its present condition, 
 the essential unity of all mental processes must be 
 grasped and consciousness no longer be deified, but 
 take her place as an invaluable handmaiden, who lights 
 up many of these processes for our inspection and under- 
 standing ; leaving the rest, equally mental in character, 
 to be inferred and deduced by many other means. 
 The The unity of mind is a truth as needful to lay hold 
 
 Sfof * o f as the unity of body, and I venture to say that, had it 
 mind. b een as firmly held as Newton's law of gravitation, the 
 sciences not only of psychology but of medicine and 
 physiology would have benefited by a grasp of their sub- 
 jects that they cannot possess as long as the unconscious 
 mind is denied, or the mental factor in medicine ignored. 
 James's I will therefore seek, as briefly as may be, to give 
 
 of Smd n evidence in support of James's definition of mind, which 
 goes far beyond consciousness, when he lays down 
 that ' psychic action consists of the pursuit of definite 
 ends with choice of means.' 
 
 The classic Speaking of the classic frog, immortalised in every 
 physiology, which, when the foot of the leg in which 
 the thigh had been cauterised with acid was cut off, 
 stroked the place with the other foot after the removal 
 of the brain cortex, James further says : ' If purpose 
 remains the same where the means are different, 
 there is mind.' * 
 
 1 Sir M. Foster, in his Physiology, part iii. pp. 980, 981 (7th edit.), 
 doubts the association of any intelligence with the ' choice ' shown by
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 27 
 
 With this definition the fact of the unconscious 
 mind needs little further proof ; for in this case all 
 those higher centres that alone could possibly be 
 associated with consciousness had been removed. 
 Flourens' hens and Voit's pigeons and generations Fiourens 1 
 of rabbits and guinea-pigs have all added their dumb Voit's 
 testimony to the fact that psychic acts can be per- P'^ 60118 - 
 formed when all the highest conscious psychic centres 
 have been removed ; and this, not as the result of 
 having formed some artificial sensori-motor reflex 
 by dint of frequent repetition, but where acts have 
 been done for the first time, as the results of nervous 
 stimuli. These acts, we may add, performed wholly 
 unconsciously, vary in nothing from those done in 
 consciousness ; and not only so, but we may descend 
 further in the scale, and see everywhere evidence of 
 mental purposive action. If we carefully consider the 
 following example of reaching a fixed end by choice of 
 means in novel circumstances, we must feel that no 
 elaboration of mere mechanism can account for it. 
 
 The Arcellae possess a distinct nucleus and a Purposive 
 concave-convex shell. In the middle of the concavity aSoaba* 
 is an opening through which the pseudopodia (or feelers) 
 project, appearing as clear protuberances at the edge 
 of the shell. If a drop of water containing Arcellse 
 be placed under the microscope, it often occurs that 
 one of them is lying on his back, so that the pseudo- 
 podia cannot reach any support. 
 
 It is then observed that near the edge on one side 
 minute bubbles of gas appear in the protoplasm, tilting 
 
 the frog in this case. G. H. Lewes, I may point out, removed the 
 whole brain from a frog, after which ' there was no lack of sponta- 
 neous movement, and the animal remained quite lively.'
 
 28 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 it up as it becomes lighter, so that the animal can 
 reach the slide with its feelers and turn over. Then 
 the gas bubbles disappear, and the animal crawls away. 
 Evidence If a little water containing Arcellae be put on the 
 In SL. under side of a covered glass, and the latter placed in a 
 gas chamber (so as to leave the drop of water hanging 
 unsupported), the animalcule first sinks to the bottom 
 of the water away from the glass. Finding here 
 nothing to lay hold of as it expected, since the water 
 in this case is pendent, large bubbles of gas are 
 developed in its body, and the animal floats up to the 
 glass again. If it touches the glass so that it cannot 
 reach it with its feelers, it then diminishes the gas 
 bubbles on one side or increases them on the other, 
 so as to tilt up one side till it turns over. Then the 
 bubbles disappear, and the animal walks away. 
 Whenever the Arcellas are in any inconvenient position, 
 they correct it by developing gas, which disappears 
 when the purpose is accomplished. No mechanical 
 theory can account for this apparently intelligent 
 psychic action. 1 
 
 Sirwniiam Sir William Dawson says : ' An amoeba shows 
 
 voiitdon in* volition, appetite, and passion. One, trying to swallow 
 
 amoebae. a one-celled plant as long as its own body, evidently 
 
 hungry and eager to devour it, stretched itself to its 
 
 full extent, trying to envelop the plant. It failed 
 
 again and again, but repeated the attempt ; until at 
 
 length, convinced of its hopelessness, it flung itself 
 
 away, and made off in search of something more 
 
 manageable.' 
 
 Romanes Romanes, describing a fight between two rotifers, 
 
 ~~ the battle ' lasted several minutes, till eventually 
 
 Professor Engelmann, Pfliiger's Archiv filr Physiologie.
 
 THE UNITY OP MIND 29 
 
 the small rotifer was thrown violently away. It then 
 returned to the conflict, but did not succeed a second 
 time in establishing its hold. The entire scene was 
 as like intelligent action on the part of both animals as 
 could well be imagined.' ' 
 
 'If we let our gaze travel beyond the creatures Mind 
 
 ,, , i T f ' t IT i belowthe 
 
 that are possessed of a glimmer of intelligence and protozoa, 
 consciousness,' says Maeterlinck, ' beyond the protozoa 
 even, which are the first nebulous representatives of 
 the dawning animal kingdom, we find, as has been 
 abundantly proved by the experiments of Mr. H. J. 
 Carter, the celebrated microscopist, that the very 
 lowest embryos, such as the myxomycetes, manifest a 
 will and desire and preferences ; and that infusoria, 
 which apparently have no organism whatever, give 
 evidence of a certain cunning. The amoebae, for 
 instance, will patiently lie in wait for the new-born 
 acinetes as they leave the maternal ovary, being 
 aware that these must as yet be lacking their poisonous 
 tentacles.' 2 
 
 But even this is not all. Many physiological Psychism 
 psychologists (e.g. G. H. Lewes) have seen proofs of ^iS 
 mental action where the brain is wholly absent. centre8 - 
 There appears to be some mental action even in the 
 independent functions of the spinal cord and its 
 ganglia. Dr. Macpherson, of Edinburgh, records a case 
 that shows this. He says that ' a mere segment of an 
 earwig will fight with a segment of an Australian ant, 
 under the unmistakable influence of rage, until exhaus- 
 tion or death ensues.' 3 Those who refuse to recognise 
 
 1 G. Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p. 18. 
 f Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee, p. 280. 
 Dr. Macpheraon, Mental Affections, p. 100.
 
 80 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 mind below man, or at any rate below the higher verte- 
 brates, will dismiss all these instances with the remark 
 inatinct is that all this is the expression of mere instinct. But 
 sdous in instinct the end is constant though the means are 
 various, which is a characteristic of true mental actions 
 (James) as distinguished from merely mechanical re- 
 flexes, if indeed there are such processes in the body at 
 all. Sensation is of course present in the spinal cord, 
 which, however, as G. H. Lewes points out, 1 by no 
 means implies consciousness. In spite, however, of 
 the endless proofs that can be adduced of purposive 
 action of unconscious origin, similar in all essentials 
 to that performed in consciousness, there are psy- 
 chologists to whom mind is still only consciousness 
 and only consciousness is mind. 
 
 why fight It may be said, why fight over words ? If English 
 words? psychologists in the main agree to limit mind to 
 consciousness, in order possibly to prevent the exten- 
 sion of the word to the faculties of lower animals, 
 what does it matter, and what difference does it make ? 
 Well, let us look at the question fairly. Words, after 
 all, are not worth fighting for in themselves ; it is the 
 thought that underlies them that is of importance. 
 What do If you say ' mind ' and mean thereby the phenomena 
 by the that centre round consciousness, and I say 'mind* 
 ^Sd'? an( * mean aN those phenomena that are not material, 
 characterised generally also by purpose and the 
 adaptation of means to ends, we mean two very 
 different things. In both these cases we necessarily 
 restrict our remarks to human beings, for it is the 
 misfortune of the narrower psychology that it cannot 
 prove or even admit consciousness, nor, therefore, 
 
 1 G. H. Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii.
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 31 
 
 mind, in any with whom it cannot exchange thoughts, 
 though both may be present. Of course, this cuts impossible 
 both ways ; and, strictly speaking, it is equally im- j5^J y exiBtB 
 possible to prove unconsciousness. The secondary outside 
 consciousness, shown in so many hypnotic experiments, conscious- 
 of the deeper personality which is revealed when nesfl * 
 ordinary consciousness is in abeyance, may exist. 
 But we still retain the term ' unconscious mind ' here 
 as the best available term, seeing that we use the word 
 ' consciousness ' simply in its common signification, as 
 referring exclusively to the ordinary consciousness of 
 a healthy man ; and not to any possible subsidiary 
 consciousness of which he is not conscious. 
 
 But the great evil of this limitation of ' mind ' is, NO mind 
 as pointed out elsewhere, that its adherents, in SlSSa?* 
 common with materialists, Haeckelian monists, Jack- J^* "*" 
 sonianparallelists, et hoc genus omne, unite in declaring 
 that all extra-conscious processes are purely the 
 ' functional activity of the brain.' 
 
 What Ebbinghaus calls ' the vulgar prejudice of 
 the absolute distinction between mind and matter ' may 
 bias the writer in common with others, but it is well 
 to note that the point does not rest there. 
 
 If we grant, with Ebbinghaus and Spinoza, that 
 mind and matter are but two aspects of the same 
 thing, the names then refer merely to aspects that is, 
 to appearances ; and if we are to believe that purpose, 
 adaptation, and what we call signs of intelligence are 
 the marks of the ' mind's ' appearance, we still reach 
 our definition of mind. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we are, as already declared, 
 staunch dualists, where, then, does the ' conscious psy- 
 chologist ' stand ? Between the horns of a dilemma. 
 
 D
 
 32 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Th e He must either relegate all processes below conscious- 
 
 oMhe* ness to material agencies a concession of no value to 
 
 conscious' the materialist or to any else, or he must destroy the 
 
 Fo'gist. " force of words ; for no amount of distinctions he 
 
 may draw between consciousness, self-consciousness, 
 
 dim consciousness, &c., can alter the fact that processes 
 
 as purely mental in character proceed entirely out of 
 
 all consciousness as truly as in it. 
 
 A name This is no question of choice ; it is a matter of 
 
 '"Sio absolute necessity, felt by every writer on kindred 
 
 force ia subjects, that we should have some intelligible term 
 
 to distinguish the remarkable force this book speaks 
 
 of ; and it is not to fight about words, but on account 
 
 of the necessity stated in the thesis at the head of 
 
 this chapter, that I write this. 
 
 'Nature 1 We have, as a matter of fact, no intermediate word 
 
 *Physio- *kat * s intelligible, to describe anything between the 
 logy 1 are conscious mental and the material or mechanical, such 
 ntmes? terms as Nature or Physiology being unintelligible. We 
 are therefore forced either to describe psychic processes 
 as mechanical which are not accompanied by conscious- 
 ness, or to extend the word ' mind ' as suggested. I 
 There is a have previously stated that the unity in diversity shown 
 SdtyS 111 * by the body as a whole as much postulates a central 
 the body, guiding power as the evolutions of an army prove the 
 existence of a commander-in-chief. It is curious to see 
 that G. H. Lewes, in his remarkable work on Physio- 
 logy, admits the need of the officers, but denies the 
 necessity of a general. He says : 1 ' There is unity, 
 there is a consensus of the whole organism ... it is 
 due to organic subordination ... all act together 
 ... as all the parts of an army act together, by 
 
 1 G. H. Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, ii. 421.
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 33 
 
 officers and discipline. The unity is an aggregate of 
 forces, not a presiding force.' 
 
 This makes the body a confederation or a syndicate, 
 not a unity ; and thus stops just short of the truth. 
 
 I may now, with advantage, quote Professor 
 James's exact words (to which I have already alluded) 
 in his description of a science erected on an artificial 
 basis, and ignoring the essential unity that underlies 
 all mental action. These are the words : : ' Psychology Professor 
 is but a string of raw facts, a little gossip and wrangle 
 about opinions, a little classification and generalisation 
 on the mere descriptive level, a strong prejudice that psycho- 
 we have states of mind, and that our brain conditions ogy * 
 them ; but not a single law in the sense in which 
 physics shows us laws. At present psychology is in 
 the condition of physics before Galileo and the laws of 
 motion, or of chemistry before Lavoisier.' 
 
 Dr. J. Macpherson, of Edinburgh, points out the The 
 reason of this chaos : 2 ' The futility of psychology to JJ^ g 
 account for the majority of mental reactions is largely chaos 
 due to the attempt to explain these by terms of 
 consciousness.' 
 
 A psychology so hide-bound lands us in endless 
 difficulties. Bastian cogently remarks that 3 ' if we 
 are, as so many philosophers tell us, to regard the 
 sphere of mind as coextensive with the sphere of exp iained 
 consciousness, we shall find mind reduced to a mere ]^ ackenzie 
 imperfect disjointed series of agglomerations of feel- d 
 ings, and conscious states of various kinds while a 
 multitude of initial or intermediate nerve actions 
 
 1 W. James, Principles of Psychology, i. 468. 
 
 Dr. J. Macpherson, Mental Affections (1899), p. 97. 
 
 C. Bastian, Brain as an Organ of Mind, p. 146. 
 
 D2
 
 84 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 would have no claim to be included under this 
 category.' 
 
 The result on physiology is no less disastrous ; for, 
 
 following the shibboleth of psychology, and therefore 
 
 consistently ignoring any mental action performed 
 
 out of consciousness, it is in a cruel dilemma. Too 
 
 The chaos honest to attribute the purposive actions it observes 
 
 g hy&1 ~ (at. an y rate entirely) to sensori-motor reflexes, it 
 
 invokes, even in serious text-books of recent date, 
 
 female deities already known to us under the names of 
 
 ' Nature,' ' Physiology,' and the like, to account for 
 
 the phenomena. 
 
 conscious The doctrine of a mind limited to consciousness 
 automata p r0( juces in man the ' conscious automaton ' of Hughes 
 and others. These affirm that emotions are laid on 
 the surface of the man as colours on a tile mosaic, 
 and cannot affect the body in any way. I can only 
 say that any view more disastrous to the successful 
 treatment of disease could not well be conceived. 
 
 Clifford also follows with the same idea, that 
 all unconscious actions must be mechanical and 
 automatic. 
 
 But with the best scientists the days of the 
 1 conscious automaton ' are gone. The necessity, 
 indeed, of invoking a ' Nature ' with a capital N shows 
 this. There was a time in physiology not so long 
 since, when it was thought that a mechanical law of 
 1 vital ^ diffusion and osmosis accounted for the absorption 
 WP'U^. of oxygen and of food. We know now that both 
 are the result of some vital action which is 
 one of the complex properties of the epithelial 
 cells that line the alveoli and the digestive tract. 
 These pursue a selective and purposive end with a
 
 THE UNITY OP MIND 35 
 
 persistence that no mechanical theory can explain ; 
 nor is it accounted for by the fact, so insisted on by 
 G. H. Lewes, that the vital phenomena displayed by 
 the human machine depend upon it differing from 
 ordinary machines in being essentially a sensori- 
 mechanism. 
 
 I will now proceed to show by further evidence 
 that I do not stand alone in thus seeking to extend 
 the word 'mind' BO as to embrace all psychic 
 action. 1 
 
 In 1888 the Aristotelian Society held a special MM 
 meeting to decide if ' Mind is synonymous with Con- edto" 
 sciousness.' It was settled in the negative. Pro- conscious 
 fessor Shadworth H. Hodgson, President of the 
 Society, said : ' It seems to me that both usage and 
 accuracy of definition alike concur in deciding the 
 question in the negative, for if we identify mind with 
 consciousness, what are we to do with those states 
 commonly called mental which are below the threshold 
 of consciousness, and some kinds of which never rise 
 above ? ' With this Dr. G. Ritchie (Oxford) and many 
 others agreed. I am of opinion that this deliberate 
 discussion and decision on this subject carries con- 
 siderable weight, particularly when the arguments 
 adduced are considered. 
 
 Eibot says of the mind, it has two ' parallel modes of Ribot and 
 activity, the one conscious, and the other unconscious.' 2 ^ u ^ 8 e ley 
 Maudsley points out that ' it is a truth that cannot be 8ame - 
 too distinctly borne in mind, that consciousness is not 
 coextensive with mind ; that it is not mind, but an 
 
 1 For farther proofs and a review of the whole subject, see the 
 Author's Unconscious Mind, 2nd edit. (Hodder & Stoughton). 
 * Eibot, Heredity, p. 221.
 
 3G 
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Professors 
 Hofifding 
 and Jamei 
 extend 
 sphere of 
 mind. 
 
 Mind can- 
 not be 
 limited to 
 what we 
 ee of it. 
 
 We have 
 
 other 
 
 mental 
 
 tenses 
 
 betide* 
 
 sight 
 
 incidental accompaniment of mind ; ' that ' the whole 
 business of mental function as work might go on 
 without consciousness, just as the machinery of a 
 clock might work without a dial. It is a necessary 
 concomitant, not an energy at work in the manufacture 
 of the mental organism. The misfortune is that 
 ordinary language assumes it to be a kind of superior 
 energy.' * Professor Hofifding, while himself confining 
 mind to consciousness, admits that psychological laws 
 prevail beyond the province of conscious life, and that 
 conscious actions are largely the result of unconscious 
 influences, which determine a large part of conscious 
 life ; and he compares conscious life to a coral island 
 which rests on in visible (mental) strata below the surf ace. 
 
 Professor James not only extends the scope of 
 mind beyond orthodox limits, but denies that con- 
 sciousness proves anything. He says 2 that the fact of 
 ' a person feeling nothing is no proof that no feeling 
 has been there.' 
 
 Consciousness after all only represents what I see of 
 my mind ; but surely there are many ways of detecting 
 its presence besides sight ; and one might as well limit 
 the body to what one can see of it, ignoring those 
 parts that are discerned by touch, as make conscious- 
 ness the only proof of mind. We can, of course, see 
 the image of our faces in a glass, but we can just as 
 clearly see the unconscious mind reflected in actions, 
 and we have no more right to deny the existence of 
 the one than of the other. To say you cannot know 
 you think or feel, unless you are conscious, is to say 
 one cannot tell a man is a watchmaker unless one 
 
 1 H. Maudaley, Mind and Body, p. 25, and Mind, xii. 503. 
 * Prof. W. James, Principles of Psychology, i. 211.
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 37 
 
 actually sees him make the watch ; whereas one reaches 
 this conclusion by seeing the watch itself which he 
 has made. In like manner, the results of unconscious 
 thought seen in consciousness prove the existence of 
 the unconscious mind. We must not only get rid of 
 the idea that consciousness is mind, but also that it is 
 the only proof of mind. 
 
 Mind, in fact, may be conscious, sub-conscious, or Mind may 
 unconscious. The second state may be brought into be^ a y . no< 
 consciousness by effort, the last cannot. SCIOUB. 
 
 Once this is seen, the difficulty felt from all time 
 as to the recognition of some unconscious mental 
 power that governs physical life disappears. The Ancients 
 ancients ever sought to understand the unconscious underhan 
 mind, and in modern writings we see everywhere men JJJJ, con " 
 groping in search of it. mind. 
 
 The word ' physiology ' was first used by Hippo- 
 crates, and compounded from the word 'phusis,' which 
 meant some essence, some spiritual entity which kept 
 the processes of the body in order. Aristotle included 
 in the functions of his 'Anima' the regulation of 
 nutrition and other processes ; but Descartes narrowed Descartes 
 it down to consciousness under the word ' Mens,' to " d 
 the great detriment of subsequent sciences. amadous- 
 
 The ' Archaeus ' of Van Helmont, as Sir Henry 
 Holland points out, as well as the ' Anima ' of Stahl 
 and the ' Pneuma ' of Galen, refers to an active im- 
 material principle, producing and controlling the 
 actions of the system, by operations neither chemical 
 nor mechanical. These terms were suggested by the Certain 
 imperative need that was felt and the effort that resulted Sventrf. 
 to find something intermediate between conscious mind 
 and body some middle agency that might give a
 
 38 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 show of explanation of the actions of the former on 
 the latter. No doubt many think we have outgrown 
 this ancient lore in the twentieth century, but it is 
 not so ; nor can it be so, as long as the need exists of 
 which there can be no doubt at present. 
 
 Professor James, though, as we have seen, free 
 Question from shackles of the old psychology, does not seem 
 consc'iona wholly happy in the thought of an unconscious 
 mind ; and rather hugs his old fetters when he 
 says ! that consciousness may be split up into two 
 parts, one of which he calls ' a secondary or sub- 
 conscious self.' 2 
 
 Female Hack Tuke speaks of the ' automatic action of the 
 
 Worshipped hemispheres,' while Sir Michael Foster and others 
 
 n modem invoke (as we have said) ' Physiology ' herself and 
 
 y ' ' Nature,' as the female deities that preside over 
 
 physical processes. .In short, any and every term is 
 
 preferred, however meaningless and unintelligible, to 
 
 1 W. James, Principles of Psychology, i. 210. 
 
 * Bramwell and others point out that what we term the uncon- 
 scious mind, which is active in the hypnotic state and in dreams, 
 when ordinary consciousness is in abeyance, has a consciousness of 
 its own. This doubtless is so, but involves with it the idea of a 
 double ego. Now, writing as we are for the simple and prac- 
 tical man, medical or otherwise, it would be the height of folly to 
 obscure the plain issues here raised by speaking of consciousness 
 in any sense but that ordinarily used ; and that is the mental sight 
 and insight attaching to our ordinary ego, and which does not 
 embrace the states of the 'unconscious mind.' The point is of 
 Interest as affording definite proof that we have a long range of mind 
 beyond the limits of ordinary consciousness, and also may show 
 that the term ' unconscious mind,' like so many others, may be more 
 convenient than accurate. But we must refuse to pursue the 
 question of double, and even treble, personalities further here, as this 
 whole chapter is only preliminary to our real subject, which is 
 4 The Mental Factor in Medicine.'
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 39 
 
 that which seems to me so accurately descriptive. 
 All this and much more show that the need is as 
 present as ever, and probably were it not for Descartes 
 and his disciples the meaning of the word 'mind* 
 would have long since been extended to meet it. 
 
 The ' unconscious mind ' is, then, the best term I Uncon. 
 can find for this power which we all have to recognise 
 in medicine ; and I use the phrase in the same way 
 that we say ' the sun sets,' as convenient and descrip- 
 tive, but possibly not as severely scientific as it sounds ; 
 for psychology is as yet, as we have seen, a science in 
 its (rather elderly) infancy. 
 
 I have dwelt somewhat fully on this theme of the Great 
 ' unconscious mind ' because it is perhaps one of J^P ortano% 
 greater practical importance to physicians than to any physicians. 
 others, excepting parents and teachers. To these the 
 knowledge and study of the unconscious mind are 
 absolutely essential when the unconscious powers that 
 constitute the character are being formed, and the lines 
 on which a successful life may be built laid down : 
 that is, if the true methods of education are to be 
 understood and definite schemes of character-building 
 pursued. 1 But it is to the physician, as we have said, 
 that this knowledge is all-important, and because of 
 these two facts first, that almost all the action of 
 the mind upon the body, as a factor in disease or The action 
 therapeutics, is exercised unconsciously ; and, secondly, conscl ^Ts" 
 
 that most of the action of the physician's mind and 
 personality upon his patients is also unconscious. The The action 
 limits of the powers of the conscious mind in either conscious 
 of these two actions are extremely narrow and well- 
 
 1 See further on this subject, The Springs of Character, by the 
 Author. (Hodder & Stoughton.)
 
 40 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 defined, whereas unconscious mental action is indefinite 
 and extensive. A physician, therefore, who only 
 recognises the former, and is compelled by his creed 
 to ignore the latter, necessarily stands at a great 
 disadvantage ; we are forced, in fact, with regard to 
 this matter, to use the words of Bastian : 
 Mind must * This is no question of choice, but one of absolute 
 mdude all j^gggj^ rpjjQ mean i n g O f the word " mind " must be 
 p^diio considerably enlarged so as to include ... as mental 
 action. phenomena, the functional results of all nerve actions 
 . . . whether these nerve actions are accompanied by 
 a recognised conscious phasis or no.' ' Let us enlarge 
 our conception and definition of mind. Let us openly 
 profess that which has already been tacitly implied by 
 many. Instead of supposing that mind and conscious- 
 ness are co-extensive, let us make mind include all 
 unconscious nerve actions. We must inevitably come 
 to this, and the doctrine of " unconscious cerebration " 
 [Carpenter] has served to pave the way for it. And 
 we are coming to it rapidly, and once we reach it all 
 difficulty as to the mental factor in medicine will 
 disappear.' ! 
 
 The idea The evolution of psychology itself shows that there 
 
 unit^of is progress even in that science. The idea of the unity 
 
 mm win 8 ^ m ^ n< ^ i fl distinctly growing. For a long time 
 
 intellect, emotion, and will were studied and regarded 
 
 almost entirely as three independent entities. They 
 
 were self-contained factors, connected, it is true ; but 
 
 the unity they formed was largely lost sight of in the 
 
 description of their differing qualities ; somewhat in 
 
 1 C. Bastian, Brain as an Organ of Mind, p. 148. I do not 
 consider that mind consists of nerve actions, as the passage might 
 Imply. Mind is the psychic cause or result of nerve action.
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 41 
 
 the same way that the unity of the body is often 
 forgotten in specialism. 
 
 Even when the error and fallacy of such a view 
 of the mind as this was seen, and the constant inter- 
 dependence and inseparable nature of its three powers 
 were perceived, theories of isolated states of conscious- 
 ness, of the atomic theory of mind, and other vagaries 
 succeeded. 
 
 But once the unity of mind is apprehended even And this 
 dimly, it paves the way for the gradual displacement 
 
 of consciousness as its synonym. Of course the struggle ne88 ^ 9 lta 
 is long and severe, and every shift has been made by 
 those who cling to the old formula to explain that the 
 unconscious is after all the conscious, or at any rate in no 
 is sub-consciousness, or sub-liminal consciousness or 
 secondary consciousness ; in short is a consciousness 
 of which we are not conscious. So gallantly will men 
 fight for an old creed in terms that show the cause is 
 already lost. 
 
 It needs no words of mine to prove that when 
 psychologists are reduced to such shifts it is a sure 
 sign the truth is pressing hard upon them, and must 
 ere long lead to a still further revision of their phrase- 
 ology, so as to admit wholly unconscious mental 
 processes ; and thus lead them up eventually, if logical, Mind is 
 to the position of the more advanced teachers ; and to 
 recognise the grand psychic unity, and the fact that 
 mind is mind, whether illumined by the fitful rays of 
 consciousness or not. 
 
 The terms 'conscious mind' and 'unconscious 
 mind ' are in themselves misleading, and give the idea 
 there are two minds, and thus obscure its essential 
 unity. I only use the latter term here provisionally
 
 42 
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 But 
 mind is 
 
 essentially 
 one, 
 
 whether in 
 darkness 
 or light. 
 
 Advancing 
 
 physiology 
 proves the 
 unity of 
 Tniud. 
 
 The latent 
 Interval in 
 reflexes. 
 
 until ' mind ' means all mind, and not only, as now, a 
 small part of it. The mind is one ; but, as I have 
 said, while one part is in constant illumination, another 
 is never lighted by consciousness ; and between the 
 two stretches a tract of uncertain extent that is some- 
 times in light and sometimes in darkness the sub- 
 conscious region. 
 
 Physiology leads the way here. T. White, in ' Mind/ 
 has pointed out l that ' the facts of physiology have 
 at length led psychologists to see that states of con- 
 sciousness form only a portion of the mental life, and 
 have as background sub-consciousness and uncon- 
 sciousness. At first it seems like a contradiction to 
 speak of facts of unconsciousness as belonging to 
 psychology ; but when it is considered that the same 
 changes in the nervous system may be accompanied 
 by consciousness, or some sub-conscious change, it is 
 evident that mind must consist of other elements than 
 those which appear in consciousness. The study of 
 physiology was necessary to bring out clearly the con- 
 ception of unconscious feelings as facts in mental 
 phenomena.' 
 
 It has been recently remarked physiologically that 
 in the sensori-motor reflexes as well as in conscious 
 acts no continuous mechanism has been proved, and 
 also that the space of time that intervenes between the 
 arrival of the stimulus and the issue of the mandate 
 seems to postulate between the two or between the 
 conscious causal idea, emotion, or will, and the 
 physical effects in the body, some unconscious agent 
 of mind, which produces results that the initial cause 
 itself could not effect ; and there can be no doubt that 
 ' T. White, Mini-. iL 506.
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 43 
 
 when Golgi and Cajal demonstrated the independence The a- 
 of the neurons of Waldeyer and the discontinuance of 
 the nervous mechanism it gave a better physiological 
 basis for the existence of the unconscious mind, which 
 may constitute the necessary link and agent. 
 
 It has also long been observed that but very few 
 of the effects on the body, even in the case of the con- 
 tractions of the voluntary muscles, are the definite 
 purposive result of the action of intellect, emotion, 
 or will. On nearly all, the mind can consciously 
 only act indirectly ; by this means we can will the Conscious 
 purpose, but not the means. The predisposing cause SSSpoSg, 
 of the bodily state, we may say, is the conscious mind JJJSS" 
 and will; the exciting or efficient cause is the un- mind 
 
 . , exciting. 
 
 COnSClOUS mind. cause of 
 
 Perhaps I may pause here for one moment in 
 the belief that the non-psychological reader, whose 
 eyes must have widened as he reads the story of 
 the horrid conflict this chapter records over the 
 meaning of the word 'mind,' will by now have clearly 
 grasped that to a large, learned, and ordinarily sedate 
 section of the community the very term ' the un- 
 conscious mind ' acts as a real irritant, pretty much 
 as a red rag to a bull. We may perhaps claim some von 
 slight merit here in having steadfastly refrained, in 
 spite of the greatest temptation, from giving one quoted! 
 single quotation from Von Hartmann's ponderous 
 monograph on ' The Unconscious Mind,' recognising 
 from past experience that the very name of the 
 distinguished Professor is ' anathema ' to the orthodox 
 psychologist. One word more. 
 
 The author's Machiavellian cunning in his choice 
 of a name for this book will by this have become
 
 44 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 The title of apparent; as it dawns upon the reader that, while 
 
 wty 00 the whole work is on the powers of the unconscious 
 
 chosen. mind, no hint of this appears in the title, though 
 
 indeed it was not easy to exclude it. The ' Force of 
 
 Mind' as a title is without offence; and while the 
 
 * Mental Factor' as a substitute may give rise to 
 
 questions, it will not prevent the purchase of the book 
 
 by those who differ from me with regard to my view 
 
 of the scope of mind. 
 
 Are there it is of course still a question in physiology if 
 
 two nervo- . ,. , i i i 1-1 i 
 
 muscular the sympathetic and cerebro-spmal nerves should be 
 classed as two separate systems ; and with their 
 muscles, smooth and striped, be designated respec- 
 tively voluntary and involuntary or not. As a matter 
 of fact, hardly a muscle in the body, whether striped 
 or unstriped, is under the control of the conscious will, 
 while every muscle of both systems is constantly 
 contracted and relaxed at the dictates of the uncon- 
 scious emotions, instincts, &c., as well as secondarily 
 to carry out some mandate of the conscious will. 
 
 And now, before I proceed in the next chapter 
 to give some illustrations of the action of the un- 
 conscious mind upon the body in health, let me give, 
 if my readers are not quite exhausted, a final picture 
 of what I mean by a term that has not yet passed 
 A final into current use. Professor Lazarus says : we have 
 the u^n. first of all to remember that our psychic life is made 
 ^*| 8 up of conscious and unconscious elements. We think 
 of consciousness as a brightly illuminated sphere 
 surrounded with widely extended darkness, with the 
 dim elements, though outside consciousness, co- 
 operating with those within in a state of co- vibration. 
 
 1 Prof. Lazarus in Mind, ' Das Leben der Seek,' vii. 599.
 
 THE UNITY OF MIND 45 
 
 Once, of course, we admit that we can have thoughts 
 and not be conscious of them, and perform actions 
 and not be conscious of them, it is evident that no 
 theory of mind which does not include the uncon- 
 scious is adequate ; unless, as is sometimes done, the 
 meaning of consciousness is desperately stretched so as 
 to include its opposite, which is of course to destroy 
 the meaning of words. 
 
 Our conscious mind, as compared with the un- The con- 
 conscious mind, has been likened to the visible spec- mlndag 
 trum of the sun's rays, as compared with the invisible *^ ctru 
 part which stretches indefinitely on either side. We 
 know now that the chief part of heat comes from the 
 ultra-red rays that show no light, and the main part 
 of the chemical changes in the vegetable world are 
 the result of the ultra-violet rays at the other end of 
 the spectrum, which are equally invisible to the eye, 
 and are only recognised by their potent effects. 
 Indeed, as these invisible rays extend indefinitely on 
 both sides of the visible spectrum, so we may say that 
 the mind includes not only the visible or conscious 
 part, and what we have termed the sub-conscious, 
 that lies below or at the red end, but the supra-con- 
 scious mind, that lies beyond at the violet end all 
 the regions of higher soul and spirit life, of which we 
 are only at times vaguely conscious, but which always 
 exist and contain our most abstract and spiritual 
 faculties as surely as the sub-conscious links us to the 
 body on the other, both supra- and sub-conscious 
 being parts of the unconscious mind. Of course, 
 speaking of regions and levels is merely figurative, 
 the non-extension of mind being a fundamental 
 doctrine. I would include in the supra-conscious
 
 46 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 such a faculty as conscience, which is surely a half- 
 unconscious faculty. Moreover, the supra-conscious, 
 like the sub-conscious, is best apprehended when the 
 conscious mind is not active. Visions, meditations, 
 prayers, and even dreams have been undoubtedly 
 occasions of the working of the spirit apart from the 
 action of reason or mind. 
 
 With this, then, I conclude, in the hope that by 
 argument and quotation I have sufficiently shown 
 that ' as the action of the mental factor in disease is 
 unconscious, it cannot be recognised as mental by 
 those who limit mind to consciousness,' and that 
 ' the word " mind " must therefore be extended to 
 include all psychic action.'
 
 CHAPTER III 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOQT 
 
 'The double action of the "mental factor" on the 
 body in health consists generally in carrying on the 
 functions of life ; and specially, in physically expressing 
 mental states.' 
 
 THE action of mind upon body is at least threefold 
 physiological, pathological, and therapeutical. With a mind on 
 little widening of the word ' medicine ' we may allow body< 
 our present view of the ' mental factor ' to be 
 sufficiently broad to include all these three actions ; 
 and it is to the first of them that we must now address 
 ourselves. So far I have sought, after pointing out 
 sufficiently the importance of my whole subject, to 
 show that modern psychological-physiology demands, 
 if words are to retain any definite meaning, that the 
 mind be declared one, whether conscious or un- 
 conscious, its essential unity (whatever its nature 
 may be) being the possession of common well-marked 
 qualities. 
 
 I may begin, then, our present study with a remark 
 of Benjamin Bush, made in 1794, and pathetically 
 true to-day. He says : ' The extent of the influence of Power of 
 the mind over the body has not yet been fully Kdy v 
 ascertained.' Still, although the range of mental o*definfd 
 action may not be yet defined, and the ask will not
 
 48 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 be attempted here, there is no doubt whatever of the 
 facts ; and to this I now invite the earnest attention 
 of my medical readers. When we once grasp the 
 interaction of mind and body in health, we are better 
 prepared for understanding the part they play in disease 
 and cure, a part indeed of great importance to the 
 practical physician. 
 
 Professor Ladd says : 1 ' Even the most purely vege- 
 tative of the bodily processes are dependent for their 
 character upon antecedent states of the mind.' An 
 Medical editorial in the ' Medical Times ' in 1872 says with 
 T B im chic 0n mucn truth : ' However little we know of the nature 
 force. of mind, or of that form of force to which we give the 
 name of mind, the effects capable of being produced by 
 mind on body are very clear, real, and considerable, 
 and while in all ages they have been the chief thera- 
 peutic agents on which the charlatan and quack have 
 relied, they have probably been less trusted and utilised 
 by the scientific physician than experience warrants or 
 physiology or psychology suggests.' 
 
 The The influence of the unconscious mind over the 
 
 the D cly is deep, permanent, and all-pervading. If, as I 
 believe, all the so-called automatic or reflex processes 
 of the body are under the control of this superior power 
 and express its force, we may clearly maintain that it 
 is not the brain alone, but the whole body, that is the 
 true organ of mind. 
 
 And yet, in spite of the abundant evidence of a 
 mental governing power, a distinguished physiologist 
 recently writes that ' he knows nothing of any central 
 authority or controlling power over the bodily 
 functions.' 
 
 1 Prof. Ladd, Physiological Psychology, p. 475.
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 49 
 
 Some governing centre must regulate, control, 
 counteract, guide, and arrange the action of the human "necessity 
 organism with regard to the continual succession of 
 differing events, foods, surroundings, and conditions 
 which are ever affecting it in endless succession and in 
 constant varieties, enabling it amid this bewildering 
 multiplicity of changing influences to hold on its steady 
 course of growth, health, nutrition, and self-mainte- 
 nance with the most marvellous constancy. 
 
 It is sufficiently clear also that this governing Mental in 
 centre is essentially mental in nature and uncon- 
 scious in character ; in other words, that the various 
 functions and organs of the body are governed by 
 the * unconscious mind ' through the sensori-motor 
 mechanism. 
 
 Apart altogether from mere control, it is wonderful The 
 to see how the body and mind are associated both in 
 sensation and motion. With regard to sensations of 
 various sorts, the interdependence is well known. For 
 instance, we connect many mental states with definite 
 parts of the body general felicity (according to Sir 
 B. W. Richardson) with an active condition of the 
 sympathetic ganglia, love with the heart, melancholy 
 and irritability with the liver ; while to arrive 
 at the highest point of mental insight there has 
 always been a tendency to direct the thoughts to the 
 pit of the stomach, where lies the great solar plexus, 
 chief centre of the sympathetic system. Here, too, 
 is the great source of nightmares, as it is pressed 
 on by a full stomach when lying in bed in the dorsal 
 position. Many other feelings are connected with 
 this region, and we talk of a sickening story, thoughts, 
 &c. The Bible and old writers go lower still, and 
 
 a
 
 60 THE FOKCE OP MIND 
 
 speak of 'bowels of mercies,' being 'straitened in 
 your own bowels,' &c. 
 
 The With regard to motion and the muscular system 
 
 j^otion^ generally, it is very curious to see how our body 
 expresses mental states in its attitude, carriage, and 
 general appearance. If we try to see a thing with 
 our minds, we often put an intense and strained 
 expression into our eyes. If in a state of delight 
 they become fixed, as on some beautiful vision. Some 
 words, again, almost seem to have pleasant or dis- 
 agreeable tastes, and so on. 
 
 The chief centre of the controlling power of the 
 body is probably associated with the cerebral hemi- 
 spheres ; while subordinate centres are found wherever 
 there are ganglia. Many experiments go to show this. 
 Cortex The cortex is ever a special factor for good or evil 
 
 controlling in the somatic life. Every organ and function is re- 
 ltre< presented there, and there brought into vital unity. 
 Professor Laycock says : ' The hemispheres, as the 
 organ of thought and mental action proper, are in 
 unity with all the processes of life whatever, whether 
 they be termed vegetative or animal.' The differ- 
 ence in the control of these two mainly rests on the 
 fact that whereas the former are ruled by the mind 
 unconsciously, the latter are generally consciously 
 governed. The seat of the unity, therefore, of the 
 body, and to a large extent of the ego, is found in the 
 Bain and cortex. Bain shows tha,^ all tissue nutrition is uncon- 
 on value sciously influenced from this great centre, and most 
 :tex< physiological processes can be arrested by its action. 
 
 It controls anabolic and katabolic cell metabi lism. 
 Professor Clouston says : ' ' We talk and laugh and 
 
 1 Prof. Clouston, British Medical Journal, Jan. 18, 1896.
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 51 
 
 weep, we blush and we shiver, we hunger and sweat, 
 we digest and defaecate all through the brain cortex. 
 There is not one of these physiological acts but can be 
 instantly arrested by a mental act.' 
 
 And here we may conveniently pause a moment The 
 and consider briefly the parts that conscious and un- 'rSSJJ"*" 
 conscious minds play in the command of the body. 
 Before I proceed to illustrate this rule in detail let us 
 outline in brief the limits of the realm governed 
 directly by the conscious mind, and we shall then see 
 clearly how very narrow they are ; and if in the 
 instances I shall adduce the power of the mental 
 factor be admitted, it will be seen that in almost every 
 case it is the unconscious mind that acts. 
 
 The power to use our lives through the voluntary we live 
 muscular and nervous systems appears to have been SfSS? 
 committed to our reason and conscious will-power ; wuxm- 
 
 sciously. 
 
 while the power to carry on the processes of life and 
 existence generally is under the control of instinct or 
 unconscious mental power. We may be said to live con- 
 sciously and to exist unconsciously. The two powers 
 are variously exercised ; for while even in health the 
 conscious mind often acts to the detriment of the 
 body, the unconscious never does. The direct limits Power of 
 of the conscious mind and will are fairly well denned, JSJJJJl 
 and are generally pretty constant; though in some heart> 
 few individuals they extend much further than 
 in the majority, but under no circumstances can 
 the will produce any direct organic change in the 
 body. With heart and circulation the direct influence 
 is very small. By conscious effort in some people 
 the heart can be slowed ; and I believe there have 
 been instances where it could be arrested. We cannot
 
 52 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 consciously change the volume and course of the 
 circulation. 
 
 Powt In the lungs we have greater power ; we can con- 
 
 sciously arrest the breathing altogether up to the 
 limits of safety. The moment, however, the organism 
 is imperilled for want of oxygen, a more imperious 
 power overcomes the strongest will, and we are forced 
 to breathe. We can also vary the breathing at will 
 in every conceivable way, as in singing, speaking, 
 
 Power over yawning, laughing, sighing, &c. In the digestive 
 organs the conscious mind has only control over the 
 commencement and termination of the tract, having 
 no direct power whatever over all that lies between. 
 In the mouth conscious control ceases at the fauces, 
 or at any rate with deglutition. Up to this point we 
 have unlimited powers -of choice beyond it none. 
 Defaecation is under our conscious control, and this 
 completes our powers over this system. Over secretion 
 we have direct power in the case of tears and saliva 
 only ; all the rest lie beyond the limits of the will. 
 
 Power over ver the renal system, our only power is in voluntary 
 
 kidneys. micturition. In reproduction our conscious will can 
 initiate the process ; all beyond is outside its power. 
 Turning from the vegetative to the animal systems : 
 over the locomotive powers we have almost entire 
 control, not in their detailed actions, but in their 
 denned results. We have perfect control in every 
 possible manner over the movements that this structure 
 permits, over our limbs and our tongues ; though 
 all the time absolutely ignorant of, and powerless over, 
 the mechanism that produces the movement. 
 
 In the nervous system we have less power. We 
 can use at will portions of the cortex, and the centres
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 53 
 
 of the special senses for thinking, speaking, seeing, Power o 
 hearing, smelling, tasting and touching, &c. The nervous 
 rest of the brain, by far the greater part, and all the B y 8tom - 
 nerves of the body, are beyond the direct conscious 
 control of the mind. We have no power over the skin 
 and its appendages. 
 
 From this brief summary it will be seen that the 
 respiratory, amongst the vegetative systems, and the 
 nervous and muscular systems, are the three over 
 which the will has a large range of power, while over 
 the rest its control is very small. 
 
 Wherever the conscious limits are reached there Where 
 the powers of the unconscious mind begin, and its 
 actions, though only styled instinctive, may be truly 
 said to be on the whole far more rational and bene- 
 ficial than those inspired by what is always assumed 
 to be reason, but which just as often is unreason, 
 and, indeed, becomes at times a positive power for evil 
 over the body ; a disaster which rarely happens in 
 the case of the unconscious mind. We think we live Our reason 
 entirely as reasonable beings, but it is very rarely that would not 
 we do, and none of us could exist for a day were we fJJ^iy. 
 not guarded and guided incessantly by a never-erring 
 instinct. 
 
 Hack Tuke's classic work on the connection of mind ?j llect 
 and body divides the action of the mind into that emotious, 
 produced by intellect, emotion, and will ; and out of 
 the whole number of special instances given we find 
 that 36 % are du to the intellect, 56 % to the emo- 
 tions, and 8 % to the will. He points out that the 
 intellect appears to influence the vascular tissues 
 most ; emotion the glands and organs, specially the 
 heart ; and the will the so-called voluntary muscles.
 
 54 THE FORCE OP MIND 
 
 LO^J Some emotions, he adds, act specially on definite 
 
 expression or g ans a s grief on the lachrymal gland ; some in 
 
 certain regions, as shown in the skin of the face ; and 
 
 some more on the voluntary muscles as wonder on 
 
 the facial muscles. 
 
 Unoon- We may now very briefly consider the mental 
 
 miulTand factor in various simple physiological processes, as 
 the heart. p ro d uc i n g O r arresting them under certain special 
 conditions, as well as in its general controlling power. 
 With regard to the heart, we all know that of all organs 
 in the body it is the one most swayed by the mind 
 and emotions. In all people the mind can alter its 
 movements in speed, rhythm, and force ; but in 
 nervous people it is a veritable echo of the prevailing 
 emotion at the time. The emotion may be strong 
 enough to produce what amounts to pathological action. 
 'I have never met,' says Sir B. W. Eichardson, 
 1 with a case of intermittent pulse that was not due 
 to some mental cause shock, fear, sorrow, &c.' This 
 may, in Sir B. W. Eichardson's experience, be so, but 
 the present writer has seen more than one case due 
 Uncon- apparently to the circulation of uric acid in the blood, 
 JJriJaVaa though at the same time there is no doubt that 
 the circu- emotion is a most potent factor, even if not a constant 
 cause. Look at the vascular system ; not in microsco- 
 pical, chemical, and mechanical detail, as so admirably 
 set forth in our physiologies, but as it acts in man, 
 intelligently directed for the benefit of the whole being. 
 The circulation does not go round, as most text- 
 books would lead us to believe, as the lesult merely 
 of the action of a system of elastic tubes, connected 
 with a self-acting force-pump. It is such views as 
 these that degrade physiology and obscure the marvels
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 66 
 
 of the body. The circulation never flows for two 
 minutes in the same manner. In an instant, miles 
 of capillaries are closed or opened up according to the 
 ever- varying body needs, of which, consciously, we are 
 entirely unaware. The blood supply of each organ 
 is not mechanical, but is carefully regulated from 
 minute to minute in health exactly according to its 
 wants and activities, and when this active control ever 
 fails, we at once recognise it as disease, and call it 
 congestion and so forth. 
 
 The circulation and heart form an organic entity Unoon. 
 carrying on, under some diligent supervision (the m^and 
 unconscious mind), purposive and ever- varying action JJjjJj^ 
 for the good of the body as an organic unity, as well 
 as subordinately for itself, as a part of that unity. 
 
 The calibres of arterioles and capillaries are ever 
 changing throughout their countless miles, and the 
 beat of the heart alters incessantly. To call all this 
 action of the vaso-motor and pneumogastric and other 
 nerves merely reflex, in the sense that governor-balls 
 flying round regulate the speed of an engine in pro- 
 portion to its work, is inadequate and inexact. We 
 doubt not that much may be of this character ; but 
 the circumstances in which the body is placed are 
 constantly unique, novel, and unanticipated, and of a 
 nature that no mere mechanical arrangements could 
 meet, and we may add no mechanical automaton 
 survive. Consider what adjustments of the vascular incessant 
 system, and especially the surface capillaries, are needed? 611 
 needed for incessant changes of temperature, for 
 changes of position and gravity, for changes of time, 
 as at night to secure sleep, for the varying activities 
 of each organ, for special supplies to the stomach at
 
 56 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 lunch and dinner, and to the brain when reading 
 these pages, for blanching and blushing with various 
 emotions, for supplies to the limb muscles in active 
 exercise, for eliminating poisons from the blood, and for 
 the reception of food and the functions of metabolism. 
 Fear can close in a moment miles of capillary vessels, 
 which shame can as quickly open. With regard to 
 blushing, one or two points are of interest. 
 Blushing. It is believed that no animals can blush ; children 
 of three years old can. The limits of blushing rarely 
 extend as low as the clavicles in front and the scapulae 
 behind ; but one instance is recorded of the whole 
 body blushing from shame. The other day I had 
 a nerve patient whose heart I wished to examine. As 
 she uncovered the chest I perceived a scarlet rash 
 extending as low as the middle of the bosom. I found 
 that she habitually blushed to this level. 
 Uncon- The digestive organs in the same manner must 
 
 mlnTaud be centrally controlled to respond in the marvellous 
 digestion. manner they do to the endless variation and quantity of 
 food, consisting often of new and untried ingredients, 
 and received at most irregular intervals. All the 
 supplies of the various digestive fluids have to be made 
 in the required amounts and at definite times. The 
 mechanism of the liver has ever to be readjusted to 
 its work of incredible delicacy. Poisons, excess, and 
 starvation, and the needs of all the other organs 
 require to be met from day to day. 
 
 Examples. Besides all this, special mental states also produce 
 special physical results. Benjamin Bush pointed 
 out in 1774 that thirst without any physical cause 
 was common at the beginning of a battle from mental 
 emotion. The thought of an acid fruit will fill the
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 57 
 
 mouth with water ; hence a successful way of stopping 
 discordant street noises is to suck a lemon within 
 full view of a German band. Fear, on the other 
 hand, will so dry the throat that raw rice cannot be 
 swallowed. This is a test in India for the detection 
 of a murderer. The suspected man is brought 
 forward, and given a handful of dry rice to swallow. 
 If he is innocent he can probably do this ; if he is 
 guilty he positively cannot, fear having completely 
 dried his mouth. 
 
 With regard to the stomach, apart from actual 
 disease, we may notice one or two instances of un- 
 conscious mind action. A passenger on a Channel 
 steamer who was very seasick lost a valuable set of 
 artificial teeth overboard, and was instantly cured. 
 If the thoughts are strongly directed to the intestinal 
 canal, as by bread pills, strong peristaltic action may 
 ensue. Vomiting occurs from mental causes apart 
 from injury to the brain. Bad news will produce 
 nausea ; and severe nerve shock may absolutely cause 
 vomiting. Certain emotions, the sight of vomiting, 
 certain smells, or thoughts about a sea voyage, or the 
 idea that an emetic has been taken, may also produce 
 nausea or vomiting. 
 
 The mere thought of food, even without the smell 
 or sight of it, can produce a copious flow of saliva in 
 the mouth, as well as of gastric juice into the stomach. 
 The bowels are largely under the control of the 
 emotions, as also the action of the kidneys a fact 
 well known to students at examinations. 
 
 The respiratory system is closely responsive to 
 the mind. The breathing may incessantly vary miud and 
 according to the amount of oxygen respired from reB P iration -
 
 58 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 different qualities of air, from the activity of the 
 body, from the rate of the interchange of gases, from 
 the amount of the action of skin and kidneys ; from 
 the needs of the body according to posture, condition, 
 and state of the heart and circulation, &c. 
 
 And all this has to be regulated with such nicety, 
 and in circumstances of such endless variety, that 
 eensori-motor reflexes alone can hardly account for it. 
 Laughing, speaking, sighing, and other respiratory 
 acts are of course direct expressions of mind ; but 
 breathing, yawning, coughing, are also continually 
 altered, arrested, or produced by mental states. 
 
 The short quiet breath of joy contrasts with the 
 long sigh of relief after breathless suspense. Joy gives 
 eupncea, or easy breathing ; grief, or rather fear, tends 
 to dyspnoaa, or difficult breathing. Sobbing goes 
 with grief, laughter with joy, and one often merges 
 into the other. 
 
 The on- Dr. Morton Prince says ' a lady whom he knew 
 
 ^Snd a l wavs na d a violent catarrh in the nose (hay fever) if a 
 
 hay fever, rose was in the room. He gave her an artificial rose, 
 
 and the usual symptoms followed. He then showed 
 
 her it was made of paper, had no pollen, &c., and 
 
 ever after all symptoms disappeared. 
 
 Unoon- ^e m uscular system is under the direct control 
 
 scions of the unconscious mind, and under the indirect 
 
 SlTsci^ control of the conscious mind, as far as the striped 
 
 generally. musc i es ^he heart excepted) are concerned. In the 
 
 voluntary muscles the most we can do is to will 
 
 results. We cannot consciously will the contractions 
 
 that carry out these results, these being produced by the 
 
 1 Dr. Morton Prince, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases. 
 (Boston, May 1891.)
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 59 
 
 unconscious mind. Moreover, while all the muscles 
 can be influenced by the emotions, only the ' voluntary 
 muscles can be moved by the will. 1 
 
 Vertigo, experienced at the mere apprehension of Vertigo 
 danger, is an instance of the disturbance of muscular balancing, 
 co-ordination by a thought. On the other hand, 
 sudden and unconscious balancing in climbing up and 
 down a mountain, done with perfect ease if performed 
 unconsciously, but with much awkwardness by con- 
 scious will, is an illustration of mental control of the 
 muscles. The jar from the idea that a step less or 
 more exists when going downstairs shows how perfect 
 the unconscious adjustment of the body is, and how 
 disastrous any interference may be. Moreover, while 
 all the muscles can be influenced by the emotions, 
 only the voluntary muscles can be moved by the will. 
 
 This is a very interesting and, we think, accurate striped 
 distinction between the action of striped and un- striped" 
 striped muscles. It would appear that the difference musclea - 
 arises because emotions (unconsciously) can act on 
 the body through both the sympathetic and cerebro- 
 spinal nervous systems ; whereas conscious wills can 
 only affect the cerebro-spinal, and even this by means 
 of the unconscious mind. 
 
 The voluntary muscles may be moved quite un- Unoon- 
 consciously by emotion. The stump of Nelson's arm 
 shook uncontrollably at Trafalgar from mental causes. 
 
 Voluntary power over muscles may be compara- 
 tively lost (paralysis), and yet emotion may move 
 them through the unconscious mind. 
 
 The voluntary muscles of the body are continually 
 being moved by unconscious mental action, as in the 
 expression of the face, the varying attitudes of the
 
 60 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 body corresponding to mental states which we have 
 noted. 
 
 Artists well Artists well know the power of the unconscious 
 
 value of 6 mind over voluntary muscles. If a model attempts 
 
 consd^us consciously to arrange his hand or arm in a graceful 
 
 mind. position, it becomes hopelessly stiff. He must just 
 
 let it fall naturally, and it at once harmonises and 
 
 composes with the face. The same mind must move 
 
 the hand and face. Again, a model must be engaged 
 
 in conversation to lose the consciousness that he is 
 
 ' sitting.' The facial muscles are then at once arranged 
 
 by his unconscious mind on the lines of his character ; 
 
 and the artist gets what he calls a characteristic 
 
 expression. 
 
 So all through, everything that is unconscious hi 
 muscular action is ' natural,' and everything done in 
 self-consciousness tends to conceal or distort, rather 
 than to represent the man. 
 
 Uncon- Consider also the marvellous increase of smooth 
 
 muscle in the uterus at term and its no less marvellous 
 subsequent involution ; observe, too, the compensating 
 muscular increase of a damaged heart until the 
 balance is restored, and then its cessation ; consider 
 the growth of the body and its arrest at a fixed period. 
 Also the detailed process of repair in a broken bone, 
 and for a damaged lung. These actions do not pro- 
 ceed from any inherent properties of matter, nor are 
 they the result of ingenious mechanism. They de- 
 mand, and are the product of, a controlling, and yet 
 an unconscious mind. 
 
 Consciousness, indeed, only hinders some of these 
 actions. Somnambulists can balance themselves in 
 dangerous positions unconsciously, which they could
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 61 
 
 not maintain for a moment were they awake. Hypno- 
 tised subjects can assume attitudes and perform feats 
 impossible to their conscious powers. The organic or Uncon- 
 vegetative functions, as well as the skin and hair, are 
 specially affected by the emotions. Fear and other ^ < and 
 mental influences can not only alter the circulation 
 in the skin, but can produce copious perspiration, and 
 even certain skin eruptions. The hair can be blanched 
 and can also fall out under the influence of the 
 mind. 
 
 But the most remarkable instances of skin changes stigmata, 
 through the mind are the stigmata, some cases of 
 which appear to have been verified and to be authentic. 
 This is of course caused by an interference with circu- 
 lation ; but we class them with skin changes, as they 
 are evidenced there. The first historic instance is 
 that of St. Francis of Assisi on September 15, 1224 ; 
 and the facts appear to be vouched for by reliable 
 biographers. Since then there are about ninety more 
 or less authenticated cases ; eighteen being males and 
 seventy-two females. Louise Lateau is a compara- 
 tively recent instance. Some remarks of Professor 
 Barrett's on the subject are worth reproducing here. 
 He says : l * It is not so well known, but it is neverthe- gjjJ^J ' 
 less the fact, that utterly startling physiological on their 
 changes can be produced in a hypnotised subject 
 merely by conscious or unconscious mental suggestion. 
 Thus a red scar or a painful burn, or even a figure of 
 a definite shape, such as a cross or an initial, can be 
 caused to appear on the body of the entranced subject 
 solely through suggesting the idea. By creating some 
 local disturbance of the blood-vessels in the skin, the 
 
 1 Prof. Barrett (Prof. Physics, T.C.D.), Humanitarian, 1895.
 
 62 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 unconscious self has done what it would be impossible 
 for the conscious self to perform. And so in the well- 
 attested cases of stigmata where a close resemblance 
 to the wounds on the body of the crucified Saviour 
 appears on the body of the ecstatic. This is a case of 
 unconscious ^/-suggestion, arising from the intent 
 and adoring gaze of the ecstatic upon the bleeding 
 figure on the crucifix. With the abeyance of the con- 
 scious self, the hidden powers emerge, whilst the 
 trance and mimicry of the wounds are strictly parallel 
 to the experimental cases previously referred to. May 
 not some of the well-known cases of mimicry in 
 animal life originate, like the stigmata, in a reflex 
 action, as physiologists would say, below the level of 
 consciousness, created by a predominant impression 
 analogous to those producing the stigmata ? That is 
 to say, to reflex actions excited by an unconscious 
 suggestion derived from the environment ; in other 
 words, the dynamic, externalising power of thought, 
 if the action of that which is unconscious may be 
 called thought. We must, in fact, extend our idea of 
 " thought " to something much wider than intellection 
 or ideation these are special acts of thought, for the 
 directing functional activity of our sub-liminal life 
 has also the attributes of thought though we may be 
 unconscious of its thinking.' 
 
 Uncon- The general appearance of a man is largely a 
 
 mLAnd physical expression of his mind, and his character is 
 
 aspect 8 * more or less legibly stamped upon the body. The 
 
 state of the mind unconsciously alters the poise of the 
 
 head, of the shoulders, arms and legs, and trunk. A 
 
 short time of trouble may make a man look many 
 
 years older than before it commenced. The eye will
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 63 
 
 lose its brightness, the face will becoma withered, the 
 brow wrinkled, and the skin harsh. 
 
 With regard to sensation generally, Hack Take l Speoui 
 asserts ' that there is no sensation general or special J^ 8ral 
 excited by agents acting upon the body from with- 6us tioi > 
 out, which cannot also be excited from within by Aroused 
 emotional states affecting the sensory centres.' abnormal 
 
 We must remember that though tha asual exciting mean8 - 
 causes of sight, sound, or common sensation are 
 thought to be unusual, they are not so j and in their 
 absence sight, sound, and sensation may all be con- 
 sciously experienced. Common and special sensations 
 may indubitably be aroused by abnormal physical 
 means as well as by purely mental agencies. Pressure 
 on the nerves from a tumour or a blow will illustrate 
 the former case and vivid ideas the latter. 
 
 The illustrations of the action of mind on sight fc'noon- 
 are literally innumerable. I will give but one or two. SaYnd 
 
 Professor Binet tells us of a Dr. A., who, with aight 
 his mind full of an examination on botany, walked 
 past a restaurant and saw on the door * Verbascum 
 thapsus.' 
 
 He turned back astonished and read the real word 
 * Bouillon.' The error in vision was due to the fact 
 that ' bouillon blanc ' is the common name for 
 ' Mullein ' or ' Verbascum thapsus/ and an uncon- 
 scious connection was instantaneously formed in his 
 mind between the two. 
 
 The following is headed ' An Anxious Sportsman ' 
 in the ' Daily Telegraph ' of September 8, 1896. A 
 boy having fired at a bird rising nearly just behind 
 his father, the father writes : 
 
 Haok Tuke, Mind and Body. 
 
 P
 
 64 THE FORCE OP MIND 
 
 'I remarked to him afterwards that I quite 
 expected him to injure me, and mentioned the 
 particular instance.' His reply was, ' I never even 
 saw you.' The boy, no doubt, was so keen on 
 bagging his bird, that he really did not see the 
 father. 
 
 In looking through a microscope where attention 
 is given to the object, the other eye can be open with- 
 out seeing anything, all messages from it being in- 
 hibited before they reach consciousness, as completely 
 as if the eye were shut. 
 
 There is no doubt that the protective mechanism 
 of the eye that consists hi the sudden closure of the 
 eyelids, starting back involuntarily and raising the 
 arms in defence, is directly controlled and co-ordinated 
 by the unconscious mind. 
 
 Uncon- Turning to hearing, we see how the mind affects 
 
 minTana tne auditory impressions. 
 
 hearing. Some years ago, when constantly called out at night, 
 
 I frequently heard, as I thought, the night-bell ring 
 distinctly. On going down I found it had not been 
 rung. After long practice I could still only dis- 
 tinguish doubtfully between the real bell, the sound 
 of which was a little more vivid, and the imagi- 
 nary. 
 
 I had for some months a clever trained nurse with 
 a patient who kept shouting loudly at her. In taking 
 her exercise alone out of doors she constantly heard 
 the patient speaking to her. 
 
 ' The ear,' says Tuke, ' often responds to well- 
 known sounds when it does not to others. A distin- 
 guished oculist could not possibly be roused from his 
 sleep until a friend whispered in his ear, " I have a
 
 ON PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY 65 
 
 foreign body in my eye ; can you remove it ? " The 
 effect was electrical.' 
 
 The mind alters taste. A man sent the cream 
 away because it was sour, but found it sweet when 
 the servant brought it in again he imagining it was t&8te > 
 
 , i , touch, and 
 
 a fresh supply. 8me u. 
 
 As to touch. Dr. Pearson, when he first took up 
 a globule of potassium and was told it was a metal, 
 exclaimed, ' Bless me ! how heavy it is ! ' simply from 
 expecting it to be so, whereas it is excessively light. 
 
 As to smell. ' Professor Bennett tells us of a 
 Scotch procurator-fiscal,' says Tuke, ' who, on having 
 to exhume a body, declared when the coffin appeared 
 that he perceived a strong odour of decomposition, 
 which made him so faint he had to leave. On opening 
 the coffin it was found to be empty.' 
 
 I doubt not that many of the instances given p syc hi 
 will be at once dismissed as sensori-motor reflexes. fn e ^J ri . 
 It may be that they are so ; but this merely leads the motor 
 inquiry one step further to a question as yet un- 
 decided as to the true nature of a so-called reflex, and 
 as to whether after all there is not some psychical 
 element acting in the latent time that has been 
 so much noted recently in the sensori-motor action, 
 between the arrival of the impulse and the ensuing 
 motion. Still, setting aside those cases deemed of 
 doubtful value by the critical reader, I would ask, Is 
 there not abundant evidence left of the control the 
 mind unconsciously exercises over the body in health, 
 both generally and specially, so as to establish the 
 thesis at the head of our chapter ? 
 
 The conscious mind has, as we all admit, no 
 direct control over the vital functions of the body, and
 
 66 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 Evidence only in a general way over even the 'voluntary 
 muscles ; ' but is there not clearly some power, mental 
 an( * Purposive in character, that harmoniously co- 
 ordinates and regulates them all for the common 
 weal? If it be so, is not the term 'unconscious 
 
 Not t mind ' altogether more rational and intelligible than 
 
 'Physio- such words as 'Nature, Physiology,' &c., which are 
 in general use, and after all mean nothing ? 
 
 Conciu- I conclude, then, this fragmentary sketch of the 
 
 physiological action of this Psychic Force, and trust 
 I have said enough to indicate that ' the double 
 action of the " mental factor " on the body in health 
 consists generally in carrying on the functions of 
 life; and specially in physically expressing mental 
 states.'
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 
 
 ' The mental factor is present in some way or other 
 in all diseases.' 
 
 WE now reach the second of the three actions of the 
 mind upon the body, that I indicated in the last of 
 chapter. The first treated of there was Psycho- 
 physiology ; the two remaining are Psycho-pathology 
 and Psycho-therapeutics. I don't know that there is 
 much use in this incessant compounding of words, 
 but it is the fashion, and they are undoubtedly 
 expressive, if not euphonious. 
 
 In turning to the mind in pathology, we reach a A general 
 subject that cannot be handled in a single chapter, subject. 
 I can but attempt to give a very general view of 
 the matter, leaving the connection of the mind with 
 special diseases and also with the entire class of 
 functional nerve diseases for future treatment. 
 
 I will now therefore consider the general relation 
 of the mind to disease, both organic and functional, 
 as a causal factor. It is no doubt possible, and 
 most probable, that these two terms are clinical rather 
 than scientific ; and that no great value must be 
 attached to them. But those who feel this, must 
 remember that very much of our language is more
 
 88 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 Langnage expressive of our ignorance than of our knowledge, 
 reveals our And ^18 no ^ a l ne ^ n common parlance, but in 
 ignorance. me dical phraseology ; and, to carry the matter one step 
 further, even in science itself. What do the words 
 ' atoms,' ' affinities,' ' combining bonds,' really mean ? 
 The very expressions ' mental ' and ' physical ' may, after 
 all, yet prove to be but two aspects of the same thing. 
 Differences Most of our distinctions are due to the imperfection 
 fictitious, of our vision, or to the limitation of our conceptions ; 
 and when very closely looked into, the difference 
 between organic and functional tends to disappear ; 
 and, as a matter of fact, we are brought to this, that 
 Functional no change in function, as well as no action of mind, 
 organic g o can ever take place without some corresponding 
 together, physical alteration of structure. While freely ad- 
 mitting this, however, we retain the terms as none 
 the less useful because they are not scientific ; under- 
 standing organic disease to mean that disease 
 where the physical changes are gross and obvious, and 
 functional disease that where they are neither. 
 
 tion g to e be ^^ now ' ^ ^ 00 ^^ n 8 at tne bearing of mind upon 
 
 avoided. these two, and first upon the organic, let us at the 
 
 outset guard against any appearance of exaggeration. 
 
 It is of course difficult to preserve a right sense of 
 
 proportion when dealing exclusively with what, after 
 
 all, is but a small part of a very great subject. In 
 
 treating of the mental factor in disease, therefore, 
 
 to the exclusion of all others, one is apt to fall into 
 
 the same error as our leading railway companies do in 
 
 their respective maps. 
 
 SSS* 1 " * n t ^ iese well-known works of fiction they seem to 
 
 mP. find it impossible to resist the temptation of depicting 
 
 their own railway as leading in straight lines every-
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 69 
 
 where, while their rivals are indicated by narrow 
 tortuous wriggles that appear to lead nowhere. 
 
 Lest, therefore, it should be thought that the 
 necessary prominence given to a single factor of 
 disease in a work exclusively devoted to it represents 
 its real place in medicine, let me say ' right here ' (as 
 our American cousins would put it) that, with the 
 exception of mental and functional nerve diseases, 
 the part that the mental factor plays is exceedingly Mental 
 small, and often very obscure and ill denned. It pkyToniy 
 would be as ridiculous to suppose for a moment that J^S aU 
 the aetiologies of disease given in leading text-books 
 do not describe correctly the main causes, predisposing 
 and exciting, of the various affections, as it would be 
 incorrect to assert that they can possibly enumerate 
 them all, when the mental factor is omitted. For, stm, 
 though small, it is certainly a constant contributing snuai, it i> 
 cause in organic disease somewhere in its course, and ubl ^ mt 0ii 
 often all through. It may be a predisposing cause, 
 an exciting cause, an aggravating or a modifying 
 accompaniment ; it may act as a poison, or thera- 
 peutically as a medicine. What is of importance 
 is not therefore its size but its ubiquity ; and this, 
 coupled with its general neglect, may be a sufficient 
 apology for bringing it forward with such prominence 
 in these pages. 
 
 The influence of the mind in all forms of func- JJjJjj^ 
 tional nerve disease is generally, though by no means nerve 
 universally, admitted. And this want of unani- noTaiwayi 
 mity need occasion no surprise when we find that admitted - 
 there are those who refuse to recognise the mind as 
 a cause even in mental diseases. 
 
 On the other hand, a large number who freely
 
 70 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 what is admit the mental factor in mental and in functional 
 
 l?ganic nerve diseases firmly declare that it has no part in 
 
 disease' v < purely organic disease,' whatever that may mean. To 
 
 us the phrase is obscure, for if functional disease may 
 
 after all be organic at the bottom, a fortiori there 
 
 can be no organic disease without some derangement 
 
 of function. 
 
 It may not be needful here again to insist on the 
 importance of the knowledge of all the parts mind 
 plays hi disease, for we are at present only concerned 
 with its share in aetiology. Later on, when I come to 
 treatment and therapeutics, where its power is so 
 obvious and so great, and yet so set aside, I may 
 enlarge upon the practical power that this knowledge 
 in the art of medicine gives. 
 
 si, P. Sir Francis Bacon observes T that ' the knowledge 
 
 mind n and concerning the sympathies and the concordances 
 body- between the mind and the body is fit to be made a 
 knowledge of itself.' 
 
 The ' British Medical Journal,' after all, may be 
 right when it speaks 2 of the difficulty of acquiring 
 this knowledge as being the real deterrent. And 
 coupled with this there is doubtless everywhere a 
 tendency in partially trained minds to doubt or 
 reject somewhat too readily what cannot be easily 
 proved by eyes and ears. 
 
 It would seem that a science that regards the 
 
 senses as the sole source of truth is as far from 
 
 being correct as the (Christian) science (so called) 
 
 that considers the senses the source of all error. 
 
 When we can learn equally to appreciate all the 
 
 1 Sir Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. sect. iz. 
 1 See su/pra, Chapter I. p. 11.
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 71 
 
 sources of knowledge, and when the philosopher and The golden 
 scientist can ' lie down ' together, the golden age of Som. 
 wisdom will have dawned on man. 
 
 Before enumerating various organic and other 
 diseases where the mental factor can be more or less 
 clearly traced, we will give a few extracts from some 
 leading writers on the relation of mind to disease as a 
 whole. 
 
 Sir James Paget speaks as follows : l Sir J. 
 
 'Not only the signs of some diseases, but their mindhT 
 progress and issue, may in measure be determined by &***** 
 the patient's will. I mean .... by the direct 
 influence of the will on sensation and motion. It 
 can affect the character and intensity of pain, and 
 other morbid sensations, .... it can control the 
 movements of muscles generally involuntary ; . . . . 
 it can, at least in some degree, determine the methods 
 of some of the processes of our life.' 
 
 Dr. Goodhart observes : 2 ' The conscious direction DM. 
 of attention upon any pain, however slight, for a an a 
 length of time will gradually make a trifle unbearable Rennie< 
 and even agonising.' 
 
 Dr. G. E. Eennie in the ' British Medical Journal ' 
 recently says : 3 ' First, I would remind you of the 
 immense influence exerted by the mind on the body. 
 I need only refer, for example, to the effect of sudden 
 emotion, fear, or pleasure upon the heart, producing 
 in some cases merely palpitation, at other times actual 
 syncope or even sudden death.' 
 
 Professor Clouston, in his inaugural address to the 
 
 1 Sir James Paget on ' The Use of the Will for Health.' 
 
 * Dr. Goodhart, Lancet, July 1889. 
 
 1 Dr. G. E. Kennie, British Medical Journal, May 4, 1901.
 
 72 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 cionatraft Ry a l Medical Society in 1896, which will well repay 
 inaugural the most careful perusal, says (the italics are mine) : l 
 ' I would desire this evening to lay down and to en- 
 force a principle that is, I think, not sufficiently, and 
 often not at all, considered in practical medicine and 
 surgery. It is founded on a physiological basis, and 
 it is of the highest practical importance. The 
 principle is that the brain cortex, and especially the 
 mental cortex, has such a position in the economy 
 that it has to be reckoned with more or less as a 
 factor for good or evil in all diseases of every organ, in 
 all operations, and in all injuries. Physiologically the 
 cortex is the great regulator of all functions, the ever- 
 active controller of every organ, and the ultimate 
 court of appeal hi every organic disturbance. We all 
 know that every organ and every function are re- 
 presented in the cortex, and are so represented that 
 they all may be brought into the right relationship 
 and harmony with each other, and so they all may be 
 converted into a vital unity through it. Life and 
 mind are the two factors of that organic unity that 
 constitute a real animal organism. The mental 
 cortex of man is the apex of the evolutionary pyramid, 
 whose base is composed of the swarming myriads of 
 bacilli and other monocellular germs which we now 
 see to be almost all-pervading in nature. It seems 
 as if it had been the teleological aim of all evolution 
 from the beginning. In it every other organ and 
 function find their organic end. In histological 
 structure so far as we yet know this it far exceeds 
 all other organs in complexity. When we fully know 
 the structure of each neuron, with its hundreds of 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 73 
 
 fibres and its thousands of dendrites, and the relation 
 of one neuron to another, when we can demonstrate 
 the cortical apparatus for universal intercommunica- 
 tion of nervous energy, with its absolute solidarity, 
 its partial localisation, and its wondrous arrangements 
 for mind, motion, sensibility, nutrition, repair, and 
 drainage when we fully know all this, there will be 
 ?io further question of the dominance of the brain 
 cortex in the organic hierarchy, nor of its supreme 
 importance in disease.' 
 
 And further : 1 
 
 ' The evidence that the brain cortex regulates Organic 
 absorption, secretion, vascular tone, and the anabolic and the 
 and katabolic processes in the cells of the tissues may m 
 now be regarded as complete. Sores in many melan- 
 cholic persons will not heal. The gland and the lung 
 tissues in idiots and dements are unable to resist the 
 attacks of the tubercle bacilli, so that two-thirds of our 
 idiots and one-third of our worst dements die of tuber- 
 culous affections. Brown- Sequard showed that the 
 section of certain cutaneous nerves, thereby cutting 
 off the cortical influences on the hair bulbs, will cause 
 the hair to become white on these spots. 
 
 ' When we have localised cortical destruction on one 
 side of the brain we have, as we all know, resulting 
 on the opposite side of the body not only motor 
 paralysis, but also wasted muscles, liability to bed- 
 sores, altered texture of the skin, and a lowered or 
 heightened temperature.' 
 
 Again : ' To explain all these mental and nervous Mind ; 
 effects on nutrition, on function, and on disease, we 
 must not forget that it is gradually being demonstrated, JJJJ 
 
 ' Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896. nutrition.
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Every -day 
 effects of 
 mind on 
 body. 
 
 Effects of 
 day and 
 night. 
 
 All 
 
 diseases 
 worse at 
 Bight. 
 
 even in our present state of histological knowledge, 
 that we have a sufficient apparatus in the brain cortex 
 and its peripheral connections. It is not a vague 
 question of " mind acting on body," of imagination 
 producing physical effects. The highest mental centres 
 can be demonstrated to have abundant and direct 
 connections with lower motor and trophic centres. 
 All the centres can now be proved to have strands of 
 fibres passing from the one to the other, and every 
 centre can be proved to act on its organ, and to be 
 reacted on in turn. Most people recognise that there 
 are rare and striking effects of mind on body few 
 fully realise its every-day effects. It is of far more 
 consequence that our profession should remember the 
 common than the uncommon in treating disease. If 
 one desired to adduce one of the strongest illustrations 
 of the influence of the cerebral cortex and mind on 
 diseases, one would take the differences between day 
 and night in nearly all disorders. We know that at 
 night, and especially during sleep, the brain cortex is 
 in a totally different state from its condition during 
 the day, and the mind is then practically in abeyance. 
 What is the result on function and disease ? Do not 
 all febrile affections become aggravated at night ? 
 Are not all mental affections then at their worst? 
 Do not all pulmonary diseases then cause most pain 
 and distress ? Do not all the worst exacerbations of 
 the neuroses of sensibility then occur ? Do not the 
 worst and most intractable of the convulsive disorders 
 then come on ? We can control the day fits of many 
 epileptics wonderfully by the use of bromides. We 
 can seldom do any good to the night fits thereby. 
 Is not asthma always worse at night ? And is no
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 75 
 
 night the time when the vital forces sink so low that 
 mankind mostly die in the early hours of the morning? 
 The night-work of the doctor is largely due to many Peculiar 
 diseases being at their worst then ; but in addition to Sate at 
 this there is a mental state peculiar to the night both nighti 
 in the patient and in his relatives from the same 
 cortical cause. Fears, depressed views of the result 
 of the trouble, anticipations of evil, want of courageous 
 common-sense are then most manifest, and the doctor 
 is hurriedly sent for, not, it may be, because the 
 patient is much worse, but because he and his friends 
 think so. This is a bit of practical psychology that Judgment 
 touches us all in a very tender place, for who likes to cieaTat 
 turn out of a warm bed and be awakened out of a nightl 
 sound sleep to go out on a cold rainy night ? What 
 man's courage is as great at three in the morning as 
 at midday ? Nay, what man's judgment is as clear 
 then ? ' 
 
 I think that those who carefully read Dr. Clouston's 
 words will feel that the length of this extract is amply 
 justified by the importance of the matter. 
 
 John Hunter, as is well known, was fully alive to 
 the importance of our subject. I will only quote one 
 of his many sayings : ' As the state of the mind is 
 capable of producing a disease, another state of mind 
 may effect a cure.' 
 
 The bearing of temperament on disease, which is IJ ^ 
 
 ;* influence 
 
 now again being seriously regarded, is, after all, of the 
 largely due to the mental factor connected with it. JJJJdy" 
 In all these cases, however, as well as in those special jJjJJJJ^JJ" 
 forms of disease we are about to speak of, one must 
 remember that the mind is always used uncon- 
 sciously.
 
 76 
 
 THE FOBCE OP MIND 
 
 Physical 
 
 and 
 
 psychic 
 
 ever 
 
 interact. 
 
 Action of 
 the body 
 on the 
 mind. 
 
 Value of 
 the face in 
 disease. 
 
 The mind 
 muscles of 
 the face. 
 
 Dr. Lay- 
 cock on 
 physio- 
 gnomy of 
 
 The mental factor is, as I have already said, 
 ubiquitous ; physical diseases and psychic conditions 
 are inseparable both as cause and effect, both in action 
 and reaction. Our subject here is not the action of 
 the body on the mind, and I have left this side of the 
 subject so far alone ; but one may now be permitted 
 to point out that in every mental disease there is 
 probably some antecedent change of the brain, and 
 indeed that every physical disease writes its story in 
 some way on the mind. 
 
 On the face, for instance, the diseases of the 
 body are not only often physically but mentally 
 inscribed. Dr. Clouston says : l ' Laycock was a great 
 physiognomical diagnostician, and constantly preached 
 its value to his students. I well remember a talk he 
 gave me on the subject one quiet Sunday when he 
 and I were alone in his side room, in which he assured 
 me that in time I should be able to diagnose half my 
 cases at sight without further examination if I gave 
 proper attention to what he told me. 2 I have seen 
 him arrive at marvellous diagnoses thereby. The 
 muscles of the face are emphatically the mind muscles, 
 and they often express in readable form, to those who 
 observe them acutely, many most important and 
 striking mental relationships of diseases. The cortex 
 is the key common to the normal expression of dis- 
 
 Laycock says: 'Study well the physiognomy of 
 disease that is to say, all those external character- 
 istics in the patient that reach the unaided senses and 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896. 
 * To carry this out to the exclusion of other methods of diagnosis 
 would in my opinion be most dangerous in practice.
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 77 
 
 which are associated ' associated, I would point out, 
 chiefly through the brain cortex' with morbid states, 
 whether they be sounds or odours or visible and tangi- 
 ble modifications of form, complexion, expression, and 
 modes of functional activity, taking cognisance of 
 minute modifications as well as of the more obvious, for 
 they are only minute in a popular sense.' If this is 
 done, it is truly as * scientific ' a mode of diagnosis 
 as any stethoscopic or chemical investigation. No 
 doubt some persons are more tell-tale physiognomically BC P- 
 than others ; that is, there is in them a closer and more 
 constant relationship between the organic and sensory 
 centres in the cortex, and the mental and motor centres 
 that control the face and attitudes ; their mental 
 reflexes are, in fact, more acute. * Take as an example a An 
 case. A patient comes to you, and before you ask him 
 a question, you notice a glazy complexion, especially j; b8erv *~ 
 under the eyes, the eyes themselves showing a combina- 
 tion of brilliancy over the cornea, with pallor over the 
 conjunctivas, the skin of the face being rather muddy, 
 the lips and ears a bit dusky, the breathing rather 
 heavy, and the activity of the muscular movements 
 diminished. These are signs of organic distress in 
 the general mental expression of the countenance. 
 If still further the patient has the typical outward 
 signs of the arthritic diathesis namely, tall figure, 
 broad thorax, full abdomen, large muscles and frame, 
 limbs large, movements rather sedate then, founded 
 on all those outward phenomena, which by ex- 
 perience can be taken in at a glance, you form a 
 valuable primd-facie case of renal-cardiac disease. 
 Beyond any doubt, there may be a " gastric " or a Gastric 
 " renal " look, and there may be a " cardiac " or " pul- Took. 1
 
 78 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 monary " look in a man's face. It will be seen that 
 almost all these outward signs arise through the 
 brain cortex being acted on by the diseased organs, 
 this action being reflected in the face.' 
 
 Morals and In considering these close sympathies of mind and 
 bdy. and body we are reminded here of an interesting point 
 lately raised as to whether the mind can remain 
 undented after voluntary physical immoralities. 
 It seems to me that the fact of evil thoughts 
 being written physically upon the face shows that 
 evil deeds are written psychically upon the mind; 
 and indeed every consideration of the close niter- 
 dependence of soul and body must tend to drive 
 from the minds of serious thinkers this mischievous 
 philosophical antinomianism, which has lately re- 
 appeared in Europe, into which even a Maeterlinck, 
 so great in many departments of thought, has per- 
 mitted himself to be beguiled; and which teaches 
 that the soul of a prostitute or of a murderer may 
 preserve its purity in the midst of atrocious bodily 
 acts. The soul may, indeed, remain pure while most 
 hideous violences are offered to the body ; but to 
 absolve it from participation hi voluntary action is 
 surely a misconception of everything. Such a mis- 
 A grow conception, indeed, that we should not have turned 
 eeptkn. aside from our subject even to allude to it, if it were 
 not widely current, carrying evil in its train. 
 
 Conciu- In concluding our present subject I would say that, 
 
 having given sufficient illustrations, largely from the 
 testimony of able observers of the general relation of 
 mind to disease, I will reserve further details for the 
 next chapter.
 
 ON PSYCHO-PATHOLOGY 79 
 
 I do not think I need apologise for the length of 
 my quotations in this and other chapters, and even 
 for reiterating, as I have done, some important points. 
 In accumulating evidence on any subject in which the 
 writer is specially interested, his own ipse dixit should 
 not be too prominent ; and where the testimony of 
 competent physicians is available, I think it is best 
 to give it ; although the style of the book necessarily 
 somewhat suffers by being disconnected. At any rate, 
 it is by these means that I trust I have established 
 that ' the mental factor is present in some way or 
 other in all diseases.'
 
 80 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TEE MENTAL FACTOR IN ORGANIC AND 
 OTHER DISEASES 
 
 4 We have examples of the mind as a causal factor in 
 most organic diseases.' 
 
 New ' I AM sure,' says Sir B. W. Richardson, 1 ' that modi- 
 
 ^mentai ^ e ^' ^ not new * orm8 * disease, developed through 
 
 origin. the mind are much more common than they were ' 
 
 a startling statement, but one supported widely by 
 
 medical experience. We need not, however, confine 
 
 our attention to such new or modified diseases to find 
 
 abundant evidence of mind action. 
 
 Without committing himself definitely as to which 
 is cause and which effect, Sir B. W. Richardson connects 
 certain mental diseases (to which, if I mistake not, 
 he stands sponsor) with certain physical conditions : 
 Delirium Inquietans,' for instance, he connects with 
 valvular disease of the heart ; ' Delirium Dubitans,' 
 with ' changeable ' diseases and intermittent fevers ; 
 ' Delirium Sperans,' with tubercle ; ' Delirium De- 
 sperans,' with disease of the rectum. 
 
 Dr. Lya 1 Dr. Grabham Lys says that mind produces athe- 
 
 roma, dilated heart, Graves' disease, dyspepsia, jaun- 
 dice, cirrhosis, chorea, cancer, pernicious anaemia, 
 foetal deformities, and alopecia. 
 
 1 Sir B. W. Rich&rdson, Discourse, p. 16.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOE IN DISEASES 81 
 
 I suppose he means that in each of these diseases 
 there are numerous instances where the most obvious 
 cause at any rate has been the mental factor. 
 
 Dividing the mind into emotion and intellect, Die 
 I find that Emotion has caused unconsciously nume- by 
 rous cases of epilepsy, diabetes, jaundice, urticaria, emotloni 
 rachialgia, paralyses, boils, cancer, gastric diseases, 
 retention, amenorrhoea, granular kidney, and ana- 
 sarca. 
 
 The Intellect, on the other hand, has a much less Diseases 
 intimate connection with organic diseases ; and from 
 what I have adduced as to the relative power of the 
 conscious and unconscious faculties on the body, the 
 reason is clear. Emotion in its varieties is often 
 wholly or partly unconscious, whereas the intellect is 
 almost always exercised consciously, though its effects 
 upon the body are wrought by the unconscious mind, 
 apart from the direct action of the will. The results 
 are therefore much shallower and more superficial, 
 and nearly always functional. 
 
 Although my subject in this chapter is more 
 especially organic disease, I will enumerate some of 
 the effects of the intellect on the body. 
 
 The intellect can influence and produce indirectly J 
 through the unconscious mind hyperaesthesia, anaes- 
 thesia, paraesthesia, dysaesthesia, and all varieties of 
 special sensation. Intellect can contract or relax 
 muscles, and cause all movements, including irregular 
 and excessive movements, spasms, and convulsions. 
 It can also produce loss of muscular power and para- 
 lysis. Intellect can in the same way influence the 
 involuntary muscles of the heart, lungs, blood-vessels, 
 bowels, also those in all organs. It also can affect 
 
 o 2
 
 82 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 the salivary and mammary glands, digestion, excretion, 
 secretion, and general nutrition. 
 
 Diseases The sympathetic system, which is largely governed 
 
 plCo by the mental emotions, causes functional diseases of 
 
 origin. a ]j p ar ts and many organic diseases inflammations, 
 
 oedema, goitre, exophthalmic goitre, headache, angina 
 
 pectoris, diabetes, Addison's disease, and neuroses of 
 
 the extremities. 
 
 It is interesting to note, hi comparing the volun- 
 tary and involuntary systems, that it is decidedly the 
 former (which to some extent is under the control of 
 the conscious mind) that is most easily paralysed and 
 suffers most from disease. 
 
 I must not traverse in detail the ground so ably 
 covered by Hack Tuke in recording at length the 
 numerous instances known of physical diseases of 
 mental origin ; but will be content very briefly to 
 summarise the evidence at my disposal under this 
 head. 
 
 Diseases of Let us commence with the heart and circulation. 
 duSibT Dr- Sansom, in the ' Twentieth Century Practice of 
 ada& Medicine,' says : ' Mental overstrain is a more frequent 
 cause of a morbid condition of arteries, heart, and 
 kidneys than is generally admitted. The influence of 
 protracted emotion in the production of arterial and 
 cardiac disease is real. It has been proved by Mosso 
 that emotions produce a spasmodic contraction of 
 the arterioles.' ' Strong and repeated emotions,' says 
 Huchard, ' can induce cardiac affections by their strong 
 action on the peripheral circulation. Hence arterio- 
 sclerosis is so common amongst doctors, politicians, 
 "ir d nil. an ^ fi nanc i ers '' The emotion of anger has been spe- 
 tion. cially investigated with reference to arterial pressure.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOE IN DISEASES 83 
 
 It is found capable of increasing the pressure of blood 
 from 14 to 21 cub.m. in men, and the blood corpuscles 
 from 8 to 4^ millions per m.m. The connection of fear 
 with the circulation is well known. Not only is the 
 skin blanched, but the pulse often becomes irregular. 
 ' Am I afraid ? ' said Louis XVI. once in a crisis in the 
 Revolution ; ' feel my pulse.' 
 
 John Hunter says : ' An exciting cause of angina 
 pectoris has long been known to be emotional excite- 
 ment.' 
 
 Dr. Lys speaks 1 of both apoplexy and anaemic bruits 
 occurring during mental anxiety, being caused by 
 arterial tension, also of many cases of atheroma where 
 no cause is known but some mental disorder. Also of 
 cardiac dilatation in young people which may be due 
 to palpitation from the increased vascular tension of 
 mental origin. 
 
 Respecting atheroma, Clifford Allbutt says he knew Atheroma, 
 ' a young man whose pulse tracing for twelve months Und""* 1 
 during severe anxiety showed increased tension.' anasarca. 
 
 Dr. Stephen Mackenzie gives three striking cases 
 of pernicious anaemia caused by mental shock. 
 
 Dr. Bateman tells us 2 of a poor woman who got 
 general anasarca in the night after the loss of all her 
 money (only a small sum). 
 
 Turning to the lungs and breathing, asthma and i^ng 
 
 , , . , diseasea 
 
 various forms of dyspnoea, coughs, and hiccoughs of mental 
 are largely influenced by mind. Sir Henry Holland ongin ' 
 says : ' I have known asthmatic patients in whom 
 attacks are brought on by seeing them in others.' 
 
 1 Dr. Lys, Lancet, 1892, i. 904. 
 
 Dr. Bateman, Practical Symptoms of Cutaneous Disease, 
 7th edit. p. 214.
 
 84 THE FOKCE OP MIND 
 
 Haemorrhage from the lungs has been frequently 
 traced to mental causes. Sir James Paget tells us of 
 a young man who had haemoptysis on his birthday, 
 and for nine years after on his birthday, being quite 
 free between. He died of rapid consumption after 
 the tenth anniversary. 
 
 Dr. Sweetzer tells us of a lady, who, feeling a 
 living frog fall into her bosom from the clutches of a 
 bird, was seized with such profuse haemoptysis that 
 she lived only a few minutes. 
 
 Digests The digestive organs, including the liver, are, as is 
 
 of 8 mentai we ^ known? greatly affected by the mind, and woe 
 
 origin. betide the practitioner who fails to remember this in 
 
 some obscure case of dyspepsia or mal-assimilation. 
 
 Anorexia, nausea, dyspepsia, flatulence, gastralgia, 
 
 constipation, and diarrhoea are all often either caused 
 
 or largely affected by the mental factor. 
 
 Jaundice from mental emotion is recorded by 
 Sir S. Wilks ; l jaundice from anxiety specially by Dr. 
 Churton. 2 Jaundice has also been caused by fits of 
 anger and fear. A medical student had an attack 
 brought on by a severe examination. 3 
 
 Dyspepsia ' Barristers,' Dr. Fletcher tells us, ' commonly 
 oriSn ntal BU ff er fr m dyspepsia during the assizes, which dis- 
 appears at once when the anxiety is over.' Dyspepsia, 
 indeed, of all diseases, is the most easily produced by 
 the mind. Dr. Clouston observes with regard to 
 dyspepsia : 4 ' The mental attitude of the physician is 
 often changed somehow, when he is treating his 
 
 1 Sir 8. Wilks, British Medical Journal, July 2, 1870, p. 4. 
 
 Dr. Churton, British Medical Journal, November 19, 1870, p. 547. 
 
 Dr. Hack Tnke, Mind and Body. 
 
 4 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOE IN DISEASES 85 
 
 patient's indigestion and constipation, as compared with 
 that with which he considers and treats the mental 
 pain that accompanied and perhaps caused the indi- 
 gestion. The indigestion took its real origin, it may 
 be, in a disturbance of the action of the mind and 
 brain cortex, but the stomach only is thought of or 
 treated by peptones, acids, or laxatives, and this is 
 called " scientific " treatment. We do not need to 
 hypnotise a patient to show that the mental centres 
 in the cortex have the power of directly influencing 
 physiological function and tissue nutrition. In mental 
 disease, which means cortical disease, every one of 
 these functions is commonly enough affected. The 
 dry skin, the foul tongue, the constipation and mal- 
 assimilation, of certain melancholies, the greasy, 
 odorous perspiration, the phosphatic urine, and the 
 constant flow of speech, of many maniacal cases, are 
 every-day examples.' 
 
 Vomiting is not only excited by injuries to the 
 brain, apart from disorders of the stomach, but by the 
 mind alone. A house surgeon of Dr. Durand gave 
 one hundred patients coloured water, and told them it 
 was a strong emetic given in mistake. Eighty of 
 them were violently sick in consequence. With 
 regard to the liver, we have given one or two instances liver, 
 of mental action ; but there can be no doubt that in 
 this case, as in all digestive disease, the effect of the 
 malady upon the mind is more powerful than the 
 power of the mind in causing the disease. 
 
 In connection with the action of the mind on the a 
 
 digestive canal, I will give a striking instance of its duetoth* 
 power in producing a disease, so incredible on the face 
 of it, that it is well to say that I will personally vouch
 
 86 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 for every detail. Early in 1897 a woman was ad- 
 mitted into a London hospital with faecal vomiting. 
 Her abdomen was covered with the scars of various 
 laparotomies made in order to find out the cause. 
 The whole of the abdominal contents had already 
 been carefully examined, but, as the vomiting persisted, 
 a fresh opening was made once more and the colon 
 specially overhauled. All the viscera were healthy ; 
 nevertheless the faecal vomiting was genuine. Most 
 careful experiments conducted by the surgeon and 
 house-surgeon yielded almost incredible results. Two 
 K^ark- ounces of castor oil introduced into the rectum were 
 periments. vomited with faecal matter in from' ten to fifteen 
 minutes. Half a pint of water stained with methyl 
 blue introduced into the rectum was vomited in the 
 same time, and so on. The cause of this marvellous 
 reversed peristalsis was purely mental, and the patient 
 was eventually relieved by wholly mental discipline 
 and therapeutics, and was discharged cured. Although 
 this confessedly is a case of functional disease, it 
 nevertheless remains one of the most remarkable 
 instances of the power of the unconscious mind over 
 the body. To some, perhaps, this seems too much to 
 assume. But let us see if any alternative theory is 
 possible. The abdomen had been repeatedly opened 
 in the belief that the cause was physical and material, 
 but without result. Moreover, the cure was effected 
 Th e without the removal of any physical irritant or other 
 
 Averted a S ent - The cause was therefore mental, or, if this 
 action of still be objected to, let us at least take refuge in 
 conscfous ' Nature ' or ' Physiology.' In the second place, we have 
 1nmd - no conscious mental power that could produce such a 
 disgusting action, even if we wished. If any doubt this,
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOB IN DISEASES 87 
 
 let them try, and they will find the reign of the 
 conscious mind has its fixed limits all over the body, 
 as we have shown, which are in sharp contrast to the 
 more extensive and apparently universal powers 
 possessed by the ' unconscious mind.' In this case, Conscious 
 for instance, the powers of the conscious will cease at ceases 
 the fauces or pharynx ; all beyond knows not its sway. 
 Nevertheless, it is far from being in a state of anarchy : 
 the presence of a controlling power, ordering all to 
 one end, is perhaps even more evident beyond the 
 fauces than on this side. The power that reversed 
 peristaltic action without any mechanical or material 
 cause is not therefore only mental, but shown to be 
 unconscious by two facts. The woman had no idea 
 it was effected by her mind at all, and, if she had, all 
 her conscious power could not have produced it. 
 What caused it, therefore, was neither ' conscious ' nor 
 * sub -conscious,' but ' unconscious ' mind ; and the 
 disease necessarily remained incurable until this 
 unconscious mind was reached, and made to undo the 
 evil work it had done. 
 
 The kidneys and bladder are affected organically Kidney 
 by the unconscious mind. Diabetes is undoubtedly of mental 
 caused by mental strain. Sir B. W. Eichardson origin - 
 records such cases, and says : ' Diabetes from sudden 
 mental shock is a true pure type of a physical malady 
 of mental origin.' l 
 
 Van Noorden, in ' Twentieth Century Practice of 
 Medicine,' says : ' There are many carefully observed 
 cases of diabetes on record, in which the disease 
 followed a sudden fright or joy, or some other dis- 
 turbance of the mental equilibrium.' 
 
 1 Brunton, Pavy, and others also give mind as a cause.
 
 88 THE FOKCE OP MIND 
 
 Urine and Apart from disease, the mind naturally affects the 
 
 the mind. rena } secretion. Eleven parts of urine are secreted in 
 
 repose, compared with thirteen when the brain is 
 
 active (allowing for other disturbing factors). The 
 
 amount of urea is also augmented. 
 
 Dr. Clifford Allbutt says it is an undoubted 
 clinical fact that granular kidney is often produced 
 by prolonged mental anxiety. 
 
 Incontinence and retention are both produced by 
 the mind apart from physical causes, and are also 
 often aggravated by it where these are present. 
 
 It is an interesting fact, though it proves nothing, 
 that from sympathy, after the death of Napoleon III., 
 four persons consulted Sir James Paget for stone 
 in the bladder who had no physical sign of it, though 
 they described the symptoms. 
 
 Cancer and Cancer has often a discernible mental factor, if 
 the mind. not an e ffi c i en {; men tal cause. Sir George Paget says : l 
 1 In many cases I have reason for believing that 
 cancer had its origin in prolonged anxiety.' 
 
 Dr. Murchison says : ' I have been surprised how 
 often patients with primary cancer of the liver have 
 traced the cause of this ill-health to protracted grief 
 or anxiety. The cases have been far too numerous to 
 be accounted for as mere coincidences.' 
 
 Dr. Snow (' Lancet,' 1880) even asserts his con- 
 viction that 'the vast majority of cases of cancer, 
 especially of breast and uterine cancer, are due to 
 mental anxiety.' 
 
 Sir W. H. Bennett, speaking at St. George's 
 Hospital (January 1899), tells us of cases of increased 
 growth of tumours following constant attention. 
 
 1 Sir George Paget, Lectures.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOR IN DISEASES 89 
 
 We find thoughts unconsciously acting freely on 
 the skin secretions, in arresting or increasing them. 
 Sir B. W. Eichardson says : l ' Eruptions on the 
 skin will follow excessive mental strain. In all these, 
 and in cancer, epilepsy, and mania from mental 
 causes, there is a predisposition.' 'It is remark- 
 able,' he adds, ' how little the question of the origin 
 of physical diseases from mental influences has been 
 studied.' 
 
 As to infectious diseases, the mind is a potent 
 factor. A doctor owes his immunity to this fact far 
 more than to any care he takes, and so do nurses. 
 The surest way to be attacked with an infectious 
 disease is to be afraid of it. Fear and the thought 
 of sickness are of themselves sufficient to cause the 
 same (provided the germ be present). 
 
 With regard to cholera, Sir W. Stokes says : ' The 
 first sight of cholera patients gives rise to symptoms of mind, 
 cholera afterwards.' 
 
 Sir S. Baker, the explorer of the Nile, says that 
 ' any severe grief or anger is almost certain to be 
 succeeded by fever in certain parts of Africa.' 
 
 ' In the general paralysis of the insane (apart from 
 syphilis),' according to Dr. Mickle, endorsed by Dr. 
 Blandford, ' mental strain and overstrain are the 
 great pathological factors.' 
 
 Scurvy is often stopped by naval engagements, 
 and the British Fleet is remarkably healthy after 
 victories ; while Professor Rolleston points out that 
 after defeat an army ' readily succumbs to dysentery, 
 scurvy, malarial fever, and other diseases, that have 
 comparatively little effect in opposite circumstances. 
 
 1 Sir B. W. Bichardson, Field of Disease, p. 618.
 
 90 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 Dr. Lys says : ' ' In every case of Graves' disease 
 (exophthalmic goitre) there is a morbid mental state 
 of a constant character which precedes its development, 
 and consists of depression with extreme irritability.' 
 Dr - Dr. Clouston says : 2 'If one wanted a special 
 
 on U8 illustration of the mental and nervous relation of 
 influenza. &n i n f ect j ve f everj one ^ould. select influenza. The 
 microbe or its ptomaines have a special affinity, there 
 can be no doubt, for the higher nervous centres. 
 They eat up and destroy the nerve and mental energy. 
 No mental and no nervous effort is possible while the 
 disease lasts with most people ; and the nerve cells, 
 being the highest and most delicate in the organism, 
 take by far the longest to recuperate. The simplest 
 but most effectual mode of conserving and restoring 
 nerve energy by going to bed at once, and staying 
 there a long time, is never so necessary as in 
 influenza.' 
 
 Muscular inco -ordination seems to arise from 
 some error in the action of the unconscious mind. 
 
 Insomnia and tinnitus aurium are largely vices of 
 the nerve centres. 
 
 Pains Arc. Keflex pain is often felt from mental shock, or 
 
 mantel by a sharp twinge on the receipt of bad news. Other 
 
 action. symptoms are ' the back opening and shutting,' a 
 
 sudden backache with an acid taste in the mouth, 
 
 and the teeth on edge, also muscular tremors and 
 
 weakness of the legs. I was walking in Victoria 
 
 Station the other day with a lady in perfect health, 
 
 but of nervous temperament. The receipt of some 
 
 bad news made her reel about and lurch from side to 
 
 1 Dr. Lys, The Lancet, 1892, i. 905. 
 
 * Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOR IN DISEASES 91 
 
 Bide as if intoxicated ; while her natural gait was 
 replaced by short steps on her toes as in paralysis 
 agitans, which, by the way, is another disease in 
 which the mental factor acts as a causal agent. 
 
 Turning to uterine diseases, we may couple the uterine 
 action of the mind with the growth of fibroids, with andtS" 
 abortion and premature labour, with conception and nund ' 
 its products, both in their mental and physical 
 characters. Dr. Clouston observes : l ' Nothing is more 
 common than for the menstrual discharge to be 
 diminished, arrested, or increased by mental and 
 nervous influences. Any practitioner of physic who 
 treats menstrual disturbances without reference to 
 the patient's mental and general brain condition will 
 certainly not succeed fully in his efforts. The whole 
 subject of the function of reproduction and sex is 
 quite as much mental as bodily. It relates as much 
 to the brain cortex and the mind as to the organs of 
 sex and generation. A man who treats spermatorrhoaa, 
 masturbation, impotence, hysteria, and the allied 
 affections without taking into account the affective 
 and inhibitory state of his patient, and without using 
 moral and mental means as well as physical agencies, 
 is certainly acting on unphysiological lines. 
 
 ' I cannot help adverting here to what I consider J? ^ 
 the rash and unjustifiable way the operations of on cast 
 castration and removing the ovaries and appendages tlon ' 
 were recently looked at, without any reference to their 
 mental effects on the subjects of them. We know 
 that there are two primary instincts in all the higher 
 animal kingdom to live and to reproduce. No 
 philosophic-minded gynaecologist can look lightly on 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 92 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 the deliberate extinction, by surgical means, of the 
 essential organs of reproduction. Profound mental 
 changes commonly follow after this in young subjects. 
 The difference between the mental qualities of an 
 ox and a bull should be sufficiently evident even to 
 the most surgical-minded gynaecologist. Yet I have 
 seen the operation recommended with as little con- 
 sideration of mental consequences as the opening of 
 a whitlow. Depend upon it, it may be almost as 
 great a crime to castrate as to kill.' 
 
 Dr. Ormerod gives a case where a mother in 
 pregnancy injured two fingers of the right hand, the 
 child being afterwards born with two fingers imperfect. 
 
 Dr. Owen l gives another case of a pregnant 
 woman whose brother was genitally deficient. Her 
 child, a male, was born similarly defective. 
 
 ^k ac ti n of the mind on the products of con- 
 pairing, ception, though not, perhaps, coming under the head 
 of disease, may be conveniently considered here, and 
 affords remarkable proof of the power (presumably) 
 of the mental factor. 
 
 Dr. Lowe, in the ' British Medical Journal,' says * 
 that the lasting effects of pairing in animals, both 
 in the male and female, are to his mind conclusive 
 of the way in which the mind of the parent can un- 
 consciously impress physical characteristics on the 
 Jj^, offspring. He selects about half a dozen experiments, 
 experi- which speak for themselves. 
 
 1. He says that a white sow with a black Berk- 
 shire boar produced a litter of black and white pigs. 
 This sow next, with a red Tamworth boar, although 
 
 1 Dr. Owen, Lancet, 1892, i. 969. 
 
 Dr. Lowe, British Medical Journal, October 81, 1896.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOK IN DISEASES 93 
 
 there was no black in either of the parents, produced 
 a progeny which were red, black, and white, the 
 patches of black being very conspicuous. 
 
 2. A black sow and boar (Puckering breed) had 
 always bred their progeny black. The boar then was 
 put with a white sow for the first time ; two months 
 later it was back with the original black sow, which 
 then produced a litter of black and white pigs, 
 although there was no white in either of the parents. 
 
 8. A shorthorn cow with an Alderney bull pro- 
 duced a calf which was half-bred Alderney. After- 
 wards, this same cow, with a shorthorn bull, had 
 another calf, which was still partly Alderney. 
 
 4. A smooth fox-terrier, by a rough Scotch -terrier, 
 had rough pups. Afterwards, by a smooth fox- 
 terrier, it had pups which were, many of them, rough- 
 coated, and none were like the parents. 
 
 5. A Manx tailless tom-cat paired with an ordinary 
 English cat, and some of the kittens had either no 
 tails or very short ones. The tailless tom-cat died 
 some years ago, but up to the present time a few 
 tailless kittens are still born. 
 
 6. A fair light-haired Englishman married a 
 Brazilian lady, but had no children. Twenty years 
 after he married a light-haired English lady, who 
 subsequently had a dark-haired son who was more 
 Brazilian in appearance than English. 
 
 Dr. Lowe can give numbers of different cases of 
 cows, cats, pigs, rabbits, sheep, &c., but thinks these 
 examples will sufficiently illustrate this phenomenon. 
 
 Case No. 6 is alluded to as follows in the next Dr. 
 
 , _ . _ , Neale'i 
 
 issue by Dr. Neale : comment* 
 
 'The solution to this problem appears to me
 
 94 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 " psychological imprint ; " that, having been deeply 
 attached to his Brazilian wife, and having dwelt 
 lovingly upon her memory for twenty years, the 
 resulting offspring from his " fair English wife " bore 
 the traces of long-continued mental impressions 
 rather than the result of merely having lived many 
 years previously with a lady of a darker hue.' 
 
 A thoughtful study of these cases will leave the 
 reader with the profound conviction that the cause is 
 undoubtedly psychical and not physical. 
 
 Pre-natal The effects of pre-natal impressions on the off- 
 
 ions? 8 8 P rm g> f which there seems undeniable evidence, 
 also afford a striking illustration of the influence of 
 suggestion. ' The story of Jacob getting Laban's 
 flock to breed striped cattle by means of suggestion 
 (Gen. xxx.) testifies to the antiquity of a belief which 
 seems less incredible as our knowledge extends.' ' 
 Charles ^ The mother of Charles Kingsley believed that 
 
 casT* e; 8 impressions made on her own mind before the birth 
 of the child for whose coming she longed would be 
 mysteriously transmitted to him ; and in this faith, 
 for his sake as well as her own, she luxuriated in the 
 romantic surroundings of her Devonshire home and 
 in every sight and sound which she hoped would be 
 dear to her child in after life. These hopes were 
 realised ; and though her son left Devon when he 
 was six weeks old, and never saw his birthplace till 
 he was a man of thirty, it and every Devonshire scene 
 had a mysterious charm for him throughout life. 2 
 
 Lastly, passing beyond disease, there are various 
 mental actions which can produce death itself, though 
 
 1 Professor Barrett (Dublin), Humanitarian. 
 Charles Kingsley, Life, L 4.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOE IN DISEASES 95 
 
 they themselves can neither be measured nor demon- 
 strated. 
 
 I will give a few instances mainly from Dr. Tuke's Death 
 
 hnnk from 
 
 mental 
 
 'In May 1873 a stockbroker in Paris fell down causea> 
 in an apoplectic fit, and soon died on hearing that his 
 valet had been found shot through the head.' 
 
 In the ' Lancet,' 1867, is the case of a woman 
 forty-three years old who died in a fit from finding 
 her daughter, whom she supposed to have been killed 
 in a railway accident, come home unexpectedly. 
 
 A woman, having nursed her sister during a long 
 illness until her death, did not then give way to 
 grief, but appeared perfectly unmoved. A fortnight 
 after she was found dead in her bed, but there was 
 no post-mortem cause found, except the depressing 
 influence of pent-up grief through the nervous system. 
 
 'A laundress coming home along a lonely road 
 from a solitary walk looked ill and excited ; she said 
 that a man had jumped out of a cemetery as she 
 passed. She died at the supper table. The post- 
 mortem examination showed all the organs healthy 
 except the heart, and the verdict was " Death from 
 syncope due to shock." ' 
 
 Dr. Walshe says : ' A man came to insure his life 
 in full vigour and was rejected, and told he had a 
 diseased heart. He became melancholic and died the 
 week after.' 
 
 Signer Laura, in reporting on a station master who 
 had died suddenly after hearing that his station had 
 been robbed, points out that ' sudden mental emotion 
 may cause death in persons of robust health in a very 
 remarkable way.' 
 
 H
 
 96 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Only recently I heard of a case in the South of 
 Scotland when two medical men were walking together, 
 and one was saying that he could make a man ill 
 by merely talking to him (I do not give the doc- 
 tor's name for obvious reasons). The other doctor 
 doubted this. So, seeing a labourer in a field, the first 
 speaker went up to him, and, telling him he did not 
 like his appearance, proceeded to diagnose some grave 
 disease. The man was profoundly struck, left off 
 work soon after, feeling very ill, took to his bed, and 
 in a week died; no sufficient physical cause being 
 found. This was of course a shocking misuse of the 
 power, causing great grief at the time at the un- 
 expected and fatal result. 
 
 Overwork Overwork causes eventually death of mind and 
 and S bdy d bodv - At Cambridge recently the Third Wrangler 
 alone survived, the Senior and Second having died. 
 A man may be intended by Nature to be third or 
 thirtieth Wrangler. If he gets first it is only at seriouy 
 peril. There are few greater causes of ill-health than 
 the mental factor ' ambition.' 
 
 Dr May I, in closing this chapter, give one more extract 
 
 Clouston f rom D r< Clouston ? He says : l ' It seems, indeed, as if 
 
 onprotec- J 
 
 tion of a certain persons who are predisposed to special diseases 
 cortel have, as their great protective and prophylactic against 
 them, a sound and well-working mind and brain cortex. 
 When well in mind, they are sound in body. When 
 disturbed in mind, they fall victims to their diathesis. 
 I have no doubt myself that this is the strongest cf 
 all the forces from within that preserve health and 
 protect from disease. It is now generally recognised 
 that death takes place with most men, not because 
 
 ' Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 THE MENTAL FACTOE IN DISEASES 97 
 
 disease is overmastering, but because the resisting 
 power against it at the time is lessened. A man gets 
 over many attacks of bronchitis till he is past seventy, 
 and then his nervous resistance becomes too weak 
 effectually to save his life. The degenerating cortex, as 
 old age conies on, not only loses its faculties of memory 
 and keen volition, but a trophic energy which it has 
 hitherto supplied to the organs and tissues ; so that 
 we have atheroma, the senile heart, a shrivelled skin, 
 and many other tissue degenerations. In fact, a bad 
 memory and an attack of senile eczema in a man of 
 seventy -five may result from the same central nervous 
 cause. For the healing as well as for the prevention 
 of disease, a sound cortex and a cheerful and a buoyant 
 mind are all-important.' 
 
 Nothing more need be added to prove the argument 
 of this chapter, that ' we have examples of the mind 
 as a causal factor in most organic diseases.'
 
 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE CAUSE AND SYMPTOMS OF FUNCTIONAL 
 NERVE DISEASE 
 
 The mental factor in neurasthenia is generally 
 admitted.' 
 
 insanity A MAN whose conscious mind is diseased is called 
 of con- Bease insane ; but one whose ' unconscious mind ' is affected 
 
 mind 9 ^ 8 no ^ re g ar ded as insane but as ' hysterical,' which to 
 
 hysteria S0 me is a worse name than the other. The delusions 
 
 conscious, may be equally strong in both cases and the results 
 
 on life almost as disastrous, and yet we are quite 
 
 clear that a man is not insane if he has only 
 
 'hysteria.' This nomenclature should not be dis- 
 
 turbed, and the word ' insanity ' should not be allowed 
 
 to cover any disorders below consciousness. In the 
 
 present instance we have nothing to do with diseases 
 
 of the conscious mind, and I do not therefore write of 
 
 the insane at all. Nor, on the other hand, are we 
 
 here confined to hysteria. Our general subject is 
 
 Functional * the mental factor in medicine,' and what we must 
 
 afs'eTses consider now is the special bearing of this factor on 
 
 recently functional nerve diseases. It is only of recent years 
 
 recognised, that these diseases have been recognised as such, and 
 
 given a distinct place by the profession generally. 
 
 Pioneers and geniuses in medicine told us all about 
 
 these diseases long ago, but we heeded them not.
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASE 99 
 
 Now we unearth the musty tomes, and are surprised 
 to find what modern views those medical classics 
 contain. 
 
 Hospital students, again, are generally kept abreast 
 of the most recent advances, and are pretty well up medical 
 to date in their knowledge ; and yet it is only quite educatlon> 
 recently that this subject has occupied a definite place 
 in their education ; and though the sufferers from 
 this form of disorder exist in ever-increasing numbers, 
 it still brings up the rear in the ranks of disease. 
 I must here utter a word of protest against Sometimes 
 the contempt with which the ignorant public and with con- 
 shall we say at times semi-ignorant medical men ? fcempt 
 regard functional nerve disease. The word ' hysteria ' 
 is generally uttered with great contempt, and is often 
 treated as if synonymous with malingering. In a 
 recent medical work we read : ' The sister of the ward 
 and the house physician settled between them that True 
 the case was hysterical and the girl was malingering ; ' 
 that is, that hysteria means shamming. Such a 
 statement takes us back to the Dark Ages, when all 
 insanity was possession by an evil spirit ; as it certainly 
 implies that one with serious nerve disease is simply 
 possessed by a lying spirit. 'A disease due to the 
 imagination is not ' (as we shall see) ' an imaginary 
 disease,' but can produce functional and even organic 
 disturbances. The late Dr. Sutton once said to me 
 with great force : ' If a man is so ill as to say he is 
 ill when he is not ill, he must be very ill indeed.' 
 
 Dr. Clouston makes some important remarks on 
 the subject. He says : l ' If some people want to imply reproach, 
 that a patient's symptoms are unimportant, they call 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 100 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 them " nervous ; " if they want to ticket them as un- 
 worthy of consideration altogether, they call them 
 " mental ; " and if they want to brand them as quite 
 absurd and out of the pale of human sympathy or 
 medical effort, they call them " hysterical." One 
 would imagine from these things that the phenomena 
 of sensation normal and abnormal, and those of con- 
 sciousness feeling, judging, willing, and memory 
 and their disturbances through cortical disease, were 
 not comprehended in true scientific work at all ; and 
 Mind that mind generally and nervous influence might be 
 inSSe 6 ^ e ^ ou * * account by the physician ! A man breaks 
 account n i 8 i eg an; j it i s aa> i& to be put up on " scientific 
 
 with some. . . . . 
 
 principles." He loses his memory, his energy of will, 
 his social instincts, and in the diagnosis and treat- 
 ment of his disease the word " scientific " is exchanged 
 for terms which are often vague and meaningless.' 
 It seems to me that the severity of these scathing 
 remarks is quite justified by their accuracy and un- 
 deniable truth. 
 
 imaginary Up to fifty years ago doctors failed to distinguish 
 an"!* 86 between an imaginary disease and a disease of the 
 disease imagination, and airily dismissed both as malinger - 
 imagina- ing. No suspicion seems ever to have entered their 
 minds as to the root error they were making, and the 
 disastrous consequences for which they were surely 
 The one responsible. It never occurred to them that an 
 exi^the imaginary disease was a disease a person had not got; 
 others do. but a disease of the imagination, on the contrary, was 
 a disease the person had got. Once this is fairly under- 
 stood, and we thoroughly and clearly grasp that a 
 disease of the imagination only differs from a disease 
 of the lungs in being more obscure and difficult to
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASE 101 
 
 treat, that it probably causes more suffering, and may 
 end in death, we are up to date, at any rate, in this 
 matter. Archaic survivals (early Victorian), however, 
 everywhere abound, to whom the above is utterly 
 futile a playing with expressions, and a trifling with 
 the word ' disease.' I do not defend the term 
 ' imagination ' or ' imaginary ' as scientific. Indeed, 
 I defend no term I have used on this ground. It is Terms of 
 best at present to regard all expressions connected 
 with mind and psychoses and neuroses, and disease 
 also, as only provisional ' terms of expectation.' 
 
 I believe that all functional diseases have some- 
 where an organic basis as well as a mental ; and like- have an 
 wise that all organic diseases have a functional as bS" 3 
 well as a mental factor ; in fact, may we not say that, 
 so far as our present knowledge extends, no operation 
 goes on in man in health or disease without the com- 
 bined action in some way of mind and body ? 
 
 Still, the organic is often as difficult to trace as the Organic 
 
 ~ ,. j. , basis often 
 
 mental factor. Ordinary mentation can never be hard to 
 explained by organic changes, but doubtless physio- 
 logical and anatomical changes may explain many of 
 its morbid phenomena. 
 
 The subjects of functional nerve disease are by no 
 means always drawn from the same class, either paths, 
 mental, moral, or physical. We find sufferers amongst 
 the greatest and the least, the noblest and the basest, 
 the strongest and the weakest, amongst men and 
 women. The same elements, after all, exist in great men 
 and neuropaths ; only in the former there is power to 
 subordinate the means to the end, and to keep the idea 
 noble and the habits excellent. Nervousness, after all, 
 is an excess of self-consciousness of a normal quality.
 
 102 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 Hereditary The evil consists in bringing into consciousness 
 neuroses. ^hat should be left in unconsciousness. It may, of 
 course, be more than this, but this at least is ever 
 present. There is generally, also, a predisposition 
 both from temperament and heredity. Dr. Eennie 
 points this out 1 and asks us to recognise the moral and 
 emotional side of human nature, particularly in young 
 women, and observe how frequently it is a cause in 
 hysteria. He also reminds us that the offspring of 
 persons who are alcoholic, or insane, or neurotic fre- 
 quently inherit nervous systems which are unstable, 
 and furnish us with illustrations of defective and 
 perverted functional nervous activities. 
 
 Dr. Dr. Clouston furnishes us with an illustration or 
 
 Snervou two * Buc ^ cases - He says : 2 ' Here is a woman with 
 diathesis, well-marked features of the nervous diathesis, which 
 is usually characterised by medium stature, small 
 muscular development, spare habits, features marked 
 and expressive, muscular movements in health abrupt 
 and energetic, sensory power keen, reactive power to 
 impressions from within and from without quick and 
 intense. Your patient has the looks and the asexual 
 shape of the climacteric on her. But she has a hope- 
 less, fearful, depressed expression of eye, the skin is 
 muddy, and the attitude and movements show a lack 
 of nervous force. 
 
 Thementai ' Before she has said six sentences you see that she 
 
 dTtSmTiTe 7 suffers from climacteric melancholia, one of the in- 
 
 8eT e numera ble neuroses that arise primarily out of the 
 
 nervous diathesis ; secondarily, from the great epochs 
 
 of life ; and, lastly, from ordinary exciting causes of 
 
 1 G. E. Bennie, British Medical Journal, May 4, 1901. 
 * Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASE 103 
 
 disease. Why does one man develop tertiary syphilitic 
 disease of the nervous centres, or have locomotor 
 ataxia, or Jacksonian epilepsy, or local paresis, or 
 cerebral syphilomata, while nine-tenths of the other 
 men who have tertiary syphilis develop its symptoms 
 in the bones and joints and skin ? 
 
 ' Because he has a nervous diathesis or neurotic 
 constitution, no doubt, which means that all causes of 
 disease are attracted to his nervous tissues. 
 
 ' His brain cortex is his weak point. When he be- Picture of 
 comes tired he is irritable, sleepless, and perhaps craves ^^^ 
 for alcoholic stimulants, which affect him strongly. diathesis.' 
 
 ' When he has losses, misfortunes, or worries, they 
 exhaust his nervous energy unduly and paralyse his 
 volitional power, so that he is utterly cast down. 
 
 ' When he marries he probably indulges in sexual 
 intercourse to an inordinate and hurtful extent. When 
 he is reduced by ordinary disease, he becomes sleep- 
 less, dyspeptic, nervous, or neurasthenic. When he 
 is getting old, he fails in memory and in energy all 
 at once. If predisposed specially to mental disease as 
 well as being generally neurotic, any one of those re- 
 ducing causes which I have mentioned may bring on 
 an attack of melancholia or mania. When he has 
 influenza, it attacks specially his brain cortex, and he 
 is never the same man again.' 
 
 Clinically, Dr. Clouston recognises four types of J^jj" 1 
 functional nerve disease : disease. 
 
 1. Feigned disease (or malingering). 
 
 2. Functional disease dependent upon (obvious) 
 organic disease. 
 
 3. Neurasthenia. 
 
 4. Hysteria.
 
 104 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 The first I do not speak of here, the second occu- 
 pied us in the last chapter, and the third and fourth 
 we will now consider. 
 
 Near- Neurasthenia simply means nerve weakness. The 
 
 asthenia. term itgelf wag un i inown ^ England before 1886, 
 
 though used earlier in America and Germany. This 
 disease, in common with other nerve troubles, has 
 been somewhat in the condition of Noah's dove at 
 least as described in poetry ; for it has long ' flitted 
 between ' the ' rough seas ' of ordinary medical prac- 
 tice and the ' stormy skies ' of the alienist, seeking 
 in vain a resting-place for the sole of its foot. It was 
 neither physical so the physician would have none 
 of it ; nor (consciously) mental so was looked on 
 with suspicion by the alienist ; and it was long in a 
 France and parlous state. Indeed, were it not for the well-known 
 befriended gallantry of the two great nations of America and 
 astiienics France towards sufferers (mainly) of the fair sex, the 
 lot of neurasthenics would indeed be hard. Now, how- 
 ever, I am glad to say their claims to distinct recog- 
 nition as genuine and reputable sufferers are widely 
 recognised; and the respectful attention they now 
 receive from physicians hardly justifies the apologetic 
 way in which many of these patients still enter their 
 consulting rooms. Probably it is but a survival of 
 the bad old times, now gone for ever. 
 
 Neur- Neurasthenia, says Allbutt boldly, ' is neither a 
 
 "dfetfoei sham nor a figment. It is no mere hotchpotch into 
 disease. which odds and ends of nerve troubles are thrust.' 
 
 It consists broadly of increased reflex irritation 
 coupled with a diminished power of resistance to pain 
 and depressing influences. It is a rare disease in the 
 very young or very old, but common in middle life.
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASE 105 
 
 Neurasthenia used to be called hypochondriasis, Neur- 
 being of course put down at first to that long-suffering no?hypo- 
 organ the liver. The term 'hypochondria' is now chondria - 
 reserved for a fixed delusive idea of some particular 
 disease or local suffering. Herman defines it as ' the 
 belief without cause of serious bodily disease.' This 
 brings it very near hysteria, which is largely the 
 nervous mimicry of disease. 
 
 Neurasthenia and hysteria may of course coexist ; 
 the former is decidedly more common in men than 
 the latter. 
 
 There are many varieties of neurasthenia. When Varieties 
 the chief trouble is in the head, we speak of cerebral asthenia 
 neurasthenia ; when it is in the spine, of spinal neur- 
 asthenia. In some the abdominal viscera are affected, 
 and this is visceral neurasthenia. In others a very 
 common form is sexual neurasthenia, and these are 
 often considered the most incurable, and are certainly 
 the most troublesome to deal with. 
 
 Some of these cases, especially the last, are often 
 perilously near the shadowy line that separates the 
 sound from the unsound mind. 
 
 Cardiac neurasthenia is yet another variety. Here 
 the heart is often painful a sort of pseudo-angina. 
 The pulse is rapid in the surface arteries, and there is 
 a marked loss of compensation for gravity, as in the 
 upright position. In these cases the pulse will be 
 often 76 lying down, while it may reach 116 in the 
 standing position, an increase of 40 beats. 
 
 The classes of neurasthenics vary as much as the Three 
 
 classes of 
 
 varieties of neurasthenia. There are three classes ne ur- 
 clinically constantly observed the patients who look aBthenio>< 
 perfectly well and are cheerful, the nervously ill
 
 106 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 and wretched, and the mentally ill and gloomy. The 
 first class are well nourished, plump, restless, and 
 talk without ceasing ; but the other two are downcast, 
 and the latter especially will hardly speak. Idlers 
 are nearly invariably neuropaths, and need equal 
 treatment for body and mind. This is generally 
 successful, if these idlers are men of capacity. 
 
 De Fleury observes : ' Slothful neuropaths when 
 they are resourceful form the nursery of great minds. 
 Amongst this class were Alfieri, J. J. Kousseau, 
 Goethe, who could all only work a few hours a day. 
 Also Darwin, Balzac, Zola, who can only write three 
 hours a day.' 
 
 Cansea The causes of neurasthenia are innumerable ; but 
 
 asthenia, ^ ne cn i e ^ predisposing cause is a weak nervous system 
 through heredity or want of nutrition, and the chief 
 exciting cause is over-strain. 
 
 In education the true chronological order is the 
 body first, and the brain after. Neglect of this is 
 a large factor in this disease. 
 
 Education Many cases of neurasthenia are put down to 
 Mthenia* education ; but we must remember that development 
 of the nervous system makes for increased control. 
 It is found by Dr. Allbutt that neurasthenics are, after 
 all, not more common in New York than London, or 
 among the busy than the idle. The disease abounds 
 in such places as Finland, and in the Yorkshire 
 collieries. 
 
 Nervous Dr. Allbutt, however, goes on to say : l ' The 
 
 maj e betoo attributing of over-excitability to nerve structures 
 
 1 excitable.' m (ji gease j s absurd. No nervous matter was ever too 
 
 excitable. To be excitable is its business. In over- 
 
 1 Dr. Clifford Allbutt, System of Medicine, viii. 150.
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEKVE DISEASE 107 
 
 irritability a racehorse differs from a jackass. The 
 more excitable our nerves, the quicker and higher 
 our life.' But here surely Dr. Allbutt says too much* 
 
 Within the limits of perfect control, it is possible 
 that the nervous system cannot be too excitable, but 
 surely the safety lies in the italicised addition we have 
 suggested. Other things being equal, the more ex- 
 citable, the fiercer the combustion, the more rapid the 
 metabolism, the more necessary the strong control. 
 A slow-combustion stove needs neither the attention 
 nor the care that a forced-draught boiler does ; and 
 speed seldom increases safety. 
 
 It is of course difficult to define the point at which Mental 
 
 strain, ft 
 
 life at high pressure or hard study or training ceases 
 to do good and begins to do harm to the nerve centres. 
 
 ' Mental strain,' Sir James Paget points out, ' is 
 a common cause of nerve disease ; ' and he instances a 
 case of paraplegia following a severe Civil Service 
 examination. 
 
 Karl Petren, of Upsala, in the Deutsche Zeitschrift 
 fur Nervenheilkunde, Bd. xvii., reports the results ob- and 
 tained in a recent investigation upon the frequency of * 
 neurasthenia in the various grades of society. Con- 
 trary to usual statements, he does not find a larger 
 number of cases in the upper than the lower classes. 
 Out of some 2,478 patients observed between 1895 and 
 1899, he met with 285 (11-5 per cent.) cases of definite 
 neurasthenia. These he resolves into three groups : 
 (1) Artisans and peasants ; (2) tradesfolk and under- 
 officials ; (3) intellectuals. In further division as to 
 sex, males are easily first with (1) 14-8 per cent., (2) 
 18-2 per cent., (8) 13 - 3 per cent. As regards women, 
 the numbers are (1) 11-4 per cent., (2) 6-6 per
 
 108 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 cent., and (3) 6'6 per cent. In Sweden it therefore 
 now appears that neurasthenia is more prevalent 
 amongst the working classes. Petren thinks that as 
 previous writers have drawn their statistics, on the one 
 hand, from the higher classes, and, on the other, 
 from clinics, the results disagree because many 
 neurasthenics do not come under hospital treatment, 
 while those of the former status readily consult their 
 doctors. That the disease is not dependent upon 
 the rush of modern life seems apparent from the fact 
 that the greater number of cases came from the pro- 
 vincial parts of Sweden, where life is very simple and 
 Classifies- tranquil. As regards causation, 62 cases have fol- 
 Sus2. lowed family disappointments, 24 financial difficulties, 
 and 47 overwork. Twenty-nine cases occurred after 
 influenza, 21 acknowledged venery or masturbation ; 
 in 16 females it complicated pregnancy and the puer- 
 perium, 8 were directly traced to alcoholic excesses, 
 and 2 were produced by high temperatures experienced 
 during their avocation. A prominent factor is that of 
 hereditary alcoholism. In the early years of the 
 century large quantities of spirits &c. were almost 
 universally consumed, and where the alcoholic ten- 
 dency is not directly apparent its influence is felt in 
 the nervous equilibrium of the present generation. 
 Several cases are reported in which cerebral arterio- 
 sclerosis was present. Hygienic conditions also con- 
 tribute to the increase amongst the lower classes. 
 Lack of proper nourishment, insanitary dwellings, and 
 monotony of existence are amongst some of the causes 
 that need attention in order to prevent its further 
 extension. 
 
 The mental factor in neurasthenia is sufficiently
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASE 109 
 
 obvious, but there is also the physical factor, just Physical 
 pointed out by Karl Petren, of malnutrition, which ^^ m 
 is common enough ; or of some chronic and depressing asthenia ' 
 disease, of persistent physical pain, or, on the other 
 hand, mental pain, as in constant unhappiness. 
 
 It may arise, again, from shock or an operation ; 
 or be left as a legacy after disease, and particularly 
 after influenza. 
 
 Neurasthenia often arises in men from sexual Sexual 
 excesses ; in women more commonly from the strain 
 of sexual life in child-bearing, &c. Herman l points 
 out that ' the Protean symptoms of Bennet, Tilt, 
 and Graily Hewitt, described by them as being of a 
 reflex nature from minor diseases of the uterine 
 organs, really arise from the mind. It is not that a 
 cervical erosion hurts the nervous system, but that a 
 weak nervous system draws attention to the cervix. 
 Nervous women as a class resist pain badly, and feel 
 it more acutely. Still, though mental in origin, these 
 Protean (really neurasthenic) symptoms are benefited 
 by local treatment. Diseases of the womb may 
 aggravate neurasthenia, but do not cause it per se.' 
 
 Turning to the symptoms of neurasthenia, we had Sym 
 
 better give first the complete list as enumerated asthenia. 
 by Dr. Beard, of New York, a man of very great Jt Beard> * 
 experience in the disease. It need hardly be said 
 that no single case exhibits even one half of these 
 symptoms. 
 
 Scalp tenderness headaches (not in my expe- 
 rience a common or a prominent symptom) dilated 
 pupils feeling of pressure on the vertex heavy 
 expression of eye congested conjunctivse alteration 
 
 1 G. Herman, Diseases of Women, p. 11.
 
 110 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 of the nerves of special sense (increased or diminished 
 capriciously) muscse volitantes noises in the ears 
 atonic voice loss of mental control irritability 
 hopelessness morbid fears of open places, of crowds, 
 of confined spaces, of being alone, of people, of 
 responsibilities, of diseases, of infection, of trains or 
 cabs, of everything (called by various Greek and 
 other compound words, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, 
 &c. &c.) blushing insomnia (a marked symptom) 
 drowsiness (in visceral neurasthenia) tender teeth- 
 dyspepsia love of drugs abnormal secretions 
 sweating hands tender spine tender coccyx irri- 
 table heart tremors dysphagia irritable cough 
 irregular respiration (sometimes ' Cheyne Stokes ') 
 cramps morbid sensibility numbness hyper- 
 sesthesia exhaustion pruritus flushes cold feet 
 and hands sudden changes of condition and symptoms. 
 Some To this long catalogue we may add from personal 
 
 additions, experience : Constant restlessness defective memory 
 - dizziness and giddiness dread of noise or light 
 loss of voice loss of sense of proportion, small things 
 looking big, and important things trifling want of 
 co-ordination palpitation of the heart weariness of 
 brain pins and needles in limbs left sub-mammary 
 pain left inguinal pain nervous hand (flexed wrist, 
 extended fingers, fine tremors and dropped thumb) 
 flatulence and constipation. 
 
 classifies Out of the above 48 symptoms we may class 26 as 
 symptoms f unct i na l> 15 as mental, and 7 as physical or to a 
 
 certain extent organic. 
 
 state of The condition of the mind is a potent cause of 
 
 cause and neurasthenia, as well as being a result of it ; so that 
 result of fo Q men t a i factor is prominent all through. It is for 
 
 asthenia.
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASE 111 
 
 this reason that we go more fully into functional 
 nerve diseases than into others. We shall grasp the 
 true inwardness of this class of ailment better when 
 we come to. treatment ; for this throws further light 
 on the aetiology, with which we have specially to do 
 here. 
 
 In the next chapter we turn to a different class of 
 case altogether in hysteria and neuromimesis, where 
 the most important part is not played by the conscious 
 mind, but the unconscious.
 
 112 THE FOKCE OP MIND 
 
 CHAPTEK VII 
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTERIA 
 
 The mental factor in hysteria is the unconscious 
 mind.' 
 
 That - ' HYSTERIA ' is an unpleasant and an unsatisfactory 
 word an ; word, owing to its connections and derivation. No one 
 knows exactly what it means, save that it implies some- 
 thing to be ashamed of. It is inextricably confused 
 and confounded with malingering, neuromimesis, all 
 sorts of neurasthenia, and hypochondria. 
 
 almost So keenly is the word resented by a large section 
 
 slander*. 8 * f ^ ne public that, though it may hardly amount to 
 libel or slander, a doctor who uses it incautiously will 
 soon feel the effect in his practice. I have already 
 indicated in the previous chapter how the word is con- 
 stantly used for malingering. On this head Dr. Eennie 
 Sntt"* 8a ^ s : 1 'Hysteria may assume a great variety of forms 
 'sham- in fact, there is no organic disease of the nervous 
 system which it may not counterfeit. Now note par- 
 ticularly that while I say " counterfeit," I do not 
 wish to imply that this is done intentionally by 
 the patients themselves ; and this class of patients 
 must not be included in that of the malingerers or 
 feigners of disease. It is very important for you to 
 
 ' Dr. G. E. Rennie, British Medical Journal, May 4, 1901.
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 113 
 
 remember this, as there is too great a tendency to 
 look upon any case of doubtful or obscure nerve dis- 
 ease occurring in young women as one of deliberate 
 shamming, and the methods of treatment adopted 
 often support this view. I would advise you never Dr. 
 to use the term " hysteria " either to patients or their B ^ me " 
 friends, because this word is synonymous with sham- advice, 
 ming in the minds of the majority of lay people. 
 Hence it is always better to speak of the condition as 
 one of functional disturbance of the nervous system.' 
 
 The words in the above which I have placed in H steria fa 
 italics show how clear the belief is in those competent disease 
 to speak, that hysteria ' is not a disease of the consclou" 
 conscious mind its phenomena therefore are not mmd * 
 'intentional.' But they have all the qualities of 
 mental and intelligent actions. What alternative 
 remains, therefore, if there be no ' unconscious mind ' ? 
 This is one of the many facts that prove the existence 
 of a faculty of which we are not conscious, and demon- 
 strate the existence of an unseen mind by its products. 
 
 Dr. M. H. Jones, however, speaks of ' voluntary There i 
 hysteria.' We may say broadly that such a disease volun 
 is not hysteria but malingering. The essence of the hysteria 
 true disease, we repeat, is that it is of unconscious and 
 involuntary origin, being a disease of the unconscious 
 mind. 
 
 Herman goes so far as to say : l ' Another popular 
 idea is that " hysterical " means shamming. This is 
 true of the nervous mimicries, but not true of the 
 hysterical paroxysm ' ! (The italics are mine.) It 
 would seem that this implied that half the symptoms 
 are malingering, and half due to the disease. 
 
 1 Dr. G. E. Herman, Diseases of Women, p. 34. 
 
 i 2
 
 114 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 I do not doubt that amongst hysterics may bo 
 found malingerers as well, of whom the above may be 
 true ; but thus to describe hysterics in general is in- 
 correct. It is, indeed, ideas like this that tend to 
 drive the hysterical to despair ; and we can hardly 
 believe that the writer really means to be taken 
 literally. Of course, as we shall see, where the 
 unconscious mind is unknown, ignored, or denied, 
 'hysteria' must mean ' shamming' fits and all. 
 Mimicries especially must be frauds, for they necessarily 
 involve a mental process, which must be performed 
 consciously if there be no unconscious mind action ; 
 Conscious an( j this equals fraud, Q.E.D. There seems to be no 
 action other way out, and every physician who, as we say, 
 fraud! 8 ignores or denies the presence of the unconscious 
 mind is positively driven, if logical, to regard mimic- 
 ries of disease as fraudulent, even if he be not bold 
 enough to say so. This feeling in his mind must 
 influence his bearing and his practice in a wrong and 
 false direction, and frequently lead him, with the best 
 intentions, to inflict cruel wrongs upon his sensitive 
 Conscious patients. Even Sir James Paget, one of the acutest 
 notneuro- writers upon this subject we have ever had, seems to 
 BS1B> imply that the successful mimicry of disease must be 
 produced by conscious effort, when he says : l ' Among 
 the sane there are many who cannot bring about a 
 mimicry of disease by any effort of imagination or 
 direction of the mind. Among these I am happy to 
 count myself. I have tried many times carefully, and 
 with good opportunities, but have always failed.' 
 This may be so; and yet it is possible that those 
 whose every conscious effort fails might become them- 
 
 ' Sir James Paget, Lectures on Nervous Mimicry.
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 115 
 
 selves victims of neuromimesis, and reproduce with 
 perfect fidelity the symptoms of a disease by un- 
 conscious mental action that they are powerless to 
 do consciously. Moreover, when these mimicries are 
 closely studied, it will be seen that many of them 
 involve local changes of tissues and functions far 
 beyond the range of any conscious effort. 
 
 For this and other reasons the word ' hysteria ' has 'Hysteria 1 
 become so unpleasant and misleading that it should restricted 
 be used as seldom as possible, and to this end I inuse 
 think the word might be severely restricted to those 
 cases described under this head by the most modern 
 authorities, which are mainly characterised by altera- to cases of 
 tions in the field of vision, by sensations in various parts ^cious- 
 of the body, and by convulsive attacks. Neurasthenia neBB - 
 and hypochondria, at any rate, should never be con- 
 founded with it. There may be and always are 
 borderland cases ; but we should be clear that neur- 
 asthenia is not, and should not be called, hysteria. 
 
 With neuromimesis the case is more difficult. Uncon- 
 Many cases of hysteria, clearly marked by the signs 
 we have given, also mimic various diseases ; and, on 
 the other hand, the most extensive mimicry of disease 
 exists without one of these signs. We think that here, 
 as in neurasthenia, neuromimesis should be regarded 
 as a separate disease from hysteria, though the two 
 may co-exist in some cases. 
 
 This is our counsel of perfection for the future, Here, 
 and is supported by Sir James Paget, who says: 1 JJiSrii 
 1 Cases of neuromimesis are commonly included under jjjjj* 6 * 
 the name " hysteria," but in many of them none of 
 the distinctive symptoms of hysteria are ever observed ; 
 
 1 Sir James Paget, Lancet, 1873, ii. 512.
 
 116 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 and from all of them it is desirable this name should 
 be abolished.' 
 
 But preaching is one thing, and practising quite 
 another, and for the present in these pages one must 
 be content with the former without the latter ; for it 
 is clinically convenient, till the difference is generally 
 recognised, to speak of neuromimesis and hysteria 
 together, both being diseases of the unconscious mind, 
 and content ourselves here with raising a protest and 
 making suggestions for the future. As a matter of 
 fact, the remarks I shall make on hysteria will apply 
 far more to neuromimesis, or the nervous mimicry of 
 organic disease, than to the true form of narrowed 
 sensations and convulsive seizures. 
 
 The Let us consider, then, for a moment the process 
 
 !Tteria in ^ v wn i cn > i n ' hysteria,' disease is caused by mental 
 action. 
 
 In the first place, we note that our brain not only 
 acts by the will and by ideas of which we are conscious, 
 but is continuously vibrating with ideas, memories, 
 and trains of thought of which we are unconscious. 
 It is so even with regard to common sensation. 
 Dncon- A very small proportion of the afferent currents 
 
 ^LnTa- arriving at the brain produce conscious sensations 
 tiong.' of any kind. If the term 'unconscious sensa- 
 tion ' be objected to, let ' unconscious irritation ' be 
 substituted; for they certainly produce the same 
 effects on the unconscious mind which in the conscious 
 we term sensation ; and, furthermore, I have shown 
 that sensations can be produced by the unconscious 
 mind, arrested by it, and can themselves produce 
 psychical and physical effects through its agency. 
 Professor W. James, in his ' Psychology,' remarks :
 
 THE AETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 117 
 
 ' One of the most extraordinary facts of our life is James, 
 that, although we are besieged by impressions from TnT 6 * 1 *' 
 our whole sensory surface, we notice so very small a JJ^JJJ. 
 part of them. . . . Yet the physical impressions which "o" 18 - 
 do not count are there as much as those which do.' 
 
 ' For all these impressions,' says Barrett,' 'whether 
 we are conscious of them or not, leave some mark 
 behind. They weave a perceptible or imperceptible 
 thread into the fabric of our life ; they make a greater 
 or less indent upon our personality. We know that 
 this is the case, for impressions of which we were 
 unconscious at the time often emerge when the atten- 
 tion is withdrawn from things around, as in states of 
 illness, in dream, or in reverie.' 
 
 Dr. Waldstein also says: 'There is hardly a 
 moment . . . when the nerve endings in the skin are 
 not constantly assailed by sensations of pressure, of 
 temperature, of the flux or reflux of the blood supply.' 
 
 Perhaps an illustration will help here. 
 
 If you concentrate your attention on any part of ConBcions 
 your body, you become aware of sensations in it that consoiona 
 escaped your attention before, but were equally then Vl ratloni 
 present. If with a feather I lightly tickle the back of 
 your neck, and at the time you are engaged in very 
 earnest conversation, the vibration aroused in the 
 brain sensory centre is unnoticed by you ; and yet if 
 I call your attention to the part it is noticed at once. 
 By increasing the stimulus I can make the waves of 
 vibration set in action other centres : involuntary 
 ones, such as cause a shaking or shuddering of the 
 neck ; or voluntary, such as turning the head round 
 or moving away. 
 
 1 Professor Barrett (Dublin), Humanitarian, 1895.
 
 118 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 If you are asleep I may tickle your foot, so that 
 you draw the leg away and you wake up. In this 
 case you are probably conscious of moving your leg ; 
 but the stimulus that made you do it was too slight to 
 reach your consciousness. We may thus be conscious 
 of a transferred vibration leading to action or sensa- 
 tion, and yet be ignorant of the cause that set it going. 
 Power of Memories, again, will involuntarily, and it may be 
 
 unconsciously, arouse both feelings and actions. One 
 may have smelt the strong scent of some flower when 
 some critical event took place, a proposal of marriage 
 or some sudden news ; henceforth, whenever the topic 
 is touched on, the very scent or vibrations of the 
 nerve of smell that represent it may be exactly repro- 
 duced. A certain field always recalls a certain song 
 we used to sing as we crossed it on our way to school. 
 The thoughts of old Anglo-Indians often set the 
 vibrations of Eastern sights and sounds in action again 
 in the old centres. 
 
 Observe in all these cases we are considering 
 
 natural associations, not vibrations deliberately set up 
 
 by the will in an unusual way. You can, as shown 
 
 already, think of a green field when in a drawing-room 
 
 until you set in vibration the centre of sight and see 
 
 the green grass ; or the centre of hearing, and hear 
 
 the lowing of the cattle or the hum of the hi sects. 
 
 This is much easier if there are no distracting sounds, 
 
 and if you close your eyes ; and still more so if there 
 
 are some insects actually humming in the room. But 
 
 the memories I speak of are wholly unconscious ones. 
 
 Seat of ail Let us now sum up our results, taking a definite 
 
 la itTthe 18 case > sav f a P a i n m the little finger. This pain is 
 
 brain. felt in the little finger, we say, though we really know
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTERIA 119 
 
 that the only seat of any sensation is in the brain. It 
 is there at the central termination of the ulnar nerve 
 which leads from the little finger that all the vibra- 
 tions take place, of which the mind becomes conscious 
 and which it calls pain. Whenever these vibrations 
 take place in the nerve centre belonging to the little 
 finger in the brain, the mind always refers the sensa- 
 tion to the commencement of the nerve in the little 
 finger, whatever may be its real origin. 
 
 In the same way, if in your house the hall-door We think 
 bell rings, you say there is some one at the hall door ; injured* * 
 if the drawing-room bell, there is some one there ; spott 
 and yet such may not be the case. I may have 
 pulled the door-bell wire inside the hall, as I passed 
 down the kitchen stairs ; or a rat may have moved it, 
 or I may have struck the bell itself and made it ring, 
 or a shock of earthquake may have shaken it, or a 
 strong gust of wind ; and yet, although these causes 
 are so various, you, in the kitchen, always say, 
 1 There is some one at the front door.' 
 
 It is so in the body. 1. The little finger is pricked Pain IB 
 there is pain in the little finger. 2. The ulnar nerve 
 itself is pressed on somewhere in its course there is 
 pain in the little finger. The hand may be cut off, nerve 
 and still, if the nerve be irritated in the stump by 
 pressure, the man feels the pain in his imaginary 
 little finger as truly and vividly as if it were still 
 actually there. 3. Or, again, there may be a tumour 
 in the brain pressing on the nerve centre in the brain 
 of the ulnar nerve, and the most acute pain is felt in 
 the little finger. 
 
 All these instances are from direct irritation of the 
 nerve in some part of its course. But, as we
 
 120 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 seen, we may go much further. The hall-door wire 
 may have got caught with the drawing-room one, so 
 that when the latter is pulled, it is the hall-door bell 
 that rings ; the vibration is thus transferred. So in 
 however it the brain. 4. I may set to work to think of my 
 caused 5 little finger, and so start sensations in it which, if 
 not actual pain, are still sensations. .But if I have 
 the idea it is injured, though it may not be, I 
 may feel the pain acutely from an idea alone. 
 6. But, again, the pain may have been originally 
 caused by an abscess in the little finger, and after- 
 wards kept up long after the abscess was gone, by 
 the ideal centre. 6. Association may cause pain, as 
 seeing others with crushed little fingers; or, 7. 
 Memories, conscious or unconscious, of crushed little 
 fingers may also start and keep up this pain. 
 
 Observe, then, the varied causes with the same 
 effect. Only, in conclusion, we may add that while 
 in health it is generally easy to discriminate between 
 pain in the little finger caused by injury to the little 
 finger, and that set up in other ways, in nerve disease 
 it is not. Nay, it is sometimes impossible not only to 
 the sufferer, but to the doctor who attends him. 
 
 and we feel think we feel ; and we feel as we think. If we feel a 
 think. pain, we think we are ill ; and if we think we are ill, 
 we feel ill.' If my ideal centre vibrates with the 
 thought of crossing the Channel in rough weather, 
 and pictures the nausea that would then be felt, the 
 vibrations are transmitted t.o the terminal centres of 
 the sensory nerves running from the stomach, and I 
 actually feel sick from communication with a sensory 
 centre ; and, possibly, if of a highly nervous organisa-
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 121 
 
 tion, may actually be sick from transference to a 
 motor centre. 
 
 Eeal feelings and real acts can be started in Real 
 entirely ideal centres. If we think intensely of any 
 part of the body long enough, we feel sensations in j^deai 
 that part. If we think of a good dinner our mouth 
 waters. We shiver whether we only think of cold or 
 actually feel cold. The sensation of pain can be 
 produced as really and vividly by thoughts or ideas 
 alone, as light in the eye by striking it. In short, 
 every sensation of the body ordinarily produced from 
 without can also be produced from within. 
 
 These ideal vibrations, acting on motor and other 
 centres, are quite different from the action of a motor 
 centre by the direct impulse of the will, the action 
 being in the latter case voluntary and in the former 
 involuntary. So far I have only spoken of ideas of 
 which we are conscious, so that, although the modes 
 of exciting these motor and sensory centres are 
 abnormal, we know them to be so, and hence are not 
 deceived and do not deceive others into believing 
 them to be natural. 
 
 Thus, when our teeth are on edge from discordant Subjects 
 sounds, we do not go to the dentist ; if we are sick from La a 
 ideas, we do not think we are dyspeptic ; if we hear sound '- 
 noises in the ear, we do not look for them externally ; 
 if we shiver from thinking of cold, we do not put on 
 more clothing ; but this is because we are conscious 
 that the cause is mental ; in other words, of the 
 action of the mind. It is quite otherwise where the 
 sensation is caused by mind action of which we are 
 wholly unconscious : the conscious part of the mind 
 being, at the same time, cognisant of the symptoms,
 
 122 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 but ignorant of the cause, naturally attributes it to 
 the disease most likely to produce it. 
 Sensations With regard to the excitation of feelings by the 
 
 from ideas .. .i -I-TITT T 
 
 are not action of the mind, John Hunter says : ' I am con- 
 sensation. n dent th^ I can nx mv attention to any part until 
 I have a sensation in that part.' 
 
 The transition is easy from the irritation of real 
 sensations to those actually produced by expectation 
 in the ideal centres, only we must remember the mind 
 produces sensation by ideas, not ideas of sensation. 
 The difference is enormous. 
 
 ' Whatever mental or bodily state can be excited 
 through the senses from without may arise from with- 
 in, from imagination proper.' ! 
 
 Sensations Braid took four men between forty and fifty years 
 Han^ 6 of age, and told them to fix their attention on their 
 hands for five minutes. One, a member of the Eoyal 
 Academy, felt intense cold in the hand ; an author, 
 darting and pricking pains ; a mayor felt heat ; a 
 scientific man had the arm cataleptically fixed to the 
 table. 2 
 
 The sensations in the hand by thought are produced 
 probably by real vaso-motor changes in the hand, set 
 up by the mental excitation of the sensory centre in 
 the brain. 
 
 iL e tSh n8 The sensation of the teeth on edge may be excited 
 by an acid on the teeth (normal irritation), by scraping 
 glass (transference from auditory nerve, which lies by 
 the side of the nerve from the teeth, in a bony canal), 
 by seeing glass about to be scraped (transference from 
 optic nerve by association), or by the mere thought of 
 
 1 Hack Tuke, Mind and Body, 2nd edit. i. 30. 
 '- Braid, Hypnotism, xx. 93.
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 123 
 
 it being done (transference from ideal centres). In 
 each of these cases the mouth may be filled with 
 saliva. 
 
 I have perhaps shown sufficiently the process by Neuro- 
 which neuromimesis may be set up in a weak nervous SSSSbe 
 system, and will now consider how this process begins. n ^ e t r from 
 I have already shown that, without admitting the theuncon- 
 existence of the unconscious mind, it is difficult to see ^S 
 how neuromimesis can be regarded as a true disease, 
 and have indicated the various ways in which sensa- 
 tions may be abnormally aroused, and referred to 
 non-existent causes ; and I will now give some current 
 views as to the cause of hysteria, hoping to show that 
 the theory that it is due to unconscious mind action 
 is, after all, the most probable. It must be premised 
 once more that we use the word ' hysteria ' generally 
 as covering all forms of neuromimesis. 
 
 Dr. G. E. Eennie says : l ' Now, there has been much Dr. 
 discussion as to the nature of this form of functional viewST B 
 nerve disease. There are some who would attribute 
 the condition to functional degradation in certain 
 parts of the brain or spinal cord ; the occurrence of an 
 hysterical hemianaesthesia or hemiplegia would on 
 this theory be due to some vaso-motor spasm in the 
 cortical areas of sensation or motion. An attack of 
 paraplegia would be due to some impairment in nutri- 
 tion of the cells of the anterior cornua. But this NO coarse 
 explanation will hardly meet all the facts, since the 
 sudden transference of a hemianaesthesia from one 
 side of the body to the other under the influence 
 of a magnet or some special metal could hardly be 
 explained by any such coarse pathology. 
 
 1 Dr. G. E. Kennie, British Medical Journal, May 4, 1901.
 
 124 
 
 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 which is 
 dependent 
 on psychic 
 conditions. 
 
 Wilks, 
 
 Ormerod, 
 
 and 
 
 Reynolds, 
 
 on 
 
 'hysteria.' 
 
 Professor 
 Janet on 
 psychic 
 failure 
 
 ' The entirely opposite theory regards all these 
 phenomena as essentially dependent upon psychical 
 states ; and functional disturbance or degradation of 
 the lower centres is not recognised. Now, I think that 
 we can get a clearer idea or conception of hysterical 
 nerve disease by regarding it as partly mental and 
 partly physical ; the underlying physical state being 
 allied to the hypnotic state.' 
 
 Sir S. Wilks l regards hysteria as of the nature of 
 an explosion. He says : ' Nature having no outlet for 
 the superfluous energies, the whole system becomes 
 disordered.' Here Nature (our well-known female deity) 
 stands for the ' unconscious mind.' Dr. Ormerod 2 
 says vaguely it ' is due to a supposition of vaso-motor 
 spasms, or defective nutrition of nervous elements.' 
 Sir K. Eeynolds, Charcot, and others say it depends 
 on idea, or is ideogenic. These ideas being uncon- 
 scious, they imply its origin is the unconscious mind. 
 
 Janet considers ' the anaesthesia and amnesia in 
 hysteria arise not from physical failure in mind or 
 brain, but from psychic failure to grasp or attend to 
 sensation ; in short, a contraction of the field of con- 
 sciousness, as the contraction in hysteria of the field 
 of vision from the same cause. The impressions 
 therefore cease to rise above a lower sphere (uncon- 
 scious mind), and tend to foster at the expense of 
 consciousness a " secondary " sub-conscious mental 
 state. The elements of such a state exist in all of us ; ' 
 and may I add that this state is here called the ' un- 
 conscious mind ' ? 
 
 1 Sir S. Wilks, Diseases of the Nervous System, p. 365 ; quoted 
 by Dr. Herman, Diseases of Women, p. 30. 
 
 * Dr. Ormerod in Clifford Allbutt's System of Medicine.
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 125 
 
 Professor Biener (Vienna) considers ' that the Biener on 
 ' sundering of consciousness ' exists in rudimentary 8econ ? ar y 
 
 v conscious- 
 
 fashion in every case of hysteria. The foundation and ness, 
 condition precedent to hysteria is the existence of 
 hypnoid states (or what' he would call unconscious 
 consciousness). 
 
 Now we we think more intelligibly understand 
 by this ' sundering of consciousness ' the distinction be- 
 tween the conscious and the unconscious mind ; and 
 the hypnoid state is the revelation by its effects of the 
 powers, not of ' unconscious consciousness,' but of 
 the unconscious mind ; while the consciousness of 
 the ego is partly in abeyance or its powers impaired. 
 
 Sir James Paget says : 2 ' If you study neuro- sir j. 
 mimesis from its mental side, you may easily find 
 reason for believing it [the result of] mere mental 
 error, rather than the erroneous working of sensory not be the 
 and motor centres ; but to regard all mimicries of 
 organic disease as essentially mental errors is bad 
 pathology and worse practice. In some mimicries it 
 is hard to discern any mental influence at all, such as 
 in distension, constipation, &c. Some are found in 
 ignorant and slow-minded people.' 
 
 This is an admirably reasoned passage to show The agent 
 that the conscious mind is certainly not the active Jethe nn- 
 agent in most neuromimetic cases ; and hence Sir 
 James, limiting mind to consciousness, can recognise 
 no mental action at all, and falls back on the 
 erroneous working of sensory and motor centres. 
 But is not the agent that sets these centres working 
 
 1 Professor Biener (Vienna), Neurologisches Centralblatt, January 
 1893. 
 
 a Sir James Paget, Lancet, 1873, ii. 513.
 
 126 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 erroneously purposive and mental, and should we not 
 call it the unconscious mind ? 
 
 Eichhorst, Eichhorst l says that ' hysteria is properly attri- 
 fnd quet> buted to disturbances in the cerebral cortex.' 
 Bernheim Briquet, 2 in the best work published on hysteria, 
 holds that the seat of hysteria ' is the brain and not 
 the uterus.' Page shows that the brain (unconscious 
 mind) is the cause of the railway spine, and that it is 
 not due, as Erichsen and Erb thought, to inflamma- 
 tion of the spinal cord. Bernheim says : 3 ' How can 
 Anew memory set up a disease it has never seen? The 
 thTun f r Disease [hysteria] must be hi the psychic centres, but 
 conscious unconsciously ; possibly a disease of sesthesodic cells 
 of the cerebral hemisphere ' (a new name for the 
 unconscious mind). 
 
 I may conclude these quotations with the far-reach- 
 ing views of Dr. Buzzard, who has done so much in 
 the aetiology of this disease ; and I make no apology 
 for quoting his words in extenso. 
 
 Dr He says : 4 ' Hysteria is a term the etymology of 
 
 Buzzard which is misleading. It is often improperly applied 
 
 hyateria. to cases of simple malingering, and others which 
 
 do not admit of ready explanation. Its use is best 
 
 restricted to a condition of the nervous system fairly 
 
 defined, but the intimate pathology of which is not 
 
 known ; characterised by the occurrence of convulsive 
 
 seizures and by departures from normal functions of 
 
 various organs leading to very numerous and often 
 
 perplexing symptoms. 
 
 1 Professor Eichhorst, Practice of Medicine, 1901. 
 
 * See Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine, x. 454. 
 
 * Professor Bernheim, Brain, xvi. 190. 
 
 * Dr. Buzzard, Quairis Dictionary of Medicine, 1883, i. 678.
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OP HYSTERIA 127 
 
 1 These are apt to simulate those commonly arising Resemble, 
 from definite alterations of structure ; but differ from 
 the latter in the fact that they may often, even when 
 at their worst, be removed instantaneously, usually 
 under the influence of strong emotion. It would seem 
 that there is a disturbed or congenitally defective con- 
 dition of the cerebral substance, involving in all cases 
 the highest nervous centres, and in various examples 
 extending more or less also to some of those which 
 preside over automatic phenomena. Partial or com- 
 plete suspension of inhibitory influence would appear 
 to be the most patent result of the condition, what- 
 ever it be ; and this is recognised as well in regard to 
 the mental as to the more evidently physical processes 
 belonging to cerebral function. 
 
 ' A laugh which cannot be checked, but continues LOSS of 
 until tears flow or the limbs become convulsed, is a 
 typical example of such a suspension of control, and, 
 if studied, throws light upon the nature of a con- 
 siderable portion of the phenomena of hysteria. The 
 jerking expirations of laughter arise from excitation of 
 the respiratory centre ; and when this excitation, un- 
 controlled by higher centres, acquires an abnormal 
 strength, it extends to other parts of the medulla 
 oblongata and spinal cord, and produces general con- 
 vulsions. It overflows, as it were, into other nervous 
 centres which in health would receive none of the 
 exciting impulse. Between the lowest (automatic) 
 functions of the cerebro-spinal system and the 
 highest (psychical) there is an ever-increasing com- 
 plex system of excito-motor processes, which may be 
 in part, or wholly, under the pathological influence, 
 whatever it be.' (The unconscious mind ?) ' Hence
 
 128 
 
 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 Biearre 
 
 character 
 shows loss 
 of control. 
 
 Hysterical 
 paralysis 
 and an- 
 
 apsthesia. 
 
 'Hysteria' 
 sometimes 
 is early 
 stage of 
 dissemi- 
 nated 
 sclerosis. 
 
 the bizarre character of the hysterical phenomena, 
 and the circumstance that the symptoms always in- 
 clude modifications of those processes which underlie 
 the mental faculties. The suspension of the power 
 of control possessed by the higher centres explains 
 the irregular movements, spasms, and convulsions. 
 Hypersesthesia and pain are dependent, probably, in 
 hysteria, upon such a molecular change being initiated 
 in the sensory ganglionic centres as is ordinarily pro- 
 pagated from the periphery.' (This, due to the uncon- 
 scious mind, I have described a few pages back.) 
 ' Hysterical paralysis, on the other hand, signifies 
 that the power of the higher centres in liberating 
 movements is in abeyance. In hysterical anaesthesia 
 it is probably feeling or sensory perception and not the 
 function of the sensory apparatus that is in abeyance, 
 whilst the reflex actions which result from excitation 
 of sensory nerves are performed in an orderly 
 manner. A patient may work a needle with fingers 
 which can be touched or pricked without the act 
 being felt. Tactile impressions are conveyed to the 
 ganglionic centre by the afferent nerves, and excite 
 the action of the efferent nerves so that the muscles 
 are contracted. What is wanting is the participation 
 of those higher centres in which consciousness runi 
 parallel to this physiological action.' I have already 
 tried to explain this in the earlier part of this chapter. 
 Dr. Buzzard has further shown that numbers of 
 cases of hysteria have been in fact early stages 
 (unrecognised) of disseminated sclerosis ; that such 
 cases have been ' cured,' and afterwards returned with 
 spinal disease. This raises the question of the con- 
 nection of functional with organic disease, which is of
 
 THE AETIOLOGY OF HYSTERIA 129 
 
 the greatest possible interest in the case of hysteria. Functional 
 It often happens that an organic lesion produces a ^gamc 
 functional disturbance sufficiently great to constitute disea8e - 
 a disease in itself ; and not infrequently this attracts 
 all the attention, and the organic basis is overlooked. 
 Dr. Eennie points out that, 1 ' associated with 
 organic nerve disease, we find frequently some degree 
 of functional disturbance. For example, in the case 
 of hemiplegia due to cerebral haemorrhage a certain 
 amount of damage is done by the haemorrhage to the 
 conducting paths from cortex to spinal cord, some nerve 
 fibres ruptured and permanently damaged ; but other 
 parts of the nervous system are damaged temporarily 
 by pressure of effused blood or disturbed circulation. 
 As the pressure is relieved by absorption of the clot or Functional 
 restoration of imperfect circulation these diffuse sym- s^ptoma 
 ptoms disappear ; the functional element is removed, Appear, 
 the organic remains. Or, again, in cases of degenera- 
 tive disease of the brain or cord, such as tabes 
 dorsalis, the symptoms depend upon actual degene- 
 ration of the neurons. But besides those neurons 
 which are degenerated others are merely impaired in 
 function, and so certain symptoms appear besides 
 those dependent upon complete destruction of the 
 neurons. The amount of anaesthesia in tabes, for 
 example, is a varying quantity ; the patient when 
 first seen may present much more extensive areas or 
 degrees of anaesthesia than he does subsequently after 
 treatment. Again, the association of hysteria with Hysteria 
 organic nerve disease is well recognised, an associa- obscure* 
 tion which frequently obscures the diagnosis. In jj gnogU 
 of disseminated sclerosis one meets with inter- 
 
 1 Dr. G. E. Rennie, British Medical Journal, May 4, 1901.
 
 130 
 
 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 current attacks of functional or hysterical hemiplegia 
 
 or paraplegia.' We find also Dr. Bury pointing out 
 
 the close connection of functional with organic disease. 
 
 He says : l ' Let me remind you of the investigations 
 
 of Buzzard, Bastian, and others, which have done 
 
 so much to narrow the boundaries of hysteria ; and 
 
 Advancing state my belief that increasing knowledge of pathology 
 
 hmit8 logy win tend to reduce its limits still further. Prolonged 
 
 hysterical 
 
 Hysteria 
 may lead 
 to struc- 
 tural 
 change. 
 
 Diagnostic 
 igns. 
 
 vascular spasm or some other lesion must underlie a 
 profound anaesthesia or a contraction of the visual 
 fields. What is meant by calling these phenomena 
 hysterical ? 
 
 ' In some cases they persist for years, even 
 throughout life, and, when they disappear, have we 
 adequate knowledge of the subsequent nervous history 
 of the patient ? With regard to motor phenomena, 
 such an authority as Charcot has stated that per- 
 sistent hysterical contractures, after lasting for many 
 years, may be attended with structural changes in the 
 spinal cord ; in one case he found a lateral sclerosis 
 which apparently he regards as a direct outcome of 
 changes started by the hysterical contracture. I 
 find it much easier to believe that from the very 
 first there were minute definite changes to which 
 any hysterical or psychical manifestations were 
 secondary.' 
 
 Dr. Buzzard has noted as a diagnostic sign that 
 in hysterical contraction of the upper extremity the 
 whole arm can be straightened at once ; whereas, in 
 organic disease, the straightening of one part flexes 
 another. 
 
 1 Dr. Bury, Bradshaw Lecture, British Medical Journal, Nove 
 ber 9, 1901.
 
 THE ETIOLOGY OF HYSTEEIA 131 
 
 In hysterical paralysis the knee jerk is generally 
 increased while the plantar reflex is abolished, and 
 Babinski's phenomenon (extension of big toe on plantar 
 irritation) is absent. 
 
 Perhaps with this I may close this long chapter. 
 I have, indeed, gone somewhat beyond our thesis, but 
 the amount of evidence adduced all through both in 
 the way of argument and testimony has, I trust, 
 sufficiently established the fact that ' the chiei factor 
 in hysteria is the unconscious mind.'
 
 132 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTEB VIII 
 
 PHENOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS OP 
 HYSTERIA 
 
 * The phenomena of hysteria are due to the perverted 
 action of the unconscious mind.' 
 
 BEFORE giving a few illustrations of hysteria few, 
 because the disease is so well known I may say a 
 word or two more on its origin and symptoms. 
 Origin of Hysteria often begins in some slight but real 
 
 hysteria. ,. . -n i i 
 
 disease in a person with an ill-balanced or worn-out 
 brain one in which the sub-conscious mind has too 
 much sway, so that feelings ordinarily unnoticed are 
 ever present to the consciousness. As the French 
 say, ' On s'ecoute trop.' Such disease, therefore, long 
 after it is gone, continues to set up a train of associa- 
 tions, in spite of which the doctor, finding the organic 
 disease gone, may declare the patient well. But it is 
 not so. Let me repeat an illustration. When the 
 who rang door-bell rings we may be wrong in saying there is some 
 bSi? 001 one there ; but we are certainly wrong if we go there, 
 and, finding no one, say it is nothing. Something 
 must have pulled the bell. And yet it is this which 
 is still being said by medical men through want of 
 training in mental therapeutics, combined with too 
 great training in believing in only what they can see
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF HYSTERIA 133 
 
 or feel or hear. If such men find there is nothing 
 wrong with the knee-joint, however loudly the patient 
 may complain, they may tell him there is nothing 
 wrong with him. Consider the injury unconsciously 
 inflicted on a nervous sufferer, who, feeling agonising 
 pain in the knee, is first well pulled about, and then, 
 because nothing can be felt locally, is calmly told that 
 nothing is the matter ; and is sent away with the 
 diseased ideal, or other centre in the brain, uncured. 
 The general predisposing cause in hysteria is an Cause an 
 irritable and unstable state of the nervous system, 
 often combined with physical weakness. The two, 
 indeed, frequently form a vicious circle, and it is 
 impossible to say which is cause and which effect. 
 The weak nerve system leads to loss of appetite and 
 neglect of exercise ; less food and malnutrition increase 
 the nervous debility ; this leads to nervous dyspepsia, 
 this to greater nervous instability, and so the vicious 
 action and reaction continues. The chief exciting 
 mental causes are religion and love, worries of all sorts, 
 conflicts between evil and conscience, morbid intro- 
 spection, sexual feelings, and the emotions generally. 
 The chief physical exciting cause is some existing 
 disease or accident. It is restrained emotion that has no 
 relief or reaction in speech, weeping, or physical action 
 that is worst in its effects. A man who gets a great 
 shock at his dinner can eat no more without some 
 reaction or outlet first. If he even speaks, he is 
 relieved and may then be able to go on eating. 
 
 Hysterical symptoms may arise in pure ideas 
 (ideogenic), or be the result of the conversion of the BymptoD 
 pent-up psychical into the physical. 
 
 The tendency in hysteria is to change psychic
 
 134 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 irritation into morbid physical phenomena (i.e. bodily 
 affections). 
 
 Drs. Breuer and Freud furnish us with a striking 
 instance : ' 
 
 The ' A young lady (21), after the death of her father, 
 
 chined na d pains in walking, with a hysterogenic zone over 
 into the t ne mne r side of her right thigh. 
 
 ' This was traced to two psychic causes the conflict 
 against illicit love for her sister's husband, and the 
 mental strain of nursing her father. The inner side 
 of the right thigh was the centre of the disturbance, 
 because it was on this she supported her father when the 
 dressings were changed, and her feelings were then 
 naturally most acute. The physical pain was the 
 counterpart of the psychic. Pain in walking was felt 
 because she used to go out with her brother-in-law, for 
 whom she had a strong affection, which she could not 
 gratify.' 
 
 Mind often In hysteria there is more psychic than physical 
 
 nonnaL* change. It is seldom, indeed, that neuromimetics 
 
 Pwn does have quite ordinary conscious minds. It is of some 
 
 prod^cT" 7 interest to notice that even in prolonged neuro- 
 
 chan^ mimesis the parts affected generally undergo no organic 
 
 change ; there may be intense suffering with little or 
 
 no alteration in structure. 2 
 
 Hysterical Though, however, the mind may not be normal, 
 
 whoUy*u " I musti repeat that true neuromimesis is not only never 
 
 conscious, consciously produced, but in most cases there is no 
 
 knowledge that it is mimicry, the process being carried 
 
 out from first to last by the unconscious mind. To say, 
 
 therefore, that the 'hysterical fit differs from the 
 
 1 Dr. Breuer and Dr. Freud, Studien itber Hysteria. Wien, 1895. 
 * To this there are exceptions, which I have noted at the close 
 of the previous chapter.
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF HYSTEEIA 135 
 
 nervous mimicries of disease in being involuntary,' is 
 to make a great mistake, and one probably due to the 
 limitation of mind to consciousness, of which we have 
 already said so much. 
 
 It would, indeed, be impossible for nervous TOO com- 
 
 . r . .,, plicated 
 
 mimicry in many cases to be voluntary; for no will to be 
 power can produce such complicated phenomena as voluntar y' 
 the mimicries of some diseases, which moreover are 
 maintained for days and weeks. Such a feat is be- 
 yond the powers of the most accomplished actor. 
 
 Perhaps it might be well now to summarise the Symptom* 
 symptoms of hysteria in one list, as I have done in the 
 case of neurasthenia in Chapter VI. Hysteria (using 
 the term broadly) is characterised by anaesthesias 
 in all parts of the body, in regions, patches, sides, 
 and limbs by visual anaesthesias resulting in nar- 
 rowed fields of vision by fits or paroxysms with or 
 without incomplete loss of consciousness and accom- 
 panied by clonic and occasionally tonic spasms, tre- 
 mors, convulsive movements, and large contortions, 
 sometimes of extreme violence, with or without cries, 
 foaming at the mouth, clenching of hands and other 
 emotional signs by dysaesthesias or pains in any 
 joint in the body, often in several ; in zones or 
 patches, in the head, the back, the heart, the abdomen, 
 the coccyx, the breast, the mucous membrane, the 
 organs of special sense, the limbs and the organs of 
 generation by paresis and paralysis of every or any 
 part of the body capable normally of voluntary motion 
 by contractions and wasting of limbs or parts of 
 limbs by tremors, continual and intermittent by 
 mental states, ecstatic, vague, demoniac, talkative, 
 taciturn, &c. by dermatoses by Eaynaud's disease 
 by urticaria, hyperaemias of skin and other erup-
 
 136 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 tions by haemorrhages from organs and under the 
 skin in all parts of the body by stigmata by 
 muscular atrophies (detected in lower limbs by absence 
 of Babinski's sign, extension of big toe on tickling 
 sole) by pyrexias of all sorts by paraplegia by 
 are nearly hemiplegia by tetany by inco-ordination of muscu- 
 tiouaL C lar movements by swellings and tumours (perfectly 
 simulated) of all sorts, largely abdominal, fluctuating, 
 solid or pulsating according to the variety, and of all 
 sizes by abnormal gaits of all kinds by mutism 
 by stammering by aphonia, aphasia, amnesia by 
 coughs by dyspnoea by dyspepsias by gastric 
 spasms and gastralgia by flatulence by hsemate- 
 mesis by anorexia by vomiting, ordinary and faecal 
 by borborygmi by swollen joints by dysuria, 
 polyuria, anuria, incontinence, retention by floating 
 kidneys, also by more or less elaborate simulation of 
 various diseases, such as hip disease, asthma, Pott's 
 disease, &c. 
 
 Let us now pass on to a few illustrations of various 
 exciting causes in hysteria. 
 
 We get many cases arising from accidents : 
 Accident ' A lady saw a heavy dish fall on her child's hand, 
 
 eating cutting off ttiree of tne fi ngers> g ne f e it great p am 
 
 in her hand, and on examination the corresponding 
 three were swollen and inflamed. In twenty-four 
 hours incisions were made and pus evacuated.' l 
 
 Dr. Diaz, in the ' Medical and Surgical Journal,' 
 had a lady patient whose lips and mouth were sud- 
 denly enormously swollen from seeing a young child 
 pass a sharp knife between its lips. 
 
 Dr. De Fleury l tells us of ' a girl who dreams she 
 
 1 De Fleury, Medicine and Mind, p. 9.
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF HYSTERIA 137 
 is pursued by a man, and falls into a ditch and breaks Hysteria 
 
 ii XT i i i j 3 tiom ideas 
 
 her legs. Next morning she wakes bruised, and 
 declares her legs are broken. It is not so ; but her 
 legs are paralysed (by this dream) for six months.' De 
 Fleury tells us of another girl who, dreaming she was 
 outraged, was full of bruises and ecchymoses next day. 
 He says dreams can create physical impressions by 
 momentary paralysis of the vasomotor mechanism. 
 Whipple l tells us of a man of thirty-five with a dull 
 pain above his ankle for twelve years, with swelling at 
 times and always worse in a train. This was caused 
 by seeing a man crushed to death in a train. 
 
 A gentleman known to me, seeing a friend with 
 stricture of the gullet, soon experienced an increasing 
 difficulty in swallowing, which ultimately was a cause 
 of death. 
 
 In the ' Lancet ' for January 1880, we read that 
 a gentleman (fifty-six) thought he had swallowed his 
 false teeth. He felt them in the pharynx. There 
 was a hard swelling behind the larynx, and a surgeon 
 was telegraphed for. The symptoms were most dis- 
 tressing and real, until the missing teeth were found 
 in a drawer. 
 
 Whipple tells us of a young woman with a constant 
 cough, from the idea she had sand in her windpipe. 
 Once she had been nearly drowned in bathing, and 
 swallowed some water and sand, which she had thought 
 of ever since. In the London Hospital many cases Hysterical 
 of hysterical abdominal tumours (supposed to be aortic tumours.* 1 
 aneurisms) have been sent hi for operation, caused solely 
 by the observed pulsations of the abdominal aorta seen 
 in thin people, and BO acting on their unconscious 
 
 1 Whipple, Mental Healing.
 
 138 THE FOECE OJb' MIND 
 
 minds that the abdominal muscles were actually 
 contracted on one side to simulate a tumour, which 
 disappeared temporarily under chloroform. 
 Sexual The sexual element is a large factor in hysterical 
 
 ifys'teria. 111 phenomena, but it is observed that mimicries of 
 uterine diseases seldom go with organic uterine 
 diseases ; because the former are common in virgins, 
 the latter in the married. 
 
 Sir S. Wilks points out ! that ' a subjective ailment 
 [as of the uterus] may, by overlooking the fact that 
 the cause is purely hysterical [i.e. mental], be con- 
 verted into an organic one.' 
 
 Special The organs of special sense are constantly the seat 
 
 h^steri^ of neuromimesis. A patient of mine had diplopia, 
 nystagmus, total loss of taste and smell, and almost 
 complete deafness. 
 
 Hysterical amblyopia is detected by a double 
 object being seen by the blind eye. This, of course, 
 seems like a gross imposture, but it is done in good 
 faith and absolute unconsciousness. 
 
 We get sensory aphasia or word blunders, in- 
 tensely illustrative of the action of the mind on the 
 body, and due to some lesion of the psychical sight- 
 centre on the occipital lobes. 
 
 Motor aphasia, or incapacity of speech, probably 
 due to a lesion in the psychical speech-centre in the 
 third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere. Also 
 word deafness from lesion in the psychic centre in the 
 superior temporo-sphenoidal lobe of the auditory nerve. 
 
 We get not only anaesthesia, but perversions of 
 sensation, so that the hand in contact with a heated 
 stone may feel very cold. 
 
 1 Sir S. Wilkg, Diseases of the Nervous System, p. 365.
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF HYSTERIA 139 
 
 In the urinary system we get simulation of floating Hysteria 
 kidney, formed by loose abdominal walls and large urinary* 
 Btomach. 8y8tem> 
 
 A servant girl mentioned by Bernheim had hyste- 
 rical retention of urine, where the unconscious auto- 
 suggestion was so strong that no suggestion offered 
 consciously or hypnotically could cure it. A lady, on 
 the other hand, suffered from incontinence at Niagara 
 from the constant sound of falling water. Spitzka 
 gives a number of cases suffering from agonising 
 hydrophobia, which recovered on hearing the dogs that 
 had bitten them were not mad. 
 
 Dr. Dale gives a case of one boy bitten by another 
 who, seized with symptoms of hydrophobia, died of 
 fear, when there was no rabies in the bite. 
 
 Dr. Ormerod points out ' that ' hysterical dis- Hysteria 
 turbances of digestion may produce deplorable and 
 even fatal malnutrition.' Deaths from this cause and 
 from hysterical dyspnoea are, however, very rare. 
 
 Dr. Bigi, of Lombardy, records cases of gastric 
 ulcer ; and relates one in which a woman of twenty- 
 six had hsematemesis after a severe fright ; she had 
 indubitably hysterical symptoms. After almost three 
 months a second severe haematemesis occurred, and 
 from that date the other symptoms of gastric ulcer 
 began to appear. After the first haemorrhage the 
 lacerated mucous membrane probably was restored, 
 but not after the second. He suggests that the pro- 
 cess of formation is comparable to the production of a 
 neurotic oedema, or even a bullous urticaria on the 
 skin. In hysteria the gastric mucous membrane, like 
 that of the lung or any other viscus, is liable to 
 
 1 Dr. Ormerod, in Clifford Allbutt's System of Medicine.
 
 140 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Hysteria hemorrhages arising from the direct influence of the 
 necrosis. neurosis. Our knowledge of trophic affections of the 
 skin enables us to state that the process has a general 
 tendency towards necrosis ; the hysterical process 
 being thus actually a gangrenous one. When it is 
 situated on the gastric mucous membrane, the gastric 
 juice is able to maintain, as a permanent ulcer, the 
 solution of continuity produced by an original haemor- 
 rhage. Gilles de la Tourette and others have shown 
 that half the clearly diagnosed cases of gastric ulcer 
 have an hysterical aetiology. This must be remembered 
 if one wishes to carry out a suitable and rational 
 treatment. 
 
 Hysteria ' A young lady gave her father laudanum in mistake, 
 
 and death. when ^9 d j e( j s | ie was B t ruc k down, and lay ten 
 months till death from general oedema set in. There 
 was a post-mortem examination, and there was no 
 cause of death but dropsy of mental origin.' l 
 Hysteria With regard to hysterical temperatures, Drummond 
 
 ^aSe records 108 in one axilla coincident with 98 in the 
 other ; Teale, a case of hysterical fever with a tem- 
 perature of 118 (?) This case is also quoted by Dr. 
 Ormerod. 2 In hysterical paralysis Charcot observes 
 the face is never paralysed. 
 
 Hysteria Sir Russell Eeynolds gives us a case of paralysis 
 
 Jafaiysis. which shows how motor and sensory disturbances may 
 be first developed and then destroyed under the 
 influence of ideas. 
 
 He was called to visit a young woman whose 
 father had lost money, and had been paralysed 
 through grief. She herself supported the whole 
 
 1 Sir H. Marsh, Dublin Quarterly Journal, xliv. 9. 
 See Clifford Allbutt's System of Medicine, viii. 116.
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF HYSTEEIA 141 
 
 household by giving lessons in various parts of the 
 town. When fatigued by her long walks she some- 
 times thought that she too might become paralysed, 
 and that then their situation would become desperate. 
 The idea haunted her. Under its influence her limba 
 grew weak, and she soon lost her walking powers. 
 
 Sir Russell Reynolds visited her, prescribed purely 
 mental treatment, and at length convinced her that 
 she was able to walk, when she at once resumed the 
 practice. 
 
 This young woman's experience confirms (says Paralysis 
 Gliddon) Battey's teaching, that in the case of some 
 subjects who have never been hypnotised, paralysis 
 may be produced by giving them the idea that they 
 are going to be paralysed, and may be taken away by 
 a contrary suggestion. Emotion is a most common Hysteria 
 cause of the aggravation of paralysis agitans, hence paralysis 
 during sleep movements are calmed. agitans. 
 
 During the Reign of Terror an abbe was seized by 
 the mob. He escaped, but he afterwards had continual 
 tremors of the limbs. 
 
 Hack Tuke gives the following instance of insanity 
 from fright : 
 
 ' A healthy boy was lying in his cradle when a cock insanity 
 perched on the side ; the boy was at first amazed, fright. 
 but afterwards was afraid, as the cock stretched his 
 neck, put his head down and looked closely at the 
 boy ; he then flapped his wings and crowed. The 
 child gave one sharp cry of pain and was instantly 
 convulsed ; three or four fits occurred the same day, 
 and the boy grew up an idiot.' 
 
 Anaesthesias and hemiansesthesias Binet and Janet Hysteria 
 connect with a narrowing of the field of conscious- sensation.
 
 142 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 ness in the brain. These anaesthesias in the most 
 capricious patches frequently occur in people without 
 the least symptoms of ' nerves.' For example, a bucolic, 
 stupid-looking girl of twenty came into a London 
 hospital the other day with hysterical hemianassthesia, 
 and soon recovered. We mention this here to mark 
 the point that hysteria differs from neurasthenia in 
 not being in the least necessarily connected with 
 ' nervous ' people. It is true that all neurasthenics 
 are not naturally nervous, but a much greater propor- 
 tion are of this class than with hysterics. 
 Nenro- It will be observed here, and will be noticed again 
 
 covers further on, that the unfortunate word ' Hysteria,' 
 
 we confessedly use to include ' Neuromimesis,' 
 actually covers a good deal more than the mimicry of 
 disease. In a good many instances given here, we 
 find the mind producing not so much mimicries of 
 disease and death as actual lesions and death itself. 
 That is to say, the power of the mind over the body 
 goes far beyond the mere production of mimicries, 
 however perfect these may be in their way. In these 
 nd we admit there is no real local lesion, but only the 
 
 Mtiaii 68 unconscious simulation of it. But when we find 
 lesions. examples of inflamed fingers with evacuation of pus 
 of bruises and ecchymoses, actual death, haematemesis, 
 and gangrene we feel the word ' neuromimesis ' has 
 become wellnigh as elastic as * hysteria ' itself. And yet 
 it would hardly do to put these into a separate class. 
 They are but extreme and somewhat rare examples of 
 the power of the mind over the body ; and the generic 
 term ' hysteria ' must at present cover them all. 
 
 There can be no doubt that as the Force of Mind is 
 increasingly understood, and the mental factor acknow-
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF HYSTEEIA 143 
 
 lodged, our nomenclature will be revised, and placed Nomen. 
 upon a more intelligible footing. To attempt to do so 
 
 here would be to add to a task already sufficiently revised - 
 onerous, another equally great. 
 
 I must be content, therefore, and more than Concin- 
 content, if in these chapters I succeed in any marked 
 degree in establishing in my readers' minds an 
 appreciation of the remarkable part the unconscious 
 mind plays in the cause and cure of diseases, even if 
 I have to leave the right naming of many of these 
 diseases in a state of chaos. 
 
 Without, therefore, dogmatising on the word 
 Hysteria, I trust I have shown in this chapter that 
 ' the phenomena of hysteria are due to the perverted 
 action of the unconscious mind.' 
 
 With this chapter the first half of this book is 
 concluded. Our task has been to demonstrate the 
 Force of Mind and the mental factor in medicine in 
 connection with aetiology and the causation of disease. 
 In the second half we shall be occupied with the con- 
 sideration of the part played by the Force of Mind 
 and the mental factor in medicine, in therapeutics, 
 or the cure of disease.
 
 PAET II 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE MIND IN 
 CUEING DISEASE 
 
 ftt
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 ON PSYCEO-THEBAPT 
 
 ' The force of mind in therapeutics, so largely ignored 
 by the profession, is generally exploited by quacks for 
 their own ends.' 
 
 I HAVE now traced briefly and imperfectly the connec- Reason of 
 tion of the mind with the body in health, in ordinary Jnlhe taak 
 diseases, and in nervous ailments. My task has been B0 far> 
 far from easy, and has been handicapped all through 
 by having continually, in describing the part of the 
 mind that is mainly connected with physical pheno- 
 mena, to use an expression, ' the unconscious mind,' 
 that is not only not yet current in the best medical 
 and psychological circles in England, but often meets 
 with an animosity that would be hard to understand, 
 were it not a well-known fact that ' shibboleths ' are 
 as strenuously insisted on in science as in religion. 
 
 But it seems to me that the task so far has been Greater 
 
 ..... , , ... , , difficulties 
 
 comparatively simple, when contrasted with what ahead, 
 still remains to be done. It is one thing to give a 
 passive assent to an unpalatable doctrine, and quite 
 another to give it our active support. And yet this 
 is the difference between aetiology and therapeutics : 
 we observe the one, but we practise the other.
 
 148 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 in regard- Hitherto we have spoken of the mental factor as a 
 
 wV^ans cause in disease, but now we turn to it as a means of 
 
 of cure. cure . an( j the discerning reader, who may himself be a 
 
 very Gallic in his indifference to the questions raised, 
 
 will yet readily appreciate the fact that those who 
 
 disallow its claims to be the one will take a still 
 
 greater exception to it as the other. 
 
 s reasons I think there are in all probability several reasons 
 [^fg 8 " why so many of us distrust and dislike the very idea 
 of mental therapeutics. May I suggest half a dozen 
 that occur to me at the moment ? 
 
 The idea is distrusted and disliked 
 
 1. Because 
 
 so many please 
 To think their duty is to core disease ; 
 
 forgetful,' too often, 
 
 of this lesson still, 
 'Tis not the body, but the man is ilL 
 
 A man whose sole idea is to fight disease, thougt 
 trained in all the science of the schools, is stil/ 
 oblivious of the physician's noblest work, and maj 
 well ' pass by on the other side ' the subject before 
 us. 
 
 2. Another reason is the deep mistrust with which 
 the ordinary British mind, even when fairly educated, 
 regards the influence of the mind over the body ; in 
 the face of the quackery and knavery which exploit it 
 unscrupulously to their own ends. 
 
 8. A third is because of its possible connection with 
 hypnotism (which is still in very doubtful favour in 
 the best medical circles) ; or with certain well-adver- 
 tised (and lucrative) ' systems of cure.'
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEBAPY 149 
 
 4. Fourthly, because (limiting the mind to con- 
 sciousness) they find by experience how little can be 
 effected in cure by conscious efforts, however deter- 
 mined. 
 
 5. Fifthly, because the Zeitgeist -the spirit of the 
 (medical) age - is against it. Scientific diagnosis and 
 clinical work naturally lead to scientific cures, and 
 anything else is more or less suspected. 
 
 6. And lastly, because so many are ignorant of a 
 subject which has formed no part of their medical 
 curriculum at college or hospital. 
 
 It seems to me these six reasons are amply sufli- 
 cient to account for the way mental therapeutics are 
 regarded by the majority of us to-day. 
 
 I may perhaps be pardoned for quoting here A letter 
 a propos of our subject from a letter I wrote to ' The Lancet* 1 
 Lancet ' on June 2, 1894, on this topic. Keferring 
 to a previous article, I said : 
 
 1 My previous remarks in " The Lancet," written 
 with a view to call attention to the much-neglected 
 subject of Mental Therapeutics, received great point 
 from an annotation in the same number on the 
 " Immunity of Quackery." The writer, speaking of 
 the failure of a recent prosecution, alludes to the " re- 
 markable licence " that quacks enjoy. He points out 
 what a ridiculous state of affairs it is that the public 
 persistently continue to have recourse to quacks when 
 they have the whole medical profession at their 
 service. He goes on to say that the eulogy of 
 grateful patients, though given in good faith, cannot 
 be depended upon ; for, he proceeds to point out, 
 " there are no limits to the imagination of the hypo- 
 chondriacal and hysterical subject."
 
 150 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Th public ' Now, in all this the writer does not say why quacks 
 |ett vdue still flourish at the close of the nineteenth century ; 
 to 'cores. 1 nor w }^ j n fafa educated period, they are as numerous, 
 or more so, as in the dark ages, and can still un- 
 doubtedly produce large numbers of genuine cures. 
 If the common sense of the public has not yet enabled 
 this enlightened body to sufficiently distinguish be- 
 tween the value of the regular orthodox practitioner 
 and the opposing army of quacks, special " pathists," 
 and faddists of all sorts, whether Counts or commoners, 
 it is to be feared that there is rather a poor prospect 
 of their ever doing so as long as matters are as they 
 are. The public, curiously enough, set a far higher 
 value on a " cure " than the trained professional man. 
 With him, we may, I think, assert, interest centres in 
 the diagnosis of the disease, and it is to this point 
 that the most careful teaching and training are 
 directed. We do not say that to most it is the 
 " end ; " but it is certainly a very prominent "means " 
 indeed to it, and necessarily so. The public, and 
 with them the quacks, care little about the diagnosis, 
 for which they have neither learning nor interest ; 
 what they do look for is the cure, which, alas ! is 
 often effected without any diagnosis at all, though 
 not without grave risk to the patient for want of it. 
 As long, therefore, as quacks cure diseases, so long 
 will the public employ them ; and no amount of 
 Carlylean quotations as to the number of fools in 
 the world, or contemptuous classification of the 
 cured diseases as imaginative, will alter their atti- 
 tude. 
 
 ' What requires to be done, and what must come to 
 pass before long, is the recognition by the medical
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEEAPY 151 
 
 profession that the secret of the perennial vitality of Vitality oi 
 quackery is that it has used (no doubt ignorantly) due C to 6ry 
 what the medical profession has so systematically gaoler 
 ignored (at any rate in its teaching) : the value and ^y- 
 the curative power of mental therapeutics. I have 
 looked again through many leading books on medicine 
 and therapeutics, but neither in Ziemssen nor in Hare 
 (as representing the latest American views), nor in 
 any other standard work, can I find this subject fairly 
 considered and discussed.' 
 
 The fact is, that much medical teaching is circum- 
 scribed by such well-defined boundaries boundaries, 
 by the way, of which it is intensely proud that no 
 surprise need be felt when we find any subject denied 
 a serious hearing which lies outside these limita- 
 tions. 
 
 Dr. Clouston says : l ' Mental therapeutics are, !>> 
 fortunately, had recourse to far more now than of old. O n menui 
 The exhilarating and nutrition -stimulating effects on ^utio*. 
 health of pleasant social intercourse, change of scene, 
 of beautiful landscapes, of the summer sea shining in 
 the sunshine, are now universally recognised. Bright 
 and cheerful surroundings in our hospital wards are no 
 unimportant part of the cure of their patients. The 
 cures effected at our hydropathics and watering-places 
 are surely mental in a large degree. What tonic and 
 promoter of convalescence is equal to the " merry 
 heart " which the wise man says heals like a medi- 
 cine ? If we fully accept and apply the sound 
 principle that the brain cortex and mind constitute 
 the great central resisting energy against the occur- 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 189ft.
 
 152 THE FOBCE OP MIND 
 
 rence of disease and one of the great forces that 
 make for its cure, we thus get an explanation of 
 many facts that cannot be explained on any localising 
 theory. Such a conception prevents us from falling 
 into that evil sort of surgical-mindedness which takes 
 account only of the gross anatomy of the part affected, 
 and such things as can be seen and felt by the 
 surgeon. It enlarges our conception of the human 
 organism into something of that degree of complica- 
 tion which actually exists in Nature. It affords an 
 explanation of many of those miscalculations and 
 disappointments which we all only too frequently 
 experience. It explains to some extent the extra- 
 ordinary differences hi the action of the same remedy 
 in different persons, and in the same person under 
 different conditions. You are probably aware what 
 enormous doses of certain drugs an acutely maniacal 
 or an excited melancholic patient will tolerate, and, 
 indeed, will require for us to get the effect desired. 
 Brain The brain cortex, in a state of disturbance and dis- 
 toSb* t can ease, inhibits to a large extent the action of many 
 Jjjj^ drugs. I have given in old tunes a maniacal patient 
 half an ounce of tincture of opium within a week after 
 beginning to use the drug, and we frequently use 
 paraldehyde in half-ounce doses before sleep can be 
 obtained, while, in some cases, several drops of croton 
 will not purge. In melancholia and some other forms 
 of insanity we find intense sluggishness of the bowels, 
 of the skin, and of the secretory glands that result 
 entirely from the morbid cortical condition, which the 
 usual laxatives, sudorifics, and cholagogues will not 
 remedy.' 
 
 And yet, how foolish any discussion of the
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEEAPY 153 
 
 ' mental factor ' must seem to those who, rightly K 
 enough, impressed with the marvellous mechanism 
 of the living body, can see nothing beyond the 
 mechanism, and who therefore believe the art of the 
 medical man to be as material and exact as that of a 
 mechanic in a factory. 
 
 By doctors of this school a man is regarded pretty An invalid 
 much as a superior cycle, or rather perhaps a motor-car, 
 might be, and resembles the latter in being frequently 
 subject to inconvenient breakdowns. It is clear to 
 these that the use of adequate means, a little screwing 
 up here or there, a new nut or bolt or strap, will effect 
 the repair and restore the machine to health ; and not 
 only so, but they can prove this by the numerous 
 machines they have successfully repaired apparently 
 by these methods alone. To the materialist the 
 invalid has for therapeutic purposes no more mind 
 than the car ; while, even if the medical man credits 
 himself with any mental force, he does not for a 
 moment suppose it can in any way assist his patient, 
 any more than it can matter to the motor-car who 
 the mechanic is that repairs it, provided the right 
 means are used. 
 
 I am aware the simile is not very apt, but it 
 may be effective enough for my purpose. 
 
 Has it, then, ever occurred to our materialistic Thedoctoi 
 medico to ask how it is that the human motor-car is 
 often perfectly repaired by means which to him are , n 
 ludicrously inadequate having often little that is 
 material about them ; or, on the other hand, what is 
 equally puzzling, how it comes to pass that the same 
 bolts and nuts put in by one mechanic repair the
 
 154 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Many 
 qnack 
 cares are 
 genuine. 
 
 Dogma- 
 tism cures. 
 
 The 
 
 reason of 
 1 agnostic ' 
 attitude of 
 doctors. 
 
 The 
 
 paradox of 
 quackery. 
 
 machine, while exactly the same process fails in the 
 hands of another ? 
 
 That such is the case in medicine, though not hi 
 mechanics, is well known; and it is, I think, abundantly 
 clear that faith and quack healing of all sorts could 
 never have attained the position they have in the 
 leading centres of civilisation and intelligence were not 
 the cures numerous, and in very many cases genuine. 
 
 The fact is, the most materialistic medicine man 
 going uses constantly with his patients, malgrS soi, 
 and wholly unconsciously, the curative influences of 
 the mind. His very cocksureness as he ' screws up 
 the bolts,' his exactitude, his dogmatism, and his 
 'no-nonsense' manner, all profoundly impress the 
 patient, and produce a confidence and a belief in his. 
 powers that cure, quite as much as the means he 
 uses. 
 
 Let us proceed to review in a little more detail 
 this remarkable subject of quackery, and I think we 
 shall understand somewhat better the reason of the 
 physician's agnostic attitude towards mental thera- 
 peutics. We see him beset on all sides by a very 
 army of irregulars, who, in spite of his edicts and 
 medical ethics, continue to defy the laws of both 
 ethics and science by stealing some of his best 
 patients, and, worse still, by curing them with means 
 which to him are wholly inadequate, after the 
 manner so graphically portrayed in the letter from 
 Sir James Paget with which this book opens. 
 
 One of the most extraordinary paradoxes surely 
 of to-day lies in the fact that, simultaneously with 
 an advance in scientific medicine wholly unparalleled 
 in the world's history, there is on every side a
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEEAPY 155 
 
 quackery that flourishes and triumphs as much as, 
 or more than, in the darkest of the dark ages. 
 
 It is the general rule that as the true light shines 
 the darkness disappears. It is not so here. Nor can 
 it be said that it is in the less civilised parts of the 
 earth, where scientific medicine is rare, that most 
 quacks are found. The reverse, strange to say, 
 obtains. It is in America, and the most enlightened 
 parts of America ; it is in England, and in the heart 
 of its most intelligent centres, that quackery flourishes ; 
 and we now speak of quackery pure and simple. 
 
 Only a year or two ago there was started most 
 successfully in London a system of curing, not one 
 or two, but all diseases, by little bottles of medicine 
 (so called) sold across the counter by any chemist, 
 the diagnosis being made by the sufferer ! 
 
 But, from the doctor's standpoint, worse still 
 remains. Quackery would soon come to an end and disappear 
 fade away before the spread of knowledge, and the ' 
 
 cures were 
 
 decay of superstition, under the fostering care of the effected - 
 School Board and the higher educational system, but 
 for one thing. It can show real cures, both un- 
 deniable and numerous, in spite of the vast number 
 that may not bear scrutiny. 
 
 This the physician cannot, alas ! deny, though he Quack 
 may deplore it. After allowing full discount for 
 forged and false testimonials (which are not so 
 numerous as supposed), for purely imaginary diseases 
 and the credulity of mankind, and even for the lesser 
 functional disorders, there remains behind a large 
 residuum that cannot by any ingenuity be explained 
 away. At any rate, the public believes it has suffered 
 from some disease, say, rheumatism, for which, in
 
 156 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 the ordinary course and the absence of the quack, it 
 would have gone to the nearest doctor ; with the result 
 of a possible more or less tardy cure, and the certainty 
 of a considerable bill. Whereas now, the purchase 
 for l\d. or Is. ld. of a small bottle of something in 
 a wrapper black with testimonials has already given 
 relief, maybe even before it has been taken, on the mere 
 reading of the wonderful cures effected. The ignorant 
 charlatan may thus effect with his shallow mysteries 
 what a great physician cannot do with his science, 
 because wonder and awe have a greater therapeutic 
 power than respect. In this case, of course, the 
 remedies used on both sides are regarded as inert ; 
 and yet we believe it is true that many of our most 
 useful medicines have been discovered by quacks. 
 
 Now it is quite possible that no one is more sur- 
 prised as well as pleased at the cures than the quack 
 vendor of the same ; and it is not for him to deny 
 what he cannot account for, as the doctor is often 
 tempted to do, because his interest is to magnify 
 cures, which he promptly does. 
 
 It is therefore doubtless true that, in spite of all 
 our science, quackery flourishes; and the reason of 
 it is by no means that all men are fools, but that 
 it undoubtedly effects numerous cures, and some if 
 it be not heresy to breathe it that have been 
 attempted in vain by eminent scientific men, the 
 sufferers having only tried quackery when all else has 
 failed. It is also true that these cures astonish per- 
 haps equally the quack and the doctor. 
 
 But let us go a little further and glance at the 
 pseudo-religious quacks and humbugs who make a gain 
 of the credulity and folly of mankind without recourse
 
 ON PSYCHO-THERAPY 157 
 
 to patent pills or Is. l^d. medicines. These are 
 found everywhere, but abound most, like the ordinary 
 quack, not, as might be supposed, in Eussia, or in 
 Turkey, or Poland, or South America, or other 
 shady corners of the civilised world, but in the very 
 focus of intellectual and rational life the United 
 States of America. 
 
 The greatest of these latter-day mystics is un- 
 doubtedly at present the ' Eev.' Mary Baker Eddy, 
 whose ponderous work on Christian Science, in two 
 volumes, is the text- book of the entire sect, number- 
 ing nearly a million or more here and in America and 
 elsewhere, of educated followers far above the average 
 in wealth and culture many, alas ! formerly having 
 been among the most lucrative of the physician's 
 patients. This book is appointed to be read by 
 Mrs. Eddy in all her churches, side by side with the 
 Bible ; and in one of her handsome buildings in New 
 York, that cost over 20,OOOZ., as well as in their first 
 English church, not very far from Harley Street, this 
 work, ' Science and Health,' is read every Sunday to 
 a crowded and attentive congregation of upper-class 
 educated people. With their dogmas one need not 
 interfere ; cures are detailed and vouched for by the 
 healed at every meeting, and though to some judg- 
 ments Christian Science contains neither Christianity 
 nor science, as generally understood, these cures can- 
 not all be doubted or explained away. (I may return 
 more fully to this subject in a future chapter.) 
 
 Of the lower class of pseudo faith-healers, we hear 
 of one in New Jersey, with 15,000 more or less edu- 
 cated patients in one week. Chicago has been 
 turned upside down with one, amongst others, who
 
 158 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 has the walls of the largest hall in the city covered 
 with crutches, splints &c. presented by cured fol- 
 lowers ; and indeed all over the States the name of 
 these religious quacks and humbugs is legion, and 
 their harvest plenteous and golden. Now, though 
 populus vult decipi is undoubtedly true, and though 
 most men are fools, still cures are effected not only by 
 respectable quacks, but by the most arrant knaves, 
 and testified to by most reputable persons, and, 
 curiously enough, largely by the clergy. Many 
 indeed are not lasting ; many are very trivial, and 
 many may be said to be due to hypnotic influence of 
 one sort or another. 
 
 But, again, what about hypnotism and Nancy and 
 the Salpetriere ? The investigations of the ' British 
 Medical Journal ' have shown that here we have to 
 deal with a quite inestimable amount of fraud and 
 self-deception ; but observe, we have now to examine 
 the work of learned professors, regular and registered 
 physicians, and not that of mere charlatans. We have, 
 or had, Charcot in France, and names of honour and 
 repute in this country who testify to cures of all sorts 
 without medicine or physical means, but in this case 
 purely (if the word may be coined) by ' psychism ' in 
 the form of suggestions suggestions, too, which 
 appear powerless when presented directly to con- 
 sciousness, and only highly efficacious when the 
 patient is in the ' hypnotic ' state. All these things 
 are a riddle and most perplexing, and when the last 
 echo of the laughter of derision and the last curve of 
 the smile of contempt have died away, there remains 
 much to make the physician of the period at least 
 thoughtful.
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEEAPY 159 
 
 Again, what about homoeopathy, hydropathy, Homoeo- 
 Matteism, and all the many and flourishing Swedish, SUSS^ 
 German, Austrian, Italian, and other special cures ? 
 Are they all unworthy of the name ? By no means. 
 Here a semi- or pseudo-scientific basis is more or less 
 attempted, many excellent hygienic formulae are ob- 
 served, which elevate these above the mere rank 
 quackery we have spoken of. But the great point is 
 that cures, and remarkable cures too, are everywhere 
 effected. And here, indeed, may be added that it is J^** * 
 
 ., , . ' ,. J . , . functional 
 
 impossible to say all these are what in our ignorance aiseaaea? 
 at present we crudely class as 'functional,' though, 
 doubtless, most are. Is rheumatism a functional or 
 an organic disease ? Is dropsy, is erythema, is 
 eczema, is paralysis? Some hyperscientist may 
 object that some of these are symptoms and not 
 diseases. But what is a symptom and what is not 
 a symptom ? Nay, more, what is a disease ? And 
 until we can answer this last profound question, how 
 do we know whether it is functional or organic or 
 both ? Our own broad definition of the two would be 
 that ' functional ' disease is that which is of psychic 
 origin ; ' organic,' that which is of physical. At the 
 bottom all diseases involve some organic change some- 
 where. 
 
 But this is not all, in the way of inexplicable 
 cures. 
 
 What about Lourdes ? Or if that be a centre of 
 imposture, which it is, and yet isn't, what about our 
 own faith-healing centres and others abroad, uncon- 
 taminated by the least sympathy with Roman Catho- 
 licism or saint-worship ? 
 
 As these may not be so well known even to the 
 
 M
 
 160 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 widely informed physician, a detail or two may be 
 given showing they at any rate exist. 
 
 A few years ago, in the Agricultural Hall, a great 
 conference of some 2,000 faith -healers was held, there 
 being then some 120 faith-healing centres in this 
 kingdom alone, now probably many more. In 
 America there are over thirty homes (one of which 
 cost over 6,OOOZ. presented by a ' cured ' patient) and 
 innumerable centres. There are several in Australia 
 and many all over Europe. A few years ago in New 
 York and Boston there was hardly a believer in faith- 
 healing, now there are thousands. Observe these 
 have nothing to do with the Christian scientists on the 
 one hand or the pseudo-fraudulent faith-healers on 
 the other, of whom I have spoken. These are 
 orthodox, severely Protestant, and mostly evangelical. 
 
 In one long list of 250 published cases of disease 
 cured we find five ' consumption,' one ' diseased hip,' 
 five ' abscess,' three ' dyspepsia,' four ' internal com- 
 plaint,' two 'throat ulcer,' seven 'nervous debility,' 
 nine 'rheumatism,' five 'diseased heart,' two ' withered 
 arm,' four ' bronchitis,' three ' cancer,' two ' paralysed 
 arm,' three 'weak eyes,' one 'ruptured spine' (?), 
 five ' pains in the head.' And these are the results 
 in one year at one small chapel in the north of 
 London ! The list causes amusement and perhaps 
 surprise ; and impatience may be felt that such puerile 
 details should be given. Pace my scientific and 
 learned friend, to the poor sufferers it was anything 
 but puerile to be cured, or at any rate relieved, from 
 diseases from which they suffered, or at any rate 
 imagined they suffered, free of all charge ; for none of
 
 ON PSYCHO-THERAPY 161 ' 
 
 these are money-making agencies, whatever else they 
 may be. 
 
 What about charm cures? Perhaps scientists Charms, 
 innocently suppose these have died out. Not at all ; 1^' * nd 
 and later on I will give instances. Suffice it here 
 to say that not only in the country districts, but it 
 may be in the humbler regions of the physician's 
 own house, they are implicitly believed in, and more- 
 over even here also are cures effected. 
 
 What about cures by relics and even by idols ? I 
 am told that undoubted cures are effected not only 
 by the Holy Coat of Treves, but all over the world, 
 notably in India, China, and Africa, in the presence 
 of actual idols. One in India is most famous for its 
 therapeutic power ; while large temples in China are 
 covered with votive offerings from the ' faith-healed.' 
 Trees, plants, flowers, bits of animals, &c. have all 
 their therapeutic powers. 
 
 But the patience of our cultured reader must not 
 be too severely tried. Turn, then, with relief to some- 
 thing more respectable. 
 
 What about the ' cures ' at home and Continental Jj^" 1 * 
 spas, with their eternal round of sulphur and iron 'cure*.' 
 waters and baths ? 
 
 Does the doctor attached to the spa, in his heart 
 of hearts believe that all the cures which in these 
 cases he cheerfully certifies to are effected by the 
 waters, or even the waters and the diet, or even the 
 waters and the diet and the air ; or does he not think 
 there must be a ' something else ' as well ? And to 
 come nearer home and into the centre of all things, 
 and the chamber of all his secrets: In his own 
 consulting-room and in his own practice, is not the 
 
 M 2
 
 162 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 physician brought face to face with cures, aye and 
 diseases too, the cause of which he cannot account for ; 
 and is he not often surprised to find a continuation of 
 the same treatment originated by the local practitioner 
 is, when continued by his august self, efficacious ? And 
 is not the local practitioner not only surprised but 
 disgusted as well to find such is the case ? 
 Orthodox But we have asked hard questions enough. We 
 cures. w 'n ag k an eag y one> "What is the one effectual agency 
 in quack cures, in semi-scientific cures of all sorts, in 
 faith cures, in relic, charm, and idol cures, in many 
 spa and water cures, in some doctor's cures, perhaps 
 tiJe age^t *** more tnan n6 8U8 P ec ^ s ? After allowing fully for 
 in all is the intrinsic value of the quack remedy, of the mystic 
 Sniidoos formulae, of the millionth dilution, or of the prismatic 
 electricity ; for the sulphate of soda or magnesium and 
 even for the value of real B.P. drugs, we must answer 
 It is mainly and primarily the power of the uncon- 
 scious mind over the body. It is this, and this pre- 
 eminently ; and it is this, and this pre-eminently, that 
 is everywhere ignored, however much other minor 
 factors may be extolled. 
 
 Now we see, as I said we should, how hard it is 
 for a physician to own this, and here is the ' other 
 reason ' for his otherwise inexplicable ' agnostic ' 
 position. It at once seems to give a sort of locus 
 standi to the unregistered and unqualified therapeu- 
 tists of all denominations ; not only admitting their 
 cures, but giving a scientific reason for them, pro- 
 bably unknown to themselves. And worse still, it 
 puts the physician at first sight on somewhat of the 
 same level in effecting many cures, in equal ignorance, 
 by the same means.
 
 ON PSYCHO-THERAPY 163 
 
 Further and worthier thoughts will reveal that it is i thig 
 vain to fight against truth for any secondary reasons ; true? 
 and the question is Is it true ? 
 
 We think that those who really honour this 
 subject with their grave and careful consideration 
 will say that it is : and that even those who do 
 not, and who merely skim the evidence we shall 
 give, will say at least 1 There must be some truth 
 in it.' 
 
 If this be the case, how strange that such a thera- 
 peutic agent should have been so ignored, that from 
 so few of our leading surgeons and physicians do we 
 hear the influence of the human mind, whose powers 
 pretty well balance the whole Pharmacopoeia, spoken 
 of ! In the ' British Medical Journal ' we find 
 this remarkable sentence : } ' Disease of the body is 
 so much influenced by the mind that in each case we 
 have to understand the patient quite as much as the 
 malady. This is not learnt at hospitals.' Or, in 
 other words, one-half at least of the science of thera- 
 peutics is not ' learnt at hospitals,' for the simple 
 reason it is not taught. 
 
 Does any practical medical man, after all, really 
 doubt these mental powers ? Is he not aware of the 
 ingredient ' faith,' which, if added to his prescriptions, 
 makes them often all-powerful for good? Does he 
 not know experimentally the value of strongly assert- 
 ing that the medicine will produce such and such 
 effects as a powerful means of securing them ? 
 
 If, then, this power is so well known, why in the uui.^ 
 name of common sense should it be pooh-poohed and J^" 
 ignored as it is ? It has its laws of action, its limita- p h < 
 
 1 British Medical Journal, Eduo. Number, autumn 1891.
 
 164 THE FOBCB OF MIND 
 
 tions, its powers for good and for evil ; would it not 
 clearly help the medical student if these were indicated 
 to him by his lawful teachers, instead of his gleaning 
 them uncertainly from the undoubted successes of the 
 large army of irregulars ? 
 
 A silent We are, however, inclined to think that, after all, 
 
 uidng tion * silent revolution is slowly taking place in the minds 
 place. O f medical men, and that our present text-books on 
 disease, content with merely prescribing endless selec- 
 tions and combinations of nauseous drugs, and dis- 
 missing any mental cure in a single line as unworthy 
 of serious consideration, will in time be replaced by 
 others containing views more worthy of the century 
 in which we live. 
 
 Drugi are For, although these drugs are still administered, 
 
 but few medical men now believe that they are the 
 
 entire cause of the cure; for very gradually it is 
 
 beginning to dawn upon us that most nervous diseases 
 
 at any rate are easily and naturally treated by mental 
 
 therapeutics, and that the still persistent efforts to cure 
 
 them by the stomach are neither reliable nor rational. 
 
 Mind core It ill becomes, therefore, the medical man, who 
 
 Edited to recognises in these cases that it is the mind that cures, 
 
 cu^e^ 1 to decry any form of faitl1 cure ' nowever little its 
 process may be understood by him in detail. We 
 have seen that the powers of the conscious mind 
 over the body are wellnigh immeasurable ; and 
 knowing, as we now do, that our old division into 
 functional and organic diseases is merely the expres- 
 sion of our ignorance, and that all diseases, even 
 hysterical, involve organic disturbance somewhere, we 
 are prepared to believe that faith and other unorthodox 
 cures, putting into operation such a powerful agent as
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEEAPY 165 
 
 the unconscious mind, or, if you prefer the formula, 
 ' the forces of nature,' are not necessarily limited to 
 so-called functional diseases at all. 
 
 Dr. Clouston makes some important remarks upon Dr. 
 the necessity of understanding the mental element in 
 disease, that we may quote here. He says : ! 
 
 ' The nervous and mental element in disease is a 
 universal and constant fact, but it prevails in different 
 cases to a different extent. I could have related 
 remarkable cases to you from my own experience, and 
 out of the books, of functional disease being brought 
 on and being cured by mental impressions only, of 
 functions being suspended and altered from the same 
 cause nay, of actual organic lesions being directly 
 caused and cured by mental impressions; as when 
 blisters are caused by suggestion during hypnotic 
 conditions. Constipation has been cured by doses of 
 medicine containing no laxative, but with dogmatic 
 assurances that a stool will follow in an hour. Warts 
 have been " charmed " away ; scurvy among sailors 
 has been cured by the prospect of a naval fight ; gouty 
 swellings have disappeared when "Mad dog" or 
 " Fire " was cried out suddenly to the sufferers. All 
 these things have happened, but they occur only 
 rarely, while some influence or other for good or evil 
 is taking place, in some degree or way, from the 
 patient's brain cortex and mind in every case of ordi- 
 nary disease that you will have to treat. This is a 
 fact that I am far more anxious to impress on you 
 than to relate the marvels and the miracles of 
 medicine. To keep in mind the ordinary laws of 
 Nature as they ordinarily manifest themselves in life 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.
 
 166 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 and disease in their sure but commonly unconscious 
 and quiet manner of acting, is of far more import- 
 ance to each of us than to know the wonders and 
 cataclysms that only occur once in a lifetime. The 
 brain habit should be early formed in a physician to 
 take account of, and instinctively and without con- 
 scious effort to apply the principle that the condition 
 of the patient's brain cortex and mind can never be 
 an equation to be left out of account in his treatment.' 
 Menui ^ * 8 no doubt, a8 I h ave sa ^ *ke connection 
 
 ther*- of mental therapeutics directly with faith-healing, 
 Sits Christian Science-healing, and hypnotism; and in- 
 *~ directly with liquid electricities, billionth dilutions, 
 and quack remedies of all sorts, that has so far deterred 
 the profession from examining very closely its won- 
 derful powers. 
 
 I feel quite sure, however, that all such reasons 
 will fall to the ground when the fact of the uncon- 
 scious mind is admitted, clearly and definitely, by 
 scientific men ; and once its powers become generally 
 recognised they will at last, after long neglect, be 
 made the subject of serious study. 
 
 It is somewhat curious that while the power of the 
 mind over the body is so little thought of, far too 
 much is being made of the power of the body over the 
 mind. 
 
 Depend- Indeed, it is time that a reaction took place against 
 
 Son the popular doctrine of the dependence of mind on 
 
 b^y. body, which is fast reaching a reductio ad absurdum, 
 
 in the tracing of every changing mental state, and 
 
 even of every morbid impulse or criminal action, to a 
 
 deranged liver or an anaemic brain. No doubt before 
 
 long the pendulum in England will swing over com-
 
 ON PSYCHO-THEEAPY 167 
 
 pletely to the other side (as it has already done in 
 America to the remarkable extent displayed in the 
 1 mental cures ' we have already spoken of), and 
 most bodily disorders will be attributed to a diseased 
 mind. The truth meanwhile occupies, as ever, the 
 medium position between the two, there being times 
 when the body sways the mind, and other times 
 when the mind sways the body, the two being, as has 
 been forcibly expressed by Miss Cobbe, something 
 like a pair of coupled dogs ; sometimes one and some- 
 times the other obtaining the victory, and sometimes 
 both pulling together in harmony. 
 
 This harmony is health and ease, the discord is 
 ill -health and dis-ease, and true therapeutics must ever discord u' 
 consist, in virtue of a law higher than any framed in 
 our colleges or hospitals, in replacing the one by the 
 other.
 
 168 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 
 
 The testimony of the profession as to the presence 
 and importance of the vis medicatrix naturae," and the 
 power of mind over disease.' 
 
 What is AFTBB going so very fully into every possible plea 
 
 ^Umedl that could be adduced for the disregard of the mental 
 
 natura factor in therapeutics, and showing in some degree 
 
 how it was exploited by quacks and others outside the 
 
 profession, it is high time that I adduced some proof 
 
 of its real value in legitimate medicine. 
 
 The first point perhaps to consider, and one of 
 great interest, is what is meant by the well-known 
 expression, vis medicatrix naturcB, which heads this 
 chapter. 
 
 i it a It has of course been hotly disputed whether such 
 
 a force exists at all. Then, if this be admitted, it has 
 been strongly argued that it is not a true force ; while, 
 on the other hand, by a very large majority it has been 
 decided that it is, and one moreover of almost inestim- 
 able value in cure. It appears to me that this ' vis ' con- 
 sists of the natural power resident in the unconscious 
 mind to preserve the body against its enemies of all 
 Borts ; and, if these should have gained an entrance 
 in the shape of disease or accident, to combat them
 
 THE VIS MEDICATEIX NATUE^l 169 
 
 vigorously; largely by what we call 'symptoms of 
 disease ' and also by other processes. These ' natural 
 powers,' however, form, after all, only a part of the 
 mental factor in therapeutic medicine. Further 
 powers can be aroused and brought into action by 
 mental therapy, in stimulating the patient's own 
 mind to greater efforts in various ways which we shall 
 consider. So that the vis medicatrix natures and 
 the energy aroused by mental therapeutics represent 
 together the powers of the unconscious mind in its 
 beneficial rule over the body. We will adduce further 
 reasons for this view as we go along. First, then, for 
 the denial of the existence of the vis. 
 
 Dr. Pye Smith, in an inaugural address to medical 
 students, says : ' The vis medicatrix naturee is a denied 
 figment which owes its prevalence to its Latin dress.' 1 
 This is not so ; its vitality is due to the truth that 
 underlies the dress, which alone can keep it alive and 
 vigorous to-day. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Ward Kichardson opposes it deter- 
 minately. ' In the long catalogue of serious diseases, 
 Nature's cure is the last remedy discernible.' * ' The 
 term vis medicatrix natures is an entire misnomer, 
 except it be limited to the simple capacity of the 
 organism to resist gravitation. A belief in it in the 
 concrete has no basis whatever.' 3 ' If it be true,' he 
 Bays further, ' then physicians are of no use save to 
 cure their own maladies by its power.' (!) 
 
 But there are not many who attempt such a hope- 
 less reductio ad absurdum as this, which has only to 
 
 1 Dr. Pye Smith, British Medical Journal, October 9, 1897. 
 * Sir B. W. Richardson, Asclepiad, 1886, p. 267. 
 1 Ibid. p. 284.
 
 170 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 be read to be self -condemned. We meet with a more 
 scientific view of this power in the following, from 
 Dr. A. H. Carter (in the 'British Medical Journal '), 
 which, it will be observed, while treating it as the 
 passive outcome of the law of equilibrium, does not 
 close till it is acknowledged as an active force for the 
 preservation of the body : 
 
 The law of ' The quality of resistance to which I have just 
 e^uiiibra alluded bears such important relations to the principles 
 of causation and treatment of disease that it deserves 
 to be examined at close quarters, in order to see what 
 it really means and what it teaches us. That the body 
 possesses some power of resisting and recovering from 
 the disturbing forces of disease has long been recog- 
 nised, and represents what is often described as the 
 vis medicatrix natura. But with regard to its real 
 nature and operation there has been much difference 
 of opinion, and it is only within recent times that it 
 has been possible to put the matter upon a rational 
 basis. It certainly represents no independent force 
 of any kind ; but, as Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us, it 
 is the working out in the body of a law which obtains 
 throughout all Nature the law of equilibration or 
 balance of forces. The living body is a moving 
 equilibrium of a variety of antagonistic forces, which 
 on the one side is constantly dissipating its energy in 
 the functional activities of its individual parts, and 
 on the other side is being as constantly reinforced by 
 taking in fresh motive power. It is an equilibrium 
 which, moving onwards in a rhythmical progress, 
 preserves a constant mean, and tends to re-establish 
 that mean whenever accidental causes have disturbed 
 it. The mean balance of forces in movement which
 
 THE VIS MEDICATBIX NATUB^J 171 
 
 characterises what we call healthy life, unstable as it 
 is, yet as the result of adaptations extending indefinitely 
 back into the past has become sufficiently stable to 
 offer very considerable resistance to disturbance ; and 
 if disturbed, short of being altogether upset, it tends 
 to become re-established sooner or later. The limit of 
 recovery from such disturbance, or what may conveni- 
 ently be termed the index of resistance, varies somewhat 
 for each individual. When the index is high we speak 
 of such a man as strong or robust ; when, on the other 
 hand, it is low, as weak or delicate. 
 
 1 The special susceptibilities to disease connected ^ e indei 
 
 of resist- 
 
 with age, sex, pregnancy, lactation, climacteric period, am*, 
 and the like, correspond to physiological fluctuations 
 of the resistance index ; and these again merge by 
 imperceptible degrees into what are called " acquired 
 susceptibilities," which represent pathological forms of 
 diminished resistance due to such factors as inanition, 
 fatigue, exposure to cold, and previous disease. If I 
 am not much mistaken, something of what passes in 
 our medical vernacular as acquired susceptibilities is 
 not to be distinguished from disease. If, for instance, 
 a healthy man attacked by influenza tells us he has 
 "never been the same since," it is probable that in a 
 strict sense he is still the subject of some morbid 
 process left over from the original disease. At the 
 same time, there are many cases in which, after serious 
 disturbance never completely recovered from, a fresh 
 balance is established by virtue of the law of equilibra- 
 tion, though upon a permanently lower plane than 
 before, and which henceforth becomes for that person 
 a normal state. Though in some aspects the vis 
 medicatrix natura works on passive lines, in other
 
 172 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 aspects its operation is more active, as by the destruc- 
 tion of noxious agents entering the body, by natural 
 processes of expulsion and elimination, by compen- 
 satory overgrowths, and by a slow process of adapta- 
 Theartof tion to new conditions. But for the natural ten- 
 de^uu on dencies of the body towards health when disturbed by 
 the vi.' <ji seasej the art of healing could not exist.' l 
 
 It is evident from this, that though the ' vis ' may 
 be represented in one aspect as a sort of inertia that 
 tends to restore the lost balance to equilibrium, it 
 plays other parts, in which it appears as a living 
 preservative force. 
 
 Mitchell Now let us see what more can be said in its favour. 
 
 wiSon !>* Mitchell Bruce writes : 2 'We are compelled to 
 
 m favour acknowledge a power of natural recovery inherent in 
 
 the body a similar statement has been made by 
 
 writers on the principle of medicine in all ages. . . . 
 
 The body does possess a means and mechanism for 
 
 modifying or neutralising influences which it cannot 
 
 directly overcome.' 3 
 
 ' I believe,' he continues, ' that a natural power of 
 prevention and repair of disorder and disease has as 
 real and as active an existence within us as have the 
 ordinary functions of the organs themselves.' 
 
 ' Every thoughtful practitioner,' says Dr. Wilkin- 
 son, 4 'will acknowledge that when his therapeutic 
 reserves are exhausted by far the most reliable con- 
 sultant is the vis medicatrix natures. To ignore the 
 fact that she has already been in charge of the case 
 
 1 Dr. A. H. Carter, British Medical Journal, Nov. 1900. 
 
 f Dr. Mitchell Brace, Practitioner, xcdv. 241. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 248. 
 
 4 Dr. Wilkinson, Lancet, 1897, ii. 1518.
 
 THE VIS MEDICATEIX NATURE 173 
 
 for days, when we first approach with our mixtures 
 and tabloids, is at least a mistake in medical ethics.' 
 
 ' The vis medicatrix natures,' he also says, ' is a 
 power, a vital resistance to disease. Most protective 
 processes are grouped together as "symptoms;" 
 whereas they should be labelled " hereditary treat- 
 ment." ' 
 
 We may proceed to examples : 
 
 Consider the following very remarkable facts in 
 proof of the guidance the unconscious mind exercises 
 over the growth and nutrition of the body. In 
 extreme old age, as nutrition gets feebler, the bones 
 are wasted, thinned, and softened. But the bones of 
 the skull will be found thicker than normal. A little 
 consideration will show that there must be a centre 
 able to arrange the manner in which the new bone is 
 deposited so as to ensure the safety of the brain, even 
 to the detriment of less important structures, in a 
 manner not merely mechanical. 
 
 1 In rickets the organism does not get enough and in 
 lime salts to build up the skeleton of its normal n 
 strength. It, however, tries to make it as strong as 
 possible by the formation of bone at the growing 
 lines, along the concavities of curves and at such 
 other parts as transmit a greater proportion of 
 weight. Most that is seen in rickets is the result of 
 the effort made by the organism to render the ill- 
 nourished skeleton able to perform its mechanical 
 work. Except for this effort life could not be carried 
 on. In the skull the activity of the organism in 
 meeting the condition of softened bone is enormously 
 and efficiently increased. Observe here how effec- 
 tually nature makes the best application with its
 
 174 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 very imperfect material. The bone is most abundant 
 where it is most wanted.' l 
 
 Our ordinary text-books on physiology give but 
 little idea of what I may call the intelligence that 
 presides over the various systems of the body, 
 showing itself in the bones, as we have seen, in 
 distributing the available but insufficient amount of 
 lime salts in disease ; not equally, but for the pro- 
 tection of the most vital parts, leaving those of lesser 
 value disproportionally deficient. 
 
 This selective action of the ' organism ' forms no 
 part of any property of matter, but is essentially a 
 psychic quality ; in short, nothing but the action of 
 the unconscious mind. 
 
 Effect of Professor Laycock points out that ' if the attention 
 
 cornea. is daily directed to an opaque cornea during a hypnotic 
 trance, a deposit of lymph is observed to form accord- 
 ing to Miiller's law, " that a structural defect tends to 
 be removed by an act increasing the organic action of 
 the part." ' 
 
 niu^r In aortic obstruction we get hypertrophy of the 
 
 tiona of left ventricle, as also in a regurgitant mitral, com- 
 pensation always occurring where the disease cannot 
 be removed. 
 
 A blow ' below the belt ' is rarely fatal if expected. 
 The eye warns the mind what is coming, and the ab- 
 dominal walls instantly become rigid without conscious 
 knowledge. Also in peritonitis the walls become rigid 
 to protect what lies beneath. 
 
 The swarming of leucocytes after bacteria, and the 
 purposive manner in which they work their way to 
 
 1 W. Arbuthnot Lane, British Medical Journal, November 7, 
 1896, p. 1365.
 
 THE VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 176 
 
 the seat of war, speak of the intelligent protective 
 mechanism of the body, of which innumerable other 
 instances might be adduced. 
 
 The vis medicatrix natures gives power to the 
 body to withstand disease in many ways, not only 
 by manufacturing antitoxins, but in increasing the 
 resisting power of exposed parts of the body by 
 lessening their susceptibility. The skin of the face 
 is as thin as on the body, but is seldom susceptible to 
 chills, &c. In connection with this, Dr. Clouston Nerve 
 points out that l ' in some respects the influence of i^S 
 the brain cortex on existing diseases in any organ or ]J 8 di 
 tissue and in warding off disease is measured by the 
 amount of its nerve supply. A richly innervated 
 tissue, like the skin of the finger pulps, is not nearly 
 so liable to cutaneous eruptions as the less endowed 
 skin of the back and limbs. And when we have in 
 the same organ different tissues of different vitality 
 and innervation, the higher and the more innervated 
 tissue resists the effects of poisons far more effectually 
 than the lower. Take, for example, the way in which 
 the alcoholic or the syphilitic poison affects the brain 
 and the liver. They do not touch directly the nerve 
 cells or fibres or the hepatic cells. They do all their 
 pathological damage to the less innervated and less 
 active connective tissue and vascular and lymphatic 
 constituents of these organs. The neurine and 
 hepatic tissues proper only suffer secondarily by 
 pressure or irritation. It seems as if any tissue 
 might effectually resist the assaults of its enemies if 
 it had nerve influence enough from the brain cortex.' 
 
 'Whatever other theories we hold, we must 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896. 
 
 N
 
 176 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 other recognise the vis medicatrix naturce in some shape 
 
 monie. to or other,' says Professor 0. W. Holmes. 
 
 Jjj^* ' Je le pansay et Dieu le guarit ' (' I dressed the 
 
 catrix wound and God healed it ') is written by Ambroise 
 
 Pare on the walls of the Ecole de Medecine at Paris. 
 
 ' Nature is the physician of disease,' says Hippocrates. 
 
 'Keason dictates that disease is nothing else but 
 
 Nature's endeavours to thrust forth with all her 
 
 might the morbific matter for the health of the 
 
 patient ' (Sydenham). This is more true of the 
 
 symptoms than of the disease itself. 
 
 Sir W. S. Church speaks of our old friend the 
 goddess ' Nature ' as a therapeutic agent, and by this 
 time we know to whom he refers. He says : l ' Did 
 they not themselves conduce to this credulity on the 
 part of the laity in speaking of " curing " disease ? 
 With few exceptions they did not cure the disease any 
 more than they cured a broken leg. They placed the 
 patient in the best circumstances for " Nature " to 
 restore the health of the ailing person, or the bone of 
 the broken leg.' 
 
 1 Safety- The vis medicatrix naturce has been traced in some 
 
 lotions in detail by Dr. Mitchell Bruce. He gives as instances 
 k^y- various ' safety-valve ' actions in the body e.g. the 
 relief of cardiac dilatation and distension by relaxa- 
 tion of the arterial walls by depression of the cir- 
 culation. If this fails we may get angina pectoris, 
 which in its turn is relieved by nitrate of amyl, dis- 
 tending the capillaries in imitation of this action of 
 ' Nature.' Again : ' Anorexia in gastric catarrh and 
 hepatic disturbance giving physiological rest.' 
 
 1 Sir W. S. Church at opening of the Yorkshire College, Leeds 
 Britith Medical Journal.
 
 THE VIS MEDIOATEIX NATUE^J 177 
 
 Dr. Bruce points out that in contracted kidney 
 the increased arterial pressure favours diuresis and 
 empties the veins : so that the body here modifies 
 the influence it cannot overcome, and tries to remove 
 the effects if it cannot touch the cause. 
 
 Other instances of the vis medicatrix naturce are other 
 to be found in the regulation of the body temperature, STthJ* 1 *" 
 which allows high temperatures to persist (as is now '***' 
 believed) to destroy certain toxins ; also in the com- 
 pensating action of skin and lungs; also in the 
 repair of fractures, in sealing up poisonous abscesses, 
 in forming fresh channels of circulation when the old 
 are stopped up. Dr. Bruce finally points out that 
 this ' vis ' is possibly acquired through evolution ; that 
 it often fails, but that still true therapeutics is based 
 upon its methods. In aortic obstruction or mitral 
 regurgitation we get, as I have said, enlargement 
 of the left ventricle i.e. the principle of vigorous 
 reaction; and this we imitate in many forms of 
 treatment at Nauheim and elsewhere. 
 
 Vomiting and diarrhoea in dyspepsia, and cough in Hunger, 
 bronchitis, show the principle of direct removal of dyspnoea 
 cause. Some think that hunger, thirst, and dyspnoea fjj^ he 
 may be included as actions of the vis medicatrix 
 naturce. The power is perhaps seen best in animals 
 who have not Harley Street to call in, and observe 
 Nature's treatment. It is also seen in savage life. 
 The overwhelming desire for sleep in some nerve 
 diseases is another instance of it. 
 
 If we take Dr. Charrin's book, 1 we find that he lays Dr. Char- 
 down in systematic fashion the various factors which 
 1 Dr. A. Charrin, Let Defenses Naturelks d VOrganism*. Paris, 
 
 I
 
 178 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 assist the organism in resisting the attacks of the 
 causal agents of disease. After giving a general 
 review of the subject, he takes in order the condition 
 of the blood and the other fluids of the body, and 
 shows what an important action these may have. He 
 then discusses the various glands, especially those 
 that have special functions, such as the thyroid and 
 the suprarenal bodies, and shows how in all proba- 
 bility they exert a marked influence on the removal 
 and neutralisation of the poisonous products formed 
 as a result of ordinary metabolic processes. In 
 considering the spleen he treats of it in its relation 
 both to the composition of the blood and to the 
 elimination of certain poisons from the body. Then, 
 leaving the special glands, he takes up the considera- 
 tion of our defences against thermal conditions, 
 especially those connected with the nervous and 
 vasomotor systems. The secretions of the nasal 
 fossae, the bucco-pharyngeal cavities, the gastric and 
 intestinal juices, the pancreatic and the hepatic 
 secretions are all discussed in turn, and their import- 
 ance insisted upon. The secretions of the kidney are 
 also carefully analysed, and the variations as regards 
 the nature of the toxieity of the urine considered. 
 Finally, there are a chapter on the nervous system and 
 a summary of the defences outside the organism. 
 Three It is evident that in a work of this kind three 
 
 questions must constantly be coming to the front 
 phagocytosis ; the destruction by the various cells of 
 the body of natural and disease products ; and lastly, 
 the production and action of various antitoxins, using 
 the term antitoxin ' in its very widest sense, as it is 
 employed by Bouchard. Dr. Charrin has treated each 
 
 questions 
 raised.
 
 THE VIS MEDICATEIX NATURE 179 
 
 part of his subject with a certain degree of thorough- 
 ness, and I can promise any one who will carefully 
 read through this work that he will rise from its 
 perusal with a feeling of astonishment, not that he 
 escapes disease, but that he should ever, by any 
 chance, become affected. So much for the vis medi- 
 catrix natures ! 
 
 The most, then, a doctor can do is to assist the The vi 
 body in making use of this great power, which, we Jjf"*- 
 may once more repeat, is really nothing more than the natwa is 
 action of the unconscious mind. The ' vis ' is a fine ^ ? ow n ' 
 illustration of the power of the mental factor in mind< 
 Pathology if not in Medicine. So great indeed is this 
 natural power that not the most skilled combination 
 of drugs is of any avail without its aid, while the 
 most haphazard remedies of the purest empiricism 
 can accomplish marvels if backed by this ever-present 
 force. But for this marvellous power, a morbid dis- Treatment 
 turbance once set up would inevitably continue to the ^tSTft 
 point of annihilation ; for treatment addressed to the 
 living body is absolutely meaningless except as an 
 appeal to such powers of resistance as a patient 
 possesses. When these powers of the unconscious 
 mind fail, as in the closing scenes of any fatal illness, 
 it is idle to expect anything from treatment, as of 
 course we all know death really is the result of the 
 failure of the vis medicatrix naturae. 
 
 Sir Lauder Brunton may fittingly close this brief I^JjJ*" 
 survey of the vis medicatrix natura with the follow- O n the 
 ing interesting illustration of its physiological power. 1 j^ti^'in 6 
 'How is it,' he asks, 'the ferments which form &**<* 
 poisons do not pass into the blood, and kill the 
 
 ' Sir Lander Brunton, Disorders of Assimilation, 1901, pp. 8 Mid 6.
 
 180 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 animal by digesting the tissues, and forming poisons 
 from them ? 
 
 'In all probability the reason ... is ... that 
 they are altered from active enzymes to inert 
 zymogens, which can be stored up without risk ; and 
 can again liberate active enzymes when . . . required. 
 In this respect they may be compared to the knives 
 used by wandering people, by whom they are not 
 thrown away after each meal . . . but put into 
 sheaths which cover their edges. 
 
 And on 'Possibly we may discover also that immunity, 
 
 immunity. natura j or acquire^ i s nothing more than an extension 
 
 to the cells of the tissues generally of a power which 
 
 is constantly exercised during digestion by those of 
 
 the intestines and liver.' 
 
 Nature's The wonders of 'Nature's' therapeutics (or of 
 
 pnltiM ^ e menta l factor in medicine), Professor Potter, of 
 Philadelphia, declares, ' are worthy of a professor's 
 chair.' 
 
 Perhaps at present one of the best unconscious 
 demonstrations of its powers is to be seen wherever 
 true homoeopathy in its minute dilutions is faithfully 
 practised. This, however, requires a long search to 
 find nowadays. 
 
 The vit I have considered the vis medicatrix natura as 
 
 *** being a well-known and defined form of natural, 
 
 n^urou mental, protective, and remedial action, but my 
 
 readers will remember I have pointed out that this, 
 
 after all, forms but a part of the mental factor in 
 
 therapeutics. If, then, I leave this subject now, it 
 
 must not be thought that the stream of testimony to 
 
 the healing power of the mind over the body has 
 
 therefore run dry.
 
 THE VIS MEDIOATEIX NATUE^J 181 
 
 I will now consider some evidence of a general 
 nature as to the way in which the natural powers 
 of the unconscious mind may be augmented by mental 
 therapeutics ; and to any disposed to think the testi- 
 mony needlessly prolix or redundant, I would say, 
 ' Consider for a moment that the little book you hold 
 in your hand, with its many defects, is after all 
 probably the only attempt in this country in recent 
 years to present this mental factor as an agent in the 
 cause and cure of disease. If there are others, I have 
 not found them, and should be very glad to hear 
 of them. Meanwhile, even at the possible risk of 
 boring some of my readers, proof must be piled upon 
 proof, testimony upon testimony, in order that out of 
 the mouths of many witnesses the facts may be 
 established. 
 
 Though, however, there may be no modern works 
 upon the matter, there are plenty of scattered 
 allusions to it in older books, for the subject at any 
 rate is not a modern one, but is as old as medicine 
 itself. 
 
 The antiquity of mental therapeutics is indeed Kg ^ 
 great. In the oldest civilisation with which we are J? m q enui 
 acquainted, that of Egypt, it had a prominent place. *^ 
 Colquhoun, quoted by Gliddon, remarks: 'Their 
 priests evidently appear to have perfectly compre- 
 hended the method of exciting that internal sanative 
 instinct in the human organism which in general is 
 a profound mystery even to the individual who ex- 
 cites it ; and which was, therefore, naturally enough 
 perhaps in those remote ages, represented as an 
 immediate gift of the gods. Nowhere was this in- 
 ternal faculty so generally cultivated for the cure ol
 
 182 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 the sick, as also for other affairs of this life, as in 
 Egypt.' l 
 
 Greece md The excavations at Cavvadias have furnished us 
 Rome< with much interesting material, showing that the 
 miraculous cures of Epidaurus were effected at this 
 ancient Greek shrine five hundred years before our 
 era, precisely in the same manner, and by suggestion, 
 as in our times at Lourdes. 
 
 Livy tells us that the temples of the gods of Eome 
 were rich in the number of offerings which the people 
 used to make in return for the cures received from 
 them ; and Pliny tells of Etruscan spells used by 
 Theophrastus for sciatica, by Cato for the cure of dis- 
 located limbs! and by Varro for gout. Our own 
 Druids, using similar methods, were consulted by the 
 Emperor Aurelius. 
 
 Sir Andrew But coming to more modern times, Sir Andrew 
 
 Shew ra d Clark savs : 2 ' I* is impossible for us to deal knowingly 
 
 menui and wisely with various disorders of the body without 
 
 peutto. distinctly recognising the agency of states and conditions 
 
 of mind, often in producing and always in modifying 
 
 them.' ' The reaction from the ancient metaphysical 
 
 view of medicine has been carried too far.' 3 This 
 
 last refers to the switchback method of progress 
 
 common to human science, already alluded to. 
 
 ' Up to the very gates of death I maintain that a 
 sanguine, cheerful, and hopeful expectation is infinitely 
 more useful, and more warrantable on the part of the 
 physician, than a brutal candour, which may cut the 
 Blender thread that holds the vital powers together.' 4 
 
 Gliddon, Faith Cures, p. 8. 
 
 Sir A. Clark, Lancet, 1855, ii. 315. 
 
 Dr. A. Morrison, Practitioner, 1892, p. 26. 4 Ibid. p. 40.
 
 THE VIS MEDICATEIX NATURE 183 
 
 ' In actual danger of death, the sense of safety is 
 often a saving cause.' ! 
 
 Dr. Maudsley says : 2 Perhaps we do not as 
 physicians consider sufficiently the influence of mental 
 states in the production of disease, their importance as Pla y fa ' ir - 
 symptoms ; or take all the advantages which we might 
 get from them in our efforts to cure disease. Quackery 
 seems to have got hold of a truth which legitimate 
 medicine fails to appreciate or use adequately.' 
 
 Dr. Granville adds : 3 ' Except in a loose and 
 vague way the potent influences exercised reflexly 
 by the mind upon the body are scarcely regarded 
 as falling in with the scope of pathology.' 
 
 Dr. K. Brudenell Carter points out that ' the 
 good physician must be a student of human nature. 
 When he becomes a clinical clerk, he must think 
 of the mental characteristics of his patients. 
 
 ' He will find it possible to use the mind ' (uncon- 
 sciously) ' of almost every patient as an instrument for 
 promoting the recovery of his body. There are some 
 patients with whom you may enter into a sort of 
 intellectual partnership, explaining what you want 
 them to do.' 
 
 Dr. Playfair says : 4 * The tendency of advanced 
 medicine of the present day is unfortunately to over- 
 look cure in the zeal for accurate diagnosis and 
 correct pathology. In short, it is science rather than 
 therapeutics that is the aim.' 
 
 Dr. Brudenell Carter again observes : 6 ' There is 
 
 Sir B. Ward Richardeon, Asckpiad, 1890, p. 833. 
 
 * Dr. Maudsley, Mind and Body, i. 38. 
 
 * Dr. Mortimer Granville, Lancet, 1879, i. 580. 
 
 * Dr. Playfair, British Medical Journal, 1886. 
 
 * Dr. Brudenell Carter, Lancet, 1873, ii. 484.
 
 184 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 Carter, one branch of special study that demands the closest 
 
 Sdwffi attention ; and that is the study of the varieties of 
 
 human temperament and character, so that we 
 
 may learn to use the mind of each patient as an 
 
 instrument for promoting the recovery of his body.' 
 
 Dr. Eobertson says : ' ' While the influence of the 
 mind over the body is universally recognised, its 
 employment as a therapeutic agent is purposely used 
 by but a few in the regular ranks of the profession.' 
 
 Sir S. Wilks remarks : ' The doctor soon finds that 
 in treating his patient the practice of medicine is not 
 only one of physic but of psychology ; and that the 
 effect of his drugs depends as much upon the con- 
 stitution of the patient's mind as on that of his body.' 
 Dr. Shoe- Dr. Shoemaker, of Philadelphia, says : 2 ' Psycho- 
 Dr. Dale! therapism plays a most important part in the ordi- 
 nary every-day practice of medicine. The influence 
 of the mind upon the bodily functions is so great that 
 every experienced intelligent physician is glad to 
 enlist so potent an auxiliary.' 
 
 Dr. Dale, however, considers that 'the use 
 physicians can make of the influence of the mind 
 over the body in curing disease is very small indeed ; ' 
 a proof, if proof were needed, of the weakness of the 
 conscious mind (to which he alludes) in this direction, 
 as compared with the power of the unconscious. 
 
 catheii A b k by " Dr * Catne11 on tlie reputation and 
 
 and success of a physician insists in nearly every one 
 
 ciouBton. of 300 pageg Qn the mental factor in the cures 
 
 effected. 
 
 Dr. Clouston says : * In the treatment of all di*- 
 
 1 Dr Eobertson, Lancet, 1894, iL 408. 
 * Dr. Shoemaker, Therapeutics, p. 1013.
 
 THE VIS MEDICATBIX NATUE^J 186 
 
 eases, the influences travelling to and from the brain 
 cortex must be taken into account.' 
 
 J. H. Sealy in 1837 writes : l ' I shall now con- Dr. s^aiy 
 sider the mind as a source of cure and as an agent 
 equally potent and as frequently used for the removal 
 of corporeal malady, as I have shown it to be active 
 in its production.' 
 
 Sir John Forbes writes : 2 ' Means acting directly 
 on the mind, and influencing other parts of the body 
 through it, form an important class of remedies, and 
 occupy a much larger space in actual therapeutics 
 than is commonly believed, and deserve to occupy a 
 still larger. Their operation is fully as powerful and 
 effective in disease of a purely bodily character as in 
 mental disease.' 
 
 Tuke says : 3 ' The mind or brain excites, paralyses, Tuke, 
 or depresses the sensory, motor, vasomotor, and trophic 
 nerves, and through them causes changes in sensa- 
 tion, muscular contraction, nutrition, and secretion.' 
 
 H. G. Sutton writes : 4 ' We must remember when 
 our aim is to relieve the sufferer we must not leave 
 his mind out of court.' 
 
 Dr. Beard says : ' The ill success of patients who 
 treat themselves or physic their families is due to the 
 absence of the mental factor.' 
 
 We read in ' The Lancet : ' " ' Though the thera- 
 peutic effect of faith and hope is not detailed in our 
 text-books, they are enough often to turn the scale in 
 favour of recovery ; and yet they are but two of the 
 
 Dr. J. H. Sealy, Medical Essays, ii. 76. 
 
 Sir John Forbes, Nature and Art in Disease, p. 19& 
 
 Dr. Hack Tuke, Mind and Body. 
 
 Dr. H. G. Sutton, Pathology, p. 487. 
 
 The Lancet, January 1883.
 
 186 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 many mental medicines which a judicious physician 
 
 may use in the management of disease.' 
 
 The effect So far we have but touched on the effect of the 
 
 dLSfr's patient's mind upon his disease, either in its natural 
 
 ""ad action, or as stimulated by mental therapeutics ; but 
 
 the mental factor in disease may have a wider 
 
 meaning, and include the effect of the doctor, and 
 
 the doctor's personality and mind, in its unconscious 
 
 or sub-conscious influence upon the patient's mind ; 
 
 and through this, unconsciously upon the physical 
 
 ailment. The chain may seem a long one, but it is 
 
 traversed instantaneously in every interview between 
 
 wility. doctor and patient. 
 
 We will give the testimony of one or two on this 
 head. 
 
 Dr. Affleck says : l ' The power of suggestion as a 
 factor hi therapeutics has gained wide recognition in 
 recent times. 
 
 'The numerous directions in which it may be 
 exercised are better realised by some practitioners 
 than by others. But there is one manifestation of it 
 which applies to the case of all : that is, the personality 
 and moral influence of the physician in his relations 
 T* 1116 th * n * 8 P^ents. It ma y indeed be difficult or impos- 
 sible to appraise the abstract therapeutic value of the 
 output of his sympathy and the tone which may be 
 imparted to his ministrations. But when these are 
 dictated by the highest motives which can inspire 
 a life, they are laden with true healing virtue to the 
 sufferer, they tend to exalt the physician's office in 
 the estimation of mankind.' 
 
 1 Dr. Affleck, Edinburgh Meeting of British Medical Association,
 
 THE VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 187 
 ' A day will come,' says De Fleury, 1 ' when there Prophecy 
 
 of 
 
 De Fleury. 
 
 shall arise an upright and intelligent physician, of 
 
 strong enough to defy ridicule, and authorised by a 
 noble life and the merit of his labours to lay claim 
 to the superior dignity of a moralist. If he knows 
 the human heart well he can draw the sick of soul to 
 him.' ' The sound medical moralist might be able to 
 double the amount of voluntary energy and moral 
 strength in us all.' 
 
 Dr. A. Morrison, President of the .ZEsculapian 
 Society, says : 2 ' We often do less than half our duty 
 in not exploring the mental life of the patient. ... A 
 good deal has been written on prolonged vascular 
 tension due to physical causes. Is there no such 
 state as prolonged mental tension due to moral 
 causes ? ... In such cases, if the physician is to be of 
 any service to his patient, it must be by the agency of littered 
 mind on mind ; and this takes us out of the vestibule 
 littered with microscopes, crucibles, and retorts into 
 that inner chamber the holy of holies in the life of a 
 physician and his patients where heart and mind are The 
 laid bare to the sympathetic gaze of a fellow-man, mental 
 whose discretion may be relied on, and who may from 
 his training in the knowledge of the human soul as well 
 as the human body be able to cure his brother of a dis- 
 turbing factor in his life beyond the reach of the most 
 advanced therapeutics of a purely physical kind.' 
 
 Dr. Gordon Sharp writes: 3 'Above all, the per- 
 sonality of the physician is to be remembered ; for 
 
 1 Dr. De Fleury, Medicine and Mind (Prize Essay of the French 
 Academy), p. 224. 
 
 1 Dr. A. Morrison, The Practitioner, 1892, p. 27. 
 Dr. Gordon Sharp, Lancet, 1894, i. 1557.
 
 188 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 gome men can work wonders by means of almost any 
 drugs, whilst another medical man with a chemist's 
 shop fails to relieve his patient.' 
 
 'The Lancet' (January 1883) says: 'A full 
 recognition of the value rightly attaching to the 
 mental treatment of physical ailments will improve 
 the usefulness of the physician, give him a higher 
 place in the affections of his patients, and materially 
 assist in promoting their return to health when 
 suffering from very various diseases, functional or 
 organic.' 
 
 Dr. Sealy writes : ' Without the full confidence of 
 the patient, no physician should continue to attend 
 his patient.' 
 
 Some last One of the last words of Henry Gawen Button, 
 D^'H.G. m 7 teacher of pathology at the London Hospital, was : 
 Button. t Don't underrate the influence of your own person- 
 ality. Learn to give confidence to your patients.' A 
 presence is of course felt in proportion to its power. 
 '0 lole, how did you know Hercules was a god?' 
 ' Because I was content, the moment my eyes fell on 
 him he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat.' 
 Psycho- To constrain a feeble brain to be governed by a 
 
 ictiot 1 Sd one i g no * a superhuman labour for one who 
 through goes about it adroitly. The moment the eye of the 
 patient meets the eye of the physician, psychological 
 action, influencing the course of the disease, at once 
 takes place through the patient's unconscious mind. 
 The depression caused by the doctor's bad manners or 
 gloomy looks may be combated actively by the patient's 
 reason, and will yet have a bad effect, malgre lui, on 
 his body through the unconscious mind, or * instinct.' 
 Just as with our material science and physical skill
 
 THE VIS MEDICATEIX NATURE 189 
 
 we seek by drugs and other agents to influence the 
 body for good, so invariably (and, as I have said, 
 most often unconsciously) does the physician's mind 
 influence that of the patient. The ' gift of healing ' The 'ft 
 that some men seem to possess to a marvellous extent, of he ^ ng> ' 
 so that few sick can leave their presence without 
 feeling better, is a purely unconscious psychic quality, 
 at any rate in its origin ; though, like other gifts, it 
 can of course be perfected by use. 
 
 Manner is much in medicine, and the personal Mannin 
 presence is a power in practice, and both are worthy medioilM - 
 of a serious consideration they seldom get. 
 
 The effect on the patient's mind varies of course 
 much with the patient's temperament, as, indeed, all 
 know. Moreover, those acquainted with the natural 
 history of disease know well that a particular malady 
 in a patient of sanguine temperament may be looked 
 on more favourably than in one of a phlegmatic 
 constitution. In the former case we can rely on a 
 resiliency which will fail us at the critical moment 
 in the other. 
 
 But I must bring this long and, I fear, some- Condu- 
 what wearisome chapter to a close ; trusting I have ilon ' 
 succeeded by the mouths of many witnesses in fully 
 establishing my thesis that there is, after all, a large 
 and weighty body of testimony ' to the presence and 
 importance of the vis medicatrix natures and to the 
 general power of mind over disease.'
 
 190 THE FOBCE OF MIKD 
 
 CHAPTEB XI 
 80M3 VARIETIES OF MENTAL THERAPEUTICS 
 
 The effective agent in all faith-cure* is the nneon- 
 
 cions mind.' 
 
 IT may perhaps form an interesting introduction to 
 this chapter if we glance at that ride of mental 
 therapeutics that appeals to the doctor personally, 
 and consider for a moment its value to himself aa 
 well as to his patient. 
 
 Doctors are, indeed, the most rniflfllfiah of men 
 (though this is not perhaps the place to say so), but 
 they are, after all, very human. 
 
 The lofty altruistic note which is regularly struck 
 at the inaugural October lectures for the benefit of the 
 neophyte is, as a rule, too high for the somewhat 
 sordid mind of the average medical student, and it is 
 interesting to observe how it gradually lowers in 
 purity and pitch as his ideal slowly rises; until 
 at last the approximation of the two yields the 
 practical keynote of ordinary medical life. This life, 
 after all, is governed by very mixed motives, in which 
 the sordid necessities of existence perforce find a 
 hearing in common with the highest impulses of 
 a noble philanthropy.
 
 VABIETIES OF MENTAL THEBAPEDTICS 191 
 
 Very various and complex indeed are the forces iww 
 that underlie the conduct of upright and honourable ,! 
 men ; the utterly vicious on the one hand, and the 
 self-deceived, the visionaries, and the fanatics on 
 the other, know less of the balance of opposing 
 forces that make for sanity. It is only the latter, 
 indeed, who think they really live by the impulse 
 of a single motive. ' A single eye * but postulates 
 at best a controlling motive; the subordinate ones 
 are all also needed to total up an honest man's life. 
 
 AH this leads up to the truth that the power MOW 
 possessed by the mental factor, when rightly used, ***** 
 becomes not only an agent of untold good to the 
 patient, but no small part of the cause of the physi- 
 cian's success. 
 
 An editorial in the 'Medical Times 1 for 1872 
 says : ' The question how mental influences may T*M< 
 be practically applied, controlled, and directed for Si****" 
 therapeutical purposes is certainly one well worthy 
 the pursuit of the scientific physician. 
 
 'We question if we, as a profession, sufficiently 
 study the art of inspiring confidence of recovery. 
 We know that inert substances, under a confident 
 expectation of their producing certain effects, will 
 often act as purgatives, narcotics, or sedatives. 
 
 ' How much more would the well-directed efforts of 
 the physician produce these effects with certainty if 
 aided by probably the most powerful therapeutic fore* 
 in the human organism ! * (The italics are mine.) 
 
 Sir J. C. Browne says : * ' The success or failure 
 of a practitioner will often depend as much on his BTOI 
 
 1 Sir James Criehton Browne, British Medical Jotumal, 1889, 
 ii. lOt
 
 192 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 experience as a medical psychologist as on his skill 
 in simples.' 
 
 And further : ' ' The general medical practitioner 
 has to have regard to the psychological condition out 
 of which corporeal diseases grow, and by which their 
 course may be beneficially or injuriously affected.' 
 
 Professor Bowen says : 2 ' After poisoning their 
 patients with drugs through many centuries, the 
 doctors have at last come to know their business 
 better ; and now generally stand aside, so as to leave 
 free course to the curative agencies of the unconscious, 
 which alone can restore the patient to perfect health.' 
 AIK> The An editorial in ' The Lancet ' (1883) says : ' The 
 Lancet. Doctrine that a favourite drug is useful for a particular 
 disease may be found fallacious if the mental con- 
 dition of the patient be overlooked ; and one chief 
 difference between the thoughtful, intellectual, and 
 successful physician, and another who is neither, 
 is the attention which the first devotes, perhaps un- 
 consciously, to this factor in the case.' 
 
 But why, may we ask, should not the unhappy 
 man ' who is neither ' have been helped and instructed 
 in his student days in a knowledge of such an im- 
 portant condition of success ? 
 
 And th Cassiodorus (' Ep.' lib. i.) says : ' To give joy to 
 
 ancients, the sick is natural healing ; for once make your 
 patient cheerful, and his cure is accomplished.' 
 
 Celsus (lib. iii. cap. 6) says : ' It is the mark 
 of a skilled practitioner to sit awhile by the bedside 
 with a blithe countenance.' 
 
 1 Sir J. C. Browne at Leeds, British Medical Journal, 1889, 
 ii. 400. 
 
 1 Professor Bowen, Modern Philosophy, p. 849.
 
 VAEIETIES OF MENTAL THEKAPEUTICS 193 
 
 Solomon says (Proverbs xvii. 22) : 'A merry heart 
 doeth good like a medicine.' 
 
 Truly these ancients understood the value of the 
 doctor's face in disease, and with them agree also 
 the wiser of the moderns. Hear Dr. Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, when he appraises its commercial value: 
 ' A smile may be worth 5,000 dollars a year to 
 a man ' ! 
 
 I presume he means a smile a visit, or at least 
 one a day ; or perhaps he may picture a smile com- 
 menced with the professional career, and continuing 
 in storm and calm, unruffled throughout its course ! 
 
 I wonder if physicians as a rule have really any The pow 
 conception of the power of the face over the patient ; 
 how closely it is watched, and more deduced from the 
 aspect and manner than from the words. 
 
 Some have the faculty, as we say, instinctively 
 (which simply means by the action of the unconscious 
 mind), of adapting themselves in voice, manner, and 
 expression to the needs of the patient before them, 
 so that these shall produce their highest therapeutic 
 effects ; and there can be no doubt that what is thus 
 instinctive is at once more natural and more effective 
 than what is consciously assumed. It is undoubtedly 
 this natural gift that is the great secret of success. 
 
 But the man who has not got this may do much, 
 once he grasps the value of the mental factor in 
 medicine. He can, at any rate, so discipline and train 
 himself as to infuse three ideas into the patient's theptient 
 mind at every visit. 
 
 1st. That the case has his whole and undivided 
 attention. 
 
 2nd. That he thoroughly understands it, and 
 
 oi
 
 194 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 3rd. That he believes he can cure it, or, at any 
 rate, takes a hopeful view of it. 
 
 There are of course in every doctor's experience 
 ead occasions when the last is impossible, but these 
 are rare. 
 
 DM. Rush Dr. Eush never prescribed remedies of doubtful 
 Ficu^on efficacy in the various stages of acute disease till he 
 mental ^ad wor k e( j up Q i s patients with a confidence border- 
 
 influence. * A 
 
 ing on certainty of their probable good effects. The 
 success of this measure has much oftener answered 
 than disappointed his expectation. 
 
 In neglecting the systematic and scientific employ- 
 ment of mental influence in the course of disease, 
 medical practitioners throw aside a weapon for com- 
 bating it more powerful than all the drugs in the 
 Pharmacopoeia. 
 
 ' It must be acknowledged ' (however), says De 
 Fleury, 1 ' that the higher hygiene which I propose 
 can only be exercised efficaciously by a tete-d-tete 
 in the consulting-room of a specialist, and that it 
 actually is lay confession without prestige and without 
 poetry.' 
 
 Value of a Men who cultivate a hopeful demeanour in the 
 wte u sick-room will more readily restore the patient by this 
 nftnce, helpful buoyant spirit than others who are consti- 
 tutionally grave and desponding. These often un- 
 wittingly hinder the cure they are anxious to promote. 
 I give an instance of this in Chapter XVI. 
 
 Indeed, so great is the mental factor in therapeutics, 
 that it is not too much to say that inferior medical skill 
 with a good and assuring manner is more likely to 
 
 1 Dr. de Fleury, Medicine and the Mind, p. 222.
 
 VAEIETIES OF MENTAL THEEAPEUTICS 195 
 
 effect a cure than a superior skill with a diffident 
 and depressing personality. 
 
 Sympathy is indeed a powerful drug in the hands and of 
 of a skilful administrator ; for, after all, patients think ynipathy - 
 much more of the doctor than his prescriptions; 
 while he poor man generally thinks his hiero- 
 glyphics all, and himself nothing. 
 
 Success largely depends upon our striking the key- 
 note of the characters we have to deal with. 'In 
 nerve disease,' says Coleridge, ' he is the best physician 
 who knows best how to inspire hope.' 
 
 A wise doctor pays many visits that are not 
 confined to strictly professional topics ; for in them 
 the doctor learns much, as the unconscious mind 
 displays itself before him. 
 
 It is thus that a family physician in the first Vainof 
 instance has the greatest opportunities of mental 
 treatment. His blue pill may be useful, but his tact 
 in encountering false notions and instilling healthy 
 ideas is the most powerful remedial agent he 
 possesses. 
 
 There are at least four ways by which mental FOOT 
 therapeutics can be applied to disease. 
 
 1. By the direct active power of the unconscious 
 mind inherent in itself, and generally called the 
 vis medicatrix natures. 
 
 2. By the unconscious mind influenced directly 
 by surrounding personalities or other unconscious 
 agencies acting as suggestions. 
 
 8. By the unconscious mind influenced indirectly 
 by the conscious, which has faith in persons, systems, 
 places, &c. 
 
 4. By the unconscious mind indirectly acted on by
 
 196 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 the conscious by distinct effort in determination to 
 get well to shake off illness, ignore pain, &c. 
 
 I have spoken a little of Nos. 1 and 2, and I 
 may now look at the mind acting on the body by 
 faith-healing and kindred agencies. 
 
 A recent writer in the ' British Medical Journal ' * 
 reviews these as follows : 
 
 Review of We Ji v e in an age in which there is not only a 
 
 h a Jaiing. survival of superstition and a belief in the occult and in 
 
 quackery of all descriptions, but in an age in which 
 
 there has been a positive revival of an hysterical form of 
 
 occultism, a jumble of pseudo-science and irreligion. 
 
 'Faith-healing, of which so-called Christian Science 
 is the type,'- is a money-making concern, and a diploma 
 from a college of psychic healing can be obtained 
 after a course of study not extending beyond three 
 weeks, in some circumstances in three days. 
 
 ' Medicine and religion in remote times grew up 
 side by side, and their exposition was in the hands of 
 the same individual the priest-doctor; a belief in 
 the occult was therefore a factor in each. Even 
 Hippocrates, who was the first to attempt to put 
 medicine on an improved basis, jumbled fact and 
 fiction and fable in his humoral system of pathology. 
 Every physician claimed to be a miracle-worker in a 
 small way on the strength of cures effected through 
 the influence of the mind on the body ; that was, by 
 suggestion and expectant attention. . . . The morbid 
 influence of occultism, which to some extent declined 
 in the time of Galen, began to luxuriate again in 
 the Dark Ages in association with alchemy, astro- 
 
 1 British Medical Journal, 1901. 
 
 Christian Science is not the type of faith-healing.
 
 VAEIETIES OP MENTAL THERAPEUTICS 197 
 
 logy, necromancy, and religious superstition. Faith- 
 healing, touching for king's evil, mesmerism, homoeo- 
 pathy, and clairvoyance kept occultism going from 
 the time of the Stuarts to the end of the eighteenth 
 century, and the nineteenth century was remarkable 
 for the revival of the belief in spiritualism, mental 
 telepathy, and " divine healing." Quackery, as repre- 
 sented by fraudulent institutes for the deaf, the sale 
 of ear-drums, and of panaceas for every ailment 
 under heaven, appeared to prosper as of yore, and 
 would continue to do so whilst the majority of man- 
 kind were unthinking in medical matters, and unable 
 to throw off the occultism of the nursery. Unfortu- 
 nately, the supporters of quackery, Christian Science, 
 occultism, and all forms of medical heterodoxy were 
 found as often in the castle as in the cottage.' 
 
 Paracelsus pointed out that, ' whether the object of 
 your faith is real or false, you will nevertheless obtain 
 the same effects ; ' thus showing that the virtue is not 
 derived objectively, but subjectively, as we think, 
 from the unconscious mind. 
 
 In 1651 we read the following sound and thought- Faith hjf 
 ful remarks : l ' All the world knows that there is no 
 virtue in charms, &c., but a strong conceit and 
 opinion alone, as Pomponatius holds, which forceth a 
 motion of the humours, spirits and blood, which takes 
 away the cause of the malady from the parts affected. 
 The like we may say of the magical effects, super- 
 stitions, cures, &c., such as are done by mountebanks 
 and wizards. As by wicked incredulity many men 
 are hurt (so saith Wierus), we find in our experience 
 by the same means many are relieved.' 
 1 Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy.
 
 198 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Coming down to our own times, we find a careful 
 analysis of the cause of faith-healing as follows : 
 ' There can be no question that faith -healing is a fact. 
 The brain is not simply the organ of the mind ; it 
 is also the chief centre, or series of centres, of the 
 nervous system, by which the whole body is energised 
 and its component parts with their several functions 
 NO miracle are governed and regulated. There is no miracle in 
 hading* healing by faith ; whereas it would be a miracle if, 
 the organism being as it is, and the laws of life such 
 as they are, faith-healing did not, under favourable 
 conditions, occur.' 1 Here conscious mind alone is 
 recognised ; the unconscious mind being ' a series of 
 centres ' endowed with psychical powers ! 
 
 It must not be forgotten that function goes before 
 organism in development, and that there are large 
 classes of cases in which the disabilities of the diseased 
 organ, for a fair performance of its functions, are 
 mainly due to a want of power or regularity in action, 
 it is the . There is a large body of trustworthy evidence 
 !SB ^ iat permanent amendment, of a kind perfectly 
 mind that obvious to others, has shown itself in a great variety 
 of local maladies, when the patients have been suffi- 
 ciently possessed by the expectation of benefit, and 
 by faith in the efficacy of the means employed. 
 
 Observe here it is not the faith itself that cures, 
 but faith, fear, &c. set into activity those powers 
 and forces that the unconscious mind possesses over 
 the body, both to cause disease and to cure it. 
 Binet on ' Those who undertake miraculous cures ... do 
 
 no ^ deny the existence of disease, but assert that it 
 may be cured by supernatural power. They act by 
 
 1 Editorial in Lancet, June 13, 1885.
 
 VARIETIES OF MENTAL THEEAPEUTICS 199 
 
 means of suggestion and by gradually inculcating the 
 idea that the disease is curable, until the subject 
 accepts it. The cure is sometimes effected by the 
 suggestion, and when it is said to be by saving. faith, 
 the expression is rigorously scientific. These miracles 
 should no longer be denied ; but we should understand 
 their genesis, and learn to imitate them. These 
 are therefore no imaginary diseases, but are diseases 
 due to the imagination, 1 and accompanied by real 
 functional disturbances. Such disturbances may be 
 developed under the influence of spontaneous (uncon- 
 scious), accidental, or deliberate (conscious) suggestion, 
 and they may be cured under the influence of another 
 suggestion of equal intensity working in an inverse 
 direction. The moral treatment ought not therefore 
 to consist in denying the existence of the disease, but 
 in asserting that it is susceptible of cure, that the cure 
 has actually begun, and will soon be completed.' 2 
 
 Following in the same line, I give a few preg- 
 nant remarks of Dr. Clouston's. He says : 3 ' If mind 
 and brain so powerfully affect the conditions of dis- 
 ease, one naturally turns to them in looking for 
 means of cure. And beyond all question we can 
 often get effectual help there. Half the diseases that 
 kill, as I have already said, do so because there is no 
 sufficient power in the organism to resist them. The 
 physiological commonly passes into the pathological, 
 because the nerve energy is below par. To check 
 many diseased conditions we cannot employ better 
 
 1 Here we get the distinction between these two insisted on 
 which I have pointed out in earlier chapters. 
 
 1 Binet, Animal Magnetism (International Science Series), 
 p. 354. 
 
 1 Dr. Clouston, British Medical Journal, January 18, 1891.
 
 200 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 therapeutics than to stimulate the cortex and 
 strengthen the mental energy. To this end the first 
 thing a good doctor does is to inspire confidence in 
 his patient. What is this but a bit of psycho-thera- 
 peutics? And it is an all-important one in many 
 cases. So to condition the patient that his brain and 
 mind are kept up to the very highest mark attainable, 
 to remove irritations (mental and nervous), and to 
 distract attention from a lowering to a cheerful view 
 of the whole situation, may make all the difference 
 between life and death in many a case. Hope and a 
 calm cheerfulness are often the best general aids to 
 healthy metabolism. We know that a joyful emotion 
 will at once fill the cortical capillaries. It is a true 
 cerebral stimulant. Aided by medicinal cortical 
 tonics and stimulants, like strychnine, quinine, the 
 mineral acids, &c., mental stimulation is an undeniable 
 adjuvant to the local treatment of disease, and is 
 used largely by the most successful physicians.' 
 
 Bearing this in mind, we can better understand 
 the following from ' The Lancet : ' 
 
 ^irtto ' ^ ma ^ a ^ v m< i uc ed by mental reflex can only be 
 
 vahie C of cured by mental remedy. A full recognition of the 
 
 hopn!i*ui value rightly attaching to the mental treatment of 
 
 onr^xt- physical ailments will improve the usefulness of the 
 
 physician and materially assist in the recovery of 
 
 his patients. In disease, functional or organic, the 
 
 therapeutic value of faith and hope, though not in our 
 
 text-books, is often enough to turn the scale in favour 
 
 of recovery.' ' 
 
 Dr. A. T. Myers says : ' In examining a patient in 
 a modern hospital we rely on observable and measur- 
 
 1 Editorial, Lancet, 1883, i. 19.
 
 VARIETIES OF MENTAL THEEAPEUTIC8 201 
 
 able facts, less on the patient's own statements of 
 what he feels, least of all on his theories how he came 
 to feel it. In doctoring him we rely much on> definite 
 operations and on those few drugs whose action on 
 the body we can prove, little on the patient's prayers 
 for recovery, least of all perhaps on the encouraging 
 words we throw in. Yet cures have always been 
 effected by other than physical means. Either these 
 can be referred to physiological means which have 
 escaped detecting, or they cannot.' 
 
 In connection with prayer, we may here note that 
 ' prayer-healing ' has for some time prevailed in 
 aristocratic circles in Berlin and Potsdam ; and a 
 pharmacopoeia of prayers to be used against special 
 forms of disease has been prepared. In America, and 
 even in England, 'prayer-healers' are found, who 
 have a moderate scale of charges for their services. 
 The whole idea to me seems irreverent and revolting. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter says : ' " That the confident expec- 
 tation of a cure is the most potent means of bringing 
 it about, doing that which no medical treatment can 
 accomplish" may be affirmed as the generalised result 
 of experiences of the most varied kind extending 
 through a long series of ages.' 
 
 We find in ' The Lancet ' again the following : 1 
 
 1 We will even go so far as to affirm that a very 
 large proportion of the ailing might be and probably 
 would be sound, if only they were sufficiently strongly 
 impressed to believe themselves so. The influence of 
 the mind ' (here observe in the same journal the 'nerve 
 centres' of 1885 see page 198 are boldly called 
 ' the mind ' in 1888) ' upon the body has been the 
 
 1 Lancet, February 28, 1888.
 
 202 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 stronghold of quackery from the earliest times ; and 
 
 faith is as powerful an influence for good or evil now 
 
 as it has ever been.' 
 
 Eight Faith cures exist of many varieties. 
 
 faUh cum! ! There is the prayer and faith cure at Lourdes ; 
 
 which is based upon faith in God and the Virgin, 
 
 perhaps mostly on the latter. 
 
 2. Eelic cures of all sorts ; where the basis is 
 faith in the holy emblems, seen or touched. 
 
 3. Evangelical faith cures ; based upon external 
 Divine power. 
 
 4. Mind cures ; effected by the realisation of the 
 power of mind over matter, or by the conscious effect 
 of the mind of the healer on the patient. 
 
 5. Christian Science cures ; based on the unreality 
 of disease, and the direction of the mind to the Divine. 
 
 6. Spiritualistic cures ; effected by faith in departed 
 spirits. 
 
 7. Mesmeric cures ; effected by a supposed fluid 
 or magnetic influence passing from healer to patient. 
 
 8. Direct faith-healing ; effected by faith-healers, 
 in whom the patient has confidence and who heal on 
 the spot. 
 
 CT ^h" b Those ignorant of the power of the mind over the 
 
 d^eitnor body see nothing in cures effected by such agencies 
 
 but either deceit or miracle whereas the powers of 
 
 the unconscious mind explain them all. Faith itself 
 
 is healthful. Sir J. C. Browne at Leeds said : ' The 
 
 normal action of faith is wholesome and hygienic.' 
 
 Christian I may perhaps take this opportunity of saying a 
 
 acts by little more about Christian Science in view of its rapid 
 
 ^tTon/*" development in the teeth of its extraordinary doctrines. 
 
 My remarks here are of course solely directed to its
 
 VAEIETIES OF MENTAL THERAPEUTICS 203 
 
 scientific position as a curative agent : of its relation 
 to Christianity I prefer not to speak in detail ; indeed, 
 to do so would be outside the scope of this work. 
 
 Christian Science, then, cures by a process of auto- 
 suggestion. Instead of, as in hypnotism (of which 
 more), suggestions being always made by the hypno- 
 tiser, they are sometimes made by the teacher to the 
 faithless and the neophytes, but adepts are taught to 
 make them to themselves. 
 
 Christian Science thus occupies a platform alto- Christian 
 gether distinct from every species of mind or faith distinct 
 healing, hypnotism, or suggestive cures, and claims 
 therefore these few explanatory lines. In the first 
 place, it is no more a mere therapeutical society 
 than vegetarians are a body of people who eat 
 vegetables, as is vulgarly supposed. As a matter of 
 fact, most vegetarians consume large quantities of 
 animal food daily, in the shape of eggs, milk, &c., and 
 may be best described as strong religious zoophilists. 
 
 In the same way, while in Christian Science the 
 cures most arrest the attention of the careless, they a system oi 
 are but the outward signs of an inward system physic*, 
 of metaphysics, which, while professedly based upon 
 the Bible, gives such an artificial and special force to 
 the words it quotes as to entirely alter their meaning. 
 This, in default of a dictionary, makes its teaching a 
 little difficult to follow. Christian Scientists argue 
 from the fact of God being all-good and all-present, 
 that there can be nothing evil, as there is no room for 
 it in God's universe; sin, disease, and death being 
 specially creations of a distorted mind. Hence, when 
 one has grasped this spiritual truth (?), the supposed 
 disease is clearly seen to be a delusion, equally with
 
 204 THE FOKCE OP MIND 
 
 the body itself, where it was falsely supposed to occii/. 
 
 A mystic The system, in short, is a mystic Theism, the ordinary 
 
 iam ' tenets of Christianity, as distinct from this, being not 
 
 exactly denied, but explained in a way that robs them 
 
 of all their accepted meaning. 
 
 The cures are many of them undeniable, and 
 
 mainly functional, though I have known one case of 
 
 varicose veins cured, and of course more remarkable 
 
 The curft- results are claimed. I do not see why in these cures 
 
 tattie 8 '*!- we nee ^ lk further for an efficient cause than to the 
 
 consciong power of the mind (that is, the unconscious mind) over 
 
 the body ; and that this is not limited to function, we 
 
 have had ample proof. The fact is that, setting aside 
 
 for a moment cures attributed to drugs and ordinary 
 
 medical treatment, that system will undoubtedly show 
 
 most cures that can best command the beneficial 
 
 influence of the mind over the body; and it would 
 
 seem that a system that asserts there is only mind, 
 
 and that disease does not exist, reaches this end by 
 
 the shortest road. With those who find themselves 
 
 able to accept its doctrines the method is more than 
 
 Cnreby suggestion; it is dogmatic assertion, something like 
 
 action that ' force of assertion ' Sir James Paget speaks of 
 
 in his letter quoted in Chapter I., and to which he 
 
 attributes such power. It is apparently based upon 
 
 a reasonable axiom, and supported by the highest 
 
 spiritual claims ; and where its influence is yielded to, 
 
 whatever beneficial power over disease the mind does 
 
 possess is necessarily brought into play. 
 
 Though, therefore, the philosophy of the cure differs 
 in toto from all forms of faith-healing, inasmuch as 
 the results are similar, and the limits of the power of 
 the mind over the body are as yet unknown, there is
 
 VAEIETIES OF MENTAL THEEAPEUTICS 205 
 
 no need to seek for a further cause, even in cases of 
 organic cure. 
 
 And now for one word on hypnotism. It will be 
 observed that all the above varieties of faith and sm 
 mind cures reach the unconscious mind, and through 
 it the body, by way of consciousness and intelligence. 
 The latter may not be of a very high order, it is reveals 
 true, but all that there is is used, while consciousness consdoua 
 is fully active ; so that they contrast sharply with mind ' 1 
 hypnotism, where the conscious mind is put to sleep, 
 and the unconscious powers, usually hidden, are 
 exposed and brought to the front, so as to be directly 
 reached by suggestions. 
 
 It is obvious that hypnotism is of most value to 
 those to whom no variety of faith cure appeals ; either 
 from too little emotion or too much intellect, both of 
 which often are stumbling-blocks hi the way of 
 success. 
 
 Where faith cures are available, they are, I think, Faith cure* 
 preferable to hypnotism ; and I believe Ernest Hart, vh^T 
 the late editor of the ' British Medical Journal,' who aTailable - 
 closely investigated some of the wonders at the 
 Salpetriere, expressed the same opinion. 
 
 We cannot of course, however, force ourselves to 
 believe ; and it is often difficult by ordinary means to 
 set in train the curative powers of the unconscious 
 mind. 
 
 It is owing to this lack of power that hypnotism 
 has arisen, and undoubtedly supplies a greater force th 
 and a therapeutic agent fraught with larger powers ; 
 which, like all potent remedies, sometimes acts as a 
 poison. Wherein, then, does its power lie ? As far as I 
 can ascertain, in this simple fact, which I beg may be
 
 206 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 noted : consciousness is in abeyance, and the un- 
 conscious mind is placed in a condition to be directly 
 influenced by the hypnotist, in a way that is not 
 possible by any other means. 
 
 The powers The powers of the 'unconscious mind' thus re- 
 of the on- yealed are truly marvellous both mentally and phy- 
 mind sically. Mentally it can recall facts, dates, numbers, 
 &c. in a way far beyond the powers of the individual. 
 I came across an instance this year worth 
 recording here. A young lady of nineteen was placed 
 under hypnotic treatment by a physician for violent 
 muscular tremors of all the limbs constant diffused 
 headache attacks of pain over the heart faintness 
 dysmenorrhoea obstinate constipation and other 
 symptoms. After the failure of ordinary means, 
 suggestive and otherwise, the patient was hypnotised 
 eleven times in all cured, and returned to work. 
 Ca*e O t Opportunity was, however, taken to test her mental 
 bu> powers hi the hypnotic state, and on Wednesday, 
 
 memory. ^f arcn j^ ^ 4 P>M> sne was hypnotised in the 
 presence of three medical men, and four suggestions 
 were made that the patient should, after the expiration 
 of the number of minutes they named, make a cross 
 on a piece of paper. These numbers were 21,400, 
 21,420, 21,428, 21,434 minutes. On the right day, 
 Thursday, March 26, the lady was hypnotised, and 
 made the four crosses spontaneously without sug- 
 gestion ; two of them at the exact minute, one a 
 minute, and the other two minutes, too soon. 
 
 Dr> Milne Bramwell, who was present at this 
 experiment, records also the following : ' ' I accidentally 
 
 1 Dr. Milne Bramwell, ' Hypnotic and Post-Hypnotic Appreciation 
 of Time,' Brain, 1900.
 
 VAEIETIES OF MENTAL THEEAPEUTICS 207 
 
 discovered that deep hypnosis was associated with an 
 increased appreciation of time. The following were 
 the usual suggestions given: (1) A simple act was 
 suggested during hypnosis which was to be carried 
 out at a given time before that state terminated. 
 
 (2) The subject was told during hypnosis that this 
 state was to terminate at a specified future hour. 
 
 (3) The performance of a simple act at a given hour 
 after the termination of hypnosis was suggested. 
 
 (4) Awakening from natural sleep at a given hour was 
 suggested during hypnosis. (5) The subject was told 
 in the waking state that he was to pass into the 
 hypnotic condition at a given hour, remain hypnotised 
 for a specified length of time, and perform certain 
 simple acts at stated intervals ; then pass again into 
 the normal state and remain in it for a specified 
 time, and again pass into the hypnotic condition. 
 These experiments, continued from 1889 to the present 
 date (1902), have been frequently repeated before 
 competent observers. The majority of the sugges- 
 tions were executed at the moment indicated, while in 
 the remainder the error in time appreciation rarely 
 exceeded five minutes.' 
 
 The appreciation of time possessed by the un- 
 conscious mind does not always require hypnotism 
 for its demonstration. Many people can set their 
 minds at night to call them in the morning. The 
 following is an authentic instance, and the writer of 
 this is another. 
 
 Dr. George Savage possesses the power of waking 
 at a given hour, and has tested it on many occasions. 
 The following is an example: One day, having to 
 catch an early train, he determined to wake at 6 A.M., 
 
 p
 
 208 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 and slept soundly without waking until the exact time. 
 The seven following mornings he woke exactly at 
 six, notwithstanding that he went to bed at different 
 hours, and there was no necessity for early rising. 
 This involuntary repetition of self-waking at unusual 
 times also occurred when he was roused by others 
 at abnormally early hours. Thus, when in the 
 Alps, if he were called at 2 or 3 A.M. he would cer- 
 tainly wake spontaneously at the same hour next 
 morning, even if he had been much fatigued with 
 climbing. Dr. Savage states that the accuracy of the 
 time of waking in these instances has puzzled him 
 greatly. 
 
 secondary Into the question of the secondary consciousness 
 J^. cl l of the ' unconscious mind ' I cannot now enter. It 
 would not alter our designation, for ' unconscious ' here 
 only refers to its relation with ordinary consciousness, 
 which is the only consciousness possible to consider 
 in these pages. The side issues connected with the 
 force of mind are so interesting in themselves, that 
 one is ever tempted to follow them. In this case 
 A Bimpie Dr. Hyslop's explanation of double consciousness is 
 tk>n lan * perhaps the best, 1 though hardly intelligible to lay 
 readers ; for, to put it simply, we may say he regards it 
 as due to a supposed inhibition of the amoeboid move- 
 ments in the pseudopodic protoplasmic prolongations 
 of the neurospongium ! 
 Hypnotism In the body, hypnotism reveals equally marvellous 
 
 produces . , ' . . _f , 
 
 physical powers of the unconscious mind. It can be made to 
 manir produce at will blisters, swellings, erythemas, pain 
 
 or ease, paresis, temperatures, and other physical 
 
 phenomena. 
 
 1 Dr. Hyslop, British Medical Journal, September 1899.
 
 VAEIETIES OF MENTAL THERAPEUTICS 209 
 
 In both mesmerism and hypnotism it has been a 
 question whether the results were due to a force 
 proceeding from the healer's mind or the arousing of 
 a latent force in the patient's mind. It is now 
 practically decided that both contribute; but the 
 force is mainly from the latter source. 
 
 Before closing this chapter we may look at some 
 mental qualities that are recognised as curative agents. 
 
 Sir John Forbes gives as psychic powers of cure : 
 augmented hope faith cheerfulness mental 
 activity decreased anxiety mental work new mo- 
 tives for mental action new motives for physical 
 life soothing moral and religious sensibilities. 
 
 'Imagination, 1 says Sir J. C. Browne, 1 'is one 
 of the most effectual of psychical agencies by which 
 we may modify the conditions of health and disease.' 
 A disciplined imagination is one of the most valued 
 tools of a physician. 
 
 A strong will is a good therapeutic agent. Mental 
 therapeutics may be directed to calming the mind in 
 excitement, arousing feelings of joy, hope, faith, and 
 love ; by suggesting motives for exertion, by inducing 
 regular mental work, especially composition, by 
 giving the most favourable prognosis possible, by 
 diverting the thoughts from the malady. 
 
 Sympathy, religion, common sense, patience, in- 
 difference, neglect, altruism, philanthropy, ambition, 
 are all at times good mental medicines. 
 
 The doctor himself, his illegible prescription, his 
 room, and even his fee (if impressive), are all valuable b iii u 
 therapeutic agents. 
 
 1 Sir J. C. Browne, Leeds, 1889.
 
 210 THE FOBCE OP MIND 
 
 De Fleury says: 'In describing the action of 
 
 a remedy, the doctor of to-day the incorrigible of 
 
 Moliere's comedy instinctively resorts to big words 
 
 as a dwarf to high heels.' No doubt these big words 
 
 have also much value, though they may have little 
 
 meaning. Have we not all heard of the soothing 
 
 power of ' that blessed word Mesopotamia ' ? 
 
 Th But the doctor's face is worth more than his 
 
 f^aJnd words, and no doctor ever knows how keenly it is 
 
 long words. 8tll( iied. It would be well worth while to write a 
 
 book on the medical face 1st, as seen in the 
 
 patient as a diagnostic sign of physical and mental 
 
 disease ; and, 2nd, as seen on the doctor as a power 
 
 for good or evil. 
 
 Fear u a Fear is itself a great therapeutic agent, but is, like 
 
 pe^ the salts of copper and other poisonous drugs, too 
 
 * gent dangerous for general use by medical men. Still in 
 
 some cases fear in small doses acts as a sort of mental 
 
 digitalis. 
 
 One golden rule of mental therapeutics must not be 
 forgotten that the cure of sick or exhausted nerves 
 must precede the cure of a sick mind. The implant- 
 ing of therapeutic ideas is only possible successfully 
 in a healthy soil. 
 
 ocia- I close with a restatement of the thesis of this 
 
 chapter, that ' the effective agent in all faith cures is 
 the unconscious mind.'
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CURATIVE POWBB 
 OF MIND 
 
 ' The force of mind is a therapeutic agent in every 
 disease.' 
 
 BEFORE giving a few illustrations of the power of the Th T^ 
 mental factor as a medicine in ordinary diseases, <dn1 * 1 - 
 I will say a word or two about drugs. 
 
 Perhaps nowhere has the misleading doctrine 
 of post hoc ergo propter Jioc been more mischievously 
 used than in pharmacy. The power of drugs as Sponu 
 compared with the power of the vis medieatrix * uudM ' 
 natures is as spurs when compared with the muscles 
 of a horse, which, after all, are the moving power. 
 
 But there is this difference. Spurs always mean 
 greater effort on the horse's part, and no horse re- 
 gards them as a signal to stop. But with drugs, even 
 of a powerful nature, the action often depends upon 
 the mind, which can increase, neutralise, and even 
 reverse their action to an almost incredible degree. 
 An example or two will suffice. 
 
 A colleague of mine recently gave a woman BM*I 
 some opium pills to produce sleep, but forgot to tell SZS 
 her their object. The next week she told him the ad - 
 pills had opened the bowels well each morning, but
 
 212 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 had griped her a little. On inquiry he found that she 
 had had no better sleep. 
 
 Another woman thought she had taken a large 
 dose of rhubarb as a remedy for constipation, and 
 soon had five or six movements of the bowels. She 
 discovered afterwards that she had forgotten to take 
 the medicine. 
 
 The effects of a purgative pill have been rendered 
 nil, and it has produced sleep in the belief that 
 it was an opiate pill, though consisting of a strong 
 dose of colocynth and calomel. 
 
 physical All drugs, or rather compounded medicines, have a 
 
 dta Mtion twofold value one physical, and the other psychical. 
 
 of drugs. g ir g_ Wilkg thinkg mogt Q f the latter _ < J do not 
 
 say,' he observes, ' that drugs are not useful in a 
 moral sense.' 
 
 Sir W. Gull's prescriptions frequently consisted 
 of saccJi. ust. His followers are legion all of them 
 regular practitioners, who scorn ' quackery ' ! 
 Physical The increasing disbelief in the physical value 
 
 tojcai y8io " * drugs has led to a great growth of physical and 
 remedies, physiological remedies as opposed to pharmacy ; and 
 these physical agencies are greatly to be preferred to 
 pure expectation or nihilism, to which at one time the 
 physician was wellnigh reduced. 
 
 Turning to the psychical value of drugs, in 1771 
 Unzer remarked : ' The expectation of the action of a 
 remedy often causes us to experience its operation 
 beforehand.' New remedies have thus a greater effect 
 when first introduced than afterwards. 
 
 Reputation It is extraordinary how little the disturbing in- 
 SfocSfa fluence of the mind on the action of drugs, of which 
 vaiu*. i h ave given some instances, is taken account of by
 
 THE CUEATIVE POWEE OF MIND 213 
 
 the average physician. So great is it, that the test- 
 ing of new drugs must be done secretly, or the results 
 will be vitiated by the mental action of the patient. 
 Many of the difficulties and uncertainties of pharmacy 
 really arise from this mental factor. 
 
 As long as a medicine is powerful in psychic qualities 
 it cures readily ; when it falls into disrepute or out of 
 fashion, and the halo goes, it loses much of its value. 
 
 Moreover, as the supposed rational action of drugs Use of 
 breaks down under modern searching investigation, becoming 
 their use becomes more and more empirical. e^ricai 
 
 Still, certain drugs triumphantly assert their 
 physical powers in spite of latter-day scepticism. No 
 mind force is on a par for certainty of action with 
 mag. sulph., pulv. jalapae, croton oil, or apomorphia. 
 
 In serious organic diseases the power of the mind 
 can do little, but then it is also true that drugs 
 at such a time can do even less. 
 
 We must not underrate the role which careful 
 therapeutics may play in building up the system ; 
 but it may all fail when there is some mental draw- 
 back, which a little judicious advice might remove 
 and change the whole situation. Dr. Bennett points ine 
 out that many drugs and systems of treatment are 
 (pharmaceutically) inert or uncertain in their action, 
 though supposed to act through the blood ; whereas 
 in fact their successful operation is due to exciting 
 expectant ideas, and through these (by the uncon- 
 scious mind) acting indirectly on the disordered 
 parts. 
 
 I will now pass on to instances of the curative 
 
 power of mind. 
 
 Sir Thomas Grainger Stewart says: 'In heart
 
 214 THE FORCE OP MIND 
 
 disease the most important element is rest. Second 
 in importance is perhaps the element of hope. If a 
 patient becomes persuaded that he may recover, that 
 good compensation may be established, he becomes 
 more hopeful about himself and his heart benefits 
 correspondingly. If a patient is gloomy and de- 
 spondent, this damages the organ in a way we cannot 
 at present fully explain.' 
 
 cnre of ' A lady suffered from organic heart disease and 
 
 dUmM by rapidly developed dropsy, from distress at the mis- 
 conduct of her husband, and was in imminent peril 
 of death. At this crisis she lost her reason. The 
 disturbing mental factor (of disease) being eliminated, 
 the balance of the labouring circulation quickly righted 
 itself, but the reason was not restored.' * This is 
 a very remarkable proof of the mental factor. Even 
 where the mind does not cure, it often greatly relieves. 
 Tue mind Anaesthesia is common with melancholies, hyper - 
 sesthesia with neurotics. Insensibility and pain are 
 common in mental disease. 
 
 Soldiers in victory remain practically insensible 
 to cold. Hunger and thirst are modified by the con- 
 dition of the mind. Thirst is often removed by 
 attention being diverted. On the other hand, it is 
 very common among soldiers at the beginning of a 
 battle. Soldiers in battle seldom feel any pain in the 
 wounds until the battle is over. Carpenter says, and 
 the writer can bear most emphatic testimony to the 
 same fact, that he has often found in speaking, when 
 suffering from severe rheumatic pain, that it has 
 entirely ceased to be perceived until he sat down, 
 when it returned in full force. 
 
 1 Dr. A. Morrison. Practitioner, 1892, p. 29.
 
 THE CURATIVE POWER OF MIND 215 
 
 Pains, it is well known, go when the doctor comes, 
 and toothache ceases in the dentist's room. 
 
 Professor A. Ford says : ' During the summer of Cure of 
 1891 I met an attendant K. from Wiirtemberg while h< 
 I was lecturing at Zurich, who had constant head- 
 aches for two years after a severe pneumonia. The 
 physician there told him these headaches would never 
 leave him, as they were an inheritance from his 
 father ; and he had never lost them, always feeling a 
 dull pressure on the head. This showed the two 
 years' headache was nothing else than the result of 
 an unconscious suggestion of the physician. The 
 man had only had the most temporary headaches 
 before. I then told him definitely that headaches 
 were not an inheritance, and could easily be cured. 
 Since then (four months) the chronic headache has 
 disappeared. 'This case,' he continues, 'seems to 
 be very instructive, because it shows how easily 
 physicians, without knowing it, can produce sickness 
 by pessimistic prophecies, by anxious looks or words. 
 Thus are diseases suggested (unconsciously) by the 
 physician ! ' l 
 
 ' I myself,' he says, ' committed the same fault. 
 A female attended me with pains in the stomach. I 
 diagnosed and treated her anxiously for gastric ulcer. 
 For months she kept her bed, and gradually recovered 
 with the stomach very sensitive for years. I have 
 not now the slightest doubt that her long sickness 
 was produced by over-anxious investigations and 
 strict regimen.' 2 
 
 1 Professor A. Ford, American Journal of Psychology, iv. 4. 
 Ibid.
 
 216 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 I think many physicians as they read this will 
 search their own memories, and find recorded there 
 more than one parallel case. 
 
 Them- I will now give an instance of the value of a new 
 
 ^wer of curative agent from my own experience. 
 
 the dock; j re f er to the therapeutic value of a striking 
 mantelpiece clock. (I say clock in preference to 
 watch, because it has a greater value ; and I say 
 mantelpiece instead of hall clock for the same reason ; 
 and I add striking as being of still greater efficacy.) 
 Sir Dyce Duckworth, without dwelling on the value of 
 mental therapeutics, has pointed out its use by means 
 of the clock, in showing the great effect in cases of per- 
 sistent vomiting in giving the liquid food in teaspoon- 
 fuls every five minutes by the clock. If the patient is 
 told that the food thus given will be retained, and if 
 he can see the clock clearly from the bed, it will 
 probably be successful ; for at the exact time the un- 
 conscious mind enables the stomach probably by 
 some inhibitory power over the vomiting centre in the 
 medulla to retain the food. 
 
 ubo'S 118 Some years ago I tested the value of the clock in 
 
 labour in 200 uncomplicated cases. In cases where the 
 uterine contraction was very irregular and slow, I 
 discovered, by impressing the patient with the fact 
 that a contraction would and must begin every five 
 minutes by the watch and last two minutes, giving three 
 minutes' interval, that, after a little assistance at first, I 
 could ensure in the case of a patient of average mental 
 power a contraction commencing exactly when I said 
 the time was up. I calculated, of course roughly, 
 that my attendance at the 100 cases treated thus 
 with suggestion was shortened an average of two
 
 THE CUEATIVE POWEE OF MIND 217 
 
 hours each, as compared with the 100 left entirely to 
 nature. Of course it is obvious this calculation is 
 not exact, but the fact of the value and power of 
 unconscious mental action or suggestion is clearly 
 evidenced. This induced action by means of the 
 patient's own unconscious mind must be carefully 
 distinguished from the physical force or mechanical 
 aid often used so disastrously. The one is, in 
 a sense, natural, the latter purely artificial. I think 
 any medical man who, in suitable cases, gives this 
 plan a fair trial, will be much pleased with the 
 results. 
 
 In the nursery, again, the clock is a very founda- & * 
 tion of health. Food given by it agrees, without it 
 disagrees. Sleep regulated by it is easily obtained, 
 irregular bedtimes are bad. Its value, also, is that it 
 tends to produce habits of the utmogt benefit to the 
 young child. I will now give one instance of its power 
 in old age. 
 
 A patient about seventy years of age came to me j 8tina 
 in deep distress about her obstinate constipation from constip*- 
 paresis of the rectum, which was so severe that every tion ' 
 enema and pill had failed, and mechanical evacuation 
 was the last resource. This condition had continued 
 for some years, a trained nurse living in the house. 
 The patient was of exceptionally powerful mind and 
 will, and remarkable intellect. Seeing this, I relied 
 upon the clock as an efficacious aperient. I explained 
 the power of an exact habit over the bowels, and told 
 her she would be cured if at 9.80 exactly by the clock 
 on the mantelpiece she sought relief each morning. 
 She was at first aided artificially at the exact hour, 
 but after a few mornings when 9.80 arrived, and she
 
 218 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 was taken out of bed, a natural action was obtained, only 
 she sometimes wanted to relieve the bowels before the 
 hour. This was never allowed ; she was told that to 
 be too soon would prevent the cure as much as being 
 too late. At the end of six weeks the bowels were 
 daily relieved without medicine at half-past nine 
 exactly by the power of the unconscious mind ; and at 
 the end of six months she had never missed a day. 
 She has now no further trouble. I mention this case, 
 for it shows the power of mental therapeutics even in 
 the decline of life. 
 
 Now as to the curative effect of the patient's own 
 conscious suggestion to the unconscious mind, and 
 through it on the body. 
 
 Typhoid ' I Q 1837, Pastor Chiniquy got severe typhoid. 
 
 S d i 7 a * ever * n Canada, and four physicians told his bishop 
 aint. there was no hope of his recovery. On the thirteenth 
 day they said he had only a few minutes to live, and 
 his pulse could not be felt. He then in a vision saw 
 his favourite saint, St. Anne, to whom he cried for 
 cure with every power of his soul, and he heard her 
 say, " You will be cured." He recovered, and Quebec 
 rang with the miracle. He was examined by two 
 Catholic and two Protestant doctors. Dr. Douglas, a 
 Protestant, showed Chiniquy his recovery was due to 
 his being a man of remarkably strong will, and 
 determination to resist death ; that the will had a real 
 power over the body, and his strong will had con- 
 quered. Chiniquy listened, but preferred his saint, 
 and had a votive picture painted of her for 50Z. A 
 priest who saw it then told Chiniquy the cure was no 
 miracle, and that most of the crutches hanging 
 round the church were left by impostors ; and the rest
 
 THE CURATIVE POWER OF MIND 219 
 
 by those cured by the power of the mind over the 
 body. 
 
 'Till 1858 that picture, representing the saint Typhoid 
 telling Chiniquy he would be cured, was in the church. wm^er. 
 In that year he again got typhoid fever in Chicago, 
 and once more was given up as dying. But this time 
 he did not cry to the saint, but made a determination 
 to get better and soon felt life returning. He then saw 
 the saints had no part in his previous cure, and took 
 his picture down and burnt it.' 1 
 
 The above, even if not accurate in all details, 1 Jj rB ? l 
 contains, I am sure, a great truth. I had some time will- power, 
 ago a favourite nurse who always had a superstition 
 she would die of typhoid fever. She contracted it 
 nursing a case of mine, and lay in a county hospital 
 apparently dying ; in the third week of the disease, 
 in a low typhoid condition, and with every appearance 
 of collapse, but with the mind clear, I went in to see 
 her for the first time, and found her much depressed. 
 She told me she was about to die, and I said, ' Cer- 
 tainly.' She looked up and said, ' Yes, but I mean it; 
 I always said I should.' And I said, ' Then of course 
 you will.' She stared and said, ' Don't you mind ? ' 
 I said, ' What's the use of minding ? You are going 
 to die if you say so.' ' My saying so doesn't make 
 me die,' she said. ' Perhaps it does,' I replied, ' for 
 if you said you wouldn't die, you would probably live.' 
 I saw, as far as I could judge, she had reached that 
 point when the throwing of the will into either balance 
 would determine the issue. 'Do you mean that?' 
 she said. ' Yes, I do,' I said ; ' and, what's more, 
 unless you say so, I won't come and see you again. 
 
 1 Life of Father Chiniquy, revised edition, London.
 
 220 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 It is now 11.30, and if now, at this hour, you turn 
 your mind the other way, and determine to live and 
 not die, I'll do all I can to help you. You shall 
 have another nurse, and I'll get the doctor to let 
 you have a little champagne. But this resolve must 
 come from you.' She looked me hard in the face, 
 and, seeing I meant it, and believing me, she 
 said in deepest earnestness, ' I will ; ' and from 
 that hour she steadily gained strength, and soon got 
 well. I firmly believe that interview saved her 
 life. 
 
 Cures by A gentleman in Manchester, at an hotel, in 1869, 
 
 fright. en rou t e f or London, was seized with rheumatic 
 fever. He had fearful pains, high fever, profuse 
 perspiration, and all the symptoms of the disease. 
 Being, however, most anxious to return to London in 
 spite of all, he persisted in being carried to the night 
 express. There was a serious collision, in which he 
 was terribly frightened, but not hurt. He had to 
 walk some distance in the cold, but all symptoms had 
 gone, and the fever had disappeared. 
 
 A hopeless epileptic never had another fit after 
 seeing his own daughter burnt to death. 
 
 In ' Fraser's Magazine ' for May 1873, there is 
 an apparently perfectly authentic story of a case of 
 whooping-cough cured by a good thrashing. 
 
 Dr. Buckley records this case. 'A doctor was 
 called to see a lady with severe rheumatism, and 
 tried to extemporise a vapour bath in bed, with an 
 old tin pipe and a tea-kettle ; and only succeeded in 
 scalding the patient with the boiling water proceed- 
 ing from the overfull kettle through the pipe. The 
 patient screamed, "Doctor, you have scalded me," and
 
 THE CUEATIVE POWER OF MIND 221 
 
 leaped out of bed. But the rheumatism was cured, 
 and did not return.' 
 
 Tuke says that mental therapeutics without 
 hypnotism can cure toothache, sciatica, painful 
 joints, rheumatism, gout, pleurodynia, colic, epilepsy, 
 whooping-cough, contracted limbs, paralyses, head- 
 aches, neuralgias, constipation, asthma, warts, scurvy, 
 dropsy, intermittent fever, alcoholism, typhoid fever, 
 and avert impending death. 
 
 Dr. Murchison says: 'There is good evidence Liver, 
 that nervous influences may not only cause functional 
 derangement, but can cure structural disease of the oured - 
 liver.' 
 
 Sydenham says : ' Gout surely attacks the foot, 
 but melancholy predisposes to it.' 
 
 Dr. Dale records the case of a young lady with severe 
 nervous dyspepsia, who was told she could cure herself 
 by will power, but failed for want of sufficient force. 
 The doctor then told her lover to say they could not 
 marry until she was cured, when she at once re- 
 covered. 
 
 I would call special attention to this instructive 
 instance of the failure of assimilating mental thera- 
 peutics directly through the conscious mind backed 
 up by conscious will power; whereas when used 
 indirectly they succeeded at once. The unconscious 
 mind can rarely be made to act by any direct con- 
 scious effort save under hypnotism, but indirectly can 
 be made to do almost anything. 
 
 Dr. Gibert, of Havre, 1 in the presence of Dr. 
 Janet and others, washed a boy's hands covered with 
 warts in blue water, and said if they were not all 
 
 1 See Medical Journal of France, 1893.
 
 222 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 gone in one week he should wash them in yellow 
 water, which the boy thought would scald him. 
 They were all gone but two or three in the time. 
 
 It is an undeniable fact that sores and ulcers and 
 some growths have been completely cured under 
 strong excitement of the nervous system. 
 Minor and Great importance attaches to the state of mind of 
 laical the patient previous to a major surgical operation, 
 operations. rj^ p 0wer O f mental treatment in gynaecology is 
 well known, and ie often much to be preferred to 
 meddlesome minor operations. 
 
 A man defrauded his brother, and came to his 
 doctor for anorexia, dyspepsia, and debility. The 
 doctor discovered the mental factor, made him repay 
 his brother, and the case was cured. 
 
 Mind in 'We get temporary recoveries,' says Dr. Bury, 1 
 
 dT^ale. ' i* 1 myelitis and locomotor ataxy, due to the influence 
 
 of the mind on the body. In one case of transverse 
 
 myelitis known to me, a man who was unable to stand 
 
 bathed at Holywell. After the dip he was able to 
 
 walk, and the next day he moved about without 
 
 crutches. The improvement lasted ten days, and then 
 
 the paralysis returned, when he came under the care 
 
 of Dr. Dreschfeld at the Manchester Eoyal Infirmary.' 
 
 Alteratives AU alteratives are really habit-breaking drugs, 
 
 habits, sucn as Plummer's pill in gleet, arsenic in stomach 
 
 cough, quinine in chronic bronchitis, &c., and they 
 
 owe their efficacy to breaking the unconscious memory 
 
 of the body. 
 
 I have spoken of drugs failing when ceasing to be 
 the fashion. In the same way other cures cease to 
 be efficacious. 
 
 1 Dr. Bury in Bradshaw Lecture, 190L
 
 THE CURATIVE POWER OF MIND 223 
 
 The moment the power of Perkin's metallic 
 tractors was found to be due to the imagination of the 
 patient, as shown by Haygarth's success with wooden 
 ones, they ceased to cure, and were discarded with 
 contempt. Though patients may not now recover by 
 tractors, we still employ the mental factor in other 
 ways with equal success. Harness's electropathic 
 belts cured many cases of functional nerve disease, 
 which reappeared after his exposure. 
 
 In alluding to Harness, I would call attention here NO 
 to the fact, that had I given authentic instances of Jven f " 
 the success of quack remedies in these pages, I think 
 most would have been amazed to see what remark- 
 able cures are wrought through the mind by these 
 nostrums. The body of testimony, excluding doubt- 
 ful cases, could thus have been swelled ad libitum. 
 But I have refrained, and contented myself with the 
 fragmentary and more prosaic testimony of the pro- 
 fession ; not only because such evidence is more 
 likely to be accepted without question, but because 
 prejudice enough surrounds my subject as it is, 
 without stirring up more by any recognition of these 
 men. They are justly despised by the profession, not 
 so much on account of their ignorance, as because 
 their whole object is commercial profit, and their 
 methods often unscrupulous. That they have used 
 in ignorance a great power neglected in legitimate 
 medicine is certainly no credit to them. I shall 
 therefore throughout this book content myself with 
 orthodox testimony. 
 
 Summing up the therapeutic position, therefore, 
 thus far, and considering how the mental factor may 
 best be utilised in the cure of ordinary cases, we may 
 
 Q
 
 224 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 say : by the effect of the presence and personality of 
 the doctor and his surroundings, by the conscious 
 employment of the patient's unconscious mind by 
 arousing hope, joy, faith, expectation, confidence, 
 peace, rest, &c., by the psychic action of the drugs 
 used, and by suggestions given directly and in- 
 directly. 
 
 Diseases as well as therapeutics may be classified 
 w ith regard to the mental factor as follows : 
 
 1st. Into those that recover by the sole force of 
 the vis medicatrix natura a larger class than is 
 supposed. 
 
 2nd. Those where this force has to be assisted or 
 controlled by drugs. 
 
 3rd. Those where active mental therapeutics are 
 added to it, to further increase the action of tho 
 unconscious mind. 
 
 4th. Those where all means are insufficient. 
 
 Finally, I would say that a class cured by physical 
 means alone does not exist for ' the force of mind 
 is a therapeutic agent in every disease.'
 
 CHAPTEK XHI 
 
 MENTAL THERAPEUTICS IN FUNCTIONAL 
 
 NERVE DISEASE 
 
 ' Functional nerve diseases are mostly cured by 
 suggestions presented in various ways.' 
 
 IN Chapters VI., VII., and VIII. we looked with some Mind M 
 care at the question of the connection of the mind cu^T &nd 
 with the body as a causative agent in functional 
 nerve diseases ; and here we reach the corresponding 
 question as to the part the mental factor plays in their 
 cure. 
 
 It is not so long since that the treatment, or Mitret- 
 rather maltreatment, of functional neuroses consti- JJJJ^^j 
 tuted a real opprobrium medicines. 
 
 The cases were not wisely handled, for the 
 simple reason that they were not understood. They 
 were not understood, partly from the symptoms not 
 being recognised as distinctive, partly from their very 
 vagueness and contradictory nature, but far more 
 from the impossibility of dissociating many of them 
 from some form of malingering, as long as the 
 conscious mind was a supposed agent. Indeed, it is 
 only quite recently the true nature of these cases has 
 been grasped, and the treatment of them improved. 
 
 The result was everywhere disastrous, and 
 perhaps most so in the way in which it swelled the 
 
 2
 
 226 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 This drove numbers of quack cures, and drove patients away 
 
 patients to ^ Qm ^ QgQ ^Q understood them not, to those who 
 
 remedies. & ^ anv ra ^ e jj a( j a ^JJQ perception of the mental 
 
 character of the malady, and that it required some 
 
 mental cure. I have alluded to such a case in 
 
 Chapter I. All this was a real, though unmeant, 
 
 cruelty to the patients, who soon became actually 
 
 ashamed of their maladies, feeling instinctively they 
 
 were suspected of fraud. It must not be thought 
 
 that in these remarks I have spoken too severely, or 
 
 indicated a condition of things that no longer exists. 
 
 Nerve Listen for a moment to the usual routine treatment 
 
 described of a nervous case as described by Professor Binet : 
 
 Jerig! m ' When one of these victims to hypochondria, who 
 
 are commonly called malades imaginaires, has 
 
 recourse to medicine for the relief of pain or some 
 
 other disturbance, he is usually told it is of no 
 
 importance, that he is fanciful, and some anodyne is 
 
 carelessly prescribed. The patient, who is really 
 
 suffering the pain he has suggested to himself, feels 
 
 convinced that his malady is not known, and that 
 
 nothing can be done for him. The idea that his 
 
 complaint is incurable becomes intense in proportion 
 
 to his high opinion of the physician's skill ; and thus 
 
 the patient, who was suffering from the chronic 
 
 affection suggested by his imagination, often goes 
 
 away (not only uncured, but) incurable.' l 
 
 Nerve The diseases grouped under the heads of nervous- 
 
 havTbeln ness > hysteria, &c. are real in origin and effects, and 
 
 ^i/ed, * orm idable in their nature, and it is high time that 
 
 the ridicule, the offspring of ignorance, with which they 
 
 1 Binet, Animal Magnetism ttnternat. Science Series), p. 353,
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES 227 
 
 have been so long surrounded, be entirely done away 
 with. These unhappy sufferers have been greatly 
 wronged and often cruelly treated. 
 
 This ignorance is partly due to the fact that the Real 
 symptoms are generally subjective rather than ob- 
 jective, and that observation is not so much needed 
 as reasoning power. But the real cause is what we 
 have already indicated. It is seen that the disease 
 is partly of mental origin ; and no mind being known 
 or recognised by the doctor but conscious mind, he 
 concludes that the patient must be aware of the mind 
 action causing the disease, and is therefore to some 
 extent to blame. The truth, which we hope will now 
 be recognised, is, that (as we pointed out in an earlier 
 chapter) all the causative changes take place in the 
 unconscious mind, and that the patient is wholly 
 ignorant of anything but the results in the body 
 the pain or disease suggested. This is the true 
 solution of the difficulty. 1 
 
 The best cures of hysteria are naturally, therefore, 
 effected through the unconscious mind. If the case through 
 is in every way in good health, and has not entered 
 the vicious circle of dyspepsia and debility, it may be 
 cured instantaneously by applying to the irritated 
 ideal centres that keep up the disease good sugges- 
 tions, consciously or unconsciously, sufficiently power- 
 ful to overcome the bad ones. Their application by 
 means of hypnotism is unnecessary, and often in the 
 end aggravates the condition which it is meant to 
 relieve ; for suggestions are thoroughly effectual with- 
 out it, if one uses the boldness and force of which 
 
 ' I reiterate here several points already insisted on in Chapters 
 VI. and VII. on account of their importance.
 
 228 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Sir J. Paget speaks, and has gained the respect and 
 trust of his patient. 
 
 If all this appears as novel as some of the 
 terminology here used, it is simply because mental 
 therapeutics is still the Cinderella of medical sciences, 
 for it is yet very dubious orthodoxy to suggest that 
 there can be any means of cure more potent than 
 those found within the revered pages of the British 
 Pharmacopeia. 
 
 Bugges- We must, however, remember one great point 
 
 SoTbe with regard to suggestion that it is like nitrogen. 
 *^ rbed Nitrogen is the essential element in all animal life ; 
 it forms four-fifths of the air we breathe, and yet, 
 curious to say, we have no power to use it hi a 
 pure state. We can only take it indirectly, when 
 combined with other substances in the form of pro- 
 teid food. It is the same with suggestions. Not one 
 hysterical sufferer in a hundred can receive and profit 
 by them in a raw state that is, consciously ; they 
 must generally be presented, as we have said, in- 
 directly to the unconscious mind by the treatment 
 and environment of the patient. An electric shock 
 often cures slight hysterical diseases instantaneously, 
 acting, as it does, on the unconscious mind through 
 the conscious. 
 
 it is best No doubt it would be easier if we could say to 
 rom n und ^ ese sun?erers > ' The disease is caused by suggestions 
 from ideal centres ; and to cure it, all you have to 
 do is to believe you are well.' Still, as it would be 
 impossible for us to take our nitrogen pure from the 
 air, the mind cannot as a rule be thus acted on 
 directly when the brain is unhealthy. Suggestion 
 must be wrapped up in objective treatment, directed
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES 229 
 
 ostensibly and vigorously to the simulated dis- 
 ease. 1 
 
 It is not, however, enough in mental therapeutics Baa g. 
 to present good suggestions; we must also remove mu 8 tbJ 
 previous bad ones. Such a patient must therefore be remoyed< 
 isolated to avoid conversations about, and sympathy 
 being shown with, the patient's sufferings; all of 
 which keep up the action or vibration of the diseased 
 ideal centres. The range of mental therapeutics is, 
 however, by no means limited to hysterical diseases. 
 The powers of the unconscious mind are such that 
 we can place no limits to its influence. When the 
 mind is really unsound, it is interesting and remark- 
 able though quite intelligible to notice that mental 
 therapeutics generally fails ; obviously because the con- 
 scious psychic element through which it should act is 
 in itself disorganised. From what has been said, it will 
 be gathered that in ordinary and some nervous diseases, 
 while mental therapeutics acts largely through the 
 unconscious mind, it can also be successfully presented 
 directly to the intelligence ; and, on the other hand, 
 in true hysteria nearly all the work has to be done 
 unconsciously, the conscious mind being fixed, not on 
 mental therapeutics, but on the outward means used. 
 Suggestions are often advantageously directed to the JJ 6 ^^* 
 sound parts of the body, leaving the diseased part 
 severely alone. 
 
 John Hunter gives a good hint here. He was gjj^ 
 asked to be magnetised, and being told he would feel .tr*ugem. 
 it at the roots of the nails of his hand, he fixed his 
 whole attention on his great toe, and so frustrated 
 
 1 For the value of surgical treatment in some internal neuralgias, 
 eee paper by Sir F. Treves, British Medical Journal, March 10, 1898.
 
 230 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 the phenomena. I employed this device successfully 
 some years ago in the case (that I will speak of more 
 fully later on) of a girl with a contracted and 
 withered arm which had been massaged and f aradised, 
 with the result of making it more and more rigid. I 
 neglected it entirely, and fixed the attention on the 
 other parts of the body by vigorous massage, &c., with 
 the result that the bad arm, left quite alone, got 
 perfectly well. 
 
 ideal It is important fully to understand that when the 
 
 m^deL brain is restored to health by good nerve tissue and 
 disease 6 * 1 nea ^ n 7 blood, it can be made by suggestion to exercise 
 as beneficial an influence over the body as previously 
 it exercised a harmful one. If ideal centres can pro- 
 duce ideal diseases, surely the rational cure is to first 
 bring these ideal centres into a healthy condition, and 
 then make them the means of curing the ideal dis- 
 ease. Mental disease requires, and can ultimately 
 only be cured by, mental medicine. When will this 
 be understood ? And when will nauseous drugs cease 
 to be ministered to a mind diseased ? 
 
 Sir Russell Of the usual remedies given, Sir Eussell Eeynolds 
 
 5?SJ?" says : The whole list of anti-hysteric remedies 
 
 fJS^i musk, castor, valerian, and the like appear to have 
 
 this one property in common : that they do no good, 
 
 and delay the real treatment of the case, which is not 
 
 one to be cured by nauseous " gums," but largely by 
 
 mental, moral, and social management.' 
 
 Fi*e<HaeaB Suggestion in hysteria is said to cure the physical 
 
 be too condition through an intermediate emotional change 
 
 3ult in short, by a feeling rather than a thought. It 
 
 must of course begin with an idea ; but when the 
 
 doctor moralist tries to inculcate a valuable fixed idea,
 
 nerve 
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASES 231 
 
 it must not be too far off or difficult of comprehension. 
 Such ideas often fail of their effect with indolent 
 neuropaths, who are all more or less afflicted with 
 mental myopia. The moment the new idea or sug- 
 gestion is adopted, it begins to act through the un- 
 conscious mind exactly like a drug. 
 
 De Fleury points out that l a good doctor for nerve De Fleury 
 patients is also necessarily a good hygeist for the dSctorT 
 mind ; neurosis being in fact only a bad habit which 
 the ' cerebral action ' (another synonym for the un- 
 conscious mind) has contracted. 
 
 Dr. Playfair pursues this thought further. He Dr. pi y . 
 says : 2 ' The rank weeds of neurotic disease will only fa 
 flourish in suitable soil. Improve this, and the un- 
 healthy growth will disappear. That this can be 
 done by drugs or health resorts, all experience shows 
 is an impossibility; these as a rule only make the 
 patients go from bad to worse. Get rid of all these, 
 put the patient under a thorough physical and moral 
 training, and it is surprising how all neuroses 
 vanish.' 
 
 This rational and psychic treatment is certainly JJj^jJ 
 gaining ground. It has, of course, a negative and a tive side at 
 positive side. The negative consists in removing in- 
 jurious influences from the patient's mind, whether 
 they be objective from the outer world, or subjective 
 from the patient's own disordered thoughts. The 
 positive, in infusing into the patient's mind curative 
 mental influences such as hope and rational ideas, 
 which tend to counteract the unsound mental action. 
 It is needless to say that a successful doctor requires 
 
 1 De Fleury, Medicine and the Mind, p. 221. 
 
 Dr. Playfair, Psychological Dictionary of Mtdiobu.
 
 232 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 in this a combination of tact, knowledge of human 
 nature, patience, and temper that all cannot possess. 
 Such tact and character are every whit as condu- 
 cive to success as a scientific equipment. 
 
 impressive As I have already said, suggestions in the patient's 
 
 means. ordinary state are greatly strengthened by adjuvants in 
 the form of impressive means, more or less elaborate ; 
 in the hypnotic condition these are not needed, as 
 the patient's ' unconscious mind ' is then entirely 
 accessible. 
 
 k>S. f Touch is often a material aid in the conveyance 
 
 of thoughts, as wires aid telegraphy. In some cases 
 a decided manner, with a hand laid firmly on the 
 patient's arm, will enable him to assimilate sugges- 
 tions otherwise inoperative. 
 
 Some can do more, and can cure directly by bold 
 assurance. A doctor who has the patient's full con- 
 fidence may cure a patient by telling him he is cured. 
 
 ?I d _ _. Such cases, however, are rare. Dr. Paul Edwards, 
 
 of Paris, cures his patients thus. The therapeutic force 
 is in himself. But these are exceptional methods, and 
 my desire is rather to write for the medical man 
 generally, and prove in this and following chapters 
 that ' functional nerve diseases are mostly cured by 
 suggestions presented in various ways.' 
 
 assurance.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TBEATMENT OF FUNCTIONAL NERVB 
 DISEASES 
 
 1 Success in the treatment of neurasthenia dependi 
 equally on psychical and physical details.' 
 
 IN considering briefly a few points in the treat- Pyohic 
 ment of functional nerve disease, more especially 
 neurasthenia, we shall find psychic and physical 
 methods here go hand in hand. 
 
 I have already indicated the leading points of 
 diagnosis between neurasthenia and neuromimesis or condition 
 hysteria, and now in treatment we find the difference fir8 *' 
 no less marked. The psychic treatment in neur- 
 asthenia cannot be effectively applied until the physical 
 condition of the nervous centres is restored to health, 
 and then often little or nothing is needed. In hys- 
 teria, on the other hand, the psychic treatment is the 
 more important, though, being so often wrapped up 
 in physical appliances, it is not always recognised 
 as such. I will now proceed to run through some Four 
 leading points that make for success in the treat- 
 ment of functional nerve disease, more especially of 
 neurasthenic patients, and, to make the hints given 
 as clear and as useful as possible, it may be well 
 to crystallise them around four centres : First, the
 
 234 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 physician ; secondly, the patient ; thirdly, methods 
 of treatment ; fourthly, various details. In other 
 words personality, diagnosis, treatment, and details. 
 
 To take, then, the doctor first, an order recognised 
 by Dr. Clifford Allbutt when he says : ' Suggestion 
 and the personal ascendency of the physician enter so 
 largely into all methods of treatment (of neurasthenia) 
 that, to speak honestly, we find great difficulty in 
 making much way (when these have failed) with old 
 disillusioned patients.' l 
 
 The first point one would make in connection with 
 needed. y the physician (in spite of much that has been written, 
 and against the practice of many noted neuropaths) 
 is that one of the first conditions of success is sym- 
 pathy, and one of the chief causes of failure is the 
 want of it. 
 
 I do not say it need be always, or even frequently, 
 shown ; but believing as I do in the unconscious mind, 
 and the quick relation of one mind to another when 
 in harmony, I have no doubt whatever that real sym- 
 pathy is always felt wherever it exists in the physician 
 for the sufferer, though it be not shown ; the proof 
 being that it gives a confidence in his skill, and a 
 restful feeling of being understood that is no mean 
 factor in the cure. 
 
 she 'can- To feel this sympathy one must believe in the 
 reality of the sufferings of the patient, and dismiss 
 absolutely the blight of suspected malingering. One 
 must grasp the truth of the brilliant dictum of Sir 
 James Paget, who declared that while the patient says 
 she ' cannot ' and the nurse that she ' will not,' the 
 truth is that she ' cannot will.' 
 
 1 Dr. Clifford Allbutt, System of Medicine, viii. 180.
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASES 235 
 
 Let us remember, as we have said, that a disease 
 of the imagination is not an imaginary disease, 
 and that pain, in its last analysis, is a mental rather 
 than a physical fact, for its reality does not in the 
 least depend upon its resting on any definite physical 
 basis. 
 
 To tell neurasthenics or hysterics that there is 
 nothing the matter with them because no clear 
 physical basis can be discovered for the symptoms 
 complained of unless done in exceptional cases, 
 deliberately for a definite purpose -is to confess 
 oneself unfit to deal with functional nerve diseases. 
 
 As slowly, very slowly, the enormous powers of 
 the unconscious mind over the body are beginning to 
 be dimly perceived, such crude and false statements 
 are becoming rarer ; but they are still common enough 
 amongst those whose opinions are founded solely upon 
 physical diagnosis. 
 
 The next qualification in the physician is patience, 
 and this, I think, is different from mere endurance, and pen*, 
 and really depends upon the first quality sympathy. 
 It is only those who know the tortures undergone by 
 functional nerve sufferers, the pariahs and outcasts 
 amongst patients and doctors, and that feel for their 
 sufferings, that can possibly put up with the trying 
 nature of the sufferer and his multifarious and often 
 apparently incurable troubles. 
 
 The lack of this virtue in doctors fills our holiday 
 and health resorts abroad with patients sent there 
 because the doctor could not stand the strain at home, 
 and, recognising his resulting impotence, ordered 
 travel as the best way out. 
 
 Allied to patience is perseverance. The despon-
 
 236 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 dency of the patient, the scepticism of relations, the 
 continued and heavy expense to them over which the 
 physician has no control, and the want of any signs 
 of improvement, it may be for weeks, render this 
 virtue one of the most difficult to practise. And yet 
 for want of it how many patients go unrelieved, how 
 many incipient cures are nipped in the bud, and how 
 many successful methods are prematurely abandoned 
 as failures ! If we have sound grounds for believing 
 our treatment is rational ; if we have seen successful 
 results from it in previous cases, and, above all, if 
 there is the least glimmer of improvement, let us 
 persevere on and on. There is no space here to 
 adduce cases in proof of this, but I have one in mind 
 that, after defying every doctor and every variety 
 of Weir-Mitchell and similar 'cures,' was at last 
 successfully restored to health mainly by being 
 persistently kept in bed for five months on end by 
 a doctor who would not be beaten. 
 
 Not too Closely connected, again, with this is the question 
 
 jjj^ 1 but of firmness. Curious as it may seem, it is easy to be 
 enough. too firm, and still easier not to be firm enough. The 
 path of success here undoubtedly lies in the golden 
 mean between the two. Be inflexible as cast iron in 
 things essential ; flexible as steel in all matters non- 
 essential, and never, as is so common, inflexible from 
 mere doggedness, but always intelligently. This 
 gives confidence, brings success, and avoids friction 
 with patients and friends. 
 
 Tact is Perhaps this question really depends upon the 
 
 tend! 1 next 8 reat virtue, without which neurasthenics cannot 
 
 be successfully treated, and that is tact. Tact is the 
 
 unconscious mental touch, the tactus eruditus, by
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASES 237 
 
 which one mind feels another ; and just as a physician's 
 physical tactile sense is educated to discern much by 
 mere touch, so can mental tact help the nerve doctor 
 immensely along his difficult path. Take, for instance, 
 the one question of whether to make light of any 
 particular symptom or to treat it quite seriously. 
 
 The answer does not in a neurasthenic in the 
 least depend, as the doctor may naturally think, upon 
 the amount of obvious physical bases upon which 
 that symptom may rest, but on the effect on the 
 patient's mind of your levity or gravity ; and to 
 ascertain this effect beforehand is the highest out- 
 come of tact. 
 
 For it must ever be recognised, and may here 
 be categorically asserted, that neurasthenia partly, 
 and hysteria or neuromimesis almost wholly, are 
 diseases of the unconscious mind, of unconscious 
 suggestion ; and it is in this very fact of their un- 
 conscious nature that they differ from all forms of 
 malingering, which always imply conscious fraud. 
 Whatever diseased physical conditions may, therefore, 
 coexist, require treatment, but the mental condition 
 is undoubtedly the more important, and is the one 
 which in every case requires the greatest judgment 
 and tact. Most medical men, I believe, are inclined 
 to glorify their own particular branch of the pro- 
 fession ; but one cannot but see that in pursuing to 
 its recesses and in curing diseases produced by such a 
 mysterious agent as the unconscious mind, one has to 
 employ power and means of a very different nature 
 from the comparatively simple and straightforward 
 processes of purely physical medicine and surgery. 
 
 I may, perhaps, say just a word on the value
 
 238 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Honesty to of honesty with these patients ; for it is a word by no 
 mtereatl means limited to its ordinary sordid interpretation. 
 I mean absolute honesty in considering and acting 
 solely in the patient's interests, as distinguished, not 
 from the doctor's, but from the parents, friends, and 
 relatives, and others whose counsels and pleadings so 
 often turn aside the otherwise sound judgment of the 
 physician. 
 
 Lastly, success depends upon a power of attention 
 to details that is not always found in minds broad 
 enough to grasp the case as a whole. Minds, as 
 has been pointed out, are generally characterised 
 by observation or imagination. The former quality 
 gives accuracy in details, the latter broad and wide 
 views. The combination is rare, and those who 
 possess it are generally masters of their profession, 
 and in nerve diseases this union is of especial value. 
 The doctor who knows and sees that his patient is not 
 disturbed at night after the last massage ; who gives 
 exact orders as to her detailed routine throughout the 
 day ; who ascertains she is not roused and agitated 
 by the noisy cleaning of grate and room early in the 
 morning, will do much to ensure the general success 
 of his elaborate treatment. 
 
 A capacity for taking pains and for arranging 
 details of treatment may turn the scale from failure 
 to success in a doubtful case. So much, then, with 
 extreme brevity for the doctor and his personal 
 powers. 
 
 Tha Let us now consider, in the second place, the 
 
 dfat^sis^ con ^^i ns * success in connection with the patient 
 
 and the diagnosis. The first point, perhaps, to de-
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES 239 
 
 cide, on which successful treatment may turn, is 
 whether mind or body (including in the latter all 
 nerve tissues) plays the chief part in the disease. 
 Briefly and simply it may be said that nerve cases 
 divide themselves into one category or the other. 
 
 Cases of true neurasthenia, that is, of nerve irrita- Hysteria 
 tion or exhaustion, dependent upon external causes or ment&i 
 upon physical lesions within, are mainly physical, than 
 the mind, conscious or unconscious, being only affected *&"* 
 in a secondary degree, as a result of the nerve con- 
 dition. 
 
 On the other hand, all cases of hysteria or neuro- 
 mimesis contain a distinct mental element, and that 
 is an affection of the unconscious mind over and 
 above any mere question of nerve condition ; while 
 all other cases of delusions, fixed ideas, true melan- 
 cholia, and other slight aberrations, reveal a primary 
 disturbance, want of balance or unsoundness of the 
 conscious mind or reason, and these are generally 
 recognised as true mental cases. Cases of hysteria, 
 however, are not generally regarded as distinctly 
 mental, owing to the fact that still, as a rule, in 
 England mind is sought to be limited to conscious- 
 ness. In France, however, Charcot, quoted by Fere, 
 says, ' Hysteria is a psychical malady par excellence.' 
 Here, however, from the fact of its seat being the 
 unconscious mind, which produces in the body the 
 symptoms complained of, it occupies an intermediate 
 place between the pure nerve lesions on the one hand 
 and the distinct mental troubles on the other. 
 
 The value of this broad distinction between nerve 
 and mental troubles becomes obvious when we con- 
 sider treatment. For instance, we may say generally
 
 240 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 that where there is any mental taint, confinement to 
 bed often does as much harm as in cases of disordered 
 nerves it does good. The question of a sound con- 
 scious mind must be decided first. This is, of course, 
 not the same as a consciously sound mind. Most 
 mental cases are distinguished, indeed, by the fact 
 that, although their conscious reason is distorted, 
 they are themselves unconscious of the fact. This 
 question has, of course, a great bearing on prognosis. 
 No rapid or permanent cure can be safely predicted 
 where the mental balance is destroyed or even un- 
 stable, and many forms of nerve treatment are here 
 contra-indicated. 
 
 irritation Proceeding now from mental and hysterical cases 
 orphans- to neurasthenia proper, the point to determine is the 
 stage and character of the disease ; as to whether the 
 nerve centres are in a state of irritation or of ex- 
 haustion or of both. 
 
 In neurasthenia as distinguished from hysteria 
 the exciting cause at any rate is generally external 
 and apparent, but the treatment of nerve irritation 
 obviously must differ greatly from that of nerve 
 exhaustion. 
 
 I find that success is greatly hindered if the 
 patient has been already the victim of previous 
 failures. As Dr. Allbutt has pointed out, these 
 always act prejudicially in sapping the confidence and 
 courage of the patient. To me this has always been 
 a most difficult complication to deal with. 
 
 The mechanical routine of a so-called Weir- 
 Mitchell 'cure' is now so well known and so ab- 
 surdly regarded as a universal panacea, that this or 
 something else has often been tried unsuccessfully
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASES 241 
 
 before you see the patient, with the result that any- 
 thing approaching the same methods is already 
 regarded with suspicion ; though it may essentially 
 differ, and result in success instead of failure. 
 
 Another element of success in the patient is con- Co-opra. 
 fidence in the doctor and nurse. I add 'nurse,' SSto/and 
 because many physicians are not aware how this nur8e> 
 person can weaken or wholly frustrate all efforts at a 
 cure. A case occurs to me that treated by the Weir- 
 Mitchell method twice only resulted each time in 
 failure and actual loss of weight. Secret sapping of 
 the doctor's influence with neglect of orders was the 
 cause in one ; and open rupture of the two neutralis- 
 ing all efforts in the other. The case was difficult, 
 but with agreement between the two was eventually 
 successfully treated. 
 
 I must not omit here, as distinct from all diagnosis 
 of the disease, and as a great element of success, a 
 close study of the patient's personality and mental 
 calibre. 
 
 This so often requires, even in two suffering from 
 the same symptoms, a course of treatment in one 
 case entirely different from that required by another. 
 
 The personal factor is so comparatively valueless 
 in ordinary physical diseases such as pneumonia or 
 gout, that one is apt never to consider it, until one 
 finds from disastrous experience that its proper con- 
 sideration is in its way quite as important as accurate 
 
 Lastly, in concluding the study of the patient as 
 a factor of success, I would strongly advise, if the 
 cause of some symptoms still remains obscure, careful 
 consideration of the question of sexual agencies, both 
 
 2
 
 242 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 physical and mental, natural and unnatural, for the 
 extent to which this latter is a factor is little known 
 to many physicians. 
 
 Methods of I now come to the methods of cure, and here it is 
 obvious that though success depends largely upon the 
 physician, largely upon the diagnosis, it must depend 
 still more largely upon the use of right and adequate 
 means. 
 
 Hand- In the first place, then, with neurasthenics, in the 
 
 ^ig greater number of cases ' cast-iron systems ' of treat- 
 machine- ment turning out ' machine-made ' cures stand con- 
 'cnrea.' demned in theory and in practice. If one may say 
 a word from practical experience, it is that the chief 
 cause of the failures I have come across has been the 
 ordering of such and such cure by name (involving 
 some fixed routine and surroundings), that failed 
 because not adapted or adaptable to the patient's 
 special needs. Of course, wherever a doctor has any 
 fixed system or wishes to save himself trouble, there 
 ready-made expedients are very tempting; but we 
 must here lay down as an important condition of 
 success the making a system or treatment to suit 
 the patient, rather than a patient to suit the treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Methods It is far otherwise when dealing with any definite 
 
 adequate. an< l well-known lesion, such as enteric. Here the 
 more of routine and fixed treatment often the better. 
 I have spoken of the adequacy of the methods 
 used. This adequacy must not be judged by the 
 amount of potent drugs prescribed, or the violence or 
 expense of the agencies employed. They may range 
 from the most elaborate combinations of psycho-
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEKVE DISEASES 243 
 
 physical treatment conducted in a well-appointed 
 home with every possible adjunct, down to a few 
 simple prescriptions, or even short medical talks, or 
 a change of environment or occupation, or mere rest, 
 pure and simple. 
 
 No method can be decried as trivial that succeeds 
 in curing the patient ; but, on the contrary, that plan 
 is best that arrives at this result with the least time, 
 trouble, and expense. 
 
 I may add that, although the treatment adopted Doctor 
 may be tentative or experimental, its aspect to the g B mtio 
 patient should always be fixed, dogmatic, and definite. 
 Whatever balancing of different methods may have 
 passed through the doctor's mind, all should be firm 
 and defined to the patient. 
 
 Even when the treatment accords with the patient's 
 own ideas and wishes, it should never be ostensibly 
 adopted for this reason. 
 
 Most methods involve the use of nurses or trained 
 attendants, or companions of some sort, and here is 
 a frequent cause of non-success. Doctor, diagnosis, 
 method all are right, and yet there is no cure because 
 the subordinate agents are inefficient. 
 
 This is not the place to enlarge upon the reason 
 why this is so frequent, based as it is upon the non- 
 recognition of the great need there is for a class 
 between the three years hospital-trained and starched- 
 and-ironed aseptic nurse of the period and the de- 
 pressing mental attendants upon the insane. The 
 neurasthenic nurse is a being yet to be evolved as a 
 definite product, but is sometimes met with as a chance 
 growth in out-of-the-way places, frequently painfully 
 ignorant, alas ! of the simplest hospital routine.
 
 244 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 The ordinary nurse dislikes the neurasthenic case 
 largely because she does not understand the reality 
 of the disease in the absence of physical lesions, and 
 partly, also, because in hysterical cases there is not 
 only the appearance of fraud, but often a perverted 
 mental bias that takes pleasure in fault-finding, and 
 setting the nurse against the doctor, and vice versa. 
 
 It is well for the doctor to remember this, and, 
 even when a nurse has to be changed, to uphold the 
 nurse to the patient whenever possible, even on thera- 
 peutic grounds. 
 
 Nascitur Ndscttur non fit is undoubtedly the distinguishing 
 motto of the nerve nurse, though the 'fitting' is 
 most necessary and useful also, but until this is 
 recognised and the nurses are to be had, what is the 
 doctor to do ? Well, of course he has to cure his 
 patient. At present, for want of adequate help, the 
 cure has often to be effected by his own personal in- 
 fluence and visits to an extent that would not be in 
 the least necessary were our training system more 
 adequate and really efficient helps to be had. This is 
 all very well for patients that can pay, but is natu- 
 rally very expensive. 
 
 The outcome is, therefore, clearly this, that the 
 treatment of all difficult neurasthenic cases is neces- 
 sarily, and from causes quite beyond the doctor's 
 control, far more expensive than that of any other 
 class of disease (excluding, of course, any involving 
 major surgical operations), and far more expensive 
 than it need be were efficient nurses to be had. 
 Women This question of nurses raises that of homes gene- 
 
 men reTt, rally. In the first place, neurasthenics cannot, as a 
 *t home, ru j e ^ ^ cure( j JQ ft^ own nomes> f or wna t they one
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES 245 
 
 and all need is rest in some form. Now, to women 
 home is the sphere of the greater part of their work, 
 to the man only is it (with exceptions) the place of 
 rest. Hence, home is obviously not the environment 
 needed for women, and for other reasons men also 
 are cured more certainly and expeditiously away 
 from their own family circles. This necessitates the 
 nursing home as an indispensable adjunct for, at any 
 rate, part of the cure. 
 
 Now, it is not too much to say that the quality of 
 this home largely determines the question of success 
 in the treatment. Homes are so frequently unsatis- 
 factory that many physicians have been driven to 
 run their own. This has, of course, its advantages, 
 but it has great and serious drawbacks. Of course, I 
 am here not speaking of surgical homes, or of any 
 treatment but that of neurasthenics. 
 
 Personally, I have never been able to get over the 
 professional feeling that a physician ought to look to run home* 
 his fees, and to his fees alone, for payment for his 
 services ; and should not directly or indirectly run a 
 boarding-house under any name, or share in the 
 profits if derived from his patients. 
 
 It may, of course, be urged that a doctor can have 
 his own nursing home, and yet have nothing to do 
 with its management or profits. In this case, of 
 course, it is hardly his, though his patients may go 
 there ; and, of course, he fails to have the perfectly 
 free hand in dietaries so all-important that he has 
 when its pecuniary management is in his hands. 
 
 It may not, indeed, be difficult to show that it if 
 to the patient's own interest that the home should be 
 run by the doctor, and many medical men will see no
 
 346 THE FORCE OP MIND 
 
 weight whatever in what I urge against making a 
 profit from board and lodging. One can in this only 
 speak for oneself, and for all others like-minded. 
 
 At any rate, whether the home be the doctor's or 
 the matron's, it must be one where the dietary is 
 practically unlimited, where the food can be relied on 
 to be of the best and well cooked, and, not least, 
 punctually served with cleanliness and nicety. The 
 room should be quiet and airy, and at any rate 
 major surgical operations should not be conducted in 
 the home. If possible, it should have some private 
 grounds or garden attached to it. 
 
 The matron or sister may or may not actively co- 
 operate in the treatment, but should, at any rate, avoid 
 the slightest adverse comment on any methods she 
 may or may not understand or agree with. She 
 should be prepared to change the nurse at the doctor's 
 request till the patient is suited, and to promptly 
 carry out all his orders. 
 
 A few Finally, I must touch on one or two details, which 
 
 ****"** have much to do with success hi these cases. 
 
 In the first place, as we have seen, the treatment 
 of neurasthenia proper and hysteria is fairly distinct. 
 In the former, where the whole mental system is 
 sound, and it is the brain that is worn out physically, 
 while rest is good, isolation is not often needed, and 
 overfeeding and massage can frequently be dispensed 
 with. In neurasthenia, moreover, we never fight 
 against the symptoms as we have to do in hysterical 
 
 These latter, too, require isolation, nearly always 
 some form of Weir-Mitchell ' cure ' with massage, and
 
 FUNCTIONAL NERVE DISEASES 247 
 
 probably a large amount of suggestion, direct or in- 
 direct, which neurasthenics do not. 
 
 In mental cases rest in bed is by no means a R8tinbd 
 routine matter, for it nearly always aggravates the n^did, ay8 
 disease. It is also not often of value, as we have seen, 
 if the physique is otherwise good and sound, and the 
 nervous system alone is overworked and weakened as 
 in neurasthenia. It is, however, generally needed in 
 cases of malnutrition, in diseases of neuromimetic 
 origin, and in doubtful nerve cases, to give time and 
 opportunity fully to determine the diagnosis ; also in 
 severe nervous prostration even without other phy- 
 sical lesions ; and in all cases coupled with cardiac 
 insufficiency. 
 
 Massage is, of course, always needed for digestive 
 purposes where there is entire rest in bed to take the 
 place of active exercise. Besides this, it is of special 
 benefit in all disorders of the circulation, in all wasting 
 or weakness of muscles, in all stiffness or weakness 
 of joints, in most cases of pain, in congestions of ex- 
 ternal organs in many forms of cardiac disease. 
 
 The question of friends and relatives is a difficult nor 
 one, and is not answered by the simple rule of com- isolation, 
 plete isolation. This is invaluable in hysterical cases 
 wherever it can be carried out without too much 
 depression or irritation of the patient ; but there are 
 many cases where too rigid insistence on it means 
 failure, either from the patient leaving in consequence 
 or from the bad results on the nervous system. 
 Here, as elsewhere, success follows an intelligent 
 combination of flexibility with firmness. 
 
 Lastly, a word as to 'suggestions.' These, as 
 pointed out in the previous chapter, can seldom be
 
 248 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 assimilated in a raw state, but are readily taken in 
 combination. Hypnotism, however, is of doubtful 
 benefit in most neurotic cases. Some patients of low 
 mental calibre are benefited by the direct suggestion 
 that they are rapidly getting well; more, however, 
 benefit by the use of means directed to combat the 
 symptoms complained of, such as electricity, massage, 
 drugs, exercises, &c., which, besides doing a certain 
 amount of good directly, do still more by the sugges- 
 tions they convey to the patient's mind, and thus 
 afford a rational prelude to an intelligible cure. They 
 appeal to the patient's reason, or, at any rate, to that 
 which passes under that name, and afford satisfactory 
 food to the mind, which finds a gratification in the 
 use of extensive and elaborate means. 
 
 Sngges- Another form of indirect suggestion that can only 
 
 indirect. be administered by a physician who is in the fullest 
 confidence of his patient is that which points out the 
 evil, and the weakness, and the folly of that character 
 of mind that feeds upon itself ; and that draws out 
 the mind to altruistic and worthy objects, and thereby 
 alters the flow of the unconscious current of thought, 
 which has been feeding the disease all through ; and 
 thus makes the subconscious mind itself undo the 
 mischief it has done. 
 
 Other details, important enough to affect success, 
 are the management of dyspepsia, circulation, sleep- 
 lessness, constipation, restlessness, depression, and 
 other troublesome symptoms. 
 
 ouS- Finally, in most nerve cases, to ensure a perma- 
 
 ronndinga. nency in the cure, the patient should not return to 
 
 the surroundings connected with his diseased state. 
 
 An effort should be made to find out his tastes as
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASES 249 
 
 regards place, occupation, sport and amusement ; and 
 the definite directions given (which should never be 
 omitted) as to after-life, for at any rate some months, 
 should as far as possible coincide with the natural 
 bent of the patient's tastes. 
 
 It may be borne in mind that in cycling and golf 
 we have now two favourite and powerful therapeutic 
 agencies. 
 
 For the successful treatment, then, of neurasthenics 
 of all sorts, we need much that might be taught in 
 the schools, but is not, and much that cannot be 
 taught in any school. I consider that the successful 
 nerve doctor owes less to his teachers and more to 
 his idiosyncrasy, experience, and applied common 
 sense than any other variety of medical man. 
 
 Turning from my own views, which I have Dr. 
 given at some length, I find that Dr. Mitchell, 
 of Philadelphia, 1 thinks that many of the graver 
 cases of hysteria and neurasthenia which exhibit 
 nervous instability, combined with physical weak- 
 ness and with the moral defects of hysteria, react 
 well to the rest cure when organic disease is absent. 
 From a somewhat extensive experience he sum- 
 marises the methods of treatment adopted by him. 
 The most troublesome symptoms are headache and 
 backache, tenderness of the spine and ovaries, in- 
 somnia, and chronic fatigue. Anaemia, loss of 
 appetite, and emaciation are present in varying 
 degrees. The treatment is summarised thus : (a) Deuu of 
 The patient is placed in a private house (according to to 
 means), and best if away from home, the room being 
 sunshiny and freely capable of ventilation, (b) The 
 
 Dr. Mitchell, Joum. of the Amer. Med. Aasoc. March 9, 1901.
 
 250 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 nurse should be, preferably, young, of agreeable manner, 
 and a stranger to the patient. She should never con- 
 verse with the patient about symptoms or treatment. 
 She should be able to read aloud, (c) Isolation is 
 most important, and the more distinctly hysterical the 
 disease is the more strict the isolation must be. * No 
 letters are sent or received, no visitors seen, and but 
 three or four persons enter the room the nurse, the 
 physician, the masseuse, and the servant.' (d) In 
 ordinary cases six to eight weeks of isolation are long 
 enough, after which a single visitor may be allowed. 
 Letters may then be received or written in the way' 
 of reward for good conduct. This long isolation is 
 necessary to break up radically the habits of long 
 invalidism. (e) Eest, at first ill borne and irksome, 
 is well borne after a week. At first feeding should be 
 done by the nurse, and the patient over-fed. All 
 voluntary movements should be forbidden, except 
 sitting up for the bowels, &c. The circulation and 
 thinking are thus kept at a low level, and one result 
 soon observed is the improvement of the ability to 
 sleep. (/) Diet : Milk in small quantities is given 
 every three hours, skimmed, if ordinary milk is not 
 tolerated. On the fifth day of treatment a chop or 
 steak at midday is given. From the sixth day on- 
 wards bread and butter and eggs are allowed. II 
 milk is badly borne, broth and jellies will give satis- 
 faction, (g) Massage : A separate masseuse is desir- 
 able. Massage should begin on the third day with 
 light massage lasting twenty minutes, and increasing 
 daily to deep massage lasting one hour or more. If 
 the patient is obese, long and deep massage is good. 
 A second rubbing of the abdomen and spine by the
 
 FUNCTIONAL NEEVE DISEASES 251 
 
 nurse before sleep is helpful. At the end of the first 
 week the patient will begin to put on weight, but if 
 this goes up too fast massage is not thorough enough 
 and should be increased. Oil is not necessary to aid 
 massage, (h) Electricity : The slowly interrupted 
 faradic current should be applied to the ' motor- 
 points ' all over the body, so as to contract every 
 muscle two or three times. This should be continued 
 for three quarters of an hour, (i) Constipation is 
 treated with aloes and strychnine pills, and for 
 specially refractory cases hot injections of castor oil 
 per rectum may be given, (k) Insomnia is diminished 
 by massage before bedtime. Hypnotics should be 
 avoided, and the wet pack or abdominal compresses 
 first tried. (I) After the first week the patient is 
 allowed to sit up fifteen minutes, the next day twenty 
 minutes, &c. In a fortnight he is allowed to walk in 
 the room after passive movements of the legs have 
 been carried out. Swedish movements complete the 
 exercises and the cure. 
 
 This regime is perhaps as good a one as could be JJ^JjJ 
 devised, but I do not believe in any fixed routine, and bad. 
 the above has to be widely varied in different cases. 
 You cannot set a rudder to steer a ship across the 
 Atlantic, nor can you set with success one fixed course 
 for all neurasthenic patients. As a general rule, we 
 may point out that a neurasthenic patient is often worse 
 by fighting symptoms, and yet is always willing to do 
 so; while an hysteric is better by so doing, but generally 
 unwilling. 
 
 The after-cure of neurasthenics is always a matter 
 of anxiety ; as a broad rule, one may say that the sea- 
 side and an altitude over 2,000 feet does not suit
 
 252 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 most, but a voyage, woods, and lower mountain 
 slopes do. The pursuit of one's favourite outdoor 
 sport or occupation, with moderate cycling, is a good 
 general scheme. 
 
 Prophy- As a prophylaxis against incipient neurasthenia we 
 
 tana. may men f;io n f or ^omen a day's complete rest in bed ; 
 and for men a week-end away from home, at a good 
 inn in the country or seaside. 
 
 In neurasthenia quite as much as in hysteria, the 
 beneficial influence of real confidence in the doctor is 
 very marked ; and when this is assured, the patient 
 makes rapid progress owing to its stimulating effect 
 upon his unconscious mind. 
 
 Conoiu- The personal factor must bulk largely in all cures 
 
 ion. O f functional nerve disease, and its value must be 
 recognised and used, always with wisdom and care, 
 lest that which is a valuable aid to health be used as 
 a crutch to support ill-health. It is here indeed that 
 the practical wisdom of the medical man comes in ; 
 for the mental factor and influence may, like any drug, 
 be abused as well as used, and over-doses may drug 
 or even poison the patient as much as opium or 
 chloral. A moment's reflection indeed will show that 
 no power so strong as the ' force of mind ' can be used 
 without due care, and with this hint we may close these 
 few remarks on the treatment of functional nerve 
 disease, especially neurasthenia.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE THERAPEUTICS OF HYSTERIA 
 
 1 In hysteria the cure lies in restoring the healthy 
 action of the nnconscions mind.' 
 
 I HAVE already given various reasons for restricting Farther 
 'Hysteria' to one special and well-marked form of tKJt 
 functional nerve disease, by no means very frequently J** of . 
 met with in this country, and characterised by 
 narrowed consciousness and seizures. But I also 
 pointed out that for convenience I should under this 
 objectionable term ' Hysteria ' include every form of 
 neuromimesis, a disease that is much more common, 
 Bearing this enlarged use of the word in mind, I will 
 very briefly recapitulate one or two points in the 
 astiology of the disease before considering its thera- 
 peutics. 
 
 Hysteria in this broad sense is a disease that 
 manifests itself either in contracted vision, anaesthesias, 
 exaggerated emotional displays with fits, or in the 
 accurate but unconscious mimicry of definite disease. 
 It will therefore be seen that it is widely different 
 from ' nervousness ' (nervoisme) or neurasthenia, 
 with its long train of well-marked nerve symptoms 
 that suggest no disease but the one that is there. In 
 hysteria proper may we once more repeat? 'there is 
 
 1 See Chaps. VI., VIL, and Xffl.
 
 264 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 no intention to deceive ; and it must carefully be 
 distinguished from malingering or shamming, which 
 is a direct attempt at fraud, and for which no con- 
 tempt or ridicule can be too severe, though of course 
 the two may at times co-exist. The essential differ- 
 ence that determines the question of fraud is that in 
 the former the power that perfectly produces the 
 symptoms of the hysterical disease is the unconscious 
 mind, a force of which the sufferer is necessarily 
 wholly ignorant. In the latter the agent that 
 clumsily feigns some disease is the conscious mind, 
 for the action of which the patient is cognisant and 
 responsible, and this constitutes fraud. 
 
 Cases of hysteria occur usually in an ill-balanced 
 or starved brain ; so that, instead of showing the 
 natural symptoms of a nerve disease that exists, it 
 sets in vibration centres of motion and sensation that 
 simulate some special disease suggested to the patient 
 unconsciously, either through fear of the disease, 
 seeing the disease in others, or it being suggested by 
 others ; or possibly through some slight organic 
 disease having occurred in the past. This may be 
 BO successfully done that not only the patient but the 
 doctor believes the lesion to be in the body, whereas 
 it is in the unconscious mind. Hysteria thus often 
 begins in some slight but real disease in a person 
 with an ill-balanced or worn-out brain ; and this 
 slight but real disease sets up a train of associations 
 that produce a true ' hysterical ' disease that is, a 
 disease the seat of which appears to be in the body, 
 but is really in the brain. Hysteria is most common 
 in the spring, when the nervous system is least well- 
 balanced. It is common in the under- and over-
 
 THE THERAPEUTICS OF HYSTEEIA 255 
 
 worked, in the badly trained and imperfectly educated ; 
 in boys from ten to fourteen, in girls from sixteen to 
 twenty-five, and in spinsters at any age. 
 
 Over-education and subsequent idleness combined 
 are fertile causes. It is often found in people other- idienesT d 
 wise strong-minded and clever. The mental charac- are cau8eSi 
 teristics found in these sufferers are thus described 
 by Dr. Buzzard : 
 
 'Intelligence good, apprehension quick, memory 
 good, judgment weak, no ability of concentration of 
 thought for any length of time. Accuracy and perse- 
 verance are deficient. Emotions too easily excited 
 and incapable of control. The expression of emotion 
 is incongruous ; tears at ridiculous subjects and 
 laughter at tragic. There is great desire for the 
 sympathy and attention of others. Sometimes there 
 is exaggeration in varying degree, which, however, is 
 probably a part of the disease.' 
 
 This last point must be noted. For while there J?JJ Mp 
 can be no doubt that many of the feelings, such as proof of 
 pain, are exaggerated, we must remember on the one 
 hand that they are certainly felt ; and that the very 
 exaggeration is a proof, not of fraud, but of the ill- 
 balanced working of the judgment and perceptive 
 powers of the brain. 
 
 We have already given in Chapter VIII. many 
 cases that come under the head of hysteria, including 
 some of paralysis and spinal pains, which are so 
 exceedingly common that there is no need to give 
 further examples. Suffice it to say that there is no 
 form of paralysis that is not simulated by hysterial 
 from the loss of power in a single finger or joint to 
 the total paralysis of one side, or of both legs, or of
 
 256 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 the entire body. The pain may be in any part of the 
 spine, but is generally about the ' small ' of the back. 
 
 In hysterical paralysis, the muscles, as a rule, do 
 not waste much, and no bed-sores ever form. If the 
 helpless limb is bent, it often remains so ; which it 
 would not in true paralysis. 
 
 This paralysis may also affect any or all of the 
 special senses. It may cause such total loss of taste 
 for years that the most nauseous substance can be 
 eaten without disgust. It may cause total loss of 
 smell, so that neither garlic, coal gas, asafcetida, nor 
 otto of roses can be smelt. It may cause squint of 
 one or both eyes, or colour blindness, or any sort of 
 imperfect sight. It may cause deafness in every 
 degree. It may cause loss of feeling or touch any- 
 where, and the part may be pricked or cut without 
 being felt. 
 
 Hysterical Tumours of all sorts are simulated with a fidelity 
 that is absolutely startling, and skilled doctors are 
 constantly being deceived. They may occur in any 
 part of the body, but are most common in the breast 
 and abdomen. In the breast severe pain is com- 
 plained of, and a hard mass may be felt, which, 
 however, disappears if the hand be laid flat upon the 
 part. Not so, however, with those in the abdomen. 
 I >a ^ en ^ s w ^h these perverted nerve centres have an 
 unconscious power of either contracting part of a 
 single abdominal muscle so rigidly that it forms a 
 hard, round, solid swelling, plainly perceptible ; or 
 they can spasmodically contract the digestive canal 
 at two points so as to imprison between them a 
 largely distended portion which, being filled with 
 flatus and partly movable and easily felt in the ab-
 
 THE THEEAPEUTICS OF HYSTEEIA 257 
 
 dominal cavity, is exactly like an abdominal tumour. 
 If the person be thin and the tumour be pressed down 
 or resting on the abdominal aorta, the pulsations from 
 the blood-vessel are so perfectly communicated to the 
 false tumour that it is believed to be an aneurism. I 
 was told by one of our best known physicians that fifty 
 cases had been sent in to the hospital of this form of 
 pulsating tumour, as abdominal aneurism ; all of them, 
 previous to admission, having been examined and 
 certified to be such by medical men ; and yet, on fur- 
 ther examination, every one of them turned out to be 
 of hysterical, and not local, origin. The only way in 
 which they can, in many cases, be found out, is by 
 anaesthetising the patient, when the tumour generally 
 disappears, but, of course, returns immediately the 
 patient regains consciousness. 1 I remember in hos- 
 pital practice one special case of this sort under 
 my care of a woman whose whole abdomen was 
 greatly distended by a supposed tumour of enormous 
 size. Under chloroform it at once disappeared, but 
 on regaining consciousness there it was as large as 
 ever. The woman was not, therefore, ' cured,' and it 
 was no comfort to her to know that when she was un- 
 conscious the swelling was not there ; all she wished 
 was to be relieved of it. I therefore put her under HOW cored 
 chloroform again, and, while unconscious, tightly 
 bound her round with plaster-of -Paris bandages that 
 I allowed to set as hard as stone before she regained 
 consciousness. This time, of course, she could not 
 expand, and the 'tumour' was gone. She was 
 delighted we had 'removed' it; and after keeping 
 
 1 I have already mentioned these remarkable tumours in 
 Chapter VHI. 
 
 s 2
 
 258 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 the bandage on three weeks, it was taken off, and the 
 woman left, most thankful to be relieved of her 
 distressing complaint. 
 
 Hysterical A young lady tottered into the out-patient depart- 
 ment of one of our large London hospitals not long 
 since, followed by her mother in an agony of mind, 
 having an open tin of ' Brand's ' in one hand and a 
 spoon in the other. She had brought this because 
 her daughter was dying from a contraction of the 
 gullet, and she wished to show us that not even a 
 little jelly could be swallowed. The girl was reduced 
 to a skeleton, and would certainly have died from 
 neuromimesis if not relieved, for there can be no 
 doubt that people die solely from hysterical affec- 
 tions, though some may question it. After using 
 appropriate means to affect the mind indirectly, in 
 about half an hour the patient was sitting in one of 
 the wards eating a large plateful of boiled mutton, 
 potatoes, and turnips, with ' hospital pudding ' to 
 follow. It is cases like these, seen by men wholly 
 ignorant of the powers, and perhaps of the existence, 
 of the unconscious mind, that are necessarily con- 
 sidered fraudulent and the patients ' malingerers.' 
 
 Hysterical A matron of an important institution had to resign 
 
 aphonia. her p 0st an( j & j ar g e Ba i arv through total loss of voice. 
 Examination showed that this was hysterical, for 
 when she coughed she phonated, and the vocal cords 
 were perfect in action. Appropriate means in a fort- 
 night completely restored the lost voice. 
 
 Hysterical Hysterical vomiting is very common, and often 
 persists for months ; the patient, however, does not 
 lose as much weight as would be expected. The 
 appetite may be greatly perverted ; it may be enor-
 
 THE THEEAPEUTICS OF HTSTEEIA 259 
 
 mous, or entirely absent, or depraved, all sorts of 
 things being swallowed. Symptoms of obscure dis- 
 eases, such as hardenings or softenings of the spinal 
 cord, that could not be known consciously to the 
 patient, and consisting of tremors, rigidity, spasms 
 &c. in special parts of the body, are produced by 
 hysteria, and may persist for months ; and only 
 slight inconsistencies reveal that they are hysterical 
 after all. But I must not dwell further on what has Those 
 already been enlarged upon in a previous chapter, JJJJJu, 
 only repeating that on thinking over even these few fraudulent 
 cases it will be felt how readily the idea of deception 
 comes to the mind. It is only when the real aetiology 
 of the disease is grasped that such an idea is seen 
 to be inadmissible. I will now pass on to indicate 
 a few principles in therapeutics. 
 
 The first thing obviously in the cure of advanced First point 
 hysterical disease is to remake, as far as possible, the 
 vitiated body and brain with fresh flesh and blood 
 and nerve ; and then, when we have put the patient 
 into the best possible bodily health, we shall have 
 cured the physical cause of the nerve disorder at any 
 rate. Then, or even simultaneously, the unconscious 
 mind must be made through consciousness, de- 
 liberately, scientifically, and systematically, to undo 
 the evil it has done, and substitute good habits of 
 thought and action for bad. This is done with 
 varying success according to the skill of the operator. 
 When the mind (conscious) is not sound, it is of course Congciotn 
 impossible. We find that with the insane, exhortation, bT>un<L 
 argument, repression, and agreement are all about 
 equally bad ; and the only relief is by diverting the 
 mind on to indifferent subjects ; in other words, trying,
 
 260 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Rational 
 ideas based 
 on realities. 
 
 Irrational 
 ideas on 
 unrealities 
 
 Value of 
 true reli- 
 gion; evil 
 of false. 
 
 by resting it, to enable it to recuperate. This and steady 
 employment give the best results. With hysterical 
 patients, where it is the unconscious mind that is 
 affected, the conscious mind is, as a rule, sound, and the 
 case is different. We must remember that rational 
 ideas are based on realities, irrational on unrealities ; 
 therefore when the appearance of reality can be 
 removed from the idea, the patient (with a sound 
 mind) will perceive it is irrational. 
 
 For example, in loss of voice, a patient made to 
 shout by means of an electric battery can be shown 
 she has no true aphonia, and thus cured through the 
 removal of the appearance of reality from her ' irra- 
 tional ' ideas. We must of course first look at the case 
 from the hysterical patient's point of view to convert 
 her to ours. And our success in the latter will be 
 entirely dependent on the perfection with which we 
 accomplish the former. The constant and steady 
 pressure of truth must be kept up on the mind, till 
 the unconscious mind has been made to undo the 
 evil it has done. 
 
 The delusions of hysteria are therefore best re- 
 moved by demonstrating them to be irrational first 
 by means that prove the supposed disease no longer 
 exists ; and then by argument based on these success- 
 ful means. 
 
 I must not omit here one word about religion. 
 While it is true that the morbidness and over-intro- 
 spection that accompany various sorts of fanaticism 
 form one of the greatest emotional causes of hysteria; 
 on the other hand, true Christianity in its Divine sim- 
 plicity as taught by its Founder is most beneficial to 
 the mind. Dr. Ormerod may be quoted here. He
 
 THE THEEAPEUTICS OF HYSTEEIA 261 
 
 says : ' Few things are more opposed to hysteria than 
 the trustful, patient, altruistic spirit inculcated by 
 Christ ; and few things more conducive to it than the 
 excitement seen in revivals, or the mysticism or self- 
 conceit which sometimes poses as religion.' 
 
 As in all else, it is the true that helps, the imita- 
 tion only harms. 
 
 To return to general therapeutics in hysteria, we General 
 get the following interesting account of procedure peutLjof 
 from Dr. Gibson : l ' As hysteria is a disorder due to h**"' 
 nerve instability, no method of treatment can have 
 the slightest success unless it be believed in by the 
 patient, whether the case be treated by the placebo 
 method, or by the application of complicated pro- 
 cedures. . . . One object, and one only, is sought for, 
 namely, a cure, by suggestion to the trustful patient 
 that this will result from the treatment adopted. 
 Undoubtedly many of the methods successfully 
 applied by eminent physicians savour strongly of 
 charlatanism ; but the fault, if fault it be, lies rather 
 in the nature of the disorder than at the door of the 
 physician.' The latter part of this is interesting, for 
 it shows that in 1901 the bold quack of Sir James 1901 and 
 
 1RAA 
 
 Paget's letter of 1866, quoted in Chapter I., is no 
 longer able to work his wicked will on attractive 
 patients while their physicians stand by with hands 
 folded in impotence. Though some methods are who is the 
 described as strongly 'savouring of charlatanism,' the 'i aack ' ? 
 physician is learning at last, tentatively, timorously, 
 to trust and respect the mental factor in medicine ; 
 and we think the resemblance to the quack is purely 
 superficial, if it exists at all. Indeed, were it not 
 
 1 Dr. Gibson (Edinburgh), Text-book of Medicine, 1901.
 
 262 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 savouring of irreverence, I would venture to sug- 
 gest if the real quack may not be rather he who 
 pretends to treat diseases dependent on a mental 
 factor solely by drugs and draughts that cannot pos- 
 sibly cure. 
 
 sir Felix I should like to quote here a recent utterance 
 
 FT^b^' of Sir Felix Semon's upon mental medicine. 
 
 He says, 1 speaking of the treatment of the upper 
 air passage, that the doctor must consider ' whether 
 he will flatter the patient's whims by giving him an 
 innocent local placebo in addition to the constitu- 
 tional treatment which is obviously indicated. There 
 is undoubtedly something to be said in favour of the 
 latter alternative. As Dr. Goodhart truly remarks : 
 " There are times when the sick are not reasonable 
 beings, and unless they have a bottle of medicine " 
 or shall we in our special case say a gargle, or a 
 paint, or an inhalation ? " to anchor their faith to 
 (oh, shifting sands !), they are in a state of unrest that 
 is positively harmful to their progress." That is 
 certainly true. And, further, when with a little 
 knowledge of the world, and with plenty of previous 
 experiences to guide one, one sees that the patient, 
 disappointed at not getting what he wants, thinks : 
 "That doctor does not understand my complaint," 
 and that he is sure to fall into the hands of the 
 topical enthusiast, or of somebody worse, who will be 
 equally sure to mulct him in a perfectly unnecessary 
 operation, one is confronted by the difficult question 
 whether in the patient's own interest it would not 
 have been better to comply with his wish and to give 
 him something local which, if absolutely useless, 
 
 1 Sir Felix Semon, British Medical Journal, November 2, 1901.
 
 THE THEEAPEUTICS OP HYSTEEIA 263 
 
 would have been at any rate equally harmless, and 
 would have set his mind at rest. I dare not say that 
 this " pia fraus " must never be practised. But 
 against it are three very grave reasons, which I 
 would particularly recommend to your consideration. 
 In the first place, when prescribing some local 
 application, which, of course, has to be repeated at 
 stated intervals, you involuntarily become the patient's 
 accomplice by concentrating his mind on his local 
 sensations, whilst in his own interest you ought by 
 all possible means to divert it from them. Secondly, 
 you lend yourself to supporting the general notion, 
 which you know is neither correct nor desirable 
 namely, that all affections of the upper air passages 
 ought to be treated locally. And, thirdly, and most 
 serious of all, by yielding to the temptation you may 
 unconsciously, and with the best intentions in the 
 world, yet very actually, transgress the line between 
 legitimate practice and quackery. Under all circum- 
 stances, therefore, the pious deception of which I have 
 just spoken ought to be practised only in the rarest 
 of cases, and the doctor ought to stiffen his back and 
 harden his heart against meekly complying with 
 every unreasonable wish expressed by an unreasonable 
 patient. Better, I think, to lose such a one if he will 
 not listen to well-meant advice, than to have to con- 
 fess to yourself that you have descended to the level 
 of habitually acting against your own better convic- 
 tion.' 
 
 On this I would say that I doubt very much if a 
 ' placebo ' is ever ' absolutely useless ; ' even Sir Felix 
 allows ' it would set his mind at rest,' which is surely 
 .of some use. But the third point is the one of
 
 264 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 importance, and I think Sir F. Semon a little 
 misses the point when he makes it turn on the 
 keeping or losing of the patient. To me the point rather 
 is, whether the mind of the patient is to be enlisted 
 as a legitimate and powerful adjuvant to the cure or 
 not, by means of this ' placebo.' To give a ' placebo ' 
 to retain a patient who would otherwise be lost is 
 most unworthy practice ; to give one because by this 
 means the cure can be really hastened is right, and 
 consistent with the highest ethics. 
 
 Amongst the means used we may mention besides 
 direct mental influence the value, largely psychic, 
 of drugs, climate, isolation, forced feeding, baths, elec- 
 tricity, minor operative measures, massage, dietaries, 
 special occupations, changes of scene and country, 
 hard work, moderate shocks, mental or physical, 
 emotional incentives, object-lessons in others, and 
 Form fresh religion. The point generally is to form fresh idea 
 ide* paths, pj^jj^ causm g disuse of the old ruts in the brain; 
 by making suggestions opposed to the vicious trains 
 of thought throughout the day by every means at 
 one's disposal, and by securing sound sleep, if neces- 
 sary by drugs, or by a full warm meal last thing at 
 night. 
 
 Herman suggests l ' the occupation of the patient's 
 mind by massage and electricity (as adjuvants). The 
 mystery of electricity satisfies the patient that some- 
 thing powerful is being done, and gives her confi- 
 dence.' I may add that, besides this psychic effect, 
 it does much good physically. 
 
 Hypnotism is by no means specially suited for 
 hysterical cases. Ernest Hart, who collected much 
 1 Dr. G. Herman, Diseases of Women, p. 25.
 
 THE THEEAPEUTICS OF HYSTERIA 265 
 
 information at the Salpetriere, writes : ! ' Charcot, 
 Eichet, Babinski, and others have concluded that for 
 curative purposes hypnotism is very rarely useful, 
 generally entirely useless, and often injurious.' 
 
 As a matter of fact, useful therapeutical sugges- !> at better 
 tions can perfectly well be made naturally without 
 hypnotism. At present its use is perhaps greatest in 
 affording a unique means for investigating obscure 
 psychic phenomena. In this direction it is far more 
 successful than in therapeutics. 
 
 I will now conclude this chapter with a few notes 
 on special cases. 
 
 In hysterical paraplegia, Dr. Buzzard points out Treatment 
 that ' the kind of treatment is of little consequence, !i parJ 1 " 
 so that it is profoundly impressive ' (hereby showing plegia- 
 that its value is psychic). 'In the suggestion of 
 paralysis we get a depressed asthenic emotional state 
 ending in the paralysis ; in the cure we require a sthenic 
 state, and the exaltation of all the vital powers.' 
 
 Many cases Buzzard has observed of supposed 
 hysterical paraplegia are combined with paresis of 
 the ilio-psoas muscle, so that the knee cannot be 
 lifted well, as in placing the foot on a chair, 
 suggesting a possible organic complication in disease 
 of the spinal cord at the level of the first lumbar 
 segment. In hysterical paraplegia we notice that 
 while there is a total absence of gross movement, 
 which the patient thinks important, there is often a 
 completely retained power of minor movements. In 
 sound mental cases, if this is carefully demonstrated 
 to the patient, it may effect a cure by removing the 
 basis for the irrational idea ; for the muscular action 
 
 1 Ernest Hart, Hypnotism, p. 68.
 
 266 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 of the gross movements in the legs is blocked or 
 inhibited solely by ideas. 
 
 Pure ' The Lancet ' records T a case of Dr. Barkas of a 
 
 the^ woman (58) with supposed disease of every organ, 
 peutics. w - t j 1 paing everywhere, who had tried every method 
 of cure, but was at last experimentally cured by men- 
 tal therapeutics pure and simple. Assured that 
 death would result from her state, and that a certain 
 medicine would infallibly cure her, providing it was 
 administered by an experienced nurse, one table- 
 spoonful of pure distilled water was given her at 7, 
 12, 5, and 10, to the second with scrupulous care ; 
 and in less than three weeks all pain ceased, all 
 diseases were cured, and remained so. This is a 
 valuable experiment as excluding every material 
 remedy whatever, and proving that it is the mental 
 factor alone that cures, however it may be generally 
 associated with material remedies. This incidentally 
 gives another illustration of the therapeutic power of 
 the clock, spoken of in Chapter XII. 
 
 Value of Dr. Morrison, of Edinburgh, discovered that a 
 
 B ^e mOE lady who had constant violent hysterical attacks had 
 given her hand to one man and her heart to 
 another. A little direct common-sense talk in this 
 case formed an agreeable substitute for the distilled 
 water in the other, and the patient never had 
 another attack. 
 
 In the days of the tractors, attention was drawn to 
 the part, which was lightly touched or stroked with 
 metal or wood, with invariable good results, as long 
 as the faith lasted in the process. 
 
 In hysterical retention an aperient, with direction 
 
 1 The Lancet, 1894 iL 1246.
 
 THE THERAPEUTICS OF HYSTERIA 267 
 
 to the patient to hold her water as long as she can, cure of 
 will often produce uresis when the bowels act. SuSS? 
 
 Dr. Dale tells us of the wife of a medical man Failure of 
 with hysterical paralysis of her legs. She was told it JJJ 8 ^ 8 
 was due to her mind, and to overcome it by force of ce89 . f an 
 will (a futile suggestion) ; she could not, and went mbT 
 about in a Bath chair. One summer a drunken 
 Highlander tried to kiss her ; she jumped up and 
 ran off, cured, for her husband. Here we see most 
 instructively the impotence of the conscious will power, 
 and the force of the unconscious mind the moment 
 there is a suggestion strong enough to reach it. 
 
 Hysteria may, as I have said, mask organic 
 disease. Dr. Sutton speaks of a lady who was seven 
 years on her back with pain in her spine, and was 
 pronounced hysterical by two great authorities, and 
 made to get up. She died of cancer of the lung a 
 few days after in her carriage. 
 
 Another case within my knowledge was vigorously 
 treated, by forced movements causing intolerable pain, 
 for hysterical hip disease by a skilled surgeon, until 
 the Rontgen rays revealed a dislocated femur. 
 
 Sometimes total neglect of the affected parts is Treatment 
 best, and I may conclude these few observations with 
 a case of my own that illustrates this. I have 
 already alluded to it briefly, but will now give a few 
 details. A girl aged sixteen was brought to me with 
 strong left convergent strabismus and diplopia and 
 slight ptosis, with total bilateral loss of taste and 
 smell for years, proved to be complete by careful 
 experiment, with deafness (watch not heard at three 
 inches from either ear), and strong spastic contraction 
 of the left arm and hand, proceeding to rigidity and
 
 268 THE FOBCB OF MIND 
 
 wasting of some months' standing, and some stiffening 
 of the left hip-joint. This girl had had for months 
 every possible ocular and general treatment, including 
 massage, with absolutely no improvement of any 
 Bymptom, the arm especially becoming more and 
 more rigid. When she came under my care I 
 observed this, and at once pointed out to the patient 
 the infallible irritation that must be set up in the 
 diseased parts by any manipulation, and forbad them 
 to be touched, assuring her that the strong manipula- 
 tion of the sound side would cure the diseased one, 
 and asked her carefully to observe the process, which 
 was extended, as occasion required, to all the affected 
 With core special senses. It was beautiful to see the symptoms 
 disappearing one after another under this treatment, 
 till at last the girl threw away eight pairs of eye- 
 glasses with which she had been provided by ophthal- 
 mic surgeons, together with her splints and other 
 apparatus, and went home with her limbs and joints 
 restored both in movement and nutrition, with perfect 
 reason, acute hearing, and restored taste and smell ; 
 and shortly afterwards was happily married cured 
 entirely from first to last by forcing the unconscious 
 mind, through the rational action of the conscious 
 mind, to undo all the evil and misery it had caused 
 this girl for many years. 
 
 It will be observed that, though this chapter is 
 headed ' The Therapeutics of Hysteria,' no details of 
 any fixed system of cure are given. And this is for a 
 very definite reason, already stated when speaking of 
 neurasthenia. 
 
 The intricacies of the action of the unconscious mind 
 upon the body in this disease are so complex that each
 
 THE THEEAPEUTICS OF HYSTEEIA 269 
 
 case must be separately treated on its merits, though 
 the whole maybe grouped under the unsatisfactory title 
 of ' hysteria.' All cures emphatically must be hand- 
 made here. Cast-iron routine ends in disaster, and 
 original and new methods have constantly to be 
 employed. For this reason, then, all we can do is to 
 state broad principles, leaving details to be added in 
 each individual case. 
 
 The principles of cure, however, are fairly clear 
 if the cause be understood ; and, however varied the 
 cases, I trust enough has been said to establish the 
 thesis at the head of the chapter that ' in hysteria 
 the cure lies in restoring the healthy action of the 
 unconscious mind.'
 
 270 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 TEE PEACTIGAL CONCLUSION 
 
 1 The neglect of the mental factor in medicine is a 
 source of weakness to the profession which should at 
 once be removed.' 
 
 Manner M ^' SHORT time ago I was calling at a patient's house, 
 disease. and while waiting to see her entered hi to conversa- 
 tion with her eldest son. He had on his part many 
 questions to ask me bearing on his own state of health, 
 and the eager nervous way with which they were put, 
 as well as their nature, showed me I had to do with 
 a case of hypochondria hi a fine young sportsman of 
 twenty-five. I spoke to his mother a few days after- 
 wards as to what I feared was the young man's condition, 
 and she told me that it all dated from several visits he 
 had paid to a physician for some local ailment. This 
 doctor, a clever good man, well known to me, is him- 
 self an invalid, and has frequently to use medicines 
 or lotions hi consulting hours for his own relief. He 
 has also a very depressing nervous manner and an 
 anxious desponding look, and told the young man as he 
 shook his head it would be a long time before he 
 would be right. A few visits of this sort started the 
 practice of morbid introspection, which the young 
 fellow had been pursuing since.
 
 THE PEACTICAL CONCLUSION 271 
 
 Not far from him another doctor lives of a different Manner M 
 type, also known to me. The sister of a patient of disease! ' 
 mine has been under his care for a short tune, and 
 she writes as follows in a letter I was permitted to see : 
 
 'I often think of him and his kindness to me 
 through those long weary weeks not only what he 
 did, but what he was. Some people help one more 
 than they know by just being themselves ; I mean by 
 their own living personality. Don't you agree with 
 me ? A bright smile on a dark day takes so much of 
 the darkness away ! Oh ! it is the little things that 
 mean so much the small things that are so great ! ' 
 
 Here, then, are sketches from life of two equally 
 estimable men ; of the two, the former is probably 
 the abler doctor, and holds the higher position 
 amongst his medical colleagues. 
 
 And yet, how little he knows and understands of sins of 
 the evil he does so unconsciously, so ignorantly : for lg 
 this young man was no solitary case ! 
 
 I ask in all earnestness and all seriousness, is it 
 right, is it scientific, is it fair that this honourable man 
 should have gone laboriously through college and 
 hospital, sick ward and lecture theatre, and learned 
 all that the medical science of the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century could teach him, and yet be left 
 in such utter ignorance of psycho-therapy, of the 
 effect of manner on mind ? 
 
 These two instances could be multiplied, alas ! P r ^ aoe 
 indefinitely ; but the list of victims of this systematised ctmiB. 
 ignorance will never be made out, and the evil all 
 unconsciously done never be known. 
 
 It is quite futile to urge that men have their idiosyn- 
 crasies, and can never be all alike. This is of course differ.
 
 272 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 true, but is beside the mark ; and is no reason what- 
 ever for keeping from them the knowledge of the 
 therapeutic value of manner and personality, 
 but need One might as well refuse to teach physical dia- 
 
 fare'be" g 1108 * 8 because all men are not equally good observers, 
 ignorant. O r surgery because manual skill varies so much, as to 
 leave in neglect the science of mental therapeutics 
 because all cannot use it with the same effect. 
 
 The argument defeats itself, for if all naturally 
 practised it unconsciously, there would be less need 
 for teaching it ; and it is just because all men are 
 not alike, that scientific instruction should be given 
 in the power for good or evil that resides in the doctor 
 himself, alike in causing, aggravating, and curing 
 
 Reason for Let me here be clearly understood. I am advocat- 
 wntmgtiis j n g ^ Q S y s ^ em O f men t a i therapeutics. I hold no brief 
 for any of the numberless mind curers, mental healers, 
 Christian Scientists, or other American soothsayers. 
 I am not a hypnotist or a faith-healer, nor am I 
 interested in anything professionally but the legitimate 
 practice of medicine, as medicine free from all dis- 
 tinguishing labels ; I am therefore running no fad, no 
 cure, and have no aim whatever in writing this book 
 save to get my colleagues seriously and earnestly to 
 consider whether it is not their bounden duty as 
 honest men to study and seek to understand every 
 great power concerned in the cause and cure of 
 disease. 
 
 Knowledge It is not that their practice or their prescriptions 
 " P"- have to be radically altered ; it is not that their text- 
 books are to be cast aside ; but it is that everywhere 
 and at all times they shall have constantly before them
 
 THE PRACTICAL CONCLUSION 273 
 
 the two questions: 'What part does mind play in 
 causing this disease ? ' and ' How can it be made to 
 assist in its cure ? ' 
 
 With this of course goes a knowledge and sense of 
 the value of their own personality, and how to use it 
 for good and not for evil. 
 
 The point to be decided is whether the force of i tie 
 mind in disease is a real and important subject for pr^tfcai* 
 study whether it is one of practical value to Talue? 
 medical men. I think I have said enough, and 
 quoted enough, to show that the opinion of a large 
 number in the profession who are worthy of our 
 highest respect agrees that it is. It is a subject 
 alluded to everywhere, and taught nowhere ; and no 
 single day passes in a medical man's life but he and 
 his patients must suffer consciously or unconsciously 
 from his ignorance of it. Is it, then, a subject that ^ ** 
 could be taught with advantage in our schools? 
 Emphatically, yes ; and one too which, if properly 
 taught, would be found of absorbing interest. 
 
 In the causation of disease, if not the greatest, it 
 is at any rate the most universal factor. 
 
 What an untrodden field lies open in the trained 
 observation of the part it plays in aetiology ! 
 
 Clinically how interesting to observe in the wards An - Q 
 how much of each disease is due to the mental factor ! aTia S 
 
 The part the mind plays in sickness in different j t e e a re.t 
 classes, in the two sexes, at different ages, in different 
 occupations, and in the different groups of disease 
 might all be worked out; for the whole subject is 
 practically virgin soil, and those who pursue this 
 study are really explorers in an untrodden country. 
 Lectures might be given, as facts are accumulated, 
 
 *l
 
 274 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 New taxi- Text-books would appear, of a novel type, giving 
 book8 ' scientifically a whole body of facts bearing on disease 
 not to be found in any of our standard works at 
 present ; and psychological medicine would no longer 
 be confined to questions of lunacy, but would embrace 
 the interesting study of the relations of the sound 
 mind to the diseased body. 
 
 If we turn from cause to cure, the subject widens, 
 and the interest is intensified. 
 
 The 'on. When once the matter is fairly studied clinically 
 
 riSr? and scientifically, the first point that is pressed home 
 healer* 1 u P n the consciousness is, how little, after all, the 
 doctor does; and how much Nature, or better the 
 vis medicatrix natures, or best of all the 'uncon- 
 scious mind,' effects in all cures. 
 
 No recovery is possible without this agency. It 
 is absolutely indispensable to the patient's cure, 
 and this can be said of no other therapeutic agent 
 whatever. 
 
 The con- JQ contrast with its wondrous force how small and 
 
 mind has limited are the powers of the conscious mind in 
 lw. relation to disease! I have fully pointed this out 
 already. The conscious mind cannot directly cause 
 (without the agency of the unconscious mind) any 
 SSStny disease whatever save malingering, which, after all, 
 is not a true disease ; nor can it cure ; for though it ap- 
 pears able to do so, it is only of use as it acts indirectly 
 through the unconscious mind. 
 
 Malingering is of some interest in this light, 
 as I believe it is the only disease (?) in which the 
 unconscious mind plays no part whatever. 
 
 The main agency, then, of all cures is the force 
 of mind, which operates always naturally, but may
 
 THE PEACTICAL CONCLUSION 275 
 
 also be made to act artificially. In every disease its 
 ordinary action by the vis medicatrix natura is at once Power of 
 evident, whether in pouring out lymph round a broken Sd? 
 bone, in sealing up an abscess with an impenetrable catrix 
 wall, in digging out new vascular channels in a 
 diseased limb, in extracting gout by the cells of the 
 convoluted kidney tubes, in quickly eliminating C0 2 
 by rapid expiration, or mucus by constant coughing, 
 in forming antitoxins, or marshalling leucocytes, or in 
 a thousand other ways. 
 
 But besides this the unconscious mind can be Special 
 stimulated to special work where needed, and par- JS 
 ticularly in those diseases of functional neuroses 
 where it has already played such a large part in 
 aetiology. 
 
 This stimulation must as a rule be applied 
 through consciousness indirectly, but can also be 
 used directly. 
 
 The former action is illustrated in all treatment Methods of 
 that appeals to the patient's reason methods that 
 he sees and feels, that he knows are intended to cure 
 him, that impress him with their power. He is con- 
 scious of their good effects. He feels better for their 
 application, though all the time he is wholly uncon- 
 scious that they have benefited him through the 
 mind and not through the body. If he knew this, 
 in many cases no cure would result, for material 
 remedies are in favour at a heavy premium, while 
 mental medicine is in the shade at a large dis- 
 count. 
 
 It is for this reason that most successful sugges- 
 tions must be made indirectly, not ostensibly directed 
 to the mind at all, though scientific analysis shows
 
 276 THE FOBCE OF MIND 
 
 that it is solely through this channel that they are 
 efficacious. 
 
 Direct But the unconscious mind can also be reached 
 
 by g hy^^ therapeutically directly, without any conscious process 
 tism - whatever ; and this in two ways. 
 
 Hypnotism is one; a power that abolishes con- 
 sciousness and addresses suggestions directly to the 
 unconscious mind, which is in this condition easily 
 reached and powerfully affected. It can be made in 
 the hypnotic state to act directly on the body, and 
 produce gross organic changes in a way incredible if 
 not established by innumerable experiments. 
 Dims* But apart altogether from this method, which I 
 
 b^the* 1011 m n wa y recommend for general practice, even were 
 wet 3 "" 1 ' 8 a ^ doctors competent to use it, there is another way 
 of directly acting on the unconscious mind of the 
 patient, and that is through the mental personality of 
 the physician. 
 
 It is perhaps best that the patient should in this 
 case be only conscious of the good results rather than 
 of their cause ; but the physician, while never self- 
 conscious, should certainly know all that can be 
 known of the power he is wielding every day, in being 
 what he is, and looking and speaking as he does. 
 &t* Of this P wer ne is at present taught nothing 
 neutralise scientifically; what little he suspects he arrives at 
 ihe power. mtu i t i velV) and f eels nftlf aB h a med of, as he resolutely 
 sets his face towards the material and turns his back 
 on the psychical. 
 
 This, however, alters nothing, and patients are 
 helped or hindered, diseases cured or aggravated, 
 however confirmed an agnostic the doctor may be in 
 the psychic therapy he unconsciously uses.
 
 THE PEACTICAL CONCLUSION 277 
 
 In a hardly less degree is psychic training essen- 
 tial for the nerve nurse. 
 
 This being exists only at present in the early NO trained 
 embryonic stage, save as an entirely chance product. 
 No hospital manufactures her, no examination or 
 manuals exist for her. 
 
 For the surgical nurse, the general medical nurse, 
 and even the mental disease nurse, how complete are 
 the organisation and equipment ! She is taught all 
 that she needs to know, and, in the opinion of some 
 competent observers, often a good deal that she need 
 not know. It is only in the domain of functional 
 nerve disease, only in the knowledge of the force of 
 mind, that the ' trained ' nurse remains untrained. 
 
 She takes her cue unconsciously from the physi- Nnrw> 
 cian's attitude ; and so long as he greets the anxious dooto? s 
 nerve sufferer with the ' Oh ! it's nothing nothing ' lead> 
 (recalling poor old Toole in the ' House-boat '), what 
 can the nurse do but, parrot-like, re-echo the 
 cry? 
 
 There are of course gifted women whose uncon- 
 gcious mind, or as we say 'intuition,' makes them able 
 attendants upon nerve cases ; but they are chance 
 products, and owe nothing of their power to their 
 training. 
 
 Here, then, in this neglect of the study of the 
 force of mind is the weak spot in the whole system 
 of medicine ; and it is because of this I have written, 
 quoted, repeated, and reiterated all that I have re- 
 garding the ' mental factor in medicine.' I will very 
 briefly review what has been said. 
 
 The first part of this book treats of ' the action ch P ur i, 
 of mind in causing disease.' Chapter I. commenced
 
 278 THE FOECB OF MIND 
 
 with the analysis of a remarkable letter of Sir James 
 Paget, that revealed as by a search-light the weakness 
 of the medical position in the matter, and I continued 
 throughout that chapter to point out the neglect of 
 mental therapeutics and the disastrous results of this 
 neglect. 
 
 The point to be proved in Chapter II. was that, 
 ' as the action of the mental factor in disease is un- 
 conscious, it cannot be recognised as mental by those 
 who limit mind to consciousness. The word " mind " 
 must therefore be extended to include all psychic 
 action.' 
 
 This, I trust, is evident to all who have followed 
 the line of argument. The mind is one and indivi- 
 sible. Part of it is seen by the mental faculty or eye 
 we call consciousness, just as part of our body is open 
 to our gaze. The rest is no less mind because 
 beyond the range of vision, any more than those 
 parts of the body are not corporeal which are outside 
 the range of sight. Their existence can be easily 
 proved by other faculties, just as the unconscious 
 mind can be proved without the aid of consciousness. 
 I say nothing of double consciousness, as I cannot 
 here speak of consciousness as being any other than 
 that with which we are familiar in our normal state. 
 There may be other consciousnesses ; for our purpose 
 they are termed unconscious.' 
 
 The narrow range of the conscious mind, com- 
 pared with the wide field of the unconscious, has been 
 also noted here. 
 
 chapter In Chapter III. the thesis to be proved is that 
 
 1 the double action of the mental factor on the body 
 in health consists generally in carrying on the func-
 
 THE PEACTICAL CONCLUSION 279 
 
 tions of life, and specially in physically expressing 
 mental states.' 
 
 Here we approach the three neglected branches of 
 medical study psycho-physiology, or the action of 
 the mind on the body in health ; psycho-pathology, or 
 its action in causing disease ; and psycho-therapy, 
 or its power in curing disease. The necessity for a 
 governing centre to maintain the harmonious action 
 of the various systems, and intelligently direct them 
 to a common end, is insisted on, and illustrations 
 given of the power of the mind, conscious and uncon- 
 scious, over the various systems of the body. 
 
 In Chapter IV. I have sought to show that ' the Chapter 
 mental factor is present in all diseases,' both func- 
 tional and organic. No doubt in most it plays but a 
 small part ; what I contend for is that it plays some 
 part. This is not perhaps a subject capable of exact 
 proof ; but from the instances one can adduce in so 
 many different classes of disease it is made exceed- 
 ingly probable that when increased facilities for study 
 are afforded, it will be traced in all. The value of 
 the face in diagnosis is pointed out ; though, I may 
 add, he who diagnoses by face alone is guilty of grave 
 neglect of duty in not using the other methods of 
 physical examination at his disposal. 
 
 Chapter V. is written to show that 'we have Chapter v. 
 examples of the mind as a causal factor in most 
 organic diseases,' and numerous examples are given 
 to prove this, together with many also of functional 
 disease, and some when death is caused. 
 
 Chapter VI. is devoted to the symptoms of func- chapter 
 tional nerve disease, and especially neurasthenia. 
 
 The opprobrium attaching to the word ' hysteria*
 
 280 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 is alluded to, and the fact that this is a disease, and 
 differs entirely from malingering, which is not one. 
 
 Neurasthenia is another distinct functional nerve 
 disease, differing both in cause and symptoms and 
 also, as we shall see, in treatment. 
 
 Chapter In Chapter VII., where I deal with hysteria more 
 
 particularly, I try to show that ' the chief factor in 
 hysteria is the unconscious mind,' because on this 
 fact really depends the true understanding of the 
 disease. Once it is grasped, there is no longer any 
 need for the constant feeling that there must be 
 some amount of fraud in cases of neuromimesis, which 
 always exists as long as the simulation is believed to 
 be conscious and voluntary. 
 
 chapter Having established the basis of hysteria, in 
 
 Chapter VIII. I give details of its phenomena, and 
 several illustrative cases to show that ' the phenomena 
 of hysteria are due to the perverted action of the 
 unconscious mind.' 
 
 With this chapter we reach the end of the first 
 part of the book, treating of mind as a cause of 
 disease, and turn in the second part to a consideration 
 of the force of mind in curing disease, or to psycho- 
 therapy. 
 
 Chapter In Chapter IX. the subject before us is the con- 
 
 nection of mental therapeutics with every form of 
 quackery, and I show that 'the force of mind in 
 therapeutics so largely ignored by the profession is 
 generally exploited by quacks for their own ends.' 
 
 The fact is that psycho-therapy, though so disliked 
 by the profession, is the very bread of life to all 
 quacks ; and I pointed out the evil of this long ago 
 in a letter to ' The Lancet,' which I quote. It is out-
 
 THE PEACTICAL CONCLUSION 281 
 
 rageous that a power that is putting tens of thousands 
 of pounds every year into unprofessional pockets 
 should be treated by medical men with such scant 
 courtesy ; not only to their own injury, as shown in 
 that remarkable letter of Sir J. Paget with which 
 this book opens, but also to the injury of their 
 patients. 
 
 In Chapter X. I give ' the testimony of the pro- chapter x. 
 fession to the presence and importance of the vis 
 medicatrix natures, and the power of mind over 
 disease,' and in addition I furnish many instances 
 that show how much is owed to this force throughout 
 life. 
 
 Chapter XI. is on mental therapeutics generally chapter 
 and faith cures specially, and shows that * the effec- XL 
 tive agent in all faith cures is the unconscious mind.' 
 In this chapter I have tried to give some account of 
 Christian Science, as well as of some of the wonders 
 of hypnotism. 
 
 Chapter XII. is written to show that ' the force Chapter 
 of mind is a therapeutic agent in every disease.' xn< 
 Just as in Chapter IV. I showed that the mental 
 factor is present in all diseases as cause, so here I 
 try to show the same with regard to cure. 
 
 In Chapter XIII. we come to the cure of func- chapter 
 tional nerve diseases, and I show that they ' are mostly 
 cured by suggestions presented in various ways,' so 
 various, indeed, that many of them are not recognised 
 by the patients as suggestions at all. 
 
 Chapter XIV. shows that ' success in the treat- gap** 
 ment of neurasthenia depends equally on psychical 
 and physical details,' and in it I give a good many 
 hints upon which good results more or less depend ;
 
 282 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 most of which were embodied in a paper I read before 
 the British Medical Association at Cheltenham in 
 1901. 
 
 chapter Chapter XV. proves that 'in hysteria the cure 
 
 XVl lies in restoring the healthy action of the unconscious 
 
 mind,' the perverted action of which caused the 
 disease in the first place, at any rate where neuro- 
 mimesis is a feature. 
 
 And now that I have written, quoted, and reiterated 
 and summarised all this, comes the final question : 
 
 I 8 there a Do my readers agree as to the importance of my sub- 
 ject, as to the general neglect with which it is treated, 
 and as to the need that exists for making its study 
 a part of the medical curriculum ? If so, I am 
 rewarded for any little time and trouble I have taken 
 to bring this subject forward. If not, it simply means 
 working on till I do. 
 
 Fight for And in this I have the encouragement of previous 
 success. Some years ago I determined to try and 
 get personal and domestic hygiene and the common 
 laws of health everywhere taught, and I found that 
 to do this they must first become subjects of ex- 
 amination. By memorials, by letters, by the support 
 of the National Health Society, the Sanitary Insti- 
 tute, and other bodies, by influential private help, 
 not the least of which was that afforded by Sir 
 Henry Acland, ' Hygiene ' was at length included 
 as a subject for the intermediate examinations of 
 Oxford and Cambridge for the first time in the history 
 of those Universities. I never expected such speedy 
 success then, and only hope that I may be equally 
 fortunate now ; and that here also the heads of the 
 medical profession will seriously consider the advisa-
 
 THE PEACTICAL CONCLUSION 283 
 
 bility of having this important subject scientifically 
 and systematically taught. 
 
 There is no doubt that, once the matter is well Abler 
 ventilated, other and abler workers will enter this w m follow, 
 field, and carry the whole subject far beyond the 
 point 1 have been able to reach.
 
 LIST OF SOME WRITERS AND THEIR 
 WORKS HELPFUL IN STUDYING THE 
 MENTAL FACTOR IN MEDICINE. 
 
 Advancement of Learning. SIR FRANCIS BACON. 
 AFFLECK, DR. British Medical Journal, 1892. 
 ALLBUTT, DR. CLIFFORD. System of Medicine. 
 Alterations de la Personnalite. BINET. 
 Anatomy of Melancholy. BURTON. 
 Animal Intelligence. G. KOMANES. 
 Animal Magnetism. BINET. 
 Asclepiad* SIR B. W. KICHARDSON. 
 BACON, SIR FRANCIS. Advancement of Learning. 
 BAIN, A. The Power of the Mind over the Body. 
 BARRETT, PROF. Humanitarian, 1895. 
 BASTIAN, C. The Brain as an Organ of Mind. 
 BATEMAN, DR. Practical Symptoms of Cutaneous Disease*. 
 Bee, Life of the. MAETERLINCK. 
 BENNETT, W. H. Lancet, 1899. 
 BERNHEIM, PROF. Suggestions in Therapeutict. 
 BERNHEIM, PROF. Brain, Vol. 16. 
 BINET. Animal Magnetism. 
 BINET. Alterations de la Personnalite. 
 BOWEN, PROF. Modern Philosophy. 
 BRAID. Hypnotism. 
 BRAID. Power of Mind over Body. 
 Brain, Vols. 15, 16, 17, 19. 1900. 
 Brain as an Organ of Mind. C. BASTIAN. 
 BRAMWELL, DR. MILNE. Hypnotic Appreciation of Time: 
 Brain, 1900.
 
 286 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 BREUBB, PROF. (Vienna). Neuroglisches Centralblatt. 
 
 BRIQUET. Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine. 
 
 British Medical Journal, 1870, 1886, 1889, 1890, 1896, 1897. 
 
 1898, 1901. 
 
 BBODIB, SIR B. Psychological Enquiries. 
 BROWNE, SIR J. C. British Medical Journal, 1889. 
 BRUCE, DR. MITCHELL. Practitioner, Vol. 84. 
 BRUNTON, SIR T. L. Disorders of Assimilation. 
 BURTON. Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 BURT, DB. Bradshaw Lectures. 
 BUZZARD, DR. T. Quairi s Dictionary of Medicine. 
 BUZZARD, DR. T. Simulation of Hysteria by Organic Nerve 
 
 Disease. 
 
 BUZZARD, DR. T. Diseases of the Nervous System. 
 CALDBRWOOD, PROF. The Eolations of Mind and Brain. 
 CARPENTER, DR. Mental Physiology. 
 CARTER, DR. Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria. 
 CARTER, DR. B. Lancet, 1873. 
 CASSIODORUS. 'Ep.'Lib. I. 
 CELSUS. Lib. III. 
 
 CHARRIN, DR. A. Les Defentet NatureUes de FOrganitme. 
 Chiniquy, Life of Father. 
 
 CHURCH, SIR W. S. British Medical Journal, 1901. 
 CLARK, DR. MITCHELL. Brain, Vols. 15, 17, 19. 
 CLARK, SIR A. Lancet, 1855. 
 CLIFFORD ALLBUTT, DR. System of Medicine. 
 CLOUSTON, DR. British Medical Journal, 1896, 1870. 
 Curative and Health Maxims. DR. W. W. HALL. 
 Das Leben der Seele. PROF. LAZARUS. 
 
 Defenses (Les) Naturelles de VOrganisme. DR. A. CHARRIN. 
 Diseases of the Nervous System. SIR S. WILKS. 
 Discourses. SIB B. W. BICHARDSON. 
 Diseases of the Nervous System. DR. T. BUZZARD. 
 Diseases of Women. DB. HERMAN. 
 Dictionary of Psychological Medicine. DR. H. TUKH. 
 Disorders of Assimilation. SIR T. L. BRUNTON. 
 Dublin Quarterly Journal, Vol. 44. 
 DUNN, E. Psychological Physiology. 
 EDDY, MRS. M. B. Science and Health. 
 EIOHHOBST, PBOF. Practice of Medicine, 1901.
 
 WEITEKS AND WORKS ON THE SUBJECT 287 
 
 ELAM, C. Psychological Problems. 
 
 ENGILMAN, PROF. Pfluger, Archiv fur Physiologic. 
 
 Faith Cures. GLIDDON. 
 
 Faith-Healing, On. DR. A. T. SCHOFIELD. 
 
 Fat and Blood. DR. S. W. MITCHELL. 
 
 First Principles of Psychology. HERBERT SPENCER. 
 
 FLETCHER, DR. E. Sketches from the Case-book. 
 
 FLEURY, DR. DE. Medicine and Mind. 
 
 FORBES, SIR JOHN. Nature and Art in Disease. 
 
 FORD, PROF. A. American Journal of Psychology. 
 
 FOSTER, SIR M. Physiology. 
 
 FREUD, DR. Studies in Hysteria. 
 
 Functional Nerve Disease. DR. G. H. JONES. 
 
 GAIRDNER, SIR W. The Physician a Naturalist. 
 
 GAIRDNER, SIR W. Medical Education. 
 
 GIBERT. Medical Journal of France, 1893. 
 
 GIBSON, DR. Text-booTt of Medicine. 
 
 GLEN, J. Mind and Body. 
 
 GLIDDON. Faith Cures. 
 
 GOODHART, DR. Lancet, 1889. 
 
 GRANVILLE, DR. M. Lancet, 1879. 
 
 GRIESINGER, DR. Mental Diseases. 
 
 HALL, DR. W. W. Curative and Health Maxinu. 
 
 HART, ERNEST. Hypnotism. 
 
 HARTMANN, ED. VON. Philosophy of the Unconscious. 
 
 HEAD, DR. Brain, Vol. 16. 
 
 HERMAN, G. Diseases of Women. 
 
 HODGSON, SHADWORTH H. Proceedings Aristotelian Society, 
 
 HOLLAND, SIR H. Medical Notes and Reflections. 
 
 HOLLAND, SIR H. Mental Physiology. 
 
 HOLMES, O. W. Medical Essays. 
 
 How the Body affects the Mind. H. SIMPSON. 
 
 HUDSON, T. S. The Law of Psychic Phenomena. 
 
 Humanitarian, 1895. 
 
 HUXLEY, T. Lay Sermons. 
 
 Hypnotic Appreciation of Time. DR. M. BRAMWBLL. 
 
 Hypnotism. BRAID. 
 
 Hypnotism. E. HART. 
 
 HYSLOP, DB. British Medical Journal, 1899. 
 
 Influence of the Mind on the Body. DR. H. TUKB.
 
 288 THE FOECE OP MIND 
 
 JAMES, W. Physiology. 
 
 JAMBS, W. Principles of Physiology. 
 
 JONES, DB. 0. H. Functional Nerve Disease 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, Life of. 
 
 KCHNB, Louis. New Science of Healing. 
 
 LADD, G. T. Physiological Psychology. 
 
 LADD, G. T. The Philosophy of Mind. 
 
 Lancet, 1855, 1873, 1879, 1880, 1883, 1885, 1888, 1889, 1892 
 
 1894, 1897, 1899. 
 
 LANE, DB. ABBUTHNOT. British Medical Journal, 1896. 
 Law of Psychic Phenomena. T. J. HUDSON. 
 LAYCOCK, DB. T. The Mind and Brain. 
 LAYCOCK, DB. T. Reflex Cerebration. 
 LAYCOCK, DB. T. Nervous Diseases of Women. 
 Lay Sermons. T. HUXLEY. 
 LAZABUS, PBOF. Das Leben der Seele. 
 Lectures by SIB G. PAGET. 
 LEWES, G. H. Problems of Life and Mind. 
 LEWES, G. H. Physiology of Common Life. 
 Life of Sir J. Paget. PAGET. 
 Life of Charles Kingsley. 
 Life of Father Chiniquy. 
 MAETEBLINCK. The Life of the Bee. 
 MARSH, SIB H. Dublin Quarterly Review, Vol. 44. 
 Materia Medica and Therapeutics. DB. PEBBIBA. 
 MAUDSLEY, DB. H. Mind and Body. 
 MAUDSLBY, DB. H. The Physiology of Mind. 
 MAYO, DB. T. J. On Therapeutic Forces. 
 Medical Education. SIB W. GAIBDNBB. 
 Medical Essays. 0. W. HOLMES. 
 Medical Essays. DB. J. H. SEALY. 
 Medical Inquiries. DB. B. RUSH. 
 Medical Notes and Reflections. SIB H. HOLLAND. 
 Medical Pathology. DB. H. G. SUTTON. 
 Medical Times, 1872. 
 Medicine and Mind. DB. DE FLEUBY. 
 Mental Diseases. DB. GRIESINGBB. 
 Mental Physiology. DB. CABPENTEB. 
 Mental Physiology. SIB H. HOLLAND. 
 MKBCIEB, DB. C. Nervous System and the Mind.
 
 WRITERS AND WORKS ON THE SUBJECT 289 
 
 Mind, Vol. 6. 
 
 Mind and Body. DB. H. MAUDSLBI. 
 
 Mind and Body. J. GLEN. 
 
 Mind and Brain. DB. T. LAYCOCK. 
 
 Mind in Relation to Brain. DB. NOBLB. 
 
 MITCHELL, DB. S. WEIB. Fat and Blood, 
 
 MITCHELL, DB. S. WEIB. The Physician. 
 
 MITCHELL, DB. S. WBIB. Journal of American Medical 
 
 Association. 
 
 Modern Philosophy. BOWEN. 
 
 MOORE, DB. G. Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind. 
 MOORE, DB. G. The Power of the Soul. 
 MOBBISON, DR. A. Practitioner, 1892. 
 Nature and Art in Disease. SIB J. FOBBBS. 
 NEALB, DB. British Medical Journal, 1896. 
 Nervous Diseases of Women. DB. T. LAYCOCK. 
 Nervous System and the Mind. DB. C. MEBCiEBi 
 New Science of Healing. Louis KTJHNB. 
 NOBLE, D. Mind in Relation to Brain. 
 NOTHNAGEL, DB. Studies in Therapeutics. 
 On the Use of the Will for Health. SIB J. PAGB* 
 OBMEBOD, DB. Allbutt's System of MedicvM. 
 Our Temperaments. S. STEWABT. 
 OWEN, DB. Lancet, 1892. 
 PAGET. Life of Sir James Paget. 
 PAGET, SIB GEORGE. Lectures. 
 
 PAGET, SIB JAMES. On the Use of the Witt for Health. 
 PAGET, SIR JAMES. Studies of Old Cases. 
 Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria. DB, B. CABTBB. 
 PEBEIBA, DB. Materia Medica and Therapeutics. 
 PETBEN, KABL. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur NervenheiUcu*d, 
 
 Bd. xvii. 
 
 Philosophy of Mental Healing. DB. WHIPPLE. 
 Philosophy of Mind. PBOF. G. T. LADD. 
 Philosophy of the Unconscious. ED. VON HABTMANH. 
 Physician a Naturalist. SIR W. GAIBDNHB, 
 Physician, The. DB. S. W. MITCHELL. 
 Physiology. W. JAMES. 
 Physiology. SIB M. FOSTEB. 
 Physiology of Common Life. G. H. LEWES. 
 
 of
 
 290 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Physiology of Mind. DR. H. MAUDSLBY. 
 
 Physiological Psychology. G. T. LADD. 
 
 Physiological Psychology. DR. WUNDT. 
 
 PLATO. Republic. 
 
 PLAYFAIR, DR. British Medical Journal, 1888. 
 
 Power of the Mind over the Body. A. BAIN. 
 
 Power of the Mind over the Body. BEARD. 
 
 Power of the Soul. DR. G. MOORB. 
 
 Practical Symptoms of Cutaneous Diseases. DE. BATEMA>, 
 
 Practitioner, Vol. 34, 1892. 
 
 PRINCE, DR. MORTON. Journal of Nervous Diseases, Bost a, 
 
 1891. 
 
 Principles of Psychology. W. JAMES. 
 Problems of Life and Mind. G. H. LEWBS. 
 Proceedings of Aristotelian Society. 
 Proverbs of King Solomon. 
 Psychological Enquiries. SIR B. BRODH. 
 Psychological Essays. T. WHITTAKEB. 
 Psychological Physiology. R. DUNN. 
 Psychological Problems. C. EI.AM. 
 Quain's Dictionary of Medicine. 
 Reflex Cerebration. DR. T. LAYCOCK. 
 Relations of the Mind and Brain. PROF. CALDERWOOD. 
 BBNNIE, DR. G. E. British Medical Journal, 1901. 
 Republic, The. PLATO. 
 RICHARDSON, SIR B. W. Discourses. 
 RICHARDSON, SIR B. W. The Study of Diseato. 
 RICHARDSON, SIR B. W. The Asclepiad. 
 ROBERTSON, DR. Lancet, 1894. 
 ROMANES, G. Animal Intelligence. 
 RUSH, DR. B. Medical Inquiries. 
 SANSOM, DR. Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine 
 SCHOFIELD, DR. A. T. The Unconscious Mvnd. 
 SCHOFIELD, DR. A. T. The Springs of Character, 
 SCHOFIELD, DR. A. T. Lancet, 1894. 
 SCHOFIELD, DR. A. T. On Faith-Healing. 
 Science and Health. MRS. M. B. EDDY. 
 SEALY, DR. J. H. Medical Essays. 
 SEMON, SIR F. British Medical Journal, 1901. 
 SHARPS, DR. GORDON. Lancet, 1894.
 
 WRITERS AND WORKS ON THE SUBJECT 291 
 
 SHOEMAKER, DR. Therapeutics. 
 
 SIMPSON, H. How the Body affects the Mind. 
 
 Simulation of Hysteria. DR. T. BUZZARD. 
 
 Sketches from the Case-book. DR. E. FLETCHER. 
 
 SMITH, DR. PYE. British Medical Journal, 1897. 
 
 SNOW, DR. Lancet, 1880. 
 
 SOLOMON, KINO. Proverbs of. 
 
 SPENCER, HERBERT. First Principles of Psychology. 
 
 Springs of Character. DR. A. T. SCHOFIELD. 
 
 STEWART, S. Our Temperaments. 
 
 Studies of Old Cases. SIR JAMES PAQBT. 
 
 Studies in Therapeutics. NOTHNAGBL. 
 
 Studies in Hysteria. DR. BREUER. 
 
 Studies in Hysteria. DR. FREUD. 
 
 Study of Disease. SIR B. W. RICHARDSON. 
 
 Sub-conscious Self. DR. WALDSTEIN. 
 
 Suggestion in Therapeutics. PROF. BERNHBDC. 
 
 BUTTON, DR. H. G. Medical Pathology. 
 
 System of Medicine. DR. C. ALLBUTT. 
 
 Text-book of Medicine. DR. GIBSON. 
 
 Therapeutic Forces, On. DR. T. J. MAYO. 
 
 TJierapeutics. DR. SHOEMAKER. 
 
 TREVES, SIR F. British Medical Journal, 1898. 
 
 TUKE, DR. H. Dictionary of Psychological Medicine. 
 
 TUKE, DR. H. The Influence of tlie Mind on the Body. 
 
 Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine. VAN NOORDEN. 
 
 Unconscious Mind. DR. A. T. SCHOFIELD. 
 
 Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind. DR. G. MOORB. 
 
 Use of tJie Witt for Health. SIR J. PAOET. 
 
 VAN NOORDEN. Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine. 
 
 WALDSTEIN, DR. The Sub-conscious Self. 
 
 WHIPPLE, DR. Philosophy of Mental Healing. 
 
 WHITE, DR. T. Mind, Vol. 6. 
 
 WHITTAKBR, T. Psychological Essays. 
 
 WILKINSON, DR. Lancet, 1897. 
 
 WILKS, SIR S. Diseases of the Nervous System. 
 
 WILKS, SIR S. British Medical Journal, 1870. 
 
 WUNDT, DB. Physiological Psychology.
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 U.M. = unconscious mind 
 V.M.N. = tns medicatrix natures 
 
 ABDOMINAL hysterical tumours, 137 
 Accident exciting cause in hys- 
 teria, 136 
 
 Acland, Sir Henry, letter to, 2 
 Action of body on mind, 76 
 Action of conscious mind is small, 
 
 39 
 Action of mind in causing disease, 
 
 1-144; in curing disease, 147- 
 
 283 
 
 Action of U.M. is great, 39 
 Address, the inaugural, 190 
 
 altruistic note in, 190 
 Advance in current thought, 10 ; 
 
 in medicine one-sided, 9 ; real 
 
 and great, 10 
 ^Etiology of functional nerve 
 
 disease, 98-111 
 
 of hysteria, 112, 253 
 After cure in nerve disease, 251 
 Agnostic attitude of doctors, 154, 
 
 162 
 
 Aim of all evolution the cortex, 72 
 Alienist, priest, philosopher, 20 
 Allbutt, Dr. C., on nervous system, 
 
 106 
 
 on neurasthenics, 104, 106 
 All-round doctor, 
 Alteratives break habits, 222 
 Amazing picture, an, 3 
 Amblyopia, hysterical, 138 
 America and neurasthenics, 104 
 Anaemia, mental origin, 83 
 Anaesthesia and hysteria, 185 
 hysterical, 128 
 
 Anasarca, mental origin, 88 
 
 Ancients and U.M., 87 
 
 Answer to 'Brit. Med. Jour.,' book 
 
 written as, vii 
 Antiquity of mental therapeutics, 
 
 181 
 
 Aphasia, hysterical, 138 
 Aphonia, hysterical, 258 
 Arcellffl, action of, 27 
 Aristotelian consciousness, 85 
 Aristotle on mind, 37 
 Art of healing depends on, 172 
 Artists and U.M., 60 
 Assertion, force of, 4 
 Assets of a physician, 23 
 Atheroma, mental origin, 88 
 Australian ants, 29 
 Automata, conscious, 34 
 
 BACON, Sir F., on mind and body, 70 
 Bad suggestions must be removed, 
 
 229 
 
 Bain on value of cortex, 50 
 Balancing and vertigo, 59 
 Barrett, Prof., on stigmata, 62 
 
 on unconscious impressions, 
 
 117 ; on U.M., 61 
 Barristers and dyspepsia, 84 
 Bastian, Dr. 0., on psychology, 38 
 
 on U.M., 40 
 Beard, Dr., on mental therapeutic!, 
 
 185 
 on symptoms of neurasthenia, 
 
 109 
 Bed rest in neurasthenia, 247
 
 294 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Bigi, Dr., on gastric ulcer, 139 
 Bell and hall-door, 119, 132 
 Bennet, Prof., and D.M., 63 
 Bernheim, Prof., on hysteria, 126 
 
 on hysterical retention, 139 
 Bias in book explained, viii 
 Biener, Prof., on secondary con- 
 sciousness, 125 
 
 Binet, Dr., on faith-healing, 198 
 Biography of Sir James Paget, 1 
 Blood-vessels and U.M., 65 
 Blushing, 56 
 
 Body and mind connected in 
 melancholy, 9 
 
 a unity, 33 
 
 controlled by cortex, 49 
 
 governing centre of, 49 
 
 intelligence in, 174 
 
 not a syndicate, 38 
 
 on mind, action of, 76 
 
 organs and the Bible, 49 
 
 mental states, 49 
 
 organ of mind, 48 
 
 safety-valve in, 176 
 
 spirit, soul, 20 
 Boers in Africa, 6 
 Bold quack, power of, 4 
 Book, bias in, explained, viii 
 
 is answer to ' Brit. Med. Jour.' 
 vii 
 
 innumerable quotations in, ix 
 
 omission in, ix 
 
 reason for writing it, 272 
 
 summary of, 277-282 
 
 why chosen, 44 
 
 Books, none on therapeutics, 181 
 Bowen, Professor, on mental fac- 
 tor, 192 
 
 Brain seat of all sensations, 118 
 Bramwell, Dr., on hypnotism, 206 
 Breuer and Freud, Drs.,on hysteria, 
 
 134 
 
 Briquet on hysteria, 126 
 British Army hi Africa, 6 
 British Medical Association and 
 
 psychology, 8 
 
 ' British Medical Journal ' on men- 
 tal therapeutics, 163 ; on mind 
 influence, 11 
 Brodie, Sir B., on mental factor, 18 
 
 Browne, Sir J. C., on mental factor, 
 17,18 
 
 on success, 21 
 
 Bruce, Dr. M., on V.M.N., 172, 176 
 Brunton, SirLauder, on V.M.N., 179 
 Burton on faith-healing, 197 
 Bury, Dr., on functional and 
 
 organic diseases, 130 
 Buzzard, Dr., on hysteria, 126 
 on hysterical symptoms, 255 
 on hysterical paraplegia, 268 
 
 CALCULUS and mind, 88 
 
 Calderwood, Dr., on mind and 
 body, 19 
 
 Cancer and the mind, 88 
 Dr. Murchison on, 88 ; Dr. Snow 
 on, 88 ; Sir George Paget on, 88 
 
 Carpenter, Dr., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 201 
 
 Carter, Dr. A. H., on mental 
 factor, 19 
 
 on V.M.N. 170 
 
 Carter, Dr. B. B., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 183 
 
 Cassiodorus on physician's person- 
 ality, 192 
 
 Castration, Dr. Clouston on, yl 
 
 Cathell, Dr., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 184 
 
 Cause of functional nerve disease, 
 98-111 
 
 Causes of neurasthenia, 106-108 
 of vitality of quackery, 151 
 
 Celsus on physician's personality, 
 193 
 
 Chaos in psychology, 33, 34 
 
 Chapters, review of, 277-282 
 
 Charm cures, 161 
 
 Charrin, Dr., on V.M.N., 177 
 
 Cheerful countenance, value of, 194 
 
 Chiniquy, Pastor, cured by saint, 218 
 
 Choice, evidence of, in Arcellffl, 28 
 
 Cholera and the mind, 89; Dr. 
 Stokes on, 89 
 
 Christian Science, 157 
 work of cure by, 202 
 and the senses, 70 
 what it is, 203 
 
 Church, Sir W. S., on V.M.N., 176
 
 INDEX OP SUBJECTS 
 
 295 
 
 Cinderella of medical sciences, 228 
 Circulation and U.M., 54 
 always changing, 54 
 Clark, Sir A., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 182 
 Classic frog, the, 26 
 Classification of disease, 224 
 Clergy care for entire man, 21 
 Clifford on conscious automata, 34 
 Clock in constipation, 217 
 in labour, 216 
 in the nursery, 217 
 therapeutic power of, 216 
 Clouston, Dr., on castration, 91 
 on hysteria, 99 
 on influenza, 90 
 on mental disease, 84 
 on mental therapeutics, 151, 
 
 184, 199 
 on mind and body, 19; in 
 
 disease, 72 ; cures, 165 
 on nervous diathesis, 102 
 on sound cortex, 96 
 on types of nerve disease, 103 
 on value of cortex, 50 
 Combining unity and superficial 
 
 diversity, 25 
 
 Common-sense talk, value of, 266 
 Conclusion, the practical, 270-283 
 Conflict over mind, 43 
 Conscience, seat of, 46 
 Conscious and unconscious vibra- 
 tions, 117 
 automata, 34 
 control, 86 
 
 effort not neuromimesis, 113 
 ends and unconscious begins, 
 
 53 
 
 mimicry is fraud, 114 
 mind cannot cause disease, 274 
 and hypnotism, 205 
 as the spectrum, 45 
 has little power, 274 
 power over heart, 61 
 
 indigestion, 52 
 kidneys, 52 
 lungs, 52 
 nervous sys- 
 tem, 53 
 mall action of, 39 
 
 Consciousness, no mind outside of 
 81 
 
 mind synonymous with, 35 
 Conscious psychologist, dilemma 
 of the, 32 
 
 realm, 51 
 
 Constipation, clock in, 217 
 Consultant, the ideal, 21 
 Controlling unity in the body, 32 
 Co-operation of doctor and nurse, 
 
 241 
 Cortex aim of all evolution, 72 
 
 and disease, 72 
 
 and mind, 73 
 
 and drug action, 152 
 
 body controlled by, 50 
 
 Dr. Clouston on value of, 50 
 
 of value, 50 
 
 Curative agent in Christian Science, 
 204 ; U.M., 162 
 
 mental qualities, 209 
 
 power of mind, illustrations of 
 211 
 
 qualities, Sir J. Forbes on, 209 
 Cures and the public, 150 
 
 at spas, 161 
 
 by charms, 161 
 
 by dogmatism, 154 
 
 by fright, 220 
 
 by idols, 161 
 
 by relics, 161 
 
 of headaches, 215 
 
 of hysterical tumours, 257 
 
 orthodox, 162 
 
 versus diagnosis, 4 
 
 DALE, Dr., on hysterical hydropho- 
 bia, 139 ; paralysis, 267 ; on 
 mental therapeutics, 184 ; on 
 nervous dyspepsia, 221 
 Dead material vitalised, 19 
 Death and hysteria, 140 
 caused by doctor, 96 
 from mental causes, 95; Dr. 
 Tuke on, 95 ; Dr. Walsh on, 
 95 
 
 Defeat and victory, 89 
 Definition of hypochondria, 105 
 of mind, Prof. James, 26
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 De Fleury on hysteria, 136 
 
 on mental therapeutics, 187 
 
 on mind and body, 21 
 
 on nerve doctors, 231 
 
 on slothful neuropaths, 106 
 Dependence of mind on body, 
 
 156 
 
 Descartes on mind, 37 
 Description of nervous diathesis, 
 
 103 
 
 Details, value of, 238 
 Diabetes of mental origin, 87 
 
 Sir B. W. Richardson on, 87 
 
 Van Noorden on, 87 
 Diagnosis by observation, 77 
 
 from face, 77 
 
 versus cure, 4 
 Diagnostic symptoms in hysteria, 
 
 130 
 
 Diaz, Dr., on hysteria, 136 
 Difference often fictitious, 68 
 Difficult suggestions useless, 230 
 Difficulty of mental therapeutics, 
 ' British Medical Journal ' on, 
 11,70 
 Digestion and mind, 85 
 
 and U.M., 56 
 
 power of C.M. over, 52 
 
 Y.M.N. in, 179 
 Digestive diseases, mental origin 
 
 of, 84 
 Dilemma of conscious psychology, 
 
 Direct suggestion by hypnotism, 
 
 276 ; by the doctor, 276 
 Discontinuance of nervous system, 
 
 43 
 
 Disease and cortex, 72 
 and temperament, 75 
 caused by manner, 270 
 cured by manner, 271 
 Disease, Dr. Laycock on physio- 
 gnomy of, 36 
 mental factor in, 80-97 
 of the imagination and imagi- 
 nary disease, 99, 100 
 produced by intellect, 81 
 resisted by V.M.N., 175 
 value of face in, 76 
 Diseased mind, psychology of, 8 
 
 Diseases, list of, cured by faith, 160 
 
 of circulation produced by 
 mind, 82 
 
 of heart produced by mind, 82 
 
 produced by emotion, 81 
 
 sympathetic origin, 82 
 
 worse at night, 74: 
 Disgust at irregular tactics, 6 
 Dislike of mental therapeutics, 148 
 Dislocated hip and hysteria, 267 
 Disseminated sclerosis and hys- 
 teria, 128 
 
 Diversity in unity, 12, 32 
 Drug action and cortex, 152 
 Drugs altered by mind, 211 
 
 empirical use of, 213 
 
 inert, 213 
 
 physical and psychic action, 
 211 
 
 Unzer on psychic action of , 2 12 
 
 value of, 164 
 
 Doctor and nurse, co-operation of, 
 241 
 
 and nursing home, 245 
 
 causes death, 96 
 
 cures as well as in dicine, 153 
 
 must be dogmatic, 243 
 
 personal value of, 22 
 Doctor's face, power of, 193, 210 
 
 interests, 190 
 
 mind, effect of, 186 
 Doctors, agnostic attitude of, 154, 
 
 162 
 
 Dogmatism cures, 154, 204 
 Double consciousness, question of, 
 38 
 
 ego, the, 38 
 Dualists or monists, 16 
 Dyspepsia, 84 
 
 hysterical, Dr. Ormerod on, 
 139 
 
 EBBINGHAUS on mind, 31 
 Eddy, ' Eev." Mary Baker, 157 
 Education and neurasthenia, 186 
 Effects of doctor's mind, 186 
 
 on cornea, Prof. Laycock 
 
 on, 174 ; on pairing, 92 
 on mind of day and night, 74 
 Ego, the double, 38
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 297 
 
 Eichhorst on hysteria, 126 
 Emotion, diseases produced by, 81 
 
 local expressions of, 53 
 
 on will, 53 
 
 Empirical use of drugs, 213 
 Equilibration, H. Spencer on law 
 
 of, 170 
 
 Essential unity of mind, 26 
 Every-day effects of mind on body, 
 
 Evidence of choice in ArcellsB, 28 
 Evil of false religion, 260 
 of fixed methods, 268 
 Exaggeration no proof of fraud, 255 
 Examples of U.M. in actions, 56 
 4 Exciting ' cause of book, vii 
 Existence and life, 51 
 Expectation, terms of, 101 
 
 FACE and U.M., 59 
 
 diagnosis from, 78 
 
 in disease, value of, 76 
 
 mind muscles of, 76 
 Faecal vomiting, mind and, 86 
 Faith cures, varieties of, 202 
 
 healing at home, 160; Binet 
 on, 198; Burton on, 197; 
 1 Lancet ' on, 198 ; no miracle, 
 198; Paracelsus on, 197; 
 review of, 196 
 
 itself does not cure, 198 
 
 heals subjectively, 197 
 False religion, evil of, 260 
 Family physician, value of, 195 
 Fear of the therapeutic agent, 210 
 Feeling and thinking, 120 
 Feelings and ideal centres, 121 
 Female deities in medicine, 38 
 Few reasoners, many observers, 16 
 Fiction in maps, 68 
 Fight for Hygiene, 282 
 Finger, pain in the little, 119 
 Firmness in treatment, 236 
 Fixed methods bad, 268 
 Flourens' hens and Voit's pigeons, 
 27 
 
 on psychic acts, 27 
 Forbes, Sir John, on mental thera- 
 peutics, 185 
 
 Force o assertion, 4 
 
 of mind, no lectures on, 13; 
 the, 1-24; very small in 
 many diseases, vili 
 Foster, Sir M., on the frog, 26 
 Four reasons for dislike of mental 
 
 therapeutics, 12 
 types of nerve disease, 103 
 Fright, cures by, 220 
 Frog, the classic, 25 
 
 Sir M. Foster on, 26 
 Function and organic disease, Dr. 
 Bury on, 130; symptoms, Dr. 
 Kennie on, 129 
 
 Functional disease, mental thera- 
 peutics in, 225-232 
 nerve disease, causes of, 98 ; 
 ignorance about, 99; and 
 malingering, 226 ; maltreat- 
 ment of, 225 ; recently re- 
 cognised, 98 ; symptoms of, 
 98 ; treatment of, 232-252 
 and organic, 68-70 
 diseases have organic basis, 
 
 101 
 
 what is it ? 159 
 neurasthenia, symptoms of, 
 98-111 
 
 GALEN and mind, 37 
 Ganglionic centres, psychism in, 29 
 Gastric ulcer, Dr. Bigi on, 139 
 General view of psycho-pathology, 
 
 67 
 
 Genuine cure by quacks, 154 
 German band and U.M., 57 
 Germany, prayer-healing in, 201 
 Gibert, Dr., on mental therapeu- 
 tics, 221 
 
 Gibson, Dr., on treatment of hys- 
 teria, 261 
 
 Gift of healing, 189 
 Gliddon, Dr., on mental therapeu- 
 tics, 181 
 
 Gout and mind, Sydenham on, 221 
 Governing centre is mental, 49 ; of 
 
 body, 49 
 
 Granville, Dr., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 183
 
 298 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Graves' disease, Dr. Lys on, 90 
 Gravitation, law of, 25 
 Great men and neuropaths, 101 
 Growth and the V.M.N., 173 
 
 HEMOPTYSIS, Dr. Sweetzer on, 84 
 
 Hair and U.M., 61 
 
 Hall-door and bell, 119-132 
 
 Hand-made cures versus machine- 
 made, 242 
 
 Hands, sensation in, 116 
 
 Harness's belts, 223 
 
 Hartmann on U.M., 43 
 
 Hay fever and U.M., 58 
 
 Headache, cure of, 215 
 
 Healing, gift of, 189 
 
 Health, science and, 157 
 
 Hearing and U.M., 64 
 
 Heart and mind, Huchard on, 82 
 
 and U.M., 54 
 disease cured by loss of reason, 
 
 214 
 
 power of conscious mind over, 
 51 
 
 Hens and pigeons, 27 
 
 Herbert Spencer on law of equi- 
 libration, 170 ; on mind and 
 matter, 17 
 
 Hereditary nerves, 102 
 
 Herman, Dr., on hysteria, 113, 124 
 on nerves and mind, 82 
 
 Hippocrates on V.M.N., 176 
 
 Hodgson, Prof., on consciousness 
 and mind, 35 
 
 Hoffding, Prof., on U.M., 36 
 
 Holmes, Dr., effect of U.M. on 
 
 Holmes, Prof. 0. W., on V.M.N., 175 
 Homes, faith-healing, 160 
 
 nursing, 245 
 Homoeopathy, 159 
 Honesty hi treatment, 238 
 Hospitals ignore mental therapeu- 
 tics, 13 
 
 Huchard, Dr., on mind and heart, 82 
 Hughes, Prof., on conscious auto- 
 mata, 34 
 
 Hunter's (Dr. J.) stratagem, 229 
 Hydropathy, 159 
 
 Hygiene, fight for, 282 
 Hypnotism and conscious mind, 
 205 
 
 and memory, 206 
 Dr. Bramwell on, 206 
 faith cures better than, 205 
 not successful in cure, 265 
 physical phenomena in, 208 
 sense of time, 207 
 Hypochondria, definition of, 105 
 
 not neurasthenia, 105 
 Hysteria, accident an exciting cause 
 
 in, 136 
 
 a disease of the U.M., 113 
 aetiology of, 112 
 and anaesthesia, 135 
 and Babinski's phenomenon, 
 
 131 
 
 and death, 140 
 and diagnostic signs hi, 130 
 and digestion, 139 
 and dislocated hip, 267 
 and disseminated sclerosis, 
 
 128 
 
 and inhibition, 127 
 and insanity, 98 
 and malingering, 114 
 and necrosis, 140 
 and organic disease, 127 
 and paralysis agitans, 141 
 and sensation, 141 
 and special senses, 138 
 and structural change, 130 
 and urinary system, 139 
 Dr. Bernheim on, 126 
 Drs. Breuer and Freud on, 
 
 134 
 
 Dr. Briquet on, 126 
 Dr. Buzzard on, 126 
 Dr. Clouston on, 99 
 Dr. de Fleury on, 136 
 Dr. Diaz on, 136 
 Dr. Rennie on, 118 
 Dr. Whipple on, 137 
 ideogenic symptoms of, 133 
 illustrations of, 132-143 
 in ill-balanced brains, 254 
 in narrowed consciousness, 
 
 115 
 is not shamming, 99
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 299 
 
 Hysteria, mental cause of, 133 
 
 mind often not normal in, 
 
 134 
 
 never voluntary, 113 
 often obscures diagnosis, 129 
 origin of, 132 
 partly physical, 124 
 phenomena of, 132-143 
 predisposing cause of, 133 
 Prof. Eichhorst on, 126 
 Prof. Janet on, 124 
 sexual element in, 138 
 Sir James Paget on the name, 
 
 115 
 
 symptoms of, 135 
 the process in, 116 
 therapeutics of, 253-259 
 use of word, 112 
 Hysterical abdominal swellings, 
 
 256 
 
 aphasia, 138 
 aphonia, 258 
 
 dyspepsia, Dr. Ormerod on, 139 
 hydrophobia, Dr. Dale on, 189 
 paralysis, 128-140, 255 
 spasm of gullet, 258 
 tumours, 137, 256 
 vomiting, 258 
 
 IDEA, paralysis by, 141 
 
 Ideal centres and feelings, 121 
 
 consultants, 21 
 
 cures from ideal centres, 230 
 Ideas, sensation from, 122 
 Ideogenic symptoms of hysteria, 
 
 133 
 
 Idol cures, 161 
 Ignorance about functional nerve 
 
 disease, 99, 100 
 
 Ignorance revealed by language, 68 
 Illustrations of curative power of 
 mind, 211-224 
 
 of hysteria, 133 
 
 of V.M.N., 174, 177 
 Imaginary diseases and diseases of 
 
 the imagination, 99, 100 
 Immunity, V.M.N. in, 180 
 Importance of U.M., 39 
 
 of the mental factor, 17 
 
 Impressive means, value of, 232 
 
 Impressions, prenatal, 94 
 
 Inaugural addresses, 190 
 
 Incessant adjustment of circula- 
 tion, 55 
 
 Index of resistance to disease, 171 
 
 Indirect agents of cure, value of, 
 264 
 
 Indirect suggestions, 248 
 
 Inert drugs, 213 
 
 Infectious diseases and mind, 89 
 
 Influenza, Dr. Clouston on, 90 
 
 Inner chamber of mental thera- 
 peutics, 187 
 
 Innumerable quotations in book, 
 ix 
 
 Insanity and hysteria, 98 
 
 from fright, Dr. Tuke on, 141 
 
 Instinct is unconscious mind, 30 
 
 Intellect, diseases produced by, 81 
 emotions and will, 53 
 
 Interaction of mind and body, 101 
 of physical and psychic, 76 
 
 Interests of doctors, 190 
 
 Intermittent pulse, Sir B. W. 
 Richardson on, 54 
 
 Invalids and motor cars, 153 
 
 Irish car, medical progress re- 
 sembles, 10 
 
 Irrational and rational ideas, 250 
 
 Irritant, U.M. a real, 43 
 
 Isolation in cure of neurasthenia, 
 247 
 
 JAMES, Prof., definition of mind, 
 
 26 
 
 on psychology, 33 
 on unconscious impressions, 
 
 117 
 
 on U.M., 86 
 
 Janet, Prof., on hysteria, 124 
 Judgment not clear at night, 76 
 Jugglery, medical, 5 
 
 KIDNEY disease, mental origin of, 
 
 87 
 
 power of conscious mind over, 
 52
 
 300 
 
 THE FOKCE OP MIND 
 
 LABOUR and the clock, 216 
 
 Ladd, Prof., on psychic force, 48 ; 
 
 on reality of mind, 16 
 Lancet ' on faith-healing, 198 ; on 
 
 mental factor, 192; on mental 
 
 therapeutics, 185, 201 
 Language reveals ignorance, 68 
 Latent interval in reflexes, 42 
 Law of gravitation, 25 
 Laycock, Dr., on effect of mind on 
 
 cornea, 174 ; on physiognomy of 
 
 disease, 76 
 
 Lazarus, Prof., on the U.M., 44 
 Lectures, none on force of mind, 13 
 Letter from Sir J. Paget, 1 ; value 
 
 of, 7 
 
 on mental therapeutics, 149 
 to Sir H. Acland, 2 
 Life and existence, 51 
 List of diseases cured by faith, 160 
 
 of hysterical symptoms, 135 
 Liver and the mind, 85 
 
 disease and mind, Dr. Mur- 
 
 chison on, 221 
 
 Livy on mental therapeutics, 182 
 Local expressions of emotion, 54 
 Loss of reason and heart disease, 
 
 214 
 
 Louise Lateau and U.M., 61 
 Lourdes, 159 
 
 Lowe, Dr., on mind in pairing, 92 
 Lung diseases of mental origin, 83 
 Lungs, power of conscious mind 
 
 over, 52 
 Lys, Dr. G., on Graves' disease, 90 ; 
 
 on mind and disease, 80 
 
 MACHINES, men treated as, 14 
 Macpherson, Dr., on psychology, 33 
 Maeterlinck on protozoa, 29 
 Malingering and functional nerve 
 disease, 226 
 
 and hysteria, 99 
 Maltreatment of functional nerve 
 
 disease, 225 
 Man as a whole, 21 
 Manner as a cause of disease, 270 
 
 as a cure of disease, 271 
 
 in medicine, 189 
 
 ' Man ' specialist required, 15 
 Many observers, few reasoners, 16 
 Maps, fiction in, 68 
 Matteism, 159 
 
 Maudsley, Dr., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 183 ; on U.M., 35 
 Meaning of V.M.N., 168 
 Mechanical, medicine is not, 153 
 theories and vital action, 34 
 Medical jugglery, 5 
 mind of 1866, 2 
 neglect encourages quackery, 
 
 18 
 
 philosophy out of fashion, 10 
 progress like Irish car, 10 
 science, the Cinderella of, 228 
 ' Medical Times ' on mental factor, 
 
 191 ; on psychic force, 48 
 Medicine, advance in, real and 
 
 great, 10 
 
 altruistic note in, 190 
 freed from pseudo-psychology, 
 
 9 
 
 manner in, 189 
 not mechanical, 153 
 one-sided advance in, 9 
 philosophy, theology, 20 
 system of deficient, 13 
 the weak spot in, 272 
 Memory and hypnotism, 206 
 
 power of, 118 
 
 Mental action in spinal disease, 29 
 causes of hysteria, 133 
 curative qualities, 209 
 diseases, Dr. Clouston on, 84 
 factor determines nerve dis- 
 ease, 102 
 
 Dr. H. Tuke on, 18 
 importance of, 17 
 in disease, 80-97 
 in nerve disease, 69 
 Lancet ' on, 192-201 
 Medical Times' on, 
 
 191 
 plays small part in 
 
 disease, 69 
 Prof. Bowen on, 192 
 Sir B. Brodie on, 18 
 Sir J. C. Browne on, 
 18, 191
 
 INDEX OP SUBJECTS 
 
 301 
 
 Mental factor ubiquitous, 69 
 
 value of, to physician, 
 
 191 
 
 Mental influence, Dr. de Fleury 
 on, 194 
 
 Dr. Eush on, 194 
 Mental origin of anaemia, 83 
 
 of anasarca, 83 
 
 of atheroma, 83 
 
 of dyspepsia, 84 
 
 of jaundice, 84 
 
 of kidney disease, 84 
 
 of lung disease, 84 
 
 of vomiting, 85 
 Mental senses other than sight, 36 
 
 shock and reflex pain, 90 
 
 state at night peculiar, 74 
 
 states and body organs, 49 
 
 strain and nerve disease, 107 
 
 Sir J. Paget on, 107 
 Mental therapeutics, and success, 
 21 
 
 antiquity of, 101 
 
 Brit. Med. Journ.' on, 163; 
 on difficulty of, 11, 70 
 
 dislike of, 148 
 
 Dr. Affleck on, 186 
 
 Dr. Beard on, 185 
 
 Dr. E. B. Carter on, 183 
 
 Dr. Cathell on, 184 
 
 Dr. Clouston on, 99, 151, 184 
 
 Dr. Dale on, 184 
 
 Dr. de Fleury on, 181 
 
 Dr. Gibert on, 221 
 
 Dr. Granville on, 183 
 
 Dr. Maudsley on, 183 
 
 Dr. Morrison on, 182, 187 
 
 Dr. A. T. Myers on, 200 
 
 Dr. Playfair on, 183 
 
 Dr. Bx)bertson on, 184 
 
 Dr. J. H. Sealy on, 186 
 
 Dr. Shoemaker on, 184 
 
 Dr. H. Tuke on, 185 
 
 four reasons for dislike of, 12 
 
 and functional nerve diseases, 
 225-232 
 
 inner chamber of, 87 
 
 ' Lancet ' on, 185 
 
 letter on, 149 
 
 methods of, 195 
 
 Mental therapeutics, neglected in 
 practice, 14; in teaching, 13 
 
 no book on, 181 
 
 not in text-books, 200 
 
 not jugglery, 6 
 
 Sir A. Clarke on, 182 
 
 Sir John Forbes on, 185 
 
 Sir S. Wilks on, 184 
 
 varieties of, 190-210 
 Men treated as machines, 14 
 Metabolism and morbid minds 16 
 
 in U.M., 60 
 Metaphysical healing by Christian 
 
 Methods of cure in neurasthenia, 
 242 
 
 of indirect suggestion, 275 
 
 of mental therapeutics, 295 
 Mimicry, conscious, is fraud, 114 
 
 neuromimesis more than, 142 
 Mind and body, always interact, 
 101 
 
 connected in melancholy, 9 
 
 Dr. Calderwood on, 19 
 
 Dr. Clouston on, 19 
 
 Dr. de Fleury on, 20 
 
 Dr. B. Bush on, 47 
 
 killed by overwork, 96, 114 
 
 like coupled dogs, 167 
 
 Prof. Gairdner on, 20 
 
 Sir F. Bacon on, 70 
 
 the organs of, 49 
 Mind and, calculus, 88 
 
 cancer, 88 ; Dr. Snow on, 88 
 
 cholera, 89 
 
 cortex, 73 
 
 digestive canal, 85 
 
 faecal vomiting, 86 
 
 heart, Dr. Huchard on, 82 
 
 infectious diseases, 89 
 
 matter, Herbert Spencer on, 
 17 
 
 matter, Spinoza on, 31 
 
 motion, 50 
 
 nerve diseases, 239 
 
 nutrition, 73 
 
 scurvy, 89 
 
 sensation, 49 
 
 skin secretions, 89 
 
 surgical operations, 221
 
 302 
 
 THE FORCE OF MIND 
 
 Mind and, the liver, 86 
 the urine, 88 
 tumours, 88 
 uterine disease, 91 
 Mind, Aristotle on, 37 
 
 as cause and cure of disease, 
 
 148 
 
 below the protozoa, 29 
 body and morals, 78 
 causes, death from, 95 
 conflict about, 43 
 cures, Dr. Clouston on, 165; 
 
 liver disease, 221; not 
 
 limited to function, 164 
 definition of, Prof. James's, 26 
 Descartes on, 37 
 disease of heart produced by, 
 
 82 
 
 drugs altered by, 211 
 effects of day and night on, 
 
 74 
 
 essential unity of, 26, 42 
 force of, very small in many 
 
 diseases, viii 
 illustrations of curative power 
 
 of, 211 
 
 in cholera, Dr. Stokes on in- 
 fluence of, 89 
 includes U.M. action, 40 
 disease, Dr. Clouston on, 72 ; 
 
 Dr. Goodbart on, 71; Dr. 
 
 Bennie on, 71 ; Sir J. Paget 
 
 on, 71 
 influence, ' Brit. Med. Journ.' 
 
 on, 11 
 in pairing, Dr. Lowe on, 92 ; 
 
 Dr. Neale on, 93 
 in spinal disease, 222 
 Maudsley on unconscioua, 85 
 muscles of the face, 76 
 not confined to consciousness, 
 
 35 
 not limited to what we see, 
 
 36 
 
 not threefold, 40 
 not twofold, 41 
 Mind ' of Galen, 37 
 Mind often not normal in hysteria, 
 
 134 
 of the physician, 22 
 
 Mind on body, dependence of, 156 ; 
 every-day effects of, 74 ; 
 threefold action of, 47, 67 
 reversed peristalsis, 85 
 Bibot on unconscious, 35 
 synonymous with conscious- 
 ness, 35 
 
 unity of, 25, 40, 46 
 what is it? 30 
 White on, 42 
 
 Mitchell, Dr., on cure of neur- 
 asthenia, 249 
 
 Mixed motives, the valne of, 191 
 Models and U.M., 60 
 Modern physiologies purely scien- 
 tific, 12 
 
 Monists or dualists, 16 
 Morals, mind, and body, 78 
 Morbid minds and metabolism, 16 
 Morrison, Dr. A., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 182, 187 
 Motion and mind, 50 
 Motor cars and invalids, 153 
 Murchison, Dr., on liver disease, 
 
 221 ; on minr and cancer, 88 
 Murderers and the U.M., 57 
 Muscles and spurs, 211 
 and U.M., 58 
 striped and unstriped, 59 
 voluntary and U.M., 59 
 Myers, Dr. A. T., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 200 
 
 NAME needed for psychic force, 31 
 Narrowed consciousness in hys- 
 teria, 115 
 ' Nature ' and ' physiology ' useless 
 
 names, 32 
 
 Nature's therapeutics, 180 
 Nauseous ' gums,' Dr. B. Beynolda 
 
 on, 230 
 
 Neale, Dr., on mind in pairing, 93 
 Necrosis and hysteria, 140 
 Neglect, treatment by, 229, 267 
 Nelson's arm and U.M., 59 
 Nerve and mind disease, 239 
 cures, Dr. Playfair on, 231 
 disease after cure, 251 
 disease and mental strain, 107
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 303 
 
 Nerve disease determined by men- 
 tal factor, 102 
 disease, four types of, 103 ; 
 
 mental factor in, 69 ; Sir 
 
 B. W. Kichardson on, 80 
 doctor, De Fleury on, 231 
 nurse follows doctor's lead, 
 
 277 
 
 nurse hard to find, 244 
 or muscular system, are there 
 
 two ? 244 
 
 sufferers much wronged, 226 
 Nervous diathesis, Clouston on, 
 
 102 
 
 diathesis described, 103 
 dyspepsia, Dr. Dale on, 287 
 system, Dr. Allbutt on, 106; 
 
 discontinuance of, 43 ; pain 
 
 and cure over, 53 
 Neurasthenia, 104 
 
 a distinct disease, 104 
 
 and education, 106 
 
 and Noah's dove, 104 
 
 and sexual excesses, 10 
 
 and society, 107 
 
 causes of, 106, 108 
 
 cure, details of, 246 
 
 Dr. Beard on, 109 
 
 Dr. Mitchell Bruc on cure of, 
 
 249 
 Dr. Herman on symptoms of, 
 
 109 
 
 Dr. Karl Petren on, 107 
 isolation in cure of, 247 
 methods of cure, 242 
 not hypochondria, 104 
 physical factor in, 109 
 prophylaxis in, 252 
 varieties of, 105 
 
 Neurasthenics and America, 104 
 and France, 104 
 Dr, Allbutt on, 106 
 three classes of, 105 
 Neuron? imesis and the U.M., 123, 
 
 125 
 is unconscious mimicry, 115, 
 
 134 
 
 more than mimicry, 142 
 not conscious effort, 113 
 not shamming, 113 
 
 Neuromimesis, Sir J. Paget on, 125 
 
 symptoms of, 135 
 Neuropaths and great men, 101 
 Neuroses and heredity, 102 
 New classification of disease, 224 
 
 fields of study, 273 
 
 name for U.M., 126 
 
 nomenclature needed, 143 
 
 text-books, 274 
 Night, diseases worse in, 74 
 Nitrogen and suggestion, 228 
 Noah's dove and neurasthenia, 104 
 No mind outside of consciousness, 
 
 31 
 
 No miracle in faith-healing, 198 
 ' Not the body, but the man is ill,' 
 
 15 
 
 Nurse and doctor, co-operation of, 
 241 
 
 cured by will power, 219 
 Nursery and the clock, 217 
 Nurses and neurasthenia, 244 
 Nursing homes, 245; and doctors, 
 
 245 
 Nutrition and mind, 73 
 
 and the V.M.N., 173 
 
 OBSERVATION and diagnosis, 77 
 
 and stethoscope, 77 
 Omission in book, ix 
 Organic and functional, 68, 70 
 
 and functional disease, 129 
 
 change and pain, 134 
 
 disease and hysteria, 127 ; 
 
 have functional basis, 101 
 Organism, Dr. Gharrin on defences 
 of, 177 
 
 selective action of, 174 
 Origin of hysteria, 132 
 Ormerod, Dr., on hysteria, 92, 124 
 
 on hysterical dyspepsia, 139 
 Orthodox cures, 162 
 Over education and hysteria, 255 
 Overwork and wranglers, 96 
 
 kills mind and body, 96 
 
 FACET, Sir George, on mind in 
 cancer, 88
 
 304 
 
 THE FOECE OF MIND 
 
 Paget, Sir James, biography, 1 
 letter from, 1 
 on mental strain, 107 
 on mind in disease, 71 
 on neuromimesis, 113, 125 
 on the word 'hysteria,' 
 
 115 
 
 Pain and organic changes, 134 
 and the mind, 214 
 in little finger, 119 
 Pairing, effects of mind in, 192 
 Paracelsus on faith-healing, 197 
 Paradox of quackery, 154 
 Paralysis agitans and hysteria, 
 141 ; paralysis by idea, 141 ; 
 hysterical, 128, 140, 253; Dr. 
 Dale on, 267 
 
 Paraplegia, Dr. Buzzard on, 265 
 hysterical treatment of, 265 
 Par6, Ambrose, on V.M.N., 176 
 Patience, value of, 235 
 Peculiar mental state at night, 75 
 Peristalsis reversed by mind, 85 
 Perseverance, value of, 235 
 Personal value of the doctor, 22 
 Petren, Dr. Karl, on neurasthenia, 
 
 107 
 Pharynx, conscious control ceases 
 
 at, 87 
 
 Phenomena of hysteria, 132-143 
 Philosopher, priest, and alienist, 20 
 Philosophy, theology, and medicine, 
 
 20 
 
 Physical and psychic action of 
 drugs, 212 ; interaction, 76 
 aspect in U.M., 62 
 in neurasthenia, 109 
 phenomena, hypnotism, 288 
 side of hysteria, 124 
 Physician's assets, a, 23 
 mind, the, 22 
 
 personality, Cassiodorus on, 
 192 ; Celsus on, 192 ; Dr. 
 O. W. Holmes on, 193 ; 
 Dr. Sealy on, 188 ; Dr. Or. 
 Sharp on, 187 ; Dr. H. G. 
 Button on, 188 
 
 Physicians not confined to physic, 9 
 Physiognomy of disease, J)r. Lay- 
 cock on, 76 
 
 Physiology and female doctors, 38 
 and Hippocrates, 37 
 and nature, useless names, 32 
 Picture of the U.M., 44 
 Pigeons and hens, 27 
 Pious deceptions, Sir F. Semon on, 
 
 263 
 
 Placebos, Sir F. Semon on, 262 
 Playfair, Dr., on mental therapeu- 
 tics, 183 
 
 on nerve cures, 231 
 Pliny on mental therapeutics, 182 
 Power of bold quack, 4 
 
 of doctor's face, 193, 210 
 of conscious mind over diges- 
 tion, 52 ; heart, 51 ; kidneys, 
 52 ; lungs, 51 ; nervous sys- 
 tem, 53 
 
 of memories, 118 
 of the V.M.N., 275 
 Practical conclusion, 270 
 value of subject, 273 
 Practice, mental therapeutics ne- 
 glected in, 14 
 
 Practitioners, successful and unsuc- 
 cessful, 23 
 
 Prayer-healing in Germany, 201 
 ' Predisposing ' cause of book, vii 
 
 cause of hysteria, 133 
 Pregnancy, Dr. Ormerod on, 92 
 
 Dr. Owen on, 92 
 Prenatal impressions, 94 
 
 C. Kingsley on, 94 
 Priest, philosopher, patient, 20 
 Prince, Dr. M., and hay fever, 58 
 Process in hysteria, 116 
 Prophylaxis in neurasthenia, 252 
 Protozoa, Maeterlinck on, 29 
 
 mind below the, 29 
 Pseudo faith-healers, 157 
 religious quacks, 156 
 Psychic element in sensory motor 
 
 reflexes, 65 
 force, Ladd on, 48 
 force, ' Medical Times ' on, 48 
 force, name needed for, 32 
 qualities and success, 23 
 Psychism in ganglionic centres, 29 
 Psychological action in the eye, 
 188
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 305 
 
 Psychological section at British 
 
 Medical Association, 8 
 Psychology, Dr. C. Bastian on, 33 
 and the British Medical 
 
 Association, 8 
 and the diseased mind, 8 
 chaos of, 33, 34 
 Dr. Macpherson on, 83 
 Professor James on, 33 
 shibboleth of, 33 
 Psycho-pathology, 67-79 
 
 general view of, 68 
 Psycho-physiology, on, 47-66 
 Psycho-therapy, on, 147-167 
 Public and cures, 150 
 Pulse, intermittent, Sir B. W. 
 
 Richardson on, 54 
 Purposive action in amoeba, 27 
 Pye- Smith, Professor, denies 
 V.M.N., 169 
 
 QUACK and regular in 8. Africa, 6 
 
 cures, some genuine, 154 
 Quackery encouraged by medical 
 
 neglect, 18 
 
 Quackery, paradox in, 154 
 Quack, power of, 2 
 
 remedies not always inert, 
 
 155 
 
 Quacks, pseudo-religious, 106 
 Quacks, why they flourish, 150 
 Qualities, curative, Sir J. C. Browne 
 
 on, 209 
 
 curative, Sir J. Forbes on, 209 
 mental curative, 209 
 Question of double consciousness, 
 138 
 
 RATIONAL and irrational ideas, 260 
 Reality of mind, Prof. Ladd on, 16 
 Realm, the conscious, 51 
 Reason alone no guide, 53 
 for writing book, 272 
 Recent recognition of functional 
 
 nerve disease, 98 
 Reflex pain and mental shock, 90 
 Reflexes, latent interval in, 42 
 Regular and quack in 8. Africa, 6 
 
 Relic cures, 161 
 
 Religion, true value of, 260 
 
 Rennie, Dr., on functional 
 organic symptoms, 129 
 
 Rennie, Dr., on functional 
 
 disease, 128 
 on hereditary neuroses, 102 
 on hysteria, 112 
 on mind in disease, 71 
 
 Resistance to disease, index of, 
 
 Respiration and U.M., 57 
 Rest in bed in neurasthenia, 247 
 Reversed peristalsis and mind, 85 
 Review of chapters, 277-282 
 
 of faith-healing, 196 
 Revolution, silent, going on, 164 
 Ribot on U.M., 35 
 Richardson, Sir B. W., denies 
 V.M.N., 169 
 
 on diabetes, 87 
 
 on intermittent pulse, 54 
 
 on nerve diseases, 80 
 
 on skin secretion, 89 
 Rickets and the V.M.N., 178 
 Ritchie, Dr. G., on consciousness 
 
 and mind, 35 
 
 Robertson, Dr., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 184 
 
 Romanes on rotifers, 28 
 Rotifers, Romanes on, 28 
 Routine is bad in nerve cases, 251 
 Rush, Dr. B., on mental influence, 
 194 
 
 on mind and body, 47 
 Russell Reynolds, Dr., on hysterical 
 paralysis, 140 
 
 on nauseous ' gums,' 230 
 
 SAFETY-VALVE actions in body, 
 
 176 
 
 Saint cures typhoid fever, 218 
 Science and health, 157 
 shibboleths in, 147 
 Scurvy and mind, 89 
 Sealy, Dr. J. H., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 185 
 on personality of the physician,
 
 306 
 
 THE FOKCE OF MIND 
 
 Seat of conscience, 46 
 
 of sensation in brain, 118 
 Secondary consciousness, 208 
 
 Prof. Biener on, 125 
 Selective action of organism, 174 
 Semon, Sir F., on pious deceptions, 
 263 
 
 on placebos, 262 
 Sensation and hysteria, 141 
 
 and mind, 49 
 
 Dr. Hack Tuke on, 63 
 
 from ideas, 122 
 
 in the hand, 122 
 
 in the teeth, 122 
 Sensations from ideas, 122 
 
 seat of, in brain, 118 
 
 unconscious, 116 
 Senses and Christian science, 70 
 Sensori-motor reflexes and psychic 
 
 element, 65 
 Sexual element in hysteria, 138 
 
 excesses in neurasthenia, 209 
 Shamming and hysteria, 99 
 Sharp, Dr. G., on personality of 
 
 physician, 188 
 Shibboleth of psychology, 34 
 Shibboleths in science, 147 
 Shoemaker, Dr., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 184 
 Sight and U.M., 63 
 
 not only mental sense, 36 
 Silent revolution going on, 164 
 Sins of ignorance, 271 
 Skin and U.M., 61 
 
 secretions and mind, 89 
 Slothful neuropaths, Dr. de Fleury 
 
 on, 106 
 Small part played by mental factor, 
 
 69 
 
 Smell and U.M., 65 
 Snow on mind in cancer, 88 
 Society and neurasthenia, 107 
 Solomon, King, on physician's 
 
 personality, 193 
 Soul, spirit, and body, 20 
 Sound cortex, Dr. Clouston on, 96 
 Sounds and subjective sensations, 
 
 121 
 
 South African war, 6 
 Spaa, cures at, 161 
 
 Spasm of gullet, hysterical, 258 
 Specialists, abundance of, 14 
 Special senses and hysteria, 138 
 
 work of U.M., 275 
 Spectrum, conscious mind as, 45 
 Spencer, Herbert, on law of equi- 
 libration, 170 
 on mind and matter, 17 
 Spinal cord, mental action in, 29 
 Spinal disease, mind in, 222 
 Spinoza on mind and matter, 81 
 Spirit, soul, and body, 20 
 Standing in a rapid stream, viii 
 Stethoscope and observation, 77 
 Stigmata and U.M., 61 
 
 Prof. Barrett on, 62 
 Stratagem of John Hunter, 230 
 Striped and unstriped muscles, 69 
 Structural change and hysteria, 
 
 130 
 Subjective sensations and sounds, 
 
 21 
 
 Subject, practical value of, 273 
 Success and mental therapeutics, 
 
 21 
 
 and psychic qualities, 23 
 Successful and unsuccessful prac- 
 titioner, 23 
 
 Suggestions, bad, must be removed, 
 229 
 
 best if indirect, 248 
 not absorbed if direct, 228 
 Summary of book, 277-282 
 Superficial diversity and combining 
 
 unity, 25 
 Surgical operations and the mind, 
 
 222 
 
 Surroundings, old, are bad, 248 
 Button, Dr. H. G., on mental 
 
 therapeutics, 185 
 on personality of physician, 
 
 188 
 
 Sweetzer, Dr., on haemoptysis, 84 
 Sydenham, Dr., on gout and mind, 
 
 221 
 
 Sympathetic origin of diseases, 82 
 Sympathy in treatment, 234 
 
 value of, 186, 195 
 Symptoms of functional nerve 
 diseases, 98-111
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 307 
 
 Symptoms of hysteria 105; Dr. 
 Buzzard on, 255 ; ideogenio, 
 133 
 of neurasthenia, Dr. Beard on, 
 
 109 
 
 neuromimesis, 135 
 Syndicate, body not a, 33 
 System of medicine deficient, 13 
 
 TACT, value of, 236 
 
 Taste and U.M., 65 
 
 Teaching mental therapeutics, 18 
 
 Teeth, sensations in, 121, 122 
 
 Temperament and disease, 75 
 
 Temperature and hysteria, 140 
 
 Terms of expectation, 101 
 
 Test for murderers, 57 
 
 Text-books on mental therapeutics, 
 200 
 
 Theology, philosophy, and medi- 
 cine, 20 
 
 Therapeutics and will, 209 
 general, of hysteria, 261 
 of hysteria, 253-269 
 mental, antiquity of, 101 
 Dr. Affleck on, 186 
 Dr. Beard on, 185 
 Dr. Carpenter on, 201 
 Dr. Carter on, 183 
 Dr. Clouston on, 184 
 Dr. Dale on, 184 
 Dr. de Fleury on, 187 
 Dr. Gibert on, 221 
 Dr. Gibson on, 261 
 Dr. Granville on, 183 
 Dr. Maudsley on, 183 
 Dr. Morrison on, 182 
 Dr. Playfair on, 183 
 Dr. Bx)bertson on, 184 
 Dr. J. H. Sealy on, 185 
 Dr. Shoemaker on, 184 
 Dr. H. G. Button on, 185 
 Dr. H. Tuke on, 185 
 Gliddon on, 181 
 in functional 
 
 diseases, 225-232 
 inner chamber of, 187 
 Lancet 'on, 185,201 
 Livy on, 182 
 
 Therapeutics, mental, no books on, 
 
 181 
 
 not in text-books, 200 
 Sir A. Clark on, 182 
 Sir J. Forbes on, 185 
 Sir S. Wilks on, 184 
 value of fear in, 210 
 varieties of, 190-210 
 natural, 180 
 power of clock on, 216 
 Thinking and feeling, 120 
 Thought, advance in current, 10 
 Three classes of neurasthenics, 105 
 Threefold action of mind on body, 
 
 47,67 
 
 Time sense in hypnotism, 207 
 Title of book, why chosen, 44 
 Touch and U.M., 65 
 
 value of, 232 
 Trained nerve nurse does not 
 
 exist, 277 
 
 Trance of Louise Lateau, 61 
 Treatment useless without V.M.N., 
 
 179 
 Treatment of functional nerve 
 
 diseases, 233-252 
 honesty in, 238 
 of neglect, 229, 267 
 of sympathy, 234 
 
 Tuke, Dr. H., and mental thera- 
 peutics, 185, 221 
 on death from mental causes, 
 
 95 
 
 on hearing, 64 
 on insanity from fright, 141 
 on intellect, emotion, and will, 
 
 53 
 
 on mental factor, 18 
 on sensation, 63 
 Tumours and mind, 88 
 hysterical, 137, 256 
 
 cure of, 237 
 Typhoid fever cured by saint, 218 
 
 UBIQUTTT of mental factor, 69 
 Ulcer, gastric, Dr. Bigi on, 189 
 Unconscious impressions, Dr. 
 Waldstein on, 117 ; Prof. Barrett 
 on, 117 ; Prof. James on, 117
 
 308 
 
 THE FOECE OE MIND 
 
 Unconscious mimicry in neuro- 
 
 mimesis, 114, 134 
 Unconscious mind, action and ex- 
 amples, 56 
 
 action included in mind, 40 
 
 and ancients, 37 
 
 and artists, 60 
 
 and blood-vessels, 55 
 
 and circulation, 54 
 
 and digestion, 56 
 
 and face, 59 
 
 and Francis of Assisi, 61 
 
 and German bands, 56 
 
 and hay fever, 58 
 
 and hearing, 64 
 
 and hypnotism, 205 
 
 and the heart, 52 
 
 and instinct, 30 
 
 and metabolism, 60 
 
 and models, 60 
 
 and murderers, 57 
 
 and muscles, 58 
 
 and Nelson's arm, 59 
 
 and neuromimesis, 123, 125 
 
 and physical aspect, 62 
 
 and respiration, 57 
 
 and sight, 63 
 
 and skin and hair, 61 
 
 and smell, 65 
 
 and stigmata, 61 
 
 and stomach, 57 
 
 and taste, 65 
 
 and touch, 65 
 
 and voluntary muscles, 69 
 
 and waking, 208 
 
 a real irritant, 43 
 
 Eastian on, 40 
 
 great action of, 39 
 
 great curative agent, 162 
 
 hysteria, a disease of, 113 
 
 hysteria cured through, 227 
 
 importance of, 39 
 
 is the V.M.N., 179 
 
 Maudsley on, 35 
 
 natural, 60 
 
 new name for, 126 
 
 picture of, 44 
 
 powers of, revealed by 
 hypnotism, 206 
 
 Prof. Barrett on, 61 
 
 Unconscious mind, Prof. Hoffding 
 
 on, 36 
 
 Prof. James on, 36 
 Prof. Lazarus on, 44 
 Eibot on, 35 
 special work of, 275 
 the real healer, 274 
 Von Hartmann on, 43 
 sensations, 116 
 
 Unity controlling the body, 32 
 in diversity, 12, 32 
 in true physiology, 26 
 of body, 33 
 of mind, 25-46 
 
 essential, 26 
 Unzer on psychic action of drags, 
 
 212 
 
 Urinary system and hysteria, 139 
 Urine and the mind, 88 
 Useless names, ' nature ' and ' phy- 
 siology,' 32 
 Uselessness of difficult suggestions, 
 
 230 
 
 Use of word ' hysteria,' 116 
 Uterine disease and mind, 91 
 Uterus and mind, Dr. Herman on, 
 109 
 
 VALUE of cheerful countenance, 194 
 
 of common-sense talk, 260 
 
 of details, 238 
 
 of drugs, 164 
 
 of face in disease, 76 
 
 of family physician, 195 
 
 of fear in therapeutics, 210 
 
 of impressions, 232 
 
 of indirect agent of cure, 264 
 
 of patience, 235 
 
 of perseverance, 235 
 
 of pure water, 266 
 
 of sympathy, 186, 196 
 
 of tact, 236 
 
 of touch, 232 
 
 of true religion, 260 
 
 to physician of mental factor, 
 
 191 
 
 Van Noorden on diabetes, 87 
 Varieties of faith cures, 202 
 
 of mental therapeutics, 190. 
 210
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 309 
 
 Varieties of neurasthenia, 103 
 Vegetarians, 203 
 
 Vibrations, conscious and uncon- 
 scious, 117 
 Victory and defeat, effect on health, 
 
 89 
 
 Virtue of mixed motives, 191 
 Vis medicatrix natures, 168-189 
 
 Ambrose Par6 on, 176 
 and growth, 173 
 art of healing depends on, 
 
 172 
 
 Dr. Charrin on, 177 
 Dr. Mitchell Bruce on, 
 
 172-176 
 
 Hippocrates on, 176 
 illustrations of, 174, 177 
 in digestion, 179 
 in immunity, 180 
 not a force, 168 
 nutrition and the, 173 
 power of, 275 
 Prof. O. W. Holmes, 175 
 resists disease, 175 
 Sir T. L. Brunton on, 179 
 Sir W. S. Church on, 176 
 Sir S. Wilks on, 172 
 treatment useless without, 
 
 179 
 Vital action replaces mechanical 
 
 theories, 321 
 
 Vitalising dead material, 19 
 Vitality of quackery, cause of, 151 
 
 Volt's pigeons and Flourens' hens, 
 
 27 
 Volition in amoeba, Sir W. Dawson 
 
 on, 28 
 Voluntary hysteria non-existent, 
 
 113 ' 
 
 muscles and U.M., 59 
 Vomiting, hysterical, 258 
 
 WAKING and U.M., 208 
 Waldstein, Dr., on unconscious 
 
 impressions, 117 
 Walshe, Dr., on death from mental 
 
 causes, 95 
 
 War in South Africa, 6 
 Weak spot in medicine, 277 
 What is functional disease ? 159 
 
 is mind ? 30 
 When is a man ill? 99 
 Whipple, Dr., on hysteria, 187 
 White on mind, 42 
 Why quacks nourish, 160 
 Wilkinson, Dr., on V.M.N., 172 
 Wilks, Sir S., on mental thera- 
 peutics, 208 
 
 Will and therapeutics, 209 
 intellect, and emotion, 53 
 power and typhoid fever, 219 
 power cures nerves, 219 
 Worship of female deities, 38 
 Wranglers and overwork, 96 
 
 ZEITGEIST, the, 149
 
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