IV
The passions have been divided by physicians into the exciting and the depressing. This distinction cannot, I think, be maintained at the present day, for we need only think of the effects we see produced by fear to be convinced that this emotion, which may at first appear exciting, becomes instead depressing in its paroxysms. The same may be said of narcotics and depressive remedies, which, in small doses, excite, but in larger doses depress.
Some phenomena, such as the growing grey of the hair, the immediate transmission of a nervous malady from the mother to the fœtus under the influence of fright, the possible death of sucklings a few hours after the mother has suffered great fear, although the infant was not present—all these are incomprehensible phenomena which we only admit because trustworthy observers and physicians affirm that they have witnessed them.
Michea, a celebrated physician, one of the most profound in knowledge of mental diseases, used to write insulting anonymous letters to some of his patients in order to cure them, and, he assures, with good result in some hypochondriacal cases. The mind may be drawn off from a fixed idea by preoccupying it with some danger. Physicians have sometimes had recourse in hysterical cases to threats or a sudden fright to check dangerous symptoms when all other remedies have proved useless. Amann tells of an hysterical patient who suffered from tetanic convulsions and trances, and whose father treated her with blows and cured her.
It is a well-known fact that fear sobers the drunken and cures slight nervous affections, but nothing can encourage the physician to raise fear to the rank of a curative method, as it may be expected that in the greater number of cases nervous diseases would be aggravated by such treatment.
Less questionable is, perhaps, the efficacy of fear in subduing nervous maladies acquired by simple imitation; in this case it is probable that the greater ill, as the saying is, drives out the lesser. In old books of medicine stories are found of psychic maladies which, under the name of St. Vitus’s dance, or tarantism, affected entire provinces with a morbid excitement. The first symptoms of this malady appeared in Aix-la-Chapelle, then it broke out in Cologne, afterwards in Metz, whence it spread along the Rhine. Artisans, peasants, rich and poor, in hundreds left their families, dominated by an irresistible desire to dance. Intoxicated with excitement, they performed frenzied contortions as though possessed, until at last they sank exhausted to the ground or became incurably insane.
In suchlike cases Boerhave had recourse without hesitation to fright and violent emotion to prevent the patients giving way to their inclination. The story is told that while he was physician of the orphan asylum in Haarlem, he suppressed an epileptic epidemic by means of fright. Seeing that epileptic fits were daily increasing among his patients, he ordered a large brasier full of coals to be lighted in the room, heated a number of pincers and tweezers red-hot, and then told his little patients he had given orders that all those who had fits should be burnt.
This inhuman method gave rise to repulsive applications in the treatment of epilepsy, but cases of cure resulting are so exceptional that they certainly do not counterbalance the aggravated sufferings of those uselessly subjected to a cruel emotion. This notion, that maladies produced by strong emotions may be cured by others equally strong, is found in the oldest books on medicine. Pliny relates that the blood of the gladiators used to be drunk as a cure for the falling-sickness.[36]
We read miraculous stories of persons who suddenly became dumb, and of others who have regained their speech; and, indeed, such occurrences take place still, although they lose the dignity of the miraculous as soon as they are studied in the infirmaries.
The following is a case recently described by Dr. Werner.[37] A girl, thirteen years old, suffered a great fright by falling under a carriage. She escaped with a slight scratch, but suddenly lost her speech. Dr. Werner tried to cure her by various methods during thirteen months, without any result. At last he had prescribed bromide of potassium, when one day the girl threw herself into her mother’s arms and said, in a laboured voice, 'Mamma, I shall speak again.’ After one week she spoke as before.
Wiedemeister tells a story of a bride who, as she was taking leave after the wedding breakfast, suddenly lost her speech and remained dumb for several years, until, overcome with fear at the sight of a fire, she cried out 'Fire! Fire!’ and from that time continued to speak.
Pausanias, too, relates that a youth recovered his speech in the fright caused by the sight of a lion, and Herodotus, in his history, narrates that the son of Crœsus was dumb, and that, at the taking of Sardes, seeing a Persian with drawn sword about to kill his father, he cried out, overcome with fright, 'Kill not Crœsus!’ and from that moment he was able to speak.