Force of Imagination.
A peasant saw his dog attacked by a strange and ferocious mastiff. He tried to separate the animals, and received a bite from his own dog, which instantly ran off through the fields. The wound was healed in a few days, and the dog was not to be found, and the peasant after some time began to feel symptoms of nervous agitation. He conceived that the dog, from disappearing, was mad, and within a day or two after this idea had struck him, he began to feel symptoms of hydrophobia. They grew hourly more violent; he raved, and had all the evidence of a violent distemper.
As he was lying with the door open to let in the last air he was to breathe, he heard his dog bark. The animal ran up to the bedside and frolicked about the room; it was clear that he at least was in perfect health. The peasant's mind was relieved at the instant; he got up with renewed strength, dressed himself, plunged his head into a basin of water, and thus refreshed walked into the room to his astonished family.—Prof. Barrantini.