Psychotherapy / Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease

by James J. Walsh

DANGERS OF HYPNOTISM

There are many and various opinions of the dangers of hypnotism. Some of those who have given it a fair trial have insisted on its dangers. Some of those who have had very large experience have declared emphatically that there is no danger at all. Occasionally it has seemed that such a declaration must be considered as having been dictated by such intensity of interest as sometimes leads men to overlook the darker side of things with which they are much occupied. Certain moral aspects of hypnotism are at least dubious, and, it must be admitted, present opportunities for abuse. There are certain dangers connected with its effect upon nervous patients, and especially with its influence upon character, that have become more and more clear in recent years. Dr. John K. Mitchell, in his "Self Help for Nervous Women," a series of familiar talks on economy in nervous expenditure, [Footnote 21] has dwelt on certain of these dangers of hypnotism for nervous patients in a passage that deserves to be recalled. As a representative of a school of thought that is worthy of special regard from American physicians his expressions must carry weight:

[Footnote 21: Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1909.]

The greatest danger of all is the use of hypnotism in any form or degree, a two-edged sword, capable indeed of usefulness, but more capable of harm. After years of study, beginning with too easy an approval of it, hypnotism, whether called by that name or by the unsuitable one of suggestion, has been laid aside by the medical profession as a means too dangerous for ordinary use, involving great risk of deterioration of character in the subject if often repeated, and putting a terribly tempting tool in the hands of the user, fascinating in the ease with which it can produce superficial and temporary good results and equally capable of being used for harmful ones.
A susceptible person, once hypnotized, is more and more easily thrown into the hypnotic state until even the slightest hint suffices to bring about the condition. It is not necessary for the hypnotization to go so far as deep sleep; this more advanced stage is indeed seldom required, and to say that persons are not hypnotized because they are not put into a sleep or a trance shows ignorance of the subject.
I am not asserting that very slight degrees of the hypnotic condition are as dangerous as the deeper, but I do say that all degrees of it are dangerous to the integrity and healthy action of the subject's nervous system. The danger of harm increases with every repetition of the hypnotization.
In suggestible, that is, over-susceptible, individuals, who are almost universally neurotic persons, to fix the eyes on a small point, especially a bright one, sometimes even to fix the mind on the one idea of going into the hypnotic state (mild or deep), is enough without further intervention from any one to put them into that state.

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In an article on the "Danger and Uses of Hypnotism" Prof. Forel, of Zurich, twenty years ago, while frankly admitting that hypnotism is by no means a panacea for all nervous affections and unfortunate habits, found it to be an extremely valuable help in the treatment of many forms of functional nervous disease. He suggests that some of its many dangers are due to the fact that hypnotism is practiced by men who are too distrustful of it, and this distrust, unconsciously communicated to the patients, produces an unfortunate effect. On the other hand, fear and distrust on the part of the subjects seriously disturbs the process of hypnotization, interferes with its effect and sometimes leads to unfortunate results.

In some cases it seems that the state of dependence on some one else, at least by suggestion, that had been created during the hypnotic experience, resulted in a diminution of will power and caused a less hopeful state on the patient's part than before. I found personally that suggestion in the waking state might in most cases be used quite as efficiently as hypnosis itself, and that when improvement came under these circumstances, the patient always felt more confidence in himself and less in the operator. Anything that restores self-confidence and gives patients the feeling that they can conquer inclinations, tendencies, even habits, if they only will, merely by firmly resolving to do so, is the best possible mental influence for them. The hypnotic relief is always easier, but nothing that is easy is likely to be of lasting value. The enduring effect of gradual cure by suggestion means much more than the hypnotic miracle that these patients are so prone to crave.

At present there is a very general feeling among those who have had considerable experience with hypnotism, that in spite of the claims of certain votaries for it, there is no justification for its frequent or habitual use. It has a definite place in diagnosis, in certain difficult cases, and at the beginning of the treatment of certain forms of the psycho-neuroses. When repeated frequently it is not therapeutic, but is likely to produce serious results in a certain lack of self-control and tendencies to auto-hypnotization with deterioration of character. There is very seldom need of a repetition of deep hypnosis, and, as a rule, all the diagnostic benefit can be secured in one or two seances. Its continued use only illustrates the tendency noted at all times, in the history of medicine, for the unthinking or unprofessional to persist in the application of supposed remedial measures after they have been shown to be useless or even harmful. The subject well deserves further study, but investigations should be carefully made by men who realize the dangers, and who are not likely to be tempted to exploit patients and curious psychological phenomena for the sake of sensational reputation. The use of hypnotism for exhibition purposes, by men who are not physicians, is an unmixed evil, producing entirely wrong impressions on the public, and doing untold evil to the subjects employed.

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SECTION III
THE INDIVIDUAL PATIENT

CHAPTER I
PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE INDIVIDUAL PATIENT

The most important element in Psychotherapy is the individual patient. Old Dr. Parry of Bath said a century ago, "It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease, than what sort of a disease a patient has." Mental influence is not of the slightest avail against pneumonia or typhoid fever, nor constipation nor rheumatism as such; mental influence may be, and often is, of the greatest possible help to the patient suffering from any of these diseases.

We recognize frankly now that for most diseases we can do nothing to counteract the disease directly or to cure it specifically. The idea of specifics in medicine has to a large extent disappeared. Two or three of them possibly we have, but even with regard to these, there are certain doubts as to the essential modes of their activity. We have learned, however, to help the patient to overcome disease. We know how to conserve his forces, to increase his vital reaction, to maintain his nutrition without disturbing his general condition, and to secure elimination in such a way as to prevent nature from being interfered with in her curative purposes. To this, psychotherapy would enable us to add such encouragement of the patient as would tap new sources of energy in him according to the law of reserve energy, and would prevent discouragement and the inhibition of favorable nerve impulses that so often follow. The outcome of any disease depends on two factors. One is the condition of the patient at the time the infection was acquired, the other is the virulence of the infection. We can do nothing to modify this latter element, once the disease manifests itself. We can, however, do much to enable the patient to throw off the disease and, above all, by securing a favorable attitude of mind, we can enable him to use his forces to the best advantage.

Anyone who has noted the difference between the patient's state just before and just after his physician has called, though absolutely no physical remedy has been employed, is able to realize very well how much psychotherapy is able to accomplish. One who did not know, would be sure to assume that some potent remedy had been administered—and there has been. This potent remedy is psychotherapy. Whether the personal magnetism necessary to produce therapeutic effects of this kind can be learned or not depends on the individuality of the physician. Undoubtedly, however, everyone can add to whatever of personal influence he has by definitely recognizing its place, by [{164}] making every effort to employ it, and then by regular systematic effort in securing as much personal information as possible with regard to the patient. This personal relationship of physician and patient makes instruction easier and suggestion more effective.

The securing of personal information is of the utmost importance in determining the affections that psychotherapy will relieve, because very often details of life and habits are discovered that can be so modified by instruction as to bring about a disappearance of unfavorable physical influences. It is indeed surprising to find how many unreasonable things people do from habit, from unfortunate persuasion, or from lack of knowledge. In many of the minor chronic ailments that are the source of so much mental discomfort to patients, the physician finds that a change in the patients' habits, not necessarily of marked degree, may make all the difference between cheerful health and rather despondent low-spirited feeling. Now that epidemic disease has become rarer, a physician's practice, especially among the better classes, is much more taken up with these minor ailments than with the typical classical diseases.

The ordinary history of their ailments, as patients commonly present them, especially when there are neurotic elements, is likely to be meager in what is objective, but consists mostly of the subjective. Such patients have much to say of their sensations, their feelings, their dreads, their surmises, their conclusions as to their particular condition, and especially the hereditary elements in it, but comparatively little of the objective realities of their ills and of their environment. What the physician needs to know about them is their habits of life, their daily routine of existence, just as minutely as it is possible to obtain the information. There is just one way to get the latter details, and that is to inquire particularly with regard to actual happenings. In chronic conditions of many kinds, it is so helpful that it will always be worth the physician's while to get at these details, especially in supposedly puzzling cases for which various forms of treatment have been already tried.

In spite of every precaution in this matter, the physician sometimes finds, after a series of consultations, that some point which when brought to light he considers to be of great importance, has been thought so trivial by the patient that it was never mentioned, in spite of the most careful questioning. In all medical practice the rule is that mistakes of diagnosis are much more due to neglect in eliciting necessary information than either to lack of expertness in diagnosis, or lack of knowledge of the significance of symptoms.

In the affections that can be relieved by psychotherapeutics, the most important element for diagnosis, besides a minute knowledge of the patient's habits, is just as detailed information as possible with regard to his ways and modes of thought as to his ills. Practically every motive, as well as every action of the day, must be scrutinized, and often it will be found that little things mean much for the individual. "Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle," as said by Michelangelo, might well be changed for the physician to, "Trifles make all the difference between health and discomfort, though health is no trifle."

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CHAPTER II
THE MORNING HOURS

In getting the history of patients for diagnostic purposes the safest way is to begin with the getting up in the morning and then to follow out the various actions of the day. The hour and mode of rising should be inquired into. Practically all nervous people, and nearly all those beyond middle life, feel less fit in the morning hours than at any other time in the day. Apparently as a consequence of their will having been allowed to lose its hold during sleep, it does not secure thorough command over the organism for some time. Nervous people, as a rule, wake up with a tired feeling, a dread of the day, wondering whether life is worth living. They dread—for it is a real dread—to get up and tackle the daily round of life once more.

If they have nothing very definite to do, then slight tired feelings or discomfort, even of very minor degree, may lead them to think that they cannot get up. Any yielding in this matter is almost sure to do harm. When there are no objective signs, that is, when there is no fever recognizable by the thermometer and there has been no diarrhea or any physical weakness, nervous patients should get up promptly at a particular hour every morning, because, as a rule, within a half hour after getting up they feel better, and by the time they are washed and have had their breakfast, life has grown not only quite possible but even plausible, and the day's work does not seem such a nightmare as it was at first. It is not advisable to tell people all this as soon as they confess their habit of dawdling in the morning, for they must be gradually brought to discipline themselves. The detail emphasizes the necessity of knowing how they get up as well as when.

Mode of Awaking.—It is often valuable to know how patients awake. Sometimes it will be found that they are anxious and solicitous to be at work at a particular hour, or to catch a train at a particular time, and that as a consequence their sleep is disturbed in the early morning hours. At best it may be fitful and when they awake they fear to go to sleep again lest they oversleep. An alarm clock will sometimes remedy this state of affairs. Better still is an arrangement by which someone, who can be depended on, will wake them at a particular time. Occasionally patients cannot content themselves in spite of the assurance that they will be waked. They dread that the alarm clock may not go off, or that the awakener may make a mistake, and so they go to bed with a dominant idea, which is more or less constantly present in their mind during all their sleeping hours, disturbing sleep and preventing complete rest. It may be necessary to insist on a change of occupation for such persons, or a change of residence that will do away with the necessity for early rising. When this is done, many a neurotic condition that has before proved intractable will disappear.

Amount of Sleep.—It is of cardinal importance to know how long patients sleep. In our large cities most people have too little sleep. A comparison of the hours when they get to bed with those when they get up will often show that at least three or four nights in the week some patients who are complaining of nervous symptoms, especially nervous indigestion, are [{166}] sleeping less than seven hours. There are but few men, and still fewer women, who will retain their health under such conditions. Some men have been able to do it, but they are comparatively rare. King Alfred's rule of dividing the day into three eight-hour periods—one for sleep, one for work, and the third for bodily necessities and recreation, still remains the best for human nature. Whenever people try to live the strenuous life and get along on less than eight hours of sleep, they are almost sure, sooner or later, to render themselves uncomfortable, to make themselves liable to all sorts of neurotic symptoms and, above all, to detract from their efficiency for whatever work they are engaged in. Whether they sleep or not, they should be in bed for nearly eight hours.

Bathing.—Morning Bath.—In our larger cities at least, many of the inhabitants begin the day with a bath. In this matter one finds all sorts of harmful fads that need to be corrected. Many men take a cold bath, and unless they are particularly strong and vigorous, this is rather an exhausting experience for the beginning of the day, when the last nutrition the body absorbed is twelve hours before. On the other hand, large, athletic men who manufacture a great deal of heat, their muscles—the heat-making organs—being well developed, will be benefited by having a cold bath because of the abstraction of heat that it involves. It is not, however, infrequent to find that the man for whom it will be good is not taking it, while the thin, neurotic individual, already exhausting more of his vitality by worry and dieting and in various fads with regard to his health than is good for him, is regularly taking his cold plunge or douche. Unless especially asked about it, few men give particulars in this matter, yet they are extremely important.

Women, on the other hand, are likely to take hot baths more frequently than is good for them. Especially when they have maids to assist in dressing and undressing, it is not unusual to find that women take two, and sometimes even three, hot baths in a day. They take them in the early morning when they first get up, and in the evening before dressing for dinner. I have known cases where some took a third hot bath before going to bed and sometimes even put in a fourth before luncheon in case they had had any exercise in the morning hours—tennis, or horseback riding, or the like—that made them perspire. These are details which the physician will learn only if he asks particularly about them. Until he has actually had the experience of finding that they play an important role in some ailment he is almost sure not to think of it. It is probable that even two hot baths a day are too many. I have known women to begin at once to get better of neurotic symptoms that before had proved quite intractable, when their hot baths were limited or when they were changed for a single warm bath with a cold rub after it in the morning, or sometimes just before dinner.

Bathing is more liable to abuse than is usually thought to be possible. While the habits of modern life call for it often, and many people are quite sure that they would not be healthy without it, the people who live longest, and who have had the best health far beyond three score years and ten, have usually not been noted for bathing proclivities. The human body is composed of nearly seven-eighths water, and so our cells are constantly bathed in it, but the making of the whole organism a marine animal once more, as seems to be the definite tendency of some people, is not nearly so hygienic as [{167}] it is often thought to be. Enough bathing for thorough cleanliness, but not for luxury, must be the rule for people who have active work and want to retain their health.

Bathing Fads.—While such mistakes are usually made only by the wealthy and leisure classes, the physician will sometimes be surprised to find that women who have no maids for personal service are indulging themselves in these over-frequent bathing practices. They have heard that it softens the skin and renews youth, or they have heard that the Japanese take hot baths and are revivified when they are very fatigued, and so they go to great lengths in bathing. Often this is the main reason for the relaxation of muscle tissue and the sense of prostration that has come over them. Neurotic people are constantly going to extremes. Even delicate women will sometimes be found to take very cold baths which are surely doing them harm. Over frequent washings of hands and face are sometimes responsible for skin lesions, especially if the soap used is one of the varieties so scented that the manufacturer is enabled to conceal the impurities in its ingredients. Some women easily run into what is really a misophobia, an exaggerated morbid fear of dirt, and need to be restrained from washing themselves over frequently. Many a chapped hand would be saved by avoiding unnecessary washings, and especially in warm water just before one goes out, for it leaves the skin without its proper oily protection.

Clothing.—Then comes the question of clothing. It is curious how irrationally many people clothe themselves. People complain of cold hands and feet when they are wearing thin cotton undergarments, and who need only to have these changed for wool for their feelings to be at once improved. In the meantime they have been persuaded that they have a defective circulation. The usual excuse for not wearing wool is that it produces hyperemia of the skin with itchy discomfort, but this, as a rule, is only passing and is due to unaccustomedness. The coarser wools should not be worn by the sensitive. A thin cotton garment may, if absolutely necessary, be worn next the skin. There is too little variety in the underclothing that people wear. Some change from light to heavy weight and only that, but there should be a medium weight worn, and occasionally, when there is a spell of mild weather in the winter time, even during the season when heavy weight is usually worn, medium weight should be substituted for comfort's sake.

It is even more common to find that neurotic individuals, who fear to catch cold, wear too much clothing, especially around the chest. Very often they alternate from this during the day to next to nothing in the evening, and by so doing subject themselves to special risks of internal congestions. When the skin is covered with too much clothing it loses the habit of reacting, and the warmth and the irritation of wool keep up an artificial hyperemia which gradually lowers the tone of the peripheral vessels. Many people wear "chest protectors," as is evident from the prominent display of these abominations in the drug-store windows. By leaving certain portions of the chest unprotected while other parts are kept over-warm, these add greatly to the risk of such disturbances of circulatory equilibrium as predispose to the infections grouped under the term "taking cold." It is not heavy clothing that keeps people warm so much as the layers of non-conducting air between the skin and the outer air. It is better, therefore, to wear three thin [{168}] garments than two heavy ones because of the additional layers of air that are thus confined. A paper vest, if one is driving in the wind, will probably protect better than the heaviest woolen garment worn. The wearing of chamois garments is not, as a rule, advisable because chamois does not permit free access of air and it hampers transpiration.

Before Breakfast.—After dressing comes breakfast, with regard to which it may be advisable to ask many questions. It is well to begin with a query as to whether liquids are taken before breakfast. Many people have taken to the fad of drinking a large quantity of warm water, sometimes as much as a pint, before breakfast. Surely this never does any good and, in most cases, just as surely does harm. Plain water will not dissolve mucus that may have collected in the stomach, and warm water merely dilates that organ, relaxes its fibers, and renders the whole gastric digestive system atonic. If cold water can be borne, it will often be found that a glass of cold water the first thing in the morning stimulates peristalsis, and serves to lessen the necessity for laxatives. Many people complain that cold water is too much of a shock. Usually, if they are reminded that when we want to warm our hands we rub them vigorously with cold water and that the reaction after this gives a healthy glow, the effect of the supposed shock, which was merely an unfavorable suggestion, will disappear. Sometimes delicate people cannot drink cold water. If there is any reason to suspect an accumulation of mucus in the stomach, a small bouillon cup of very hot water, just as hot as it can be borne, in which a pinch of salt and a pinch of bi-carbonate of soda have been dissolved will prove an excellent aperitive for the day. This is physiological and appropriately chemical, as well as naturally stimulating. Mucus does not dissolve in ordinary water but dissolves readily in an alkaline salt solution, and this is just what is thus recommended. This drink is quite grateful to the palate. Indeed, it tastes very much like clear soup, and, if the eyes are closed, cannot, as a rule, be distinguished from some of the bouillon commonly served. I have known this cup of hot water to stimulate an appetite when drug tonics had failed.

It is better to take the glass of cold water from fifteen to twenty minutes before the morning meal—say immediately on rising. If, instead, the small cup of hot water is chosen, it should come immediately before eating, and will usually prove an appetizer.

Breakfast.—The exact details of the amount of breakfast taken and how it is eaten should be known. Nervous people eat little breakfast. When ordered to eat, they find it difficult at first, but the habit is easily formed, and then they want their breakfast like anyone else. It is surprising how often physicians will find that nervous persons, who are under weight, are not taking enough breakfast. They will ordinarily say that they are eating breakfast about as other people do and will, perhaps, mention eggs and rolls, but it will be found that their ordinary breakfast consists of a roll and piece of toast and coffee, and only occasionally do they have any of the other things mentioned.

Breakfast is ordinarily the meal which those who work are likely to eat too hurriedly. Those who are neurotically inclined are especially victims of the habit. They lie abed until there is only a few minutes left to get the train so as to reach their place of occupation in time, and thus their breakfast is [{169}] skimped. Their oatmeal or other soft cereal is fairly shovelled in, coffee is gulped, toast is unchewed, the coffee softening it; if they have creamed potatoes they are swallowed in such large pieces that, as every physician knows, if for some reason they vomit they are surprised, beyond all measure, at the large portions they have been able to pass down into their stomachs. A breakfast thus eaten makes a bad beginning for a nervous man's day, and the more that is so eaten the worse for the victim. With a habit like this, it will be utterly impossible by means of drugs or directions as to diet to relieve the discomfort of neurotic indigestion, or to keep the patient from suffering that stomach discomfort so often complained of in the morning.

Working Women.—Working women are even more prone than are men to take a hurried breakfast, and having, as a rule, less appetite than men, their meal is likely to be deficient. It is not unusual to find that a young woman who is under weight and who needs three meals a day, is taking so little for the first meal that even she hesitates to regard it as a meal. Very often her last previous meal has been taken before seven o'clock the night before, so that she goes out ill prepared for her day's work. Much more than men, women are annoyed in the morning by our transportation systems, and by worry as to whether they will get to the office on time. Suggestions as to the modification of this unfortunate routine, the taking of an earlier train, the using of a quiet local instead of a crowded express, a short walk at least before taking the train, will often help in producing a marked change in the general health.

Home Keeping Women.—For those who really have homes, the morning duties are usually sufficient to rouse their activities and make them begin the day well. For those who live in apartment-hotels, however, and for those who have the luxury of many servants, the morning hours are often a serious problem. Madame does not get up, or if she does, it is only to lie around in dressing gown for most of the morning. Breakfast is easily neglected or may be eaten hurriedly because the head of the house is rushing to business. The lack of an incentive requiring them to rise, and get outside for a time every morning, is probably at the root of more feminine symptoms among leisure class patients than anything else. As we grow older all of us are likely to note the lowered physiological cycle of the morning hours, so that unless there is some sharp reason to compel action, we are rather prone to persuade ourselves that it is better to lie abed, or at least to loll around. This leads to a concentration of attention on self and on one's feelings that easily gives rise to neurotic conditions.

Interest in life.—In my special clientéle I have often found that going to church in the early morning hours was an excellent remedy for many of these patients. It gives them a definite reason for rising promptly, the service provides motives to rouse them to activity, they are likely to think during it of how they shall make their life a little bit more livable for others as the result of their trying to be better, and so the apathy that is so fruitful of ill feeling is shaken off. This can only serve for those who have faith in the service. For others, the old-fashioned going out to market, or the making of appointments at morning hours that will tempt them to regular activity early in the day, is of special significance. It is always ominous for health when a woman can look forward to a whole long day without any particular duties [{170}] in it until the late afternoon or evening hours. This has become so frequently the case for the women of our large cities, particularly those who live in apartment hotels, it is no wonder that neuroses and psychoneuroses of various kinds have grown in frequency. The best prophylaxis for them is occupation of mind. The cure for them is the securing of many interests and such diversion of mind as will prevent concentration of attention on self.

Mail Before Breakfast.—Many people receive their most important mail in the early morning, and personal mail, in cities especially, is likely to be placed beside the breakfast plate. Not infrequently, letters contain serious matters that are likely to disturb people, and occasionally even important business finds its way to the side of the plate at breakfast time. Authors often find their rejected manuscripts sent back in the morning's mail. Occasionally bad news of other kinds comes in this way, and, as a rule, it is the very worst time for its reception. The human system—it cannot be too often repeated—is at its lowest physiological term in the morning, the temperature is lower than during the rest of the day, all the nervous vitality is below the normal. Half an hour after breakfast the reception of bad news, or the coming of important matters requiring decision, would not make so much difference. Hence, the necessity for knowing whether the mail is ordinarily read in the early morning, in order to know something about people, and about the consumption and digestion of their breakfast.

Company at Breakfast.—Pleasant company during meals is an important factor that makes for good digestion. At the other meals there is much more likelihood of having such pleasant company, while the morning meal is often a solitary, and quite as often as not, a rather glum quarter of an hour, preoccupied with the business cares of the day. As may be readily understood from our discussion of this problem of mental preoccupation during digestion, this may seriously hamper digestive processes. Often men take refuge in their paper. The thoughts aroused by reading the modern newspaper are not the pleasantest in the world and consist, very often, of the following out of details of hideous crimes and scandals. When, as is sometimes the case, these scandals concern relatives, friends or acquaintances in whom we are interested, and with regard to whom we feel poignantly because of the publicity involved, nearly the same effect is produced as when bad news is received in letters, or when business worries are thus brought to the breakfast table.

The best conditions for the eating of breakfast are those in which it becomes like the other meals, a family matter. When father, mother and children eat their breakfast together, nearly always family interests and especially the enlivening effect of the joyousness with which children face a new day is the best possible tonic for a business man in whom a solitary breakfast starts a day of digestive disturbance. Sociability and sufficient time must be insisted on, whether at home or in a boarding house, at breakfast as well as the other meals, and it will often be surprising to find how much difference this makes both as regards the quantity eaten and the digestion of the food.

Morbid Habits.—In matters of diet, it is important to ask for details, for it is surprising what unexpected things may be discovered after weeks of treatment. That was illustrated for me once by a case of persistent acne in a young girl, which all the ordinary remedies failed to cure. I felt sure that [{171}] I had given her such explicit directions with regard to diet that I knew exactly what she was taking and that nothing could be hoped for from any change. As a last resort, I asked once more with regard to all that she ate and only then discovered that before breakfast every day she ate a baked banana. It had been recommended to her by a friend as a sure cure for constipation, she had formed the habit of taking it as a medicine, and so had not spoken of it. Baked bananas agree with many people well, but just as soon as this was eliminated from her diet her acne began to improve and before long had disappeared almost entirely. The taking of large amounts of warm water, already spoken of, is another of these morbid habits. Then many people take a glass of salt water, or laxative water, and some have curious habits with regard to the eating to excess of salt on cereal or on fruit, or sometimes they eat too great a variety of fruit. All this should be known, but often will not be ascertained unless particularly inquired about.

CHAPTER III
THE DAY'S WORK

Probably even more important than details with regard to the early hours of the day, is detailed information as to the day's work, the kind and character of the occupation and the length of time spent at it, the interruptions that may occur, the habits with regard to luncheon, and, above all, the state of mind in which the occupation is pursued. The physician will only learn these details when he sets before himself a definite schedule of what he wants to know, and then proceeds to secure information with regard to it. With this sufficient can be learned in a short time to ascertain the source of the affection or the symptoms complained of. In some cases it is, however, only when the whole day's occupation is reviewed that proper suggestions can be made.

Getting to Work.—Many a man, especially if he has been accustomed to much exercise in younger years, craves muscular exercise, feels much better whenever he has the opportunity to take it, yet rides down to business every morning and back every evening. On his vacation in the summer time, he gets up early for the sake of a morning walk, but he scarcely has time to take his breakfast and ride to business at other times, though the main reason for his better feeling during his vacation is his exercise. There is usually the story of crowded cars in the busy hours, often with annoying thoughts pestering him that he may not be in time and with a constant call on nervous energy while he stands up in the train, jolted, pushed, crowded, or unable to read his paper with satisfaction, even if he has a seat. The discomfort experienced during a ride in crowded cars to business is about as bad a way to begin a day for a nervous person as could be imagined.

As a rule, it will take more than half an hour to get to business in this way. If an extra twenty minutes were taken, it would be possible to walk the distance. On at least two out of every three days in the year this would give a magnificent opportunity for exercise of the best kind, for fresh air, [{172}] for diversion of mind, for the route could be frequently changed, and, during the spring and fall, if there are parks on the way, these would provide occasion for pleasant thoughts to replace the annoyances which too intimate contact with over-strenuous humanity in overcrowded cars is likely to occasion.

This seems almost too trivial for a doctor to talk about, but it is on the care of trivialities that good health often depends. It is easy to assume that this amounts to little for health but tempt a dissatisfied patient, whose digestion and sleep are disturbed, to do it, especially in the spring and in the fall, and see what a difference it makes in all his physical functions. If he is not used to walking, he will have to begin by walking only a mile or two, but after a time he will do his four-mile walk in about an hour, with no waste of business time, and with a renewal of energy that will seem little short of marvelous.

Details of the Day's Work.—If patients are to be benefited through mental influence it is extremely important that details as to occupation be completely secured. This must include, especially in cases where there are objective but obscure symptoms, minute information that may seem trivial, and yet which often proves to be of great importance. In recent years there has been profound study of the dangers of trades and occupations. Anyone who wants to treat nervous patients, must know much about these occupations, for otherwise symptoms may be ascribed to old infections, to obscure rheumatic conditions, to intestinal auto-intoxication, or to nervous weakness or exhaustion, when they are really the result of occupation-conditions. The various poisons must be carefully looked for, or affections will be wrongly treated. I have had a series of cases of lead poisoning [Footnote 22] under most unexpected conditions which have taught me much as to the possibilities of obscure plumbism. Lead poisoning from new lead pipes—with no one else in the household suffering from it, lead poisoning from frequent drinking of carbonated waters, the bottles of which had the old-fashioned lead stoppers, lead poisoning from the painting of a flat by a settlement worker who could not get a painter to do it, show how carefully such things must be looked for.

[Footnote 22: "Curiosities of Lead Poisoning," International Clinics, Eighth Series, Vol. II.]

Dust and Respiratory Affections.—Mechanical conditions connected with trades are especially important. Workers in dusty trades are almost sure to suffer severely from bronchitis at times, and to have the affection oftener than others, to have it "hang on longer," as they say, and eventually to have tuberculosis develop. There are some of the polishing trades in the metal industries in which it is impossible to maintain the ordinary death benefit fund that workmen have in other trades, because the men die so frequently and at such an early age from consumption that the drain on the treasury makes it impossible to maintain the fund. Practically all of the dusty occupations have this same tendency. This is true often in occupations where dust is sometimes not supposed to be much of a factor. Railroad trainmen suffer more frequently from colds than do those in other trades because of the dust to which they are exposed, and a trainman with incipient consumption will be greatly benefited by getting out of the dust during the summer months. Sweepers in large buildings, janitors and janitresses have colds that are often untractable because of the dust in their occupations. It is to be hoped that [{173}] the new vacuum cleaning system now becoming so popular will obviate these dangers, though like all improvements, it will probably bring its own dangers with it.

Lack of Light.—People who work at occupations that keep them from the light are likely to suffer from lung symptoms and to have quite intractable colds which will not clear up until they get more sunlight. Workers in theaters and like places who do their sweeping where sunlight does not penetrate, are in more danger than others from respiratory disease. Those who work in gloomy lower stories, especially in narrow but busy and dusty streets, suffer the same way. Attendants at moving picture shows who work much in the dark where the frequently changing crowd brings in dust which cannot be well removed, and in quarters where the sun does not penetrate, are almost sure to have persistent repeated respiratory troubles.

Habitual Movements.—After the question of dust comes the mode of the occupation. Many occupations demand certain habitual and repeated movements. When people come complaining of pains in muscles in and around joints, or of achy conditions in the limbs, it is important to know every detail of their occupation movements, if the physician is to appreciate just what pathological causes are at work. It is not enough, for instance, to know that a man is a clerk, or a bookkeeper, but it should be asked whether he stands much at his occupation, or walks considerably, or whether he sits practically all the day. If he stands much, we can expect that he will have various painful conditions in his feet and legs, unless he takes care to change his position frequently, to wear the most comfortable shoes obtainable and, above all, to provide against any yielding of the arch of the foot. Often it will be found that people who complain of discomfort in the feet stand much on a cold, and sometimes damp and draughty floor, and this needs to be corrected or their symptoms, often carelessly called rheumatic, will not disappear. If he sits down always during his occupation, he will need exercise and air or he will suffer from many vague discomforts, over sensitiveness and irritability of nerves, as well as from physical conditions.

Most patients prefer to think that they are suffering from some constitutional condition, rather than from a merely local manifestation due to their occupations. Those who have to stand much can often make such arrangements as will permit their sitting down from time to time. They may, if they are standing at a desk, have a high stool; they may during their hour of lunch sit down restfully, or even to recline for a time, so as to restore the circulation in the legs. For many people who suffer from the achy discomfort connected with varicose veins in the leg, a rest of half an hour in the middle of the day with the feet a little higher than the head, will do more than anything else to make them comfortable. This same thing is true for people with flat-foot, and there are many occupations with regard to which advice of this kind will be appreciated. The well known tendency of many men to sit with their feet higher than their head is not a mere caprice, but is due to the fact that this is an extremely restful posture and thoroughly hygienic for those who have been standing much.

Unfortunately, it is not so easy to secure such relief for working women, but occasionally the advice to lie down during the middle of the day on the couches of the retiring rooms may be the best medical prescription that can [{174}] be given. This will carry young women over trying periods of the month when everything seems to be going wrong. In women particularly, if there are complaints of the pains in the lower limbs, footwear must be investigated. When the heels are too high those who have to stand much are thrown forward and there is a strain of the muscles of the thighs and on the muscles of the back. Many young women suffer from backache supposed to be due to internal conditions usually of gynecological character, when it is only due to high heels or a combination of high heels and constipation. On the other hand, heels that are too low are not comfortable and women's shoes, in spite of the outcry against them, have been better adapted than men's to prevent them from developing flat foot. Fewer women than men suffer from this affection. Shoes that are too loose are almost as bad, sometimes it would seem worse, than those that are too tight.

Habitual Motions and So-Called Rheumatism.—The habitual movements of various trades are extremely important for the diagnosis of conditions that develop in the muscular system. Much of the so-called rheumatism of the working people is really due to the muscular over-activity demanded by their trades. This affects all kinds of working people. Men who have to work foot-lathes, or women who have to work sewing machines, or men or women who have to use their arms much in repeated vigorous movements, are likely to suffer from achy discomfort. The strong and healthy ones do not suffer, but the delicate do. The suffering is much more prevalent in rainy, damp weather; it is worse during the spring and fall than at other times. It is particularly noticeable whenever the patient is run down physically, is worrying about many things, or, above all, is getting insufficient nutrition. The discomfort is particularly likely to recur in those who do not know how to use their muscles properly, who are naturally awkward, and who perhaps have from nature an insufficient control over opposing and coödinating muscles, so that they do not accomplish movements quite as readily as would be the case if they were normal. The personal element enters largely into these affections. Many patients, however, can be trained to do their habitual movements under the best possible mechanical conditions, whereas very often they are found accomplishing them under the worst possible mechanical conditions.

Men who have to do much writing may have to be taught the application of Gowers' rule, that the forearm should so move as a whole during writing that if a pen were fastened to the elbow it would execute exactly all the movements of a pen held in the hand. The writing must all be done from the shoulder. People who do typewriting may have to be instructed not to allow the machine to be too much above them, nor on the other hand, too much below them when they sit down. Young people particularly who, from long hours of practice on the piano, suffer from neurotic conditions, may have to be instructed to do this under good mechanical conditions.

Men who do much filing of metal will often suffer from painful conditions in the arms. These will be much worse in case the filing is done at a table or workbench so high that pressure has to be brought to bear upon the file by the arms instead of through the weight of the body. This same thing is true for women who iron much. If the ironing board is so high that the additional pressure applied is made by the arms, then painful conditions will [{175}] almost inevitably develop if the work is long continued. These details are discussed in the chapters on joint and muscular affections.

Night Work.—In a large city there are many workmen who are on night duty. They will be disturbed in many ways in health, unless they make special arrangements to live under conditions that enable them to have full eight hours of sleep every day and, above all, to have their meals regularly. When they come home in the morning they usually have a rather hearty meal. Most of them can sleep very well with this, but very few of them sleep the full eight hours, and all need this amount. Usually they have another full meal about five in the evening. Very often it will be found that the third meal of the day consists of a sandwich, with a glass of milk or a glass of beer, and some cake or some crackers and cheese, or the inevitable pie. Every workman should have three full meals, and a man who is suffering from almost any symptoms will be improved at once if the third good meal is insisted upon. At one time I had occasion to see a number of men whose work began not later than seven in the evening and did not finish until six or seven in the morning. They were sufferers from all sorts of complaints. Most of them were under weight. Not a few were constipated. Some were suffering from severe headaches that came rather frequently, and a few from a headache that was severe but came only every two or four weeks. These patients alternated night and day work, and it was the week after they had been on day work, and first went on to night work, that they suffered from headache.

In every one of these cases instructions with regard to eating and sleeping proved to be the best remedy. Nearly all of them were not eating enough, and were skimping the third meal. Three of them were taking only between four and five hours of sleep. They stayed up after breakfast to read the paper, went to bed about nine and got up about two o'clock. Just as soon as two or three hours was added to their sleep, they began to feel better, and various symptoms, digestive, rheumatic and nervous, of which they complained, began to disappear.

Nearly always night workers are more prone than the ordinary run of workmen to some indulgence in spirituous liquors. Cold and shivery on the way home from work in the early morning, they take a nip of whiskey to brace them up. Alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver is a little more common among sea captains, policemen, printers and night workmen on the railroads than among the average of the population. The reason for it seems to be that undilute whiskey is thrown into the circulation by being taken into the stomach at a time when that viscus is empty and all the cells are craving food and drink. It is carried directly to the liver, and there either produces or predisposes to the bad effects upon liver cells which we know as cirrhosis.

It is usually useless to treat such men for the indigestion and other symptoms that are likely to develop as a consequence of their habits, without getting at their story completely. It is easy, as a rule, to relieve them of certain of their symptoms by ordinary drug therapeutics. Unless their habits are changed, this relief, however, is only temporary. It must not be forgotten that in recent years women have come to do a good deal of work at night that was not usual to them before. In the telephone service of certain cities, as cashiers in restaurants, as ticket sellers in various places of entertainment, [{176}] as office help at busy seasons of the year, women may be kept occupied either all night or at least until quite late. Not infrequently during times when rehearsals are on, chorus girls are kept until the wee small hours. They are particularly likely to suffer from such variations in normal habits, and no treatment is so effective with them as pointing out how they must live, if they want to preserve their appearance and continue in such exacting occupations. A healthy young woman can burn the candle of life at both ends with less protest from nature at the beginning than man, but she suffers more for it and the suffering begins sooner.

Positions During Occupations.—The question of position during occupation, especially as regards its influence upon digestive processes, has always seemed to me much more important than most people think. Our idea of digestion has been so largely one of digestive secretions, to the neglect of the motor side of the gastric and intestinal functions, that we have missed some important points. If a person leans over a desk shortly after a meal, there is no doubt that the crowding of the abdominal viscera hinders peristalsis, at least to some degree, not of course in the robust and healthy, but in those who already have some irregularity or sluggishness in this region. The old high desks at which many clerks used to stand, at which even proprietors did not hesitate to take their position, had a reason in common sense that has been forgotten in the modern times, and the variation of position thus permitted seems to have been good for the workers.

A good deal of comfort may be obtained by having a suitable desk and chair for business hours. Not infrequently it happens that a desk is too high for comfortable writing. Any discomfort that is continuous and makes itself felt intrusively during occupation with other things, will have an unfortunate effect. Such things seem trivial by contrast with serious disease and may seem safely negligible. Trivial they are, but little things count both in themselves and as to the attitude of mind which they occasion. It is the attitude of mind that we try to modify by psychotherapy, and even the removal of little sources of annoyance help a patient materially to get through life more happily and through work more efficiently and without any more discomfort than is absolutely unavoidable.

Positions After Meals.—While we have talked thus of business people, what is said refers, also, to the positions assumed out of business hours, as, for instance, at home after dinner. A Morris chair that permits of a somewhat reclining position, or a rocking chair that temps one to sit back, pretty well distending the abdomen and giving all due play to the internal viscera, will be found not only much more comfortable than a straight-back chair which tempts a man to lean forward, but also there will be less interference with gastric motility, the most important digestive function of the stomach. Arm-chairs which really support the arms, and therefore tend to keep the shoulders up, have something of the same effect. We naturally assume these positions, though occasionally social usage forbids them. The tendency, for instance, for elbows to be put on the table, especially toward the end of a meal, represents a natural instinct to lift up the shoulders and keep the weight of the upper part of the trunk off the abdominal organs. Children's instincts often curiously guide their postures—as is illustrated by the story of the little boy who, when asked by his grandmother if he could manage [{177}] another tart, said that he thought he could if he stood up. ([See chapter on Position.])

Mental Conditions of Occupations.—While the details of manual occupations have to be learned with great care if we are to modify the conditions so as to prevent certain unfortunate effects, just as much care has to be exercised, with those not employed manually, in finding out details as to mental worries, and the various disturbances consequent upon business conditions. Many a man has not brain enough to run his business and his liver. This is the old English expression, and the liver, as the largest of the abdominal organs, is taken for the physical life generally. Many people have not vital energy enough to waste any of it on worries and then be able to complete their digestion and other physiological functions with success. The preceding mental condition is a predisposing cause of many a purely physical ailment. It used to be said that during a cabinet crisis in England, or rather just after it was over, attacks of gout were most frequent among prominent politicians. Mental influence usually kept the attacks off until the very end of the crisis. Merchants come down with pneumonia or digestive disturbances more frequently during periods of acute business depression. Physicians are attacked by pneumonia, or influenza in bad form, after they have been wearing themselves out in an epidemic and worrying about patients. Just after a mother has nursed a child through a severe ailment she herself is prone to suffer from some acute infection. Such common-place infections as boils, styes, abscesses and even the more serious osteomyelitis are likely to come at these times.

It is important, then, to know as much as possible about a business man's affairs. Any one who has had a series of tuberculous patients (who were getting along quite well in spite of latent or even active lesions) disturbed by anxieties of one kind or another, knows how much worries may mean. Men will lose weight and appetite and weaken in their general condition as a consequence of some serious business incident, while all the time physical conditions are the same as they were when they were improving. And it must not be forgotten that even in those who do no physical labor, there may be physical conditions of their occupation that are important. Many a business man does his work cooped up in a small office, with insufficient ventilation, and sometimes, especially where his business is on the ground floor of a large building, with so little sunlight that his environment is quite unhygienic. The great air purifier is sunlight. Unless sunlight is admitted for hours every day to the rooms in which people live, the dust that is inevitably breathed will contain living germs, active and noxious, though had they been exposed to sunlight these germs would be harmless.

Especially then for people with respiratory defects of any kind, whether these be tuberculous or of chronic bronchitic character, the conditions surrounding the occupation should be carefully inquired into. Once the family physician knew such things as a matter of course. Now he is likely to know very little. The lack of such information may not be important for the more serious conditions that he has to treat at patients' homes, but they usually mean much for the submorbid conditions, so to say, the discomforts and chronic conditions, which come for office treatment. They mean much for comfort in life, and for the conservation of health and strength. They [{178}] represent that newer medicine which people are asking of us now so much more than before, which shall keep them in good health and prevent them, as much as possible, from suffering even from minor ills.

Business Habits.—The modern idea of having a flat-top business desk, instead of a roll-top desk, and having it thoroughly cleared off every evening, so that each day's work does not accumulate, is an important psychic factor in the strenuous life, which in recent years many corporations have been taking advantage of. It is well for those who are their own masters to realize the value of this principle. Nothing so disturbs the efficiency of work, nor adds so much to the incubus that work may become, as having a number of unfinished things which keep intruding themselves. It is not always possible to dispose of problems, but discipline is necessary to keep us from pushing business matters aside. Then they have to be done in a rush, very often at a moment when other things are also pressing. The result is poor work, but, above all, a waste of nerve force and energy that leads up to nervous symptoms and eventually nervous exhaustion. The orderly man, who has learned to settle things as they come up, or at definite times, can accomplish an immense amount of work. Some men are born orderly, but any one who wants to do much work must have order grafted on his makeup—a habit which can be made a second nature. It may seem that a physician is unwarranted in intruding on a man's business affairs thus to inquire about the ways he does things, but this is the difference between psychotherapy and the regulation of life as compared with cures by more material but less effective means.

Personal Hygiene.—Expert Advice.—For many men who are much occupied with business, the best possible safeguard for health, as well as the best guarantee against nervous or physical breakdown, would be a detailed consultation once a year with a physician regarding their habits of life and their business in relation to their health, present and future. In recent years many a business firm has found it not only expedient but profitable to turn to an expert accountant or auditing company and ask advice with regard to the management of its business. It is often found that certain business customs are causing serious drains, and that there are newer ways of doing things that save time and money. Sometimes a reorganization of the accounting system, or of the method of dealing with credits and debits, or the receiving or shipping department, proves advantageous to the business. Sometimes it is found that the capital invested will not justify the extension of business that is proposed, and not infrequently it is shown that a proposed extension adds to business movement but does not add to profits. Sometimes there are departments that can be dropped to advantage, though they seem to be adding to both business and profit.

All of this may well be transferred to the question of health in its relation to business. Not infrequently it is found that the capital of strength of the business man is not sufficient to justify the extension that he is planning or has already attempted. Sometimes suggestions can be made with regard to the mode of doing business, the hours employed and the hours of relaxation, that will make business less of a drain on the system. Occasionally arrangements for sleep and exercise, as well as for afternoons or special times of diversion, may save a man from that concentration of attention on one thing [{179}] which frequently leads to nervous breakdown. Not infrequently business men who are of neurotic habit have customs of doing business which add to their nervous irritability, and these might be modified so as to lessen the call on nervous energy. There is need that the physician be looked to as an expert in personal health and its relation to business, just as the expert accountant or auditing firm is looked to for advice with regard to business methods.

CHAPTER IV
THE MIDDLE OP THE DAY

Information regarding the mid-day meal will be of value to the physician in many cases. In cities, luncheon, likely to be rather an apology for a meal, is taken rapidly, and immediately there is a return to work. As a medical student in Vienna, I was much interested in the mid-day meal of the bankers and merchants of the old Austrian capital. At that time—I hope they have not changed the good custom since—the banks closed at 12 o'clock and did not open again until 3 o'clock. This gave time for taking the mid-day meal in comfort, and for a proper interval for digestion. In all the southern countries of Europe, for seven or eight months in the year at least, little is done during the two or three hours in the middle of the day. The people get up earlier and rest at mid-day as a break between the afternoon and morning. It is quite beyond expectation that anything like this will ever again be possible in the great commercial cities. The fact that this was the custom of our European forefathers, however, shows how business has obtruded itself on the habits that man would naturally form for himself. Business men hurry to luncheon, or if they take any time over it, it is because they have invited some one to lunch with them with whom they wish to talk over important matters. This means of saving time recalls the well-known expression of James Jeffrey Roche: "Time is money. Every second saved from your dinner now is a sequin in your doctor's pocket later on in life!"

Hurried Lunch.—The seeds of our frequent American dyspepsia are sown partly at the hurried breakfast and then at the hurried mid-day lunch. When a physician finds this to be the case, then the patient's habits must be reformed. Otherwise there is little prospect of relief from neurotic digestive symptoms, or from those uncomfortable feelings so often supposed to refer to the heart, or other important organ, when digestion is interfered with. There should be pleasant company at luncheon if possible; it should be preceded by fifteen or twenty minutes in the open air, with, as far as possible, complete seclusion from business thoughts so as to allow the stomach to secure its share of blood, and it should be followed by at least half an hour of pleasant occupation that does not call for serious mental work. This may not be possible for every one, and many will complain that this is asking too much in our busy time. We physicians are not here to make the nice customs of medicine courtesy to great kings of finance or to the busy tyrants of the professions, but to tell them what we think should be [{180}] done in order that nature may not be abused. Men should be advised to take their luncheon in some building different from that in which their offices are located, or, if they eat in the same building, to go out on the street for a while before the meal. In the old days men used to call on one another in order to transact business, and these little trips were often made just before or after luncheons.

Now the telephone and the messenger boy have done away with this, with a great saving of time, but with an increase of intensity of labor that makes for nervous exhaustion. Luncheon clubs are excellent things when men do not talk shop, but they have one fatal defect. Almost invariably they lack simplicity of menu, and, because of the variety supplied and the example of others, there is a tendency to eat to excess. A game of billiards after eating is often excellent, because, when standing, digestion is accomplished with more comfort than when seated. A walk after the lighter midday meal is a good thing, though the old saw said "after dinner sit a while," but that was in reference to the largest meal of the day, and may still hold good for the evening meal, which is likely to be the heaviest one.

Women's Lunch.—Women are very likely to take their mid-day meal, when it is their luncheon, very irregularly. If they have to get it for themselves they are likely to be satisfied with almost anything. If they get it outside the house they are likely to take it rather late, so that if they have breakfast before eight o'clock, this putting off of the next meal causes some disturbance of the economy. When the stomach gets to be empty, either there is a tendency to swallow air, or there is a rumbling sense of fullness that disturbs the appetite, or the appetite itself is capricious, and a headache develops. How many headaches are due to missed meals it would be hard to say, but this is one of the most fruitful causes of the ordinary passing headache. Delicate women, and especially those who work, are likely not to eat enough luncheon. All the details with regard to this meal must be known or the physician will find it hard to get rid of many neurotic symptoms, particularly in working women. The same thing is true for the so-called society woman, since she is likely to have a late breakfast and then skip her mid-day meal. This is permissible if she is so stout as to be able to spare it, but it is all wrong if she is thin and needs every ounce of weight.

Nature of the Noon Meal.—During the last two generations fashion, custom and the increasing demands of business have pushed the hour of taking the principal meal farther and farther away from mid-day. There are, however, cases in which it seems better that the principal meal should be taken in accordance with the old custom, about noon time. For tuberculous patients this is especially important. They often have fever in the afternoon that seriously disturbs appetite. They may eat with comfort and relish a couple of hours before the fever is due. For delicate persons, especially those who have not much appetite for breakfast and who can not be persuaded to eat a sufficient amount early in the morning, a hearty meal at noon is almost a necessity. They should be shown how low their nutrition is during working hours. Their principal meal of the day before was taken between six and seven o'clock. They have had a light breakfast, a meager lunch, and naturally have little reserve force during the afternoon hours. As a consequence they become overtired, this lessens the appetite, they do not eat properly, and, [{181}] above all, they do not digest as well as they would if their last good meal were not so far away. They are suffering from inanition, and, as is well known, starving people cannot be allowed to eat heartily, because their stomachs have not enough vitality to digest well.

It is often difficult to change the hour of taking the principal meal, but in special cases this can be done with decided advantage. I have seen such a change make all the difference between slow recuperation from bad colds, and have seen it of the greatest possible importance in tuberculosis. The very changing of the hour will sometimes suggestively react to make the patient eat more heartily than usual, the day is broken up better, the reaction against the morning discouragement comes earlier, and the patient's general condition improves. Many people rest better at night if their principal meal is taken at the middle of the day.

CHAPTER V
THE LEISURE HOURS.

Then comes the return from business. Here once more the ordinary method of getting on a crowded train, standing up to be pushed and jammed, to have all sorts of unpleasant things happen, to have the pessimism of one's nature stirred to its depths by the utter disregard for women, the heedless rush of men, the roughness of railroad employees, and the general lack of humanity that characterizes the evening rush from business in a large city, is eminently unsuitable as a preparation for dinner; while a calm walk of three to five miles is ideal. To walk home will probably take twenty minutes or half an hour longer, but not more than this—and it avoids the undesirable features of the usual method.

Gymnastics.—Occasionally one finds that men rush through the last hour of business in order to spend an hour in a gymnasium. Often this is quite undesirable. Exercise within doors, taken in a routine manner and merely for the sake of exercise, with no diversion of mind, is eminently unsuitable for the busy man. What he needs is air much more than exercise. Walking out of doors is the very best thing for him. If he walks at a rapid pace, swinging his arms a little freely and carrying a cane in one hand and perhaps a book in the other, because this exercises his fingers and keeps him from having any unpleasant congestion of the hands when they hang down, then the exercise is almost ideal. Owing to the novelty of it, and the interest that a new occupation arouses, great benefit will at first be derived from the gymnasium. Very often, too, the cold plunge after the exercise does more good than the exercise itself. The plunge is real fun, especially when taken with many others, but the exercise itself is likely to degenerate into the sorriest kind of a task. If the man who walks home will take a bath before dinner, the temperature of the water being made suitable to him and the reaction that comes to his particular nature, there is no need of anything else, and there is nothing better that he could do. The walk must be varied. The course must not always be through the same streets. Occasionally it [{182}] should even lead one to see some monument or new building, or to go out of the way with a friend, so that variety is introduced.

Work at Home.—There are men who in busy times take some of their work home with them. This is a mistake. And though it is the custom to tell the doctor that they cannot do otherwise, it is practically always a bit of self-deception. When the case is properly put before them, they realize, if they already have any neurotic symptoms, that to continue home work will be a serious risk. Most men who carry business home with them, easily get into the habit of pushing certain details away from them during the day with the idea that they will have more time for that in the evening. They do a certain amount of dawdling over their work. If they really resolved to finish work during business hours they could do it, and do it better than during the evening at home. Six hours of work is about all that a man ought to do with his intellect at high pressure. This should be pretty well divided into two periods of three hours each, with an interval of an hour to an hour and a half between. The nearer a man can come to this arrangement the better for him, and the better, also, for his affairs. If he has assumed obligations that require more of his time and attention than this, he is trying to do too much.

After-Dinner Hours.—The evening hours and their proper occupation are important for the business man, or for anyone who is much occupied during the day. The temptation to let the work of the day run over into the evening must be overcome at all costs, or it will prove serious for the health of most men. It is important as far as possible to get something completely different for men to do at night. Many men settle down to the reading of a newspaper or of a magazine or novel. While this does very well under some circumstances, reading does not provide diversion whenever there is serious worry or solicitude over business matters. A man may think that he is occupying himself with the newspaper, but we all know very well that business cares intrude, that business troubles are often doubled by reading about others. The reading of novels does well for a while, but the serious-minded man tires of them and then, while they may occupy a couple of hours, they have exactly the same objection as the newspaper. A genuine diversion should give the physical basis of mind an opportunity literally to remake itself by storing up new energies.

Amusements.—The fact of the matter is that a man must have, if possible, some other serious interest in life besides his business. He must have a hobby. We have discussed this in the chapter on [Diversion of Mind] and refer to it here only to indicate the importance of knowing something about a man's recreation as well as his work. It is not a casual occupation but a real interest that he should have. This need not necessarily be a useful employment and, indeed, it may be absolutely useless provided it is absorbing. Card playing is an excellent diversion for many people. When joined with gambling, new worries and feverish excitement usually make it harmful for neurotic persons. Chess is hard work, but of a different kind from that of the day and, therefore, often makes an excellent recreation. Any games are good. Bowling, for instance, is excellent, and billiards, if a man has an interest in it, is a fine sport for evening hours. It has the added advantage of physical exercise. A man does not sit down during billiards, crowding his [{183}] already well-distended abdominal viscera, but walks around and gives his viscera a better chance for their work and aids rather than retards peristalsis.

Encroachment on Sleep.—There is just one defect about some of the more absorbing recreations—they keep a man up too late. Whenever a so-called recreation takes up such time that a man has less than eight full hours in bed, then a mistake, almost sure to be serious sooner or later, is being made. When the physician tries to limit a man's recreation by suggesting an earlier hour for retirement, he may be told that his patient must have some time for diversion and recreation. But the physician must insist that no form of recreation is as good as sleep, and any other form must be limited in order that sleep may be obtained. A man may easily regulate his affairs so that he shall have eight hours of sleep, and it is only negligence of such regulation that gives him the idea that recreation cannot be obtained except after eleven o'clock at night. Little suppers after the theater are often fine diversions, but whenever they interfere with sleep they must not be allowed except at long intervals. Other diversions that keep a man out of bed after midnight are sure not to do good in the long run, though an occasional lapse in this matter may prove a stimulant rather than a depressant. It is custom that must be regulated; an occasional variant from it is rather good than otherwise.

Leisure of the Working Woman.—A woman's occupation, unlike a man's, holds out little future for her. Her occupation does not arouse her ambition. Daily work is a monotonous grind that must be endured for the sake of the wages that it brings. For a time this serves to occupy attention. After some years, when the prospects of matrimony grow less, and further advance is out of the question, women often need to have some special interest that will grip them. The working woman may then need to be tempted to some occupation of mind, especially with the companionship of others, that will give her renewed interests in life. Clubs, charities in which they are active, friends, serious intellectual interests, must all be appealed to, in different cases, in order to secure diversion. Women must have something to look forward to each week. They must know on Monday that before the following Sunday there is going to be a theater party, a lecture, a visit to friends, something to break the deadliness of weekly routine, which is anticipated with pleasure and then pleasantly remembered. This may seem to be only a slight matter, but it is of importance in many cases.

Feminine Occupations.—The occupations of women who stay at home are even more important than those of women who go out to work. In our time the root of much nervousness, as it is called, neurotic symptoms of various kinds and of many symptoms apparently quite distant from real nervousness, is really a lack of occupation. Many women who live in apartment hotels have almost nothing with which to occupy their minds. They are not obliged to get up in the morning if they do not want to, or, at least, any excuse, however slight, serves to keep them in bed. Very often there are either no children or the mother has nothing to do with her children early in the morning. After the age of three, they go off to kindergarten; later on they go to school. Breakfast is sent up, there may be a nap of an hour or two after the meal, and often a magazine is glanced over lying in bed, and perhaps it will be twelve o'clock before madame gets up. Anyone in a position to do this, and who allows the habit to grow, is sure to be profoundly [{184}] miserable. Without any real occupation of mind, the mind occupies itself with the body and emphasizes every sensation, evokes new pains and aches, and the consequence is likely to be a highly neurotic state.

Such women have nothing serious to think about in the afternoon. At best it is a luncheon engagement with a friend, or attendance at the matinee, or a lecture, or a meeting of a club. For a while, and for a certain few, these things are satisfying, but after they have been indulged in for a time, they pall so completely on most people as to leave them almost helplessly at the mercy of their feelings. These persons may have some favorite charities that occupy part of their time. They may have other interests, but most of these interests are quite amateurish. They create no obligations; they arouse no sense of duty; they are abandoned at a moment for anything else that turns up, and consequently they lack that absorbing power that a real interest gives. It is quite impossible that these people should be either happy or healthy. These ladies of leisure sometimes have fads for physical exercise that keep them from becoming absolutely sluggish, but except in a few cases, these fads pall after a time, and in a few years women of the leisure classes are generally without any interest that will save them from themselves. The root of many a case of nervousness that wanders from physician to physician and then from quack to quack, and from charlatan of one kind to charlatan of another kind, that takes up now this remedy and now that, and advertises each new method of healing—mental, hypnotic, mechanical—is due to nothing more serious than lack of proper occupation of mind.

The Ambition to Have Nothing to Do.—It seems to be the ambition of everyone to reach a place in life so that he can give up work and do nothing. Men and women often envy those whose material situation is such that they are not compelled to work. It is from the leisure classes, however, that our neurotic invalids are mainly recruited. The symptoms these people give will sometimes make one wonder whether they may not be suffering from some serious ailment, but just as soon as the details of their daily occupation are gone into, the real cause for their complaints can be readily seen. Nothing will do them any lasting good until they get interested enough in life to be distracted from themselves. Such men and women are invalids by profession. They are profoundly to be pitied, for they are much more the victims of present-day social conditions than of any special fault of their own. They go from one health resort to another seeking relief and now and again finding it, not because of any special effect of the remedies that they take, but just in proportion to the amount of diversion and occupation of mind they are able to secure in their wanderings. After a time they relapse, then, the old cures having lost novelty, the physician who succeeds in occupying their minds does them good; his brother physician, who does not, fails; but anyone else, however absurd his quackery, who can in any way catch their attention, will benefit them at least for the time being.

Business Anxieties.—The physician should know all that concerns such sources of excitement, worry and anxiety, as are suggested by the words speculation, investment, going on bonds and securities, especially when the person bonded gets into trouble. Fortunately most of these latter sources of worry have been eliminated by the bonding companies of recent years. Details [{185}] of this kind were given to the old family physician as a matter of course. With the going out of the family physician there has often been no one to replace him in hearing such stories, and it has been harder for some to bear the consequences in solitude. The very telling of many cares lessens the burden of them. The warnings of a medical friend may be more effective in keeping a man from serious loss than those of financial friends. Everyone realizes that the physician's advice is quite unselfish and that what he objects to, even more than the danger and loss of money, is worry and anxiety which may lead to loss of health.

For ordinary therapeutic purposes, the physician may be content to know only the physical signs and symptoms of his patient's affection. For psychotherapeutics, he must, if he would be successful, know every possible source of worry and annoyance and, as nearly as may be ascertained, every slight phase of physical fatigue that may be a disturbing factor in his patient's life. It is surprising how many things the physician will find to correct when he carefully goes over all the actions of the day and ascertains all the possible sources of worry and anxiety his patient may have. It may happen that in many cases he will be unable immediately to remove these sources of worry. But there is relief in telling them, and then, even when they cannot be completely eradicated, they can often be modified. Every improvement of this kind, however slight, is a fountain of favorable suggestion which makes the patient look on the brighter side of life. From every amelioration, however trivial, there is a reaction on the feelings that gives more and more confidence.

[{186}]

SECTION IV
GENERAL PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS
CHAPTER I
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

In formal, deliberate psychotherapeutics the first and most important principle is the treatment of the individual patient, and not of his disease. It is much more important to know the kind of an individual who has pneumonia, as a rule, than to be able to tell the amount of pulmonary involvement. If heart, kidneys or lungs are affected when the disease declares itself, the outlook is extremely unfavorable. Similar conditions are true of the patient's mind. If he is of the worrying kind, the outlook is serious. If, on the contrary, he faces it bravely, and without after-thought except that of responding to medical treatment, he will probably get well.

Pneumonia is only one example of the part the individual plays in therapeutics. In the popular mind it is supposed that for each disease there is a definite remedy, and that when the physician gives that remedy the patient gets well. This idea of specific remedies has come to the people from the physician, but only the quack now pretends to cure disease, the physician helps the patient to overcome the affection from which he is suffering.

No Incurable Patients.—There are many incurable diseases, but there are no patients to whom a doctor should say with truth, "I can do nothing for you." We may be unable to do anything for the underlying disease. That may be absolutely incurable. In spite of this, there are practically always symptoms for which the patient can be afforded so much relief that he feels better than before. This is the most important attitude of mind for the physician who would use psychotherapy. He can always do something. Prof. Richet said not long since, "Physicians can seldom cure, but they can nearly always relieve and they can always console," and it is the physician's duty to lift up and console the mind as well as to heal the body.

Unfavorable Suggestions.—Patients often have many opinions and conclusions with regard to their ailments which are not confided to their medical attendants, and which constitute the basis of many annoying symptoms. They have mental convictions with regard to the incurableness of their ailments, the supposed progressive character of the disease, and the development of symptoms which will still further annoy them, that are often more serious and harder to bear than the symptoms from which they are actually suffering. Unless the physician has their complete confidence, these patients may suffer much in silence, though the revelation of their state of mind would [{187}] often be sufficient to afford a good measure of relief, and the correction of false notions would do nearly all the rest. Psychotherapy confers its benefits mainly by securing the most complete rapport between the mind of patient and physician. Good advice is often more important than any medicine. The correction of wrong notions will do more to relieve the patient, and make whatever symptoms he has bearable, than most of the anodyne drugs. The stimulation of hope means more than almost anything else in arousing the latent forces of nature and predisposing to recovery. The removal of unfavorable suggestions is but little less efficient.

Study of the Individual.—The great differences in the relations between physicians and their patients is well recognized. To some physicians a patient will present only conventional symptoms, while a follow practitioner will discover the elements of an interesting case. Above all, the painstaking physician, interested in psychology, will find mental and other personal manifestations in his patient that distinctly modify the course of the disease. We must know all that is possible about the patient's attitude of mind toward his malady, and all the ideas that he has acquired with regard to it, either from previous relations with physicians or from what he may have read or heard from others. The removal of many false notions that are thus working harm will reward the medical practitioner who gets at his patient's ideas. The old rule in therapeutics is non nocere—to be sure to do no harm. The special rule in psychotherapy is to be sure to remove all the ideas that are doing harm to the patient and making his symptoms mean more to him than they really signify.

Neutralizing Contrary Suggestion.—In the application of psychotherapy, then, the first principle is the neutralization of unfavorable mental influence. In our day men have such a smattering of knowledge about disease, especially about the worst forms of it, that they are likely to be in a frame of mind with regard to many affections that is quite unfavorable. Many patients think disease and not health. Disease means discomfort, and consequent loss of vital energy and disturbance of the resistive vitality that would enable the patient to throw off the affection. Sometimes the physician does not realize what a large part unfavorable suggestions are playing in the affection. Sometimes patients conceal their state of mind lest the doctor should confirm their worst fears. The preliminary to all successful treatment is to remove unfavorable suggestion.

Favorable Suggestion.—The next thing is to set certain favorable suggestions at work. It is possible always to do this. Even in certain of the acute diseases favorable suggestion has its place, and for all chronic cases this form of therapeutics is extremely important. The very presence of the physician, especially if he is thoroughly in control of himself, placid, imperturbed, evidently ready to use all his powers without any excitement, is of itself the strongest kind of favorable suggestion. From the very beginning of medical history the presence of the physician has in most cases meant even more than his medicines.

Münsterberg, in his recent book on Psychotherapy, has emphasized this in a way that deserves to be recalled:

There is one more feature of general treatment which seems almost a matter of course, and yet which is perhaps the most difficult to apply because it cannot [{188}] simply be prescribed: the sympathy of the psychotherapist. The feelings with which an operation is performed or drugs given do not determine success, but when we build up a mental life, the feelings are a decisive factor. To be sure, we must not forget that we have to deal here with a causal and not with a purposive point of view. Our sympathy is therefore not in question in its moral value, but only as a cause of a desired effect. It is therefore not really our sympathy which counts but the appearance of sympathy, the impression which secures the belief of the patient that sympathy for him exists. The physician who, although full of real sympathy, does not understand how to express it and make it felt will thus be less successful than his colleague who may at heart remain entirely indifferent but has a skillful routine of going through the symptoms of sympathy. The sympathetic vibration of the voice and skillful words and suggestive movements may be all that is needed, but without some power of awakening this feeling of personal relation, almost of intimacy, the wisest psychotherapeutic treatment may remain ineffective. That reaches its extreme in those frequent cases in which social conditions have brought about an emotional isolation of the patient and have filled him with an instinctive longing to break his mental loneliness, or in the still more frequent cases where the patient's psychical sufferings are misunderstood or ridiculed as mere fancies, or misjudged as merely imaginary evils. Again everything depends upon the experience and tact of the physician. His sympathy may easily overdo the intention and further reinforce the patient's feeling of misery, or make him an hypochondriac. It ought to be sympathy with authority and sympathy which always at the same time shows the way to discipline. Under special conditions, it is even advisable to group patients with similar diseases together, and to give them strength through the natural mutual sympathy; yet this too can be in question only where this community becomes a starting point for common action and common effort, not for mere common depression. In this way a certain psychical value may be acknowledged for the social classes of tuberculosis as they have recently been instituted.

Favorable Environment.—After the removal of unfavorable suggestion and the implanting of favorable suggestion, the next point must be the persistent occupation of the patient's mind with thoughts favorable to his condition. A nurse who is inclined to be pessimistic must be taken out of the sick room, and there must be only cheerful faces and cheery people around him. Hence the modern trained nurse, and especially the picked nurse, who does not allow herself to be disturbed, who is not fussy, who is not forcibly cheerful but quietly placid and confident and cheery, means much for the patient's recovery. Relatives are almost sure to exert strong unfavorable suggestions, though time was when the devoted wife or mother might be depended upon to cover up all her personal feelings and give the best possible service for the mental uplift of the patient. When she can thus conceal her own solicitude, a near relative may be the best possible auxiliary in psychotherapeutics.

Natural Relief.—The fourth step in the application of psychotherapeutics is that all the natural modes for the relief of symptoms, the making of patients comfortable in body as well as in mind, must be employed. In acute rheumatism, for instance, a number of small pillows must be at the disposition of the patient so that his limbs can be fixed in those positions in which there is the least discomfort. Every physician should frequently read Hilton's classical volume on "Rest and Pain" because of its unpretentious significance for psychotherapy, as well as its enduring value in the treatment of painful conditions. Just as soon as a patient finds that simple procedures relieve his pain and add to his comfort, his fear of the seriousness of his ailment is lessened, [{189}] and he begins to get bettor. Cold water in fevers, cold fresh air in pneumonia, all the natural modes of treating disease, thus become active factors in the application of psychotherapy. When fevers were treated by the administration of hot drinks the effect upon the patient's mind must have been quite serious. Freedom to use cold water, just as one wants it and whenever it is craved for, is of itself an excellent suggestion.

Neuroses in Organic Disease.—Fifth, psychotherapy, by suggestion, may alleviate or even completely eradicate neurotic symptoms that develop in connection with organic diseases. Such neurotic symptoms may prove even more bothersome to the patient than the symptoms due to his underlying affection, and may, by interfering with nutrition, hamper recovery. The appetite of a patient who is worrying about a chronic disease will be disturbed, and, as a consequence of insufficient food, constipation and a whole train of attendant evils may ensue. Headache, sleeplessness, worry at slight irritation and exaggerated complaints from slight pain may all be due to this worry and not to the underlying disease. All these, the result of over-solicitude, are attributed by the patient to his chronic ailment. They can be relieved by simple measures after he is saved from his own worry. Until the patient is made to rouse himself and look hopefully at the situation, eating more, getting out more, and relaxing his mind from its constant attention to himself, he cannot get better.

Application of Principles.—It should be pointed out to the patient that there is a constant tendency to exaggerate the significance of disease. This is true in acute as well as in chronic disease, but in acute diseases the necessity for removing unfavorable influences directly is not so urgent, since usually the presence of the physician, with his simple declaration of the meaning of symptoms, is sufficient to neutralize the effect of previous exaggerations.

Secondly, the action of unfavorable suggestions due to imperfect knowledge (everything unknown is magnified, as Cicero said), or to previous medical opinions which the case does not justify, must be stopped. The natural dread which comes to all men in the presence of symptoms of disease must be as far as possible removed.

Thirdly, the favorable elements in the case should be emphasized. This needs to be thoroughly done in order to secure the patient's co-operation, even though the serious possibilities of his ailment may be pointed out to his friends. These friends, however, must be persons who can be absolutely depended on not to reveal by word, or, what is much more important, by their looks or actions, the possible worse prognosis of the case.

Unfortunately, people expect a doctor to tell them the worst, rather than the best. Many physicians seem to have formed the habit of representing the condition of patients as grave as possible, in order, apparently, that they may have more credit when the patient recovers. Not a little of the tendency of ills to hang on in neurotic persons is due to this habit. Over-cautiousness leads some physicians to reveal a case in its worst aspect, lest, by any chance, something unexpected should happen, and the friends of the patient might think that the physician was incompetent because he had not anticipated it. Some of the serious accidents of disease are quite beyond anticipation; but they occur only rarely. For the sake of safeguarding the possible reflection on the physician because of them, it is quite unjustifiable to make bad [{190}] prognosis habitually, for this acts deterrently on the vital resistance and delays recovery.

Symptoms of Organic Disease.—It is usually considered that psychotherapy is beneficial only in nervous cases; yet we know that all sorts of affections with tissue changes in the skin, in the circulation, and very probably also in the internal organs, may be produced in hysterical affections—ailments dependent on loss of control over the vaso-motor nervous system. Just as ills can be produced, so they may also be cured. As a matter of fact, analysis of the statistics of disease cured by mental influence, shows that it has been more strikingly manifest in organic than in so-called nervous or functional diseases. Neurotic patients often make extremely unsuitable subjects for the exercise of mental influence, because their very nervousness is a manifestation of lack of power properly to control the mind. Cures by mental influence have oftenest been reported in non-neurotic patients. As Dr. Hack Tuke pointed out in "The Influence of the Mind on the Body" as long ago as 1884, it is in such cases as rheumatism, gout and dropsy that benefit was most frequently reported by mental means.

Tuberculosis, certain digestive and intestinal ailments that evidently are associated with tissue changes, have in recent years come particularly into this category of ailments affected by psychotherapy. Dr. Hack Tuke's declaration, made nearly thirty years ago, seems conservative even at the present day: "The only inference which we are justified in drawing from the statistics of the affections cured by mental means is that the beneficial influence of psychotherapeutics is by no means confined to nervous disorders." Many physicians are likely to hold that when cures take place the so-called organic diseases were not actual, but were only supposed to exist because of certain obscure symptoms that apparently could not otherwise be explained. But many of the cases have had external symptoms, striking and unmistakable. To assume that physicians of experience and authority were in error in diagnosing them is simply to beg the question. It is more probable that mental influence acted curatively even over tissue changes as it so often does, directly under our observation, in the production of such changes in the skin.

Tissue Changes From Nerves.—Until one recalls how many physical changes may be brought about by mental influences or emotional disturbances, it is not always clear just how mental influence can affect disease favorably or unfavorably. Prof. Forel, of Zurich, in his "Hygiene der Nerven und des Geistes im Gesunden und Kranken Zusande," Zurich, 1905, English translation 1907, brings together into a single paragraph most of these physical and physiological influences of the mind upon the central nervous system:

Through the brain and spinal cord, thoughts can lead to a paralysing or stimulation of the sympathetic ganglion nodes, and consequently to blushing or blanching of certain peripheral parts. Through disturbance of this mechanism, many nervous disorders arise, such as chilblains, sweats, bleeding of the nose, chills and congestions, various disturbances of the reproductive organs, and, if it lasts long enough, nutritional disturbances in the part of the body supplied by the blood vessels affected. In the same way there are peripheral ganglionic mechanisms which superintend glandular secretion, the action of the intestinal muscles, etc. These likewise can be influenced through the brain by ideas and emotions. Thus we can explain how constipation and a vast number of other disturbances of digestion and of menstruation can be produced through the brain, without having their cause in [{191}] the place in which they appear. It is for the same reason that such disturbances can be cured by hypnotic suggestion.

Health and the Central Nervous System.—Nature has so constituted and ordered the human economy that its health depends to a great extent on conditions in the central nervous system. We discuss elsewhere the return of vitalism in physiology—that is, the reassertion of a principle of life behind the chemical and physical forces of the human organism regulating it, supplying energy, occasionally enabling it to transcend the ordinary laws of osmosis, or the diffusion of gases. The main seat of this principle of life is in the central nervous system and especially in the cerebral cortex. The importance of this portion of the human anatomy can scarcely be exaggerated. In his inaugural address to the Royal Medical Society, [Footnote 23] delivered at Edinburgh in 1896, Prof. T. S. Clouston, the distinguished English psychiatrist, has a passage on this subject that deserves to be recalled:

[Footnote 23: British Medical Journal, January 18, 1896.]

I would desire this evening to lay down and to enforce 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 in every organic disturbance.

Psychotherapy in Its Relation to Patient and Physician.—In spite of the present-day fad for psychotherapy, I have no illusions with regard to its popularity among patients, unless practiced with due regard to individuals and with proper tact. Psychotherapy has been most effective in the past when it was cloaked beneath the personality of the physician; when it was felt that there was in him a power to do good that must help the patient. This personal influence has to be maintained if the patient's mind is to be influenced favorably. Very few people are willing to think, and still less to welcome the thought, that they themselves are either bringing about a continuance of their symptoms or are hindering their own recovery. They are quick to conclude that this would be a confession that their ills are imaginary. "Imaginary" has no place in medicine. There are physical ills and mental ills. Mental ills are just as real as physical ills. There are no fancied ills. A person may be ailing because he persuades himself that he is ailing, but in that case his mind is so affecting his body that he is actually ailing physically, though the etiology of the trouble is mental.

It is the duty of the physician to get at these mental causes of physical ills and remove them by persuasion, by reassurance, by changing the mental attitude, by making people understand just how mind influences body, but this must be done tactfully. From the beginning of time we have written our prescriptions in such a way that ninety-nine out of one hundred patients have not been able to understand them. It has often been said that we should change this method of prescription writing, and write directions for the compounding of our medicines in plain vernacular. Besides the many [{192}] scientific reasons against this, it is better for patients not to know exactly the details of their treatment. Physicians, because of their real or supposed knowledge, are usually the worst patients. If, when a physician is ill, a drug is administered in which he has lost confidence, he will really oppose its action by contrary suggestion, and perhaps neutralize it. Confidence added to the action of the drug itself, makes it much more potent and much more direct. Hence the suggestive value of a prescription the ingredients of which are unknown. Every physician knows of patients who have declared that a drug has been tried on them without avail, when it has only been used in such small quantities as to be quite nugatory in its effect. Such use was enough to prejudice them against it so that when given in physiological doses it failed to work properly.

Opium given to a trusting patient, in gradually reduced doses until practically there is nothing but the flavor of the drug in the compound that he takes, will continue to have its effect. But to a patient prejudiced against the drug, even large doses of opium will prove unavailing, because the lack of confidence disturbs the mind, directs attention to whatever discomfort may be present, emphasizes the ill and prevents sleep by preoccupying the mind with the thought that neither the drug nor the dose can accomplish its purpose. In a word, medicine plus mental influence is extremely valuable. Medicine minus mental influence is valuable but sometimes ineffective. Medicine, with mental influence opposed to it, is often without effect because of the strong power the mind has over bodily functions.

Most people would rather be cured by some supposedly wonderful discovery, which presumedly made it clear that they had been suffering from a severe and quite unusual ailment, than by ordinary simple methods. The recent growth of interest in psychotherapy and psychology has, however, somewhat prepared people to accept mental influence as an important factor in therapeutics. The direct and frank use of psychotherapy will be of benefit to these people. But in most cases mental influence will have to be exerted in such a way as to conceal from patients that it is their own energy we want to tap to help them cure themselves. This would be for them quite an unsatisfactory method of being cured. In practically all cases such a combination of methods is needed that the place of mental influence is not over-emphasized. As a rule, mental influence must not be used alone. Its place is that of an adjunct, a precious auxiliary, to other methods of treatment.

Psychotherapy represents one of the important elements in therapeutics, and we must learn to use it in a way suitable to our patients. We have to learn to use our drugs in accordance with the nature and physical make-up of the patient. We have to find out by experience just how to use hydrotherapy for each individual. Varying currents of electricity and varying forms of electrical action are needed for different individuals. Just in the same way, our psychotherapy must be dosed out according to the special need of each individual, the form of the affection and the particular kind of mind that is to be dealt with. To learn the place of mental influence in healing, so that we shall not be attributing to other therapeutic factors what is really due to the mind, will be a great advance in therapeutics. This is the mistake that we have been making in the past.

In brief, the applications of the general principles of psychotherapy [{193}] include all means, apart from the physical, of influencing patients. Drugs will always have a large place in rational therapy. Many physical remedial measures, hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, climatotherapy and others, must be important adjuncts. To these is now added psychotherapy. It has been used before, as have most of the other forms of therapy, but in our day we are trying to systematize therapeutic modes so as to secure the greatest possible information with regard to their exact application. This is what must be done with regard to psychotherapy also. Just now its importance is being exaggerated by ardent advocates. In every department of therapy this has always been done by enthusiasts. The business of the practicing physician must be to select what is best, and above all what is sure and harmless, from the many suggestions offered, so as to build up a practical body of applied truth.

[{194}]

SECTION V
ADJUVANTS AND DISTURBING FACTORS
CHAPTER I
SUGGESTION

Under the head of Adjuvants and Disturbing Factors in the psychic treatment of patients come the various phases of life which make for and against such a favorable state of mind as predisposes to the continuance of good health, minimizes inhibition, and adds to favorable suggestion. By modifying the modes of life, an ever renewed set of suggestions is initiated. By definite instruction and advice with regard to exercise, position, training, habit, pain, occupation of mind and diversion of mind, patients may be profoundly influenced, and gradually made to take on an entirely new attitude of mind towards themselves. These chapters, then, while apparently much more concerned with physiotherapy than psychotherapy, are really directions for the use of such physical methods as by frequent repetition make the most valuable suggestions. There is probably nothing more valuable in the ordinary application of psychotherapy than these various auxiliaries, with their power to remove disturbing factors, while, on the other hand, nothing aids more in bringing relief for many conditions than the removal of certain disturbing factors.

There is now a general recognition of the fact that suggestion in the waking state can in most cases be as therapeutically efficient as hypnotism, and is probably even more enduring in its effects when successful, without the dangers and sequelae connected with hypnosis. Every idea tends to act itself out. When we crave something, when there are active ideas of desire, there usually are movements of our flexor muscles. These affect the hands especially. At moments of hatred, detestation or abhorrence our extensor muscles are affected, as if we would wave these things away from us. There may even be an involuntary turning of the trunk muscles, as if we would no longer face what is abhorrent, though the repulsive thing may be present only to the mind. It is not far-fetched to argue that, since the voluntary function of muscles is thus influenced, other functions are also touched by emotions, ideas, trains of thought, especially when the mind is much concentrated on them.

Bishop, the so-called mind-reader, whose exhibitions attracted much attention in London and New York some years ago, confessed that his feats were accomplished mainly through muscle reading. He would permit a committee to select a book in a library in a certain house, and even a particular page of [{195}] that book, and then, blindfolded, sitting with the committee in a carriage with his hand on the forehead and the arm of one of the committee, he would direct just where the carriage should be driven and would, while always continuing his contact with the member of the committee, go to the particular house and room, select the special book, and eventually find the page. There was no opportunity for collusion in some of these feats. The most startling things were often accomplished by the system of forcing a choice which prestidigitateurs use in order to compel the taking of the particular card by suggestion (though all the time they seemed to be leaving absolute liberty of selection to the person), but there was much, besides this, required to accomplish what he did. He said that there were always involuntary muscle movements, little starts and tremors that guided him in his work. Other exhibitors have been able to use this to a considerable extent, though not with Bishop's success. That our thoughts can be read in our muscle system is interesting and valuable confirmation of the unconscious tendency of ideas to affect the body.

When a single idea occupies the consciousness it will, some psychologists insist, necessarily act itself out unless some distracting thought prevents it. We know how difficult it is to stand at the edge of a height, say at the brink of a waterfall or on the cornice of a high building, or to look down a mine or elevator shaft, because the thought comes to us, how dreadful it would be to plunge over. As a consequence of this insistent idea taking possession of our consciousness, we have the sense of falling, we become tremulous and have to withdraw, or we would actually fall, or find in ourselves a tendency to throw ourselves over. There are persons who cannot even sit in the front row of a balcony because of the constant effort required to neutralize the suggestion that they may fall or throw themselves over its railing. Curious sensations become associated with this idea—a feeling of numbness and tingling in the back, sometimes a girdle feeling, sometimes a sense of suffocation. All of these are due to the concentration of attention on a single idea and its suggestions.

Very few men, shaving themselves with an old-fashioned razor, have not, at moments of worry and nervousness, sometimes had the thought of how easy it would be to end existence by drawing the edge of the razor through the important structures in the neck. Some are so affected by this thought that they have to give up shaving themselves. It is a surprise usually to find how otherwise sensible, according to all our ordinary standards, are the individuals who confess to having had annoyance from such thoughts. This illustrates how strongly suggestive the concentration of attention may make an idea, and how much a single idea, when it alone occupies the center of consciousness, tends to work itself out in act, though there is no reason at all for willing in that direction. It is not improbable that in some inexplicable cases of suicide the tendency has actually worked itself out.

The expression, "he is a man of one idea," enshrines in popular language the conclusion of psychologists that if a single idea is present in the mind it will surely work itself out. We all know how much men of one idea accomplish. All their powers, physical and mental, are brought to bear on its development. Obstacles that deter other men, conditions that prevent others from daring even to think of doing the thing, seem as nothing to the man [{196}] of one idea, and in spite of discouragement, and even apparent failure, he often succeeds, notwithstanding obstacles that seemed insurmountable. What is thus true in the practical world is paralleled, for both good and ill, in the microcosm of the human body. A man who has one idea to urge him on is capable of accomplishing things in spite of pains and aches and all sorts of disturbances of function. On the other hand, if the one idea is unfavorable, then, in spite of a heritage of good physical and mental powers, his efficiency is inhibited. If a man gets an idea that there is something the matter with any organ, and concentrates attention on it, he will surely disturb the function of that organ. Just the opposite, however, will happen in case, even with physical defect, he believes that there is nothing the matter, or only something that can be overcome. This is the power of faith as illustrated in the various forms of faith healing, from mental science to Eddyism and the rest.

This is the power that the physician must learn to use. In The Lancet for November, 1905, Dr. J. W. Springthorpe, writing on the "Position, Use and Abuse of Mental Therapeutics," said:

Few indeed are the medical practitioners who daily prescribe suggestion as well as diet, hygiene and drugs. Yet the physician who makes even a minimum effort in this direction often does more for his patient than his more highly qualified confrère, who makes none. To some, and they naturally the most successful, this endeavor comes without conscious search, and improves with experience, but in some measure it may be acquired by all and no one who has become familiar with its powers will henceforward be content to remain without its constant aid.

This power is thoroughly exploited by the irregular practitioner, and the regular practitioner is bound in duty to learn to use it just as thoroughly.

What is true for the lesser faculties is eminently true for our most important faculty, the intellect. We all know how intellectual training enables us to accomplish without difficulty what at first seemed almost impossible. Not only that, but we acquire the power to devote ourselves to a subject that was at first irksome, if not actually forbidding. There are educators who insist that this discipline of mind, by which the power to devote ourselves to what we do not care for is gained, is the principal fruit of genuine education. It has been lost, or at least impaired to a great degree, by educational experiments, especially those related to the elective system which pushed interest, instead of discipline, into the foreground of education. In the same way the power of self-control, and the faculty of self-denial, so precious to the human race, have been lessened by the methods of training which omitted the consideration of these and emphasized the idea of personal comfort. Much can be done to make the unpleasant things that are inevitable in life not only tolerable, but actually to give a satisfaction surpassing selfish pleasure. It is this discipline that is needed in psychotherapy at the present time and the physician must endeavor to encourage it by every means in his power.

The one purpose of the use of suggestion in therapeutics, then, is to secure as far as possible concentration of mind on a single idea. This is what is done in hypnosis, but frequently in such a way as to leave the idea [{197}] to work out unfavorably associated suggestions. If there could, in the conscious state, be the same absolute concentration of mind on an idea, a great force for good, without accompaniment of ill, would be secured. Experience has shown that with patient effort and definite methods such concentration of attention on a single idea can be secured, at least to such an extent as to make it efficiently therapeutic.

Ordinarily, suggestion accompanies the material remedies that the doctor prescribes. He must emphasize just when and how the medicine is to be taken, and it is well to emphasize the effects that are expected and just about how they will come. If he is prescribing a tonic, he does not merely say before meals. He specifies from ten to twenty minutes before meals, according as he wishes it taken, with a definite amount of water, stating that the taste of it will excite appetite and that only food in reasonably liberal quantities will satisfy the craving produced by it. If he is prescribing a laxative, he states just when it should be taken and when its effects may be expected. The arousing of expectancy does much to relax inhibition and to permit the flow of nervous impulses that may be helpful. If a sleeping potion is given, the patient is directed to compose himself for sleep immediately after it is taken, or to take it just a definite time before he gets into bed, and then to expect its action in the course of twenty minutes or a half hour, designating rather definitely just when it shall have its climax of effect. Two or three things done together, as, for instance, a gentle rubbing with cool water over the body to produce a glow, a warm foot-bath, and then a sleeping potion, will combine to produce a climax of physical and psychical effect.

In many conditions that come for treatment to the modern physician, the physical remedies are much less important than the psychical. This is particularly true for the affections known as psychoneuroses, in which some slight nervous disturbance is exaggerated into an extremely painful condition or a disturbing paralytic state; in the so-called hysteria of the older times; in the drug habits; in the sex habits; in the over-eating and under-eating habits, and then with regard to dreads and other psychic disturbances connected with dreams, premonitions and the like. In all these cases it is important to secure concentration of the patient's mind on a neutralizing suggestion. This must be done deliberately and in such a way as to secure thorough concentration of attention. It is often a time-taking process, but nearly everything worth while requires time, and the results justify the expenditure. Methods mean much in the attainment of this. They must be impressive, the patient must be convinced of the power of the physician to help him, and he must have trust in the efficacy of the mode of treatment.

The patient should be put into a comfortable position, preferably in a large, easy arm-chair, should be asked to compose himself in such a way as to bring about thorough relaxation of muscles, and then to give his whole attention to the subjects in hand. Occasionally the arms should be lifted and allowed to fall, to see whether relaxation is complete, and the knee jerks may be tested, to show the patient that he is not yet allowing himself fully to relax. There should be no lines in the face: the muscles around the mouth, and especially those in the forehead, should relax. It is surprising how [{198}] much can be done, sometimes by slight touches on the forehead, to secure this. The patient should then be made to feel that the tension in which he has been holding himself, and which makes it so difficult for him to relax, has really been consuming energy that he can use to overcome the tendencies to sensory or motor disturbance, or to supply the lack of will which makes him a victim of a drug or other habit, or takes away from him that mental control that would enable him to at once throw off dreads and doubts and questionings and bothersome premonitions which now, because of the short circuiting on himself through worry and nervousness, he cannot do.

Two or three séances usually show a patient how much better control over himself even a short period of relaxation will give. He comes out of a ten-minute session of relaxation, during which he has been talked to quietly, soothingly, encouragingly, with a new sense of power. Often he feels that there will be no difficulty in overcoming his habit. This may pass, of course, but he has received a new idea of his own resources of energy and self-control.

In most cases it is well, after securing relaxation, to ask the patient to close his eyes gently and to keep them closed till all his muscles are relaxed. Then suggestions may be made to him with regard to his power to control cravings, and to put away doubts and questionings, because, after all, as he sees them himself, they are quite irrational and entirely due to habitual tendencies that he has allowed to grow on him. A concentration of attention on the idea, not only of conquering but of being able to conquer, will be secured. Unless this complete attention can be had, suggestion in the waking state may not prove efficient. There are nervous, excitable people for whom, at the beginning, it will be quite impossible to secure such relaxation and peaceful quiet as will be helpful to them. For these a number of séances may be necessary, but on each occasion a little more of quieting influence is secured.

In recent years, this quiet, peaceful condition, with eyes closed, thorough relaxation and absolute attention, has sometimes been spoken of as the hypnoidal state. If it be recalled that hypnos in Greek means sleep, and that this is a state resembling sleep with the restfulness that sleep gives, the term is valuable in its suggestions. If, however, the word is connected with hypnotism, then there may be an unfortunate connotation. This state is entirely free from the dangers of hypnotism, and instead of making a patient dependent on his physician, teaches him to depend on his own will. It is not a new invention as this term hypnoidal might seem to indicate, but is as old as our history at least.

CHAPTER II
EXERCISE

In recent years a great change has come over the popular mind regarding exercise, especially in the open air. It is well to emphasize at the very beginning the subject of too much exercise, because there is no doubt in the minds of many who study the question, that many Americans, and indeed people of the northern nations generally, take a certain amount of voluntary [{199}] exercise that is not good for them, though they take it at the cost of considerable effort and sacrifice of time and are firmly persuaded that it is of great benefit.

Sufficient Exercise.—There is a much larger number of persons who do not take sufficient exercise. The amount to be taken is eminently an individual matter. Neurotic patients exaggerate everything in either direction, so that perhaps the state of affairs that exists is not so surprising as it might otherwise seem. Instead of the uncertainty that prompts now to too much exercise, and again to too little, for health's sake there must, as far as possible, be a definite settlement of the needs.

National Customs.—There is a curious difference in the attitude of mind of the various nations towards exercise. Most of the southern nations of Europe do not as a rule take any violent exercise. As is well known, however, they are not for this reason any less healthy than their northern contemporaries, though perhaps they are less strong and muscular. But muscularity and health are not convertible terms, though many people seem to think they are. An excess of any tissue is not good. Our economy should be taxed to maintain only what is useful to it. Nature evidently intended, in cold climates at least, that men should maintain a certain blanket of fat to help them retain their natural heat, but any excess of fat lessens their resistive vitality by lowering oxidation processes. Fat in cold climates can be used to advantage as a retainer of heat. In the warmer climate it would be a decided disadvantage. Muscular tissue is a manufacturer of heat and this is a decided advantage in the colder climates, but in the temperate zone, where the summers are very warm, muscle in over-abundance, unless its energy is consumed by actual physical exercise, may be quite as much of a burden as fat. Muscular people do not stand heat well. They demand exercise to keep muscle energy from being converted into heat, and they require frequent cold baths, and other forms of heat dissipation, in order to be reasonably comfortable.

Exercise in Early Years.—The question of the amount of exercise that is to be taken must be decided at an early age for individuals. Most of the young people of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon races are tempted by traditions and by social usage to develop considerable muscle during their growing years. In this respect, the difference between the German and the English schoolboy is very striking. The English schoolboy is likely to be as "hard as nails," as the expression is, as a consequence of violent exercise in his various sports, taken often to the uttermost limit of fatigue. The German schoolboy has his walk to and from school, and some other simple methodical exercises, with some mild amusements that make little demand on muscle, but of games in the open he has very few, and of the violent sports he has none at all. A comparison of the health of the two nations will not show that the English boy, who receives a public school and a university education, with all their temptations to exercise, enjoys any better health, and, above all, reaches an average longer life than the German youth, who has gone through a similar educational career in his own country, but without the athletic training that the English schoolboy has had.

As a consequence of the absence of athletics and its diverting interest, the German is apt to have learned more than his English colleague, but a [{200}] comparison of mortality and morbidity tables would show that his resistive vitality, his power to overcome disease and recover from accident is not lower than that of his colleague from across the North Sea. The German is less strong muscularly, and in a contest of physical effort would as a rule come out second best, but then we have gotten beyond the period when it is important for a man to be able to defend himself by physical force, except in emergencies that may never come. Surely the English time and effort devoted to athletics is not justified by this.

Preparation for a Sedentary Life.—Certainly if a young man is going to live a sedentary life in his after years, it does not seem advisable for him deliberately to devote much time to muscular exercise during his growing years. This only provides him with a set of muscles for which he has no use. Ordinarily it is assumed that muscles are organs for the single purpose of evolving energy. This is not true, since they are important organs for the disposition of certain food materials and for the manufacture of heat for the body. Nature in her economy probably never makes an organ for one function alone, but usually arranges so that each set of organs accomplishes two or three functions, thus saving space and utilizing nutrition to the full. The man with a well-developed muscular system, which he is not using, will have to feed it, and besides will have constantly to exert a controlling power over the heat that it manufactures whenever it is not dissipated by actual exercise. For these reasons he will be constantly nagged by it into taking more exercise than his occupation in life demands, and if he does not do this, his developed musculature is likely to deteriorate so as to be a serious impediment, or to degenerate by fatty metamorphosis into a lower order of tissue that is a clog and not a help to life.

The Germans are more sensible. As students, they live quite sedentary lives, develop their muscles just enough to keep them in reasonably good health, and then, when it comes to living an indoor life, as will be almost inevitable in their chosen professions or occupations, they do not meet with the difficulties that confront the Anglo-Saxon with his burdensome, over-developed muscular system. German professors, as a class, do not find themselves under the necessity of taking systematic daily exercise. They are quite content and quite healthy with an hour or two of sitting in the open air, and a quiet walk from the home to the university or the school. With the ideas that some people have with regard to the value of exercise for health, it might be expected that the German professors would be less healthy than their Anglo-Saxon colleagues. This is notoriously untrue, for the Germans live longer lives on the average, and most of them accomplish much more, and above all are much more content in the accomplishment, than their physically strenuous Anglo-Saxon colleagues. They are not oppressed by the demands of a muscular system that insists on having its functions exercised, since it has been called into being in the formative period. These German professors live to a magnificent old age, requiring very little sleep and often doing a really enormous amount of work. The man with a developed muscular system generally requires prolonged sleep, particularly after exercise, but even without it very seldom is it possible for him to do with less than seven hours, while the Germans often are content and healthy with five hours, or less.

[{201}]

Our muscular system is our principal heat-making apparatus. It is easy to understand. If we have larger heat-making organs than are necessary for the maintenance of the temperature of the body, and if we have no mode of dissipating our heat by muscular energy, as through exercise, then there will be a constant tendency for our temperature to rise, which must be overcome, at considerable expense of energy, by the heat-regulating mechanism of the body. This heat-regulating mechanism is extremely delicate, yet does not seem to be easily disturbed. With the external temperature at 120° F. or—10°, human temperature is constant. With a heating apparatus entirely too large for its purpose, it is no wonder that irritability of the nervous system ensues because of the constant over-exercise of a function called for from it. It is this state of affairs which seems to me to account for the marked tendency to nervous unrest, and to the presence of many heart and digestive symptoms that often characterize athletes who develop a magnificent muscular system when they are young, and later have no use for it. They must learn the lesson and keep up the practice of using their muscles sufficiently to dissipate surplus heat, so as to prevent this energy from being used up in various ways within the body, with a resulting disturbance of many delicate nervous mechanisms.

Useless Muscles.—Whatever a human being has to carry round as useless can only be expressed by the telling Roman word for the baggage of an army, impedimenta. Prof. James, in his "Principles of Psychology," sums up the law very well:

The great thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual as early as possible as many useful actions as can be and guard against the growing into ways that may be disadvantageous to us as we should guard against the plague.

An over-developed muscular system, with its tendency to manufacture heat and its craving to be used, and the consciousness it is so apt to produce of ability to stand various dangerous efforts, is a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

Useless Fat.—This reminds us very much of the attitude with regard to children in the acquisition of fat. Chubby babies with rolls of fat all over them and deep creases near their joints are considered to be "perfectly lovely." Mothers are proud to exhibit them. They are supposed to be typical examples of abounding good health. Neighborly mothers come in to coo over them and, in general, the main aim of existence for children in their early years would seem to be to make them as fat as possible. Such children, as is brought out in the discussion of the subject in the [chapter on obesity], are not healthy in the true sense of the word, are well known to be of lower resistive vitality than thinner infants, and easily succumb to diseases.

Resistive Vitality.—One reason for the early deaths of many athletes is the fact that, confident of their strength, they allow themselves to become so overwhelmed by an infection, before they confess that they are sick and take to bed, that often the cure of their affection is hopeless. Ordinarily neither pneumonia nor typhoid are likely to be fatal diseases for men between twenty and fifty. If a man's heart and kidneys are in good condition during this [{202}] period, an attack of either of these diseases, while a serious incident, is likely to be only a passing loss of time. Rather frequently, however, strong and healthy men without any organic defect that may be considered responsible for the fatal termination, succumb to these diseases. The reason for the fatality is that they are not willing to admit that they are ill enough to be in bed, they have a large reserve force of strength on which they call and which enables them, for a good while, to resist the weakening influence of disease. Doctors know and dread these cases. A young man in the flower of youth, with magnificent muscular development, comes into the office breathing very rapidly and with a laboring pulse. Almost exhausted, he sinks into a chair, confesses that he is nearly "all in," and wonders what is the matter. At times the physician will find practically a whole lung solidified by pneumonia, and at times both lungs are seriously affected. The wonder is how the young man succeeded in holding out so long. Sometimes the doctor is summoned to see him because he has fainted in his home, or in his office, and his friends are alarmed. These cases are almost invariably fatal. Any one who continues to be up and around until the third or fourth day of pneumonia will have so exhausted his vitality, no matter how great that may be, that he will have no reserve force for the life-struggle that must come before the crisis is reached.

Nearly the same thing is true for typhoid fever in the same class of persons. A young athlete, who considers it babyish to confess to illness, complains of feeling out of sorts but nothing more, until some morning he is literally unable to leave his bed, or has a fainting fit after going up-stairs. He is found by the physician with a temperature of 104°, or near it, and with evident signs of being in the middle of the second week of typhoid fever. The termination of such a case is generally fatal.

The ordinary man knows his limitations better; he recognizes the fact that he may be ill, and gives in quietly and rests, so that nature may employ all her energies in conquering the infection. Most of the long-lived people of history have been rather delicate and have learned young the precious lesson of caring for themselves. This care has not been exaggerated, but it has consisted in avoiding danger, in resting when tired, in not overdoing things, and above all in yielding to the symptoms of disease before these become serious.

Regulation of Exercise.—Each man must be a law unto himself as to the amount of exercise that is necessary for him. He must take enough to use up the energy supplied by the food he eats, just as, on the other hand, he must eat enough food to make up for whatever waste there is in his body. There are many men who eat over-heartily and then have to take exercise to use up this material or else suffer for it. This is one of the compensations that the hearty eater must pay: he overfeeds and becomes obese, or, if he succeeds in keeping down his weight to the normal, it is only by the expenditure of time in securing such muscular action as will use up surplus energy. Many men find it difficult to control their appetites, and prefer to take exercise rather than to deny the appetite which they created during their days of indulgence in athletics. It is for such men to decide just what seems preferable. If the fuel is supplied to the heat engine, which all human beings are, it must be used for the production of energy or else it will exert [{203}] itself in accumulating certain waste in the tissues, just as over-abundant fuel serves merely to clog up the fire-box of an engine without doing any work.

Air and Exercise.—It is easy to deceive one's self in the matter of exercise. With regard to air such a mistake is almost impossible. As a rule, it is air rather than exercise that people need when they have the restlessness and nervousness which comes from over-abundant nutrition. Fresh, pure air enables the individual to burn up nutritive material to the best advantage by the encouragement of oxidation. It is a surprise to those who are not accustomed to it, to see how tuberculosis patients who come to sanatoria with very little appetite, soon acquire an appetite and are able to consume large quantities of food, to sleep well and become restful—all as the result of living constantly in the open air during the day, and also having an abundance of fresh air at night. This is particularly true if the air in which they live is rather cold, and, above all, if it has a large difference of temperature every day, so that there is an upward and downward swing of the thermometer of from thirty to forty degrees. This varying temperature seems to use up nutritive material, and keeps all the natural processes going.

Gymnastics.—The very opposite to this plan of open air life is that followed by those who take gymnastic exercises for health's sake, with the idea that the use of certain muscles is necessary to keep the bodily economy in equilibrium. Such gymnastics are usually undertaken indoors, sometimes in stuffy quarters, and the movements are commonly repeated with such continued routine that absolutely all interest is lost. That there are many who advocate this form of exercise, it has nearly always seemed to commonsense physicians an entirely wrong solution of the important question of the encouragement of oxidation. It is like running an engine, not for the purpose of having it do something, but simply in order to have it oil itself, and consume the fuel that has been put into its boiler and that must be used up because more will be put in to-morrow. It would be much better, either to limit the amount of fuel or to give the muscular exercise some useful purpose, above all connect it with some interest that furnishes diversion of mind at the same time that the muscles are used. This last is the most important consideration, for, after a time, gymnastics pall in spite of artificial incentive.

Dr. Saleeby, in "Health, Strength and Happiness," has expressed very forcibly what has come to be the feeling of many physicians with regard to gymnastics, especially indoor gymnastics:

The natural spontaneous exercise having been forbidden, and the bad consequences of no exercise having become conspicuous, there has been adopted a system of factitious exercise—gymnastics. That this is better than nothing, we admit; but that it is an adequate substitute for play we deny. . . . The common assumption that, so long as the amount of bodily action is the same, it matters not whether it be pleasurable or otherwise, is a grave mistake. . . . The truth is that happiness is the most powerful of tonics. . . Hence the intrinsic superiority of play to gymnastics. The extreme interest felt by children in their games and the riotous glee with which they carry on their rougher frolics, are of as much importance as the accompanying exertion. And as not supplying these mental stimuli, gymnastics must be radically defective.
Granting, then, as we do, that formal exercises of the limbs are better than nothing—granting further that they may be used with advantage as supplementary aids, we yet contend that they can never serve in place of the exercises prompted by nature. For girls, as well as boys, the sportive activities to which the instincts [{204}] impel, are essential to bodily welfare. Whoever forbids them, forbids the divinely appointed means to physical development.

Play and Exercise.—There has been a distinct tendency in modern times to think that gymnastic exercise can be a substitute for play for growing young folks. When certain of the instruments and methods of the modern systems of gymnastics which have been introduced into schools, and are supposed to be so wonderfully beneficial, are put to the test of the psychology of exercise, the conclusions are likely to be very different from the theories under which they were introduced. Dr. Saleeby has expressed these differences rather strikingly:

Anyone who will consider for a moment the natural constitution of man and the principles of natural education, must agree that the deplorable thing called a dumb-bell offers an exquisite parody of what exercise should really be. The cat, as she exercises her kittens along the lines of their natural proclivities and needs, never telling them that this is exercise for the sake of exercise, and certainly prepared, if she could, to turn up her nose at any artificial implement we might offer her—should be our model in this respect. It may be imagined that some unfortunate girl, brought up on early Victorian lines, having never been permitted to wear comfortable garments, or to stretch her arms, would welcome and enjoy the dumb-bells when first introduced to them. But any one who has had a natural childhood and who has been taught to play, and who has taken his or her exercise naturally, or incidentally in the course of pursuing some mental interest—any such person may be excused for saying that a pair of dumb-bells should be deposited in our museums as indications of what was understood by exercise even as late as the earlier years of the twentieth century. All exercise for the sake of exercise is a mistake—or, at any rate, a second best. You may do your mind—and body, too—more harm by sheer boredom than you may gain good from the exercise you go through. The dumb-bell symbolizes the fact that the most elementary and obvious truths of psychology are still unrecognized, though the play and games of every natural child—if you object to be instructed by kittens—should be perfectly sufficient to teach us what indeed nature taught us ages ago, if only we would listen to her.

Indoor Sport.—Indoor sport is another thing. In wintry weather it is impossible to play outside conveniently, and indoor games have their place. Unfortunately they are usually associated with dust, and when played before crowds of spectators, the participants suffer also from the disadvantage of rebreathed air containing, too, the emanations of those who are looking on. It must not be forgotten that these two factors are the most prominent predisposing causes of tuberculosis. Those who have any tendency to tuberculosis, by which is meant specifically all those who are associating with tuberculosis patients, whether those patients are related to them or not, or who are more than 20 per cent. under the weight that they should have for their height, should not be allowed to take part in indoor sports where these drawbacks are sure to be encountered.

Sport, because of the diversion of mind involved, is an ideal form of exercise. An exercise that becomes a mere routine and that can be eventually gone through with so mechanically as to leave abundant room for thoughts of business or study or worries of other kinds, loses sight of one of the principal purposes of exercise as nature demands it.

Horseback Biding.—It is because of the complete diversion of mind that is necessarily involved in it, that horseback riding makes such a magnificent exercise for the busy man. The old expression "the outside of a horse is the [{205}] best thing for the inside of a man" is founded even more on the mental influence of horseback riding than its physical quality. The same amount of exercise in the open air, taken otherwise, often does not accomplish so much good, because a man's thoughts may continue to run on his business or be occupied with his worries, or he may not be able to divert his thoughts from himself and his digestion or his ills. A horseback rider must pay attention to the other animal, rather than himself, and that represents the complete diversion of mind so necessary for the health of most people. Just as soon as man rides an old favorite animal on whose back he can throw down the reins, allowing it to saunter on as it will, while he occupies himself with other things, then horseback riding loses its efficacy and falls back into the class of bicycle riding or carriage riding or walking in the open air unless there is diversion of mind in the scenes, or the necessity for care at street crossings, to banish preoccupation of mind. Unless business troubles and worries are necessarily excluded by its conditions, or are deliberately eliminated from the mind during the course of any exercise, it may even become a renewed source of worrisome thoughts, rather than a renewal of energy, mental and physical.

It is doubtful whether horseback riding should ever be recommended for those who have not been accustomed to it from their youth. To ask a man past forty to learn to ride horseback for the sake of exercise is nearly always a mistake. It becomes a trial rather than a recreation, and may thus do harm rather than good. On the other hand, horseback riding is one of the things that may be, and indeed often is, much abused. The old English fox-hunting squire would never have lived out his life even as long as he did, consuming the amount of proteid material that was his custom, and drinking his three or more quarts of port at dinner every day, but that the excessive drain upon his system by long days of hard riding in the hunting field made calls upon his nutrition which kept even this amount of food and stimulant from doing immediate harm. Just as soon, however, as long spells of severe exercise become excuses for the consumption of big dinners, and exercise is used as a factor to enable one to overeat with more comfort than would otherwise be the case, a vicious circle is formed, and one serious abuse is counterbalanced by another. What many well-to-do people of leisure need is not so much more exercise as less eating.

Walking.—Perhaps the best and most readily available form of exercise for most people is walking. It has one disadvantage. As soon as the walk becomes too much of a routine, and the ground gone over has lost its interest, or is even of such a nature as to permit or, indeed, tempt introspection and occupation with other things, rather than with the surroundings, then walking loses most of its efficacy as a form of exercise. Walking in the country, for instance, becomes monotonous, though at first it is a great source of pleasure. Walking in a large city, however, has little of this objection and as large city life has grown more and more strenuous in recent years, the good effect of walking to and from the office or walking in the busy parts of the city has been increased. Between the trolley and the automobile, and the hustling commercial traffic of the streets, it is impossible for a man to walk through the busier portions of any large American city without keeping his wits thoroughly intent on what he is doing, nor without requiring all of his [{206}] attention for his transportation. An abstracted man will in the course of a half hour have so many narrow escapes from being run down in a busy quarter that he will either eschew walking in that particular neighborhood, or give up his habits of mental abstraction, or else he will come to himself some day in a hospital.

Besides, the passing show in city life is itself of surpassing interest. It is not things but men that interest us most. There are so many phases of human life to be seen on busy city streets, so many things happen in the course of even a short walk to bring out prominently traits of human nature that, if a man is at all sympathetic, he finds much to occupy his attention, to distract him from his own worries and take him away from his business cares. The long walk to and from the office may thus become an efficacious source of thoughts that are different and of profound pleasure. All depends on the man and his mood. Men who try it whole-heartedly soon find a renewed interest in life. An hour of daily walking in the open air with the distractions of city life all around, provided the walking is done briskly and faithfully, is of infinitely more hygienic value than an hour of gymnasium work. There is only one thing that hampers this form of exercise—there are so many excuses to tempt one not to keep it up. If one gets to a gymnasium there is an instructor or director who keeps tabs on one's hours and so helps a weak human will, and excuses are easier made to one's self than to others.

Massage as Exercise.—This curious tendency of men to take their exercise far more regularly, provided some other is concerned in their taking it so that it cannot be neglected without explanation, is illustrated in many of the experiences of the doctor in modern life. A number of forms of massage have come into vogue as wonderful cure-alls. It is comparatively easy for some men, and above all for many women, to take their exercise by means of massage rather than in some more vigorous way that requires their own initiative. A man who is working hard, and who feels the need of exercise, will not take the easy natural way of getting up half an hour earlier, having his breakfast half an hour sooner and then walking down to his office four or five miles, but he hears of someone who gives vigorous massage and he engages him to come every morning and exercise him for half an hour or an hour. In order to do so, he has to get up an hour earlier, but the fact that he has the engagement with someone else, rather than with himself, makes it more difficult for him to make excuses, and so morning after morning, in spite of the fact that he may have been up late the night before, perhaps to a big dinner, he gets up to be given his exercise. If he is a heavy eater he will, of course, at the end of a week or ten days feel ever so much better for he has been using up material that was clogging his circulation and irritating his nervous system.

At the end of a month he will probably feel so much better that he will conclude that he has found the root of all evil in life, or of all disease, in a failure of circulation that can be removed by means of massage, manipulation and passive movements. When he gets well enough to give it up, he drops straight back into his old troubles, because what he needs is a radical change of life that will adapt his eating to the amount of exercise that he takes, and his exercise to the amount that he eats. If this fails to come, he has had only a temporary benefit that has probably tempted him rather to increase [{207}] the amount that he eats normally than otherwise and will probably do him harm in the end. This massage brings about a distinct reduction in the weight of women, and as most of them are very desirous of this, the remedy becomes even more precious to them than to men. Here, too, however, it is only a temporary expedient. They are tempted to eat more than before, or at least not to reduce their diet, and the good that is accomplished is only for the moment, while no habits, either of restraint of eating, or of more exercise in the open air which so many of them need, have been formed.

Passive Movements.—The success of osteopathy has been largely founded on this curious peculiarity of human nature. People are not satisfied to regulate their eating and exercise in a sensible way. They prefer to submit to various methods of exercise, manipulations and passive movements which make up for the muscular exertion that should help the circulation within the body, but do not accomplish the purpose nearly so well as the voluntary exercise of muscles. It requires little exercise of will to submit to this treatment, while for many people it requires considerable exertion of will power to exercise their muscles for themselves. The old particularly, who are likely to suffer from achy conditions around joints, always worse on rainy days, which would be expelled by enough exercise to stimulate the circulation in these structures, find the new remedial measures of vicarious exercise of great service to them and consequently osteopathy has gained many votaries. Old members of many a state legislature who have been accustomed to ride for so long that exercise is almost an unknown quantity in their lives, are treated by the osteopath and lose so many vague pains and aches and discomforts of various kinds that it has not been difficult to persuade them that it is a great new discovery in medicine, and so in many of the states the osteopaths have secured legal recognition.

Summary.—Exercise, as exercise, often does harm rather than good. Thin people seldom need exercise, stout people seldom take enough of it. No one should be encouraged to exercise merely that he may be able to use up material that he has eaten, when it is evident that he is eating more than is required for his ordinary occupation. The question can never be settled without taking into consideration all these individual peculiarities of each case. Properly used, exercise is one of the most important therapeutic aids. But it is liable to as many abuses as are drugs, and the patient's attitude of mind toward any particular exercise is always an extremely important factor. If the exercise produces fatigue and disgust, then it will do no good, in spite of all that is hoped from it. If it creates true diversion of mind, it will surely be precious, even though it may, for other reasons, seem unsuitable.

CHAPTER III
POSITION

There are many changes of position that relieve pain, lessen discomfort, aid in excretion, and in the evacuation of material from the body, yet it is often found that very little advantage is taken of this natural method of therapeutic aid. Traditions and habit often rule to such an extent that [{208}] certain quite unfavorable positions are assumed, modifications of which frequently bring about distinct amelioration of symptoms. Very often patients learn this alone. There are many mechanical principles that can be applied in the treatment of pathological conditions which patients will not use unless definite suggestions are made. Often the physician has to suggest that they should try first one position and then another, in order to determine whether a certain amount of relief may not be afforded by position alterations, and perhaps function encouraged, or at least certain inhibiting factors modified for the better.

Favoring Return Circulation.—For people who have to stand much during the day, position in their resting hours is often extremely important. The caricature of the old-time American exhibited him with his feet on the mantlepiece, or somewhere as high as his head. For thin individuals there is no doubt that the placing the feet about as high as the head often makes a very comfortable position for a time. To those who have been standing much it is particularly restful. This may be easily accomplished lying down, though it must not be forgotten that the tendency to place the feet on a neighboring chair, or over the arm of the chair, so often seen in young folks, is in response to a physiological stimulus that brings relief to the heart by encouraging by means of gravity the return circulation in the veins from dependent portions of the body distant from the heart. For people who have not much exercise, and who have to stand all day, a brisk walk or leg exercises that thoroughly empty their muscles of blood by bringing about active contraction of them is important as a factor in their hours of rest. It makes all the difference in the world between the feeling of intense tiredness due to the sluggish circulation, and a return of vigor in the muscles.

Varicose Veins.—For patients suffering from varicose veins, position is particularly important. When they have to stand much, their limbs get painfully tired. The ache in the sense of fatigue is reflected over the body with the resultant depression. Active exercise, for a time, is not so good for them, and yet it is helpful. The ideal relief from their achy condition is afforded by gentle massage upwards of the limbs. That empties the dilated veins of blood and restores vigor to the circulation. It must not be forgotten, that when the circulation in the lower limbs is rendered sluggish by varicosity, the heart is also affected because it is so much more difficult to secure the return of blood through the tortuous dilated veins. This accounts for the intense general sense of fatigue that many of these patients have. Varicosities have a definite tendency to develop in those who are occupied in standing occupations, waiters, footmen, clerks, and the like, and often they have to continue at these occupations in spite of the varicose condition. It is particularly important for them to have an hour of lying down during the middle of the day so as to break their day's work in two. With a little insistence it can be secured in a great many cases and will afford more relief to the patient than anything else that can be done, even the wearing of rubber stockings, bandages and the like. I have known waiters massage each other at the time they had their period of rest with excellent results.

For the rupture of a varicose vein, position may be one of the most important auxiliaries to prevent serious hemorrhage. I remember as an ambulance surgeon once being called to see a case in which a great deal of blood [{209}] had been lost because efforts had been used to stop the bleeding by the application of a tourniquet. This shut off the superficial arteries, but not the deep ones and effectually prevented the return of any venous blood into the trunk, while all the time the ruptured varicose veins continued to bleed profusely. Local applications of styptics failed, of course, because the varicose vein itself had nearly the diameter of the little finger. Pressure over the wound did good for the time, but the bleeding was renewed whenever it was let up, and the two physicians in charge, alarmed at the loss of blood, were beginning to lose their heads. The ambulance was summoned to take the patient to the hospital and when it was suggested that if the tourniquet were removed and her foot was elevated the bleeding would probably stop without more ado, the suggestion seemed too simple to be true, but the event showed that that was all that was necessary.

Relief for Flat Foot.—For the achy discomfort of flat-foot, which is usually felt much more in the calf and the knee than in the ankle, some vigorous exercise for the foot, and especially for the calf muscles, at times during the day is likely to give great relief. Ten minutes of vigorous movement of the calf muscles followed by half an hour lying down will save most of them from the intense tiredness that is very discouraging in the late afternoon in many of the standing occupations. This relief removes from patients' minds the common idea that there must be something serious the matter with them. A good many of those who are cured of rheumatism by osteopathy, and of kidney trouble by the advertising specialists, and of various nervous diseases by new thought and irregular mental healing, are only sufferers from conditions such as can be relieved in this way. When flat-footed people sit down they should be advised to cross their feet (not their legs), because this emphasizes the arch of the foot somewhat and helps to strengthen and preserve it.

Abdominal Relaxation.—Many of the discomforts within the abdomen of which patients complain, especially whenever their attention is concentrated on them, can be benefited by suggestions as to position. Many a man who feels very uncomfortable after a hearty meal when sitting curled up beneath a lamp to read the evening paper, does not notice it at all when he stretches out on an easy Morris chair and with head back talks to friends. Many a man who thinks that his discomfort after dinner must mean serious dyspepsia, finds that a game of billiards after dinner will often dissipate almost completely his ill-feeling, unless, of course, it is due to overeating. After meals generally, positions that crowd the abdominal organs should be avoided. It must not be forgotten either that when lying down a full stomach may very well interfere with the heart action and produce marked palpitation. There are many men who cannot lie down within two hours of having eaten a hearty meal without decided heart irregularity, though while they are sitting up or standing quietly, or even moving, there will be no sign of this. Many of the vague discomforts within the abdomen, those due to movable kidney, or even chronic conditions in the biliary or urinary tracts, are only manifest when there is crowding of the organs within the abdomen.

How much the mechanical element may mean in kidney and biliary conditions is well illustrated by the relief often afforded by changes of position when calculi in these organs are giving trouble. Both renal and biliary calculi, which perhaps have been lying quite harmlessly in their positions [{210}] for years, are especially likely to become productive of discomfort by a jolting ride, or the jar of a fall, or by the influence of changes of position produced by gymnastic efforts of an acrobatic kind, or by a loop-the-loop experience, or something of the kind. In spite of this, only rarely does the physician try to use changes of position for their relief. I have seen a man suffering from excruciating biliary colic get almost immediate relief when put standing on his head alongside of a lounge. He looked upon it as magic. It was only that the stone, in the midst of the relaxation of all abdominal muscles produced by the unusual position, was able to drop back into the gall bladder, where it had been for months perhaps years before without giving any trouble. Similar relief is often afforded from the pain of kidney stones before they become definitely engaged in the ureter.

Raising the Head.—Patients suffering from respiratory difficulties usually learn to accommodate themselves to such changes of position as will afford them the greatest relief. The difficulty of breathing leads to such tossing about that the position easiest for the patient is almost inevitably found. When respiratory difficulties first declare themselves patients may not realize how much relief will be afforded by raising the head, or by the assumption of a sitting position. Often such patients prefer to sit in a chair. It should be borne in mind that, wherever this is compulsory, dispositions can be made so that the chair shall be as comfortable as possible, that its seat edge shall not press upon the underportion of the legs so as to impede blood circulation, nor press upon nerves, and that comfortable arrangements shall be made for the arms. When the patient's head has to be raised in the bed, it is much better to raise the mattress by placing some large properly-shaped object underneath it, so as to secure a gradual slant rather than have the patient's head and upper portion of the thorax bent by pillows. In default of something better, a chair placed so that the mattress lies along its back will be a handy aid. This is a matter of nursing rather than strictly of medical attendance, but unless the physician pays attention to it, it will be neglected, or at least in many cases not used to the best advantage.

Whenever there is difficulty of expectoration, especially when expectoration is abundant as in certain of the chronic bronchitises, and above all in dilatation of the bronchi, the advantage of position should be taken to aid in the expectoration. Patients who have to cough up large amounts in dilatation of the bronchi and who have long severe fits of coughing in the early morning, will often obtain a great measure of relief by leaning out of bed with one hand on the floor, doing their coughing in that position. Gravity helps in the emptying of the pockets of the bronchi and in five minutes they succeed in getting up satisfactorily as much material as would come up, only after severe convulsive efforts for an hour, when gravity was in opposition to their efforts. Children in whooping cough naturally bend over in order to cough. They will cough easiest if placed on a bed with a pillow beneath their chest so as to lift the face from the mattress, or in the case of older children, with the head projecting beyond the edge of the bed. This is only a trifle, but it will often save children severe convulsive efforts. Tuberculous patients who have to cough much, should be encouraged to find for themselves by trial whether certain positions, leaning out of bed, may not be of great service to them. There is often in advanced cases an accumulation of material during [{211}] the night that must be expectorated, and the patients are severely shaken up by their efforts to bring it up. I have known cases where a considerable measure of relief was afforded by leaning out of bed with the elbow on a pillow, a chair or foot-stool somewhat lower than the level of the bed. The mechanical help of gravity is particularly important where cavities exist and a considerable amount of material has to be emptied out of them.

In modern surgical times one does not often see the emptying of a purulent pleurisy through the bronchi, but I once had an opportunity to see the termination of one of these cases in a very favorable way. When I saw her the patient had already coughed up a cup full of purulent fluid and, altogether, about a quart of pus was thus evacuated. The patient had been so ill that the effort was considerable, but the evacuation was greatly helped by having her lean out of bed whenever material was to be expectorated. The patient is still alive and in good health—fifteen years after the event.

Heart Cases.—Position is also often of very great importance for the relief of the symptoms of patients suffering from heart affections. For organic heart affections, rest in bed is often advised. It must not be forgotten that this does not necessarily mean in a recumbent position. Whenever there is difficulty of breathing in connection with an affection of the heart, the recumbent position is extremely uncomfortable. This is nature's safeguard against the accumulation of fluid in the dependent parts of the lungs at the terminal capillaries of the pulmonary circulation. Most of the natural demands have a definite reason and are prophylactic rather than merely a symptom of aimless discomfort. Patients with heart disease often want to sit up in a chair. Their wish should, as a rule, be yielded to. There is no need of their sitting in a narrow uncomfortable armchair, nor of being incommoded by the position they have to assume. The end of a large lounge, especially one that curves over towards the floor on which pillows can be piled so as to make the patient comfortable, and yet afford many changes of position, is the best.

In general, the arrangements should be such that changes of position can be secured without much difficulty. These prevent hypostatic pneumonia and guard the patient against serious accumulations in the lung tissue because of sluggish circulation. Changes of position can be used as valuable suggestions. Often the main portion of the patient's symptoms consists of the intense fatigue due to one position. This can be relieved and the patient made to feel that, after all, the ailment to which he is suffering must not be so serious since relief can be afforded so simply. Besides, when patients complain, something must be done for them. Medicine cannot be given for every symptom and yet some remedial measure there must be to satisfy them. This satisfaction will often be secured by changes of position, by slight local treatment, by the adjustment of pillows so as to relieve fatigue of particular muscles and parts of the body, and by the movements of the limbs and the head into other positions than those in which they have become fatigued. The experienced nurse is of the greatest possible value in these cases.

Restlessness.—Usually restlessness is considered to be an unfavorable symptom of disease, just as are pain and tenderness. Like these, however, it is really conservative rather than in any sense destructive. Pain prevents serious changes from taking place without our attention being effectively [{212}] called to them. Restlessness induces the patient to change position frequently and often leads to the discovery of some position in which there is much more comfort than the one that had been assumed. Restlessness, in the recumbent position, is usually nature's protest against the maintenance of a posture in which, owing to failure of circulation, there may be leakage of serum into the lung tissues with dangerous results. Restlessness, in abdominal pain, often leads to such a change of position as affords the best condition for the relief of the discomfort as far as that may be brought about by position of muscles. The man with colic very soon discovers that lying on his stomach may relieve his pain. The drawing up of the knees in peritoneal conditions is the result of a similar reaction. The physician must learn to imitate nature, and recognize what mechanical conditions are likely to be of help. As soon as these afford relief, they act as a strong favorable suggestion, on the patient, and relieve dreads with regard to his affection.

Joint Affections.—In painful joint conditions, position may help much to bring relief or at least considerable mitigation of symptoms. In rheumatism, for instance, of the acute articular type, a number of small pillows can be disposed in various ways, underneath the patient's limbs, between them and in other positions, so as to give as much comfort as possible and will often be of great value. There should be at least half a dozen pillows at the disposal of the patient, besides three or four for the head. In certain relaxed positions of the joints, there is more room within the capsule than others and, almost unconsciously, the patients assume such positions when there is pain from effusion. Occasionally, however, in the midst of fever, or because of apathy, patients may not do this, and then care should be taken to bring them some measure of relief. Generally patients suffering from fever, with delirium of typhoid condition, that is, when there is considerable apathy, should have their positions changed gently from time to time to prevent discomfort developing, and as a prophylactic against skin disturbances from pressure. In children, this is particularly important.

Bladder Evacuation.—In emptying the bladder position may mean much. After childbirth, especially the first, many women are quite unable to empty their bladders while lying down, though if they are allowed to assume the usual position there is little or no difficulty. In certain sensitive men whose power over their bladder is disturbed by self-consciousness, the presence of anyone in the room or near them, makes it impossible for them to urinate, and this is particularly true if they are lying down. In the milder forms of prostatism position occasionally seems to have some influence in helping to empty the bladder. When there is a prostatic bladder pouch behind the prostate, it is quite impossible to empty this in the standing position. It may be emptied in the prone position, that is, lying face downwards, particularly if the pelvis is elevated above the rest of the trunk. Undoubtedly some of the cures reported after operation, when the operation itself effected no reduction in the size of the prostate (as the removal of the testicles or vasectomy), the improvement was brought about partly by the more favorable position in which, for weeks after the operation, the patient emptied his bladder, and also by the greater control gained over it, by the persuasion that the operation would do him good. The same suggestion can be made in connection with the new position for urination with just as good effect.

[{213}]

Intra-abdominal Conditions.—There are many intra-abdominal conditions in which position is of great importance for the relief of pain. Appendicitis cases are found with the right knee drawn up because this relieves the tension of the abdominal muscles, and probably also of the large muscles that go to the thigh and lie behind the peritoneal cavity. In most cases of intra-abdominal pain flexing of the knees on the abdomen means much in affording relief, and patients usually discover this for themselves. There are certain apathetic patients, however, who need to be helped by suggestions. In certain of the painful conditions, due to intra-pelvic conditions, relaxation of muscles by flexion lessens the pain. Pressure upon the abdomen, as by lying on a pillow, often does this also. Apparently one reason why children with flatulent colic stop crying almost at once, when laid on their stomachs, is because the pressure thus produced tends to bring about a movement of the gas that, collected at one or two places, was causing painful distention.

Importance to the Physician.—There are many other suggestions with regard to position that will occur to thoughtful physicians in particular cases. The one idea is to secure such an alteration of the posture as is likely to bring about mechanically relief of pain. If relief is afforded in this way, as has already been emphasized, a very favorable influence is produced on the patient's mind. Above all, he realizes that his physician not only understands his general condition, but his experience with many patients suffering from the same ailment has given him the power to direct even such slight changes of position as will give comfort. Nothing that I know adds more to the confidence that a patient has in his physician than the realization of this sort of knowledge. Therefore, the necessity for such consideration of each individual case as will enable the physician to recommend such modifications of position to patients. At the same time the patient's mind can be influenced very favorably by attaching definite significance to these alterations, and having them, as it were, repeat their favorable suggestions every time that he thinks about them, and be pleased as to the relief they have afforded. This is the sort of psychotherapy that is particularly likely to be successful, and it needs careful cultivation and development.

CHAPTER IV
TRAINING

One of the most important factors for therapeusis in the sense of the amelioration of defective motor conditions, the relief of disturbing sensory affections and the restoration of or compensation for defective functions of various kinds is training. By this is meant the training of the power of attention and its concentration in such a way that defects are overcome. There are many examples of almost marvelous improvement of function brought about in this way that are familiar, but it is well to recall some of them here in order to illustrate the uses to which this therapeutic mode may be applied. A blind man is able to read by means of his finger tips, and to recognize raised letters that seem quite beyond the possibility of tactile recognition by [{214}] ordinary individuals gifted with all their senses. The peculiar skill is simply due to the individual being able by concentration of attention upon slight variations in touch sensation to recognize even minute differences readily and so read raised letters with comparative ease and rapidity.

Over and over again it has been shown that neither the congenitally blind nor those whose vision has become defective have any better sense of touch than the average person. With an esthesiometer, their power to recognize the distance between the points of a calipers is shown to be no better than that of an ordinarily sensitive individual. This is illustrated in other ways. Certain blind persons, even those born blind, are known to be able to distinguish colors more or less accurately, that is, at least the three primary colors. Their power to do this is consequent upon a faculty of recognizing differences in heat absorption. The ordinary seeing person going into a room in the dark recognizes at once the difference between a pencil and a piece of metal of the same shape and size by its weight and the greater tendency of the metal to feel colder. When we are not sure whether a pillar in a structure is of stone or an imitation, we determine this by touch, and the fact that stone absorbs heat rapidly while wood and other imitations of stone do not. It is the same faculty for distinguishing specific heat that enables certain blind people to recognize colors. If pieces of cloth of different colors are put over snow when the sun is shining on them, it will be found that black absorbs much more heat than the colored cloths, or white, and consequently that the snow melts faster beneath the black. After black comes red, then green, then blue. It is this difference in the power to absorb heat that the blind recognize and thus distinguish colors after long patient training of themselves.

Obstacle Sense.—An example of the value of training is the so-called obstacle sense which has been rather carefully studied in recent years. By means of it blind people are able to avoid larger obstacles and to know when they are passing an open door or window on a corridor or a building alongside a street. Blind children have been known to play in a garden where there were trees and other obstacles and carefully avoid them even while moving rather rapidly. This sense is disturbed whenever there is loud noise in the vicinity. It is not very active and yet it is of considerable value to the blind. Its disturbance by noise would seem to indicate that it is due to some sense faculty in the tympanum, or ear drum. It exists in everybody, but remains quite undeveloped except in those who need it and therefore learn to make use of it.

Touch and Sight.—The triumph of training is to be seen in the cases of those who are born blind and deaf and who yet are taught to understand through lip and throat reading by the tips of the fingers and taught to talk by being shown patiently the method by which others accomplish it, though the only avenue to their brain is the dull sense of touch which means so little for the ordinary individual. The cases of Laura Bridgeman and of Helen Keller illustrate how a sense that is usually quite neglected can be made to supply the place of both the eyes and the ears by patient, persistent training. Lip reading by sight is, of course, a very interesting example of the same principle that can be learned by anyone who has good sight in a comparatively short time. There are compensations of this kind and powers of development latent in every sense and function of the body that can be [{215}] employed to make life interesting and to restore usefulness after nearly every form of lesion or defect. Practically all of this compensatory power is mental, hence its place in psychotherapy. We do not increase the power of the sense but by concentration of attention the mind is rendered capable of obtaining definite information from sensory stimuli that are present in every person but that are ordinarily neglected.

Hearing.—One of the most surprising instances of the value of training for cases in which favorable results seemed quite out of the question, is Urbantschitsch's method of training the deaf to hear. After investigating it personally I reported it in the International Clinics. [Footnote 24] Patients who could hear but very little, indeed, only the loudest noises, were trained by means of loud shouting and the hearing of loud notes gradually to catch sounds more and more easily until not infrequently they could hear rather well. Sometimes even those who were thought to be absolutely deaf to sound were found to be able to hear very loud sounds and then it was invariably discovered that by practice they could be made to hear much more. The secret of the success consisted not in any increase in the power to hear, but entirely in training the attention to recognize and differentiate sounds so that what seemed at first a confused murmur gradually became intelligible. It is exactly the same process as that by which a man learns to read with his fingers. He is not able to differentiate the letters but after a time it is possible to do so without difficulty.

[Footnote 24: Lippincott & Co., Phila., Vol. IV, 8th series, 1899.]

Equilibrium.—There are typical examples of almost as striking increase of muscle sensation, or rather of ability to distinguish minute differences in muscular sensation, noted in those who train this faculty carefully. Acrobats succeed in developing wonderful control over muscles and marvelous response to slight disturbance of equilibrium. The ordinary individual has comparatively small balancing powers, but the slack-rope performer seems almost to defy the laws of gravity, because he has learned so to coordinate all muscular action as to enable him to maintain his balance. He has trained himself to distinguish every variety of message from his semicircular canals. Of itself neither of these senses gives us very much information, indeed, only as much as we ask for from it, but when we pay careful attention to the minute details of the information that it imparts, we are able to use it to great advantage.

Muscle Training.—It is this power of training to enable us to appreciate minute sensations that forms the basis of the Frenkel treatment of tabes. For the proper guidance of the muscles the muscular sense is all-important, though ordinarily we are quite unconscious of the information it conveys. This is seriously disturbed by the degeneration in tabes. The patient can, however, be taught to use even the slight amount of it that remains to great advantage or else to avail himself of some other compensatory sensations which will enable him to guide his muscles in various motions much better than before.

This same faculty can probably be employed in many other conditions. Frenkel has shown that it is applicable in paralysis agitans and markedly relieves the rigidity that is so annoying a symptom. It gives these patients something to occupy their minds, too, which means a great deal for their [{216}] general condition, for occupation of attention saves them from neurotic disturbance of themselves.

Sufferers from infantile paralysis can be taught to do many things with their weakened muscles that seem to be quite impossible to them. It requires patience to get results, but they mean so much that the efforts are well worth while. After cerebral incidents, sometimes actual apoplexies, sometimes injuries, occasionally serious effusions due to kidney diseases, there may be disturbance of motor functions. It is surprising how often training will enable the sufferer to use his muscles much better in these cases than at first seemed possible. I have seen a man who had lost most of his power for writing after a cerebral incident regain it as a consequence of being taught to write from his shoulder, instead of from the forearm as had been his custom.

Heart Training.—In recent years we have learned that training is not only good for the external muscles and enables them to do more work without discomfort, but that it is particularly beneficial to the heart muscle whenever that organ can respond to it favorably. At all of the heart cures in recent years, exercise of some kind or another is one of the important features and the failure of physicians generally to secure as good results while pursuing all the other methods followed at these cures, seems to show that exercise was probably the most important factor. Nauheim is the typical heart cure and there, besides the resisted movements in the bath, there is the graduated exercise of the walks around the town, all of which, owing to the situation, lead up hill. Walking up hill, even though it be a gradual ascent, might seem to be the worst possible exercise for heart patients, yet it proves eminently beneficial.

Respiratory Training.—Shortness of breath is often a bothersome symptom, especially for stout people, and prevents them from taking necessary exercise. When it cannot be traced directly to some affection of the heart or of the circulatory apparatus, it is usually due to lack of exercise. Much can be done for it by deliberate training. In the modern time, with elevators so common, people seldom have to walk up-stairs, and consequently one of the modes of exercise that was particularly likely to furnish some training in deep breathing is absent. Any one who has seen the shallow breathing of many of the patients who come to Nauheim and how much it has improved by the gradually increased walks up the hills around the valley, will appreciate how much training in deep breathing means. This exercise of the diaphragm will often give benefit besides in making the bowels more regular, and in getting rid of the accumulation of fat in the abdomen, which is one of the mechanical causes of the interference with the diaphragm and consequent shortness of breath.

Training the Appetite.—Just as training may be used for the sensory and motor systems that are external, so it may also be used for many internal functions analogous to these. There are a great many people who eat too little. They are the nervous, irritable persons with no fund of reserve energy to draw on when anything happens, and who are in their years before middle life likely to be the victims of infectious disease. They suffer much from lack of proper covering in the winter time and from a certain protection that is afforded to the nervous system generally by being up to weight. Often their under-weight is a life-story, and occasionally it is a family matter. When [{217}] they suffer from neurotic symptoms a gain in weight nearly always does them good. They complain that when they increase their diet they have uncomfortable feelings. This is only what is to be expected, since the muscularis of their stomach—much more important than its secretory function—has not been accustomed to as much exercise as is now being demanded of it.

On the other hand, for those who are over-weight, training in eating less is the one important therapeutic factor. If their diet is cut down suddenly, they soon become discouraged. If there is a gradual reduction of food quantities, variety being allowed, so that they may eat practically everything they have been eating before, the system gradually accommodates itself to less and less food. This is the only sensible way of bringing about reduction in weight. It requires constant attention over a long period, but it can be done with excellent success.

In the same way the bowels may be trained to perform their work regularly. Habit means probably more with them than any other factor. Our digestive tract, however, is largely dependent on habit. We get hungry three times a day or twice a day, according to the custom that we have established. Countries differ radically in the matter, and nearly always, when a man goes from one country to another in early years, he changes to the habits of the new country, though if he comes after middle age he usually clings to those that he is used to.

Training to Stand Pain.—There are many painful conditions, especially involving the muscles in the neighborhood of joints, that are worse on rainy days and are spoken of as rheumatism, that can be very much improved by training in the use of muscles. As men grow older and gain in weight, the lack of exercise in their sedentary lives incapacitates their muscles for activities of many kinds. The consequence is that where most strain is put upon them, in the neighborhood of joints, they readily become tender and painful. It is this class of cases particularly that is benefited by irregular practitioners of all kinds. Mental healing, osteopathy, Eddyism, the many liniments, rubbings and manipulations prove beneficial. What is needed is training in the use of muscles so as to enable them to do the work that is required of them without discomforting reaction. This is particularly true for the leg and foot muscles. Exercises that strengthen the muscles of the calf and of the thigh, and particularly such as require free movement of the foot, are almost sure to relieve these patients of many annoying symptoms. Pains around the ankles and in the knee and hip, worse in rainy weather, disappear as a consequence of such gradually increased use of these muscles as gives them increased nutrition and power. This subject is discussed more fully under [Foot Troubles] and [Painful Conditions of the Knee.]

There may be a training in bearing discomfort which is of great value to over-sensitive patients. Some nervous patients seem to suffer merely from their ordinary physiological functions. These are the patients who abuse the drugs that are supposed to bring relief. There is just one mode of treatment that is successful with them: they must be told to bear their discomfort for a while without seeking drug relief, but always securing freedom from discomfort by means of attention to other things, until gradually they have succeeded in diverting their minds from the concentration of attention on their functions which is causing their disturbance. The whole programme [{218}] need not be outlined to them or they will perhaps have a revulsion of feeling against it that will make its accomplishment impossible. They can, however, be made to stand their discomforts for a time with the promise that it is for the best, since there will be eventually an improvement.

Intellectual Faculties.—Nearly every one of our faculties can be trained to do much better work than we have any idea of if we only are willing to take the trouble and give the attention. I have often shown people who came complaining of loss of memory that if they wanted to train themselves to remember they could do so. The memory probably cannot be bettered any more than can the sense of touch in the blind man, but by attention to minute details, in the concentration of the mind on certain subjects, it can accomplish results that seemed quite impossible before. All systems of improving the memory are founded on this method of concentrating attention on what one wishes to remember and connecting it with other things that we know by experience are readily remembered.

CHAPTER V
OCCUPATION OF MIND

Two classes of patients frequently apply to physicians for relief from various discomforts. They are, first, people who have no regular occupation and who often are in what is supposed to be the happy position of being able to do just what they please. The second class consists of those who take their occupations too seriously, so that they never get away from them and, as a consequence, disturb their physical functions. The feelings that these two classes complain of—for, when analyzed, their symptoms prove really to be uncomfortable feelings—can usually be "bothered" away and, if not entirely forgotten, made to disappear when the patients become deeply interested in something other than their usual occupation. The first class of patients needs occupation of mind; the second needs diversion of mind, and that subject will be taken up in another chapter.

Uncomfortable Sensations, Their Location and Causes.—These pains and aches, as patients call them, though it is well to remember that they are only discomforts, senses of unequal pressure, of constriction, or perhaps only unusual feelings, or consciousness of sensation, may occur in every part of the body. Perhaps they are most commonly complained of in the head. Many of the so-called headaches that are more or less continuous consist of these senses of pressure or of constriction over a particular part of the skull. Sometimes there may be a sense of pressure at the back of the eyes. Very often there is a feeling of heaviness at the back of the head that makes the patient feel as if relief would come if the head were allowed to drop forward and if sleep could be thus obtained. Every other portion of the head, however, even within the cavities, may have some of these uncomfortable sensations. In some persons, there is a tightness in the throat. In others, there is a feeling of fullness of one cheek and the dread that they may not be able to use it properly in talking. Sometimes the uncomfortable feeling is within the nose. Not infrequently the discomfort is in the ear.

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All of these may be due to local conditions which need to be corrected, but in most cases nothing is found locally, or at most there is some functional disturbance so slight that, though it is shared by a great many people in our climate, others do not complain of it at all. It seems evident, therefore, that the discomfort must result from the sensitiveness of the individual emphasizing the significance of some slight disturbance.

Every portion of the body may suffer from these discomforts. The upper part of the back, especially below the base of the neck, is a favorite location in men, and particularly in those who bend over a desk. The lower part of the back is affected in such men as tailors and cutters who stoop incessantly at their work. In women, the lower part of the back is likely to suffer, and this is usually attributed to genital conditions, but constipation may play quite as large a role as the genital organs. Some of the stooping occupations of women, at the sewing machine or dressmaking, or even harder occupations, as sweeping, washing, and the like, may also be responsible. The commonest source of discomfort is, perhaps, the upper left-hand quadrant of the abdomen. This seems to be due to the distention of the stomach, either by gas or by liquid. Vague discomforts may occur around the umbilicus, often due to the presence of gas, with or without borborygmi.

Generally the local condition is only an occasion, and the real cause of the complaint is the lack of occupation of mind and consequent concentration of attention on any organ whose function happens to be disturbed sufficiently to make one conscious of its action.

Lack of Occupation.—For all of these cases the most important therapeutic factor is occupation of mind and diversion of attention. In our time, social conditions allow a large number of people to have very little occupation. For instance, many women of the well-to-do classes have absolutely nothing that they must do. Various phases of this are discussed in previous sections.

As a rule, it is useless to try to relieve these discomforts by anodynes. Many an opium habit has been formed by a turning to opium in such cases. The coal tar products are greatly abused here, for they do not bring relief to queer feelings nor to a sense of pressure or discomfort; they rather add to depression. What they are efficacious for is acute pain. The coal tar products relieve even toothache or neuralgia, as well as a real headache, but I have had patients tell me over and over again that the continuous headaches from which they suffered were not relieved in the slightest degree by phenacetin or acetanilid. Occasionally one hears of hyoscine or hyoscyamus suggested for these conditions, but they are quite as useless and as much contraindicated as opium or the coal tar products. As a rule, these headaches are relieved by lying down; they disappear during sleep. The real indication for treatment, however, is found in the fact that all of these vague discomforts are much better or even disappear when the patient is intensely occupied, or at least pleasurably engaged.

What these people need is occupation that really catches their interest and takes attention from themselves. One of the most striking expressions of this truth that we have comes from the poor, sad, mad poet, Cowper:

Absence of occupation is not rest;
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.

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And surely poor Cowper, himself the victim of depression, saved from himself only by the suggestion that he should put into poetic form the thoughts that came so abundantly to him, could well understand the depth of wisdom in his couplet. The story of Cowper's life is enough of itself to encourage physician and patient to persevere in the effort to lift depression by occupation, since the fruits of that occupation may prove so valuable.

Mental Short-Circuit.—The minds of these people must do something, and since there is nothing really occupying for them to do, in a very expressive modern phrase, they are doing their possessors. As we suggest elsewhere, the nearest simile is that of the short-circuiting of a dynamo. Mental energy is exerted harmfully within the machine instead of in doing work.

See what happens in these cases when by some chance the women, or the men, who complain almost constantly are suddenly deprived of the means which enabled them to live an aimless life. The physician often has patients who have been in affluence but after a financial panic are in straitened circumstances. It is interesting to note what an excellent tonic effect, in younger people always, in older people very often, the change of life has on these chronic valetudinarians. Sometimes this is attributed to the simpler life which they lead when poorer, occasionally to the lack of responsibility, or other similar reason. Nearly always it is easy to see that the real cause of the improvement in health is the occupation of mind with serious interests outside of self.

Regulation of Life.—In the matter of occupation, and especially occupation of mind, the formation of habits and the training of the will are extremely important. In his book on "The Education of the Will," which was so popular that it went through over thirty editions in France, M. Jules Payot [Footnote 25] emphasizes the necessity for deliberately arranging the details of life so that time shall not hang heavily on the hands, he reverts to certain rules of life of the old religious orders, and to the habits advised by spiritual directors. He counsels that every one should make an examination of the day's happenings at the end of it, in order to see just where the failures lay and in what accomplishment was made. At the end of this old-fashioned examination of conscience, he counsels that a set of resolutions for the next day be made and an arrangement of work for various times, so that even more may be accomplished.

[Footnote 25: English translation by Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe. New York, 1909.]

M. Payot further suggests that a certain time be given up to reflection, or as he calls it, meditation, on the significance of life and on the consideration whether something valuable is being made of it. Without this he insists that it is easy to let one's self slip into habits of life in which absolutely nothing is accomplished for self or others. If there is no real accomplishment, then pleasure soon palls, because pleasure has a place only as an interval in the midst of labor and as a relief from effort. These reversions to the old modes of life and thought of the monastic communities show how little of real advance there is in life, and what excellent conclusions serious men came to even in the distant past. Certainly for many of the leisure class in modern times only the use of periods of reflection and the examination of [{221}] results obtained will serve to prevent that utter waste of time which leads to the intense dissatisfaction that is often reflected in the general health.

Thought for Others.—After forgetfulness of self, the most important factor in psychotherapeutics is thoughtfulness for others. Ordinary diversions are quite insufficient to occupy most people. One must have a serious occupation that appeals deeply, and then diversions of mind will be useful for purposes of recreation. Pleasure, so-called, if pursued not as an interruption from work but for its own sake and without serious occupation, palls, and after a time its votaries find life is scarcely worth living. The pursuit of pleasure as the sole interest of life is one of the most fruitful resources of depression, discouragement and neurotic symptoms with which modern physicians are brought in contact. The only way to be sure of having compelling interests is to be so much occupied with other people that one forgets self.

Yet mere flippant excitement and superficial entertainment is nothing but a cheap counterfeit of what is needed. Voluntary effort is needed, and this is the field where the psychotherapist must put in his most intelligent effort. There is no one for whom there is not a chance for work in our social fabric. The prescription of work has not only to be adjusted to the abilities, the knowledge, and social conditions, but has to be chosen in such a way that it is full of associations and ultimately of joyful emotions. Useless work can never confer the greatest benefits; mere physical exercises are therefore psychophysically not as valuable as real sport, while physically, of course, the regulated exercises may be far superior to the haphazard work in sport. To solve picture puzzles, even if they absorb the attention for a week, can never have the same effect as a real interest in a human puzzle. There is a chance for social work for every woman and every man, work which can well be chosen in full adjustment to the personal preference and likings. Not everybody is fit for charity work, and those who are may be entirely unfitted for work in the interest of the beautification of the town. Only it has to be work; mere automobiling to charity places or talking in meetings on problems which have not been studied will, of course, be merely another form of the disorganizing superficiality. The hysterical lady on Fifth Avenue and the psychasthenic old maid in the New England country town both simply have to learn to do useful work with a concentrated effort and a high purpose. From a long experience I have to confess that I have seen that this unsentimental remedy is the safest and most important prescription in the prescription book of the psychotherapist.

Care of Children.—Probably the most important therapeutic factor in the cure of the ills which come to unoccupied women is the finding of some occupation that will absorb their hearts as well as their intellects, that is, satisfy their feelings as well as appeal to their intelligence. That very acute observer and kenner of her sex, Mrs. St. Leger Harrison, who is Charles Kingsley's daughter and writes under the pseudonym of "Lucas Malet," said in "Sir Richard Calmady": "Feed their hearts and the rest of the mechanism runs easy. I have known disease to develop in a perfectly healthy woman simply because the heart was starved." For most women the only thing that will entirely satisfy the heart or keep it from hunger is children. Fortunately an interest in other people's children can, under certain circumstances, be almost as satisfying as in one's own.

Interest in Others.—Probably the best possible occupation that a childless woman can have is the care of others. Charity in one form or another satisfies the emotions as well as creates interest and gives varied occupations. Even the frequent disillusions that are encountered in charity work only add variety [{222}] to the experience, and do not discourage those who have the real charity instinct. For women particularly, as we have said, some charity that brings them much in contact with children is the surest preventive of over-occupation with themselves and over-emphasis on their feelings and sufferings. Many a woman in our large cities owes her freedom from the neurotic symptoms to which her sisters are subject, to her interest in tuberculous children. There is just enough of suffering to arouse all the pity of the visitor, without so much of anguish as would deter the more delicate from being interested in the work.

Touch with Real Suffering,—For patients who think they have much to suffer, yet whose complaints are all of subjective feelings of oppression and depression, there is no better remedy than to come in touch with real suffering. I have known not a few neurotic young women, who were preparing for themselves years of suffering by over-attention to little pains and aches, saved to a life of usefulness and even happiness by having to nurse near relatives through the last stages of fatal cancer. When these neurotic persons are brought intimately in touch with real suffering, have their sympathies aroused, and see how well human nature can bear pain when it has to, and yet not be impatient, nor wish to end it all, then a renewed life comes over them and they cease to be preoccupied with themselves.

Sympathy as a Remedy.—In former days, when hospitals were not so well provided and trained nurses non-existent, all forms of suffering had a wider appeal and aroused more active sympathy than at present. It is true that patients, in both hospitals and homes, suffered from the lack of trained nursing, and that was an even greater disadvantage. But it is, nevertheless, too bad that more actual touch with suffering does not come to people now, for nothing is so sure to make little ills disappear as the sympathy aroused by the sight of real suffering. Certainly, our cancer cases might well be a strong therapeutic factor for many of the neurotic ills of the world. They are, of course, deterrent to many people. It would seem to add needlessly to human suffering for some of the delicate to have to be in contact with what is one of the most awful afflictions that flesh is heir to. If death and suffering were not inevitable, we might try to save people from the suffering which sympathy entails. But there is no avoiding them; soon or late they are sure to come to everyone. The upbuilding of character, consequent upon intimacy with them, is of great value, and really brings so much of contentment to people who are over-worried about little things that it is worth while to recall how valuable this sympathy for suffering is in psychotherapy.

I have spoken of this phase of occupation as if it referred only to women. There are many men of whom one may well say that they need more human sympathy in their lives and that if they had it their supposed ills would drop from them, or seem so slight as to be quite negligible. Over and over again, I have seen men who had become too occupied with themselves lose their pains and aches in an interest in some real charity. Charity, however, not philanthropy, is the secret. The sitting on a board of trustees of a charitable institution may mean little though even this usually has its good effect; but close contact with the poor, intimate personal relations with other human beings who are in suffering, are quite as necessary for men over-occupied with themselves as for women.

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Care of the Incurable.—Mother Lathrop (Hawthorne's daughter) in her cancer work prefers not to take patients suffering from incurable cancer into the homes that she has for them, if they can in any way be cared for reasonably at their own home. Of course, the main reason is because there is so much of cancer in the community (one in thirty of the population now die of it), that it is impossible to take care of all the cases that apply for admission. Another excellent reason is that it would be too bad to take out of a home the opportunity for self-discipline that is afforded by the care of one of these patients, when it does not inflict an intolerable burden on someone already overworked. As a rule, the effect of attendance on such a patient does so much for character upbuilding, and for a proper realization of values in life, that trivial things fall into their right places. Anyone who has seen the development of character, And the growth in amenity of disposition of those who bear such a burden with patience, will realize just what is meant by the expressions used.

Finding Mental Occupation.—For many of his patients the physician simply must find occupation of mind. Not a little racking of brain is needed for this, until experience helps. One form of occupation of mind that seemed quite unpromising at first, but that has in a number of cases proved of value, is the committing to memory of passages in verse. A generation ago it was quite common for people to have their memories stored with fine passages from authors which they could repeat literally. Latin verse particularly was learned by the school boys of fifty years ago. Frenchmen know their classical poets, and some of the Italians also know theirs with wonderful fidelity. It is said that, even in his advanced years, Pope Leo XIII could repeat long passages of Dante and often found a relief from pressing cares of state in the ponderings of the great thoughts recalled by the verses. I have known half a dozen Italian clergymen who could from memory follow up a line of Dante, taken anywhere in the poet's writings, with the rest of the passage.

Such well-stored memories furnished much more abundant food for thought to their possessors than do those of the modern time. Our modern system of education has done away, to a great extent, with learning by heart, but as one of those educated under the older system and who is still able to recall many passages from Pope, or Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," or "The Traveler," or from Virgil or Horace, I feel sure that this is a serious mistake. In some cases I have deliberately tried to make up for it by having people, even well on in years, settle down to memory lessons again. Under disorders of memory I suggest the use of this practice as a valuable training which serves first to dispel the idea that memory is failing when it is only lack of attention and of concentration of mind that is at fault, and secondly, because after a time there can be observed an actual improvement of the memory faculty. Here I would insist on its value as an occupation of mind for those who lack some serious interests. I have found it to be ever so much better as a diversion than reading or the theater. If the interest in it can be awakened, it represents a valuable adjunct in the treatment of some rather difficult cases of mental short-circuiting. Lord Chesterfield, in one of his letters, suggested to his son that even very brief periods during the day—those that are ordinarily used for the fulfillment of bodily necessities—might be employed to store the memory with valuable quotations, great thoughts [{224}] greatly expressed, and this should be recalled. After a little practice not near so much time is required for memory work as might be imagined, and the effects are excellent.

Much of this may seem too trivial for the physician to occupy himself with and quite apart from his duties as a practitioner of medical science. But it must not be forgotten that medical science is as yet quite imperfect and the practice of medicine is an art. What we have to do, is to treat individual patients rather than cure cases, for that is why medicine is a profession. Each affected individual who comes to us is quite different from any other. In spite of our grouping them under certain heads, the diseases of the race are as distinct from one another as the features of the individuals affected.

CHAPTER VI
DIVERSION OF MIND—HOBBIES

There are two classes for whom diversion is of the utmost value. The first are over-occupied with themselves; and the second group are so occupied with some one interest in life, or with one narrow set of interests, that it becomes an obsession, never leaving them. Constancy of mental occupation with one set of thoughts proves seriously disturbing after a time, especially if the only amusements available are so superficial that they do not really act as a diversion. Many of the so-called neurasthenic or psychasthenic states (I would prefer to call them conditions of nervous weakness and of psychic impotency, because the simpler names carry with them no suggestion of a definite ailment) are really the consequence of this lack of any true diversion. The patients do not get any genuine rest.

The typical example of such lack of diversion is the business man who, contrary to the wisdom of the ages, takes his business home with him. If we accept Ramon y Cajal's theory of attention, by which whenever a particular portion of the brain is occupied with a subject the capillary blood vessels in that particular part are pulled wide open by the contraction of the neuroglia cells, certain of the brain tissues in these cases are constantly in a state of congestion. It is not surprising that such men suffer from insomnia. It is scarcely less to be wondered at if their digestion suffers, since that function is so important that it requires most of the nervous energy that a man can provide at certain times. Besides his brain cells are never really resting. If a man goes to sleep with a thought and wakes with it, even though he may not be quite conscious of the fact, his mind has been occupied with it. Brain cells need definite periods of rest. These cells are not getting such rest—hence the development of many pathological conditions.

I have described the extreme case, but it is not exaggerated. Writers, editors, scientific investigators and generally those whose work does not bring them much in contact with others, are likely to thus suffer. Contact with others, even on business matters, seems to have a relaxing effect. Social amenities and personal interests prevent absolute concentration of mind over long periods. In some people even milder degrees of preoccupation with a [{225}] single subject may work harm. Some people are able to stand concentration of mind for many hours a day for years. Others cannot. We have come to recognize that more than eight hours a day is a mistake, but there are many people who cannot work more than a four-hour day. The sooner this is recognized and diversion of mind provided, the better for them. This is one of the most important benefits that psychotherapy can confer on many of the so-called neurasthenics.

Possibility of Diversion of Attention from Ills.—The necessity for diversion of attention from one's ills is best realized by considering what happens in the opposite direction. Headache, toothache, and many other uncomfortable feelings, especially discomfort associated with abdominal disturbances, can be entirely banished from the mind by pleasant association with friends, by an interesting play, by a game of cards, or, indeed, by almost anything that takes up the attention completely. It is well understood that the severer forms of pains can not be thus banished, but discomforts that make life miserable for the patient may be entirely relieved for the time being. If this power of mind to divert attention from the ills of the body means so much, it is not hard to understand that if this mental influence be directed in the other way, that is, to emphasize the ailment by attention to it, it will not be long before symptoms become quite unbearable.

Hobbies.—A hobby is the physical salvation for a man who wants to work hard, yet not become so absorbed in his work that it becomes an obsession. Unfortunately, it is not possible to create a hobby for a man or a woman in a short time. It must be a growth for many years until it has become a portion of one's life. It must, as far as possible, be something to which one turns with as much interest as to one's regular occupation, so that the time taken from it, even for the necessary vocation of life, is more or less resented. If a man has two occupations that are intensely interesting, then he gets the best possible rest. Otherwise it will be necessary in many cases for the physician to help him in the choice of another interest in life. It is not enough that there should be a vacation once a year, or a conventional day off on Sunday. There must be much more than this, deliberately planned and faithfully carried out.

Gladstone.—Men with hobbies have done some of the best of the world's work; busy for many hours every day, they have yet lived to be eighty and even ninety years of age, and have been industrious to the end. A typical example in our generation was Gladstone, the great English statesman. Few men had their minds occupied with more serious problems than he for nearly forty years of a busy existence. In spite of this, he found time to make a study of Greek literature and of ecclesiastical writers; He acquired even more authority perhaps in these subjects than in political science, doing the work of several men, yet he lived to be an extremely old man. He welcomed the opportunity to get away from one kind of work in order to devote himself to another, but this occupation of an entirely different set of brain cells gave those that had been previously at work opportunity for complete rest. Very probably, except at times of special crisis or stress of anxiety, his political problems did not disturb his studies of Greek literature, not because he insisted on keeping them away, but because this other interest was so absorbing that it required no special effort to occupy his mind completely with it.

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Virchow.—For more than a year I lived close to the great German pathologist, Virchow, and found that his varied interests were probably the secret of his power to devote himself to work for many hours a day, take only a small amount of sleep and yet live healthily and happily for over eighty years. Frequently he did not leave the Prussian legislature until 1 a. m., or even later, and yet he seldom failed to be at his laboratory before 7:30 o'clock in the morning, though it was several miles from his home and took over half an hour to get there. Besides pathology, he was deeply interested in anthropology and in most of the biological sciences, and his favorite hobby was the practical care of the health of the city of Berlin. From the time when Berlin, just after the Franco-Prussian war, began to grow out of the half-million provincial town that it was, into the great world capital that it became, a transformation that took less than twenty years, Virchow had charge of the health of the men engaged on the sewer farms of the city. Berlin, unlike other great capitals, is not situated on a large stream that will carry off its excreta, and consequently a new problem in sewage disposal had to be met. The sewage was spread over fields outside the city and proved, as might be expected, a magnificent fertilizer. The whole cost of sewage disposal was recouped from the sale of the farm products.

Prophecies of dire disaster of many kinds were made when this system was first proposed. It was said that the men engaged on the farms would suffer from all sorts of disease, especially respiratory and intestinal diseases, that the farm products would be insanitary, and the whole plant would be such a disease producer for the city as to become a nuisance. Virchow was put in charge of the sanitary side of the project, and how well he fulfilled his obligations is shown by the statistics. The people who worked on the farms were healthier than the average inhabitants of Berlin, and were especially free from intestinal disease. Every phase of disease that occurred among the workers on the farms, and there were many thousands of them with their families, was reported to Virchow. Every night, the last thing before he went to bed, he looked over this report and if there were any suspicious cases, made arrangements for the prevention of the spread of disease.

This of itself might seem work enough for one man, but it was only a diversion for Virchow, turning his mind away from his other intellectual work completely during certain hours of the day. His visits to the farms, his planning for the prevention of the spread of disease, his deep interest in the reports and the constant improvement of conditions, instead of hampering his other intellectual activity by wasting brain force, probably proved restful by diverting the blood stream away to the cells that occupied themselves with this other and very different problem, and so proved a benefit, not an evil. Perhaps other men might not have had the store of nervous energy to enable them to carry on work in this way, but for those who have, this is the ideal arrangement. There are many others whose names might be mentioned here. John Bigelow and Pope Leo XIII are typical recent examples. Great workers are usually long livers, barring accident, and all of them have had variety of occupation.

Necessity for Diversity of Occupation.—Even for those of lesser intellectual capacity, it is advisable to have, in a lower order of intellectual occupation, two very different things in which there is intense interest. The blasé [{227}] attitude in which the individual finds no interest in anything and nothing worth doing, makes it impossible to secure such relaxation as will give relief from worry. So long as nothing happens to call for special resistive vitality, such people may go on nursing their unhappiness. It is from this class, however, that the suicides come. The mind becomes occupied with the worries that it cannot get away from, sleep is interfered with; the worries become an obsession, and brain exhaustion results. It is usually said that suicides are insane, and to this extent certainly the expression is true. Certain brain cells have so long been occupied with a particular subject, because the mind has no other interest to divert attention and blood supply to other portions, that these cells are overborne and become utterly beyond the control of reason and will.

Intervals in Work.—The old university rule of long ago was that no one should do more than two hours of intellectual work continuously at the same subject. Certain of the monastic orders required scholars and students to take a break from an intellectual occupation for a measured interval at least every two hours. The modern business man, and even the literary man or reporter, would think this preposterous. The rule is, however, founded on good common sense, for it relieves the tension and keeps conditions of strain from inveterating themselves in such a way as to do harm.

As a matter of fact, better work is accomplished if it is done in two-hour intervals, with a break of fifteen minutes to a half-hour between, than if the attempt is made to work longer. This may not be true for certain forms of creative literary work, where, when the mood is on, it is easier to finish things than if a break occurs, but these are exceptional cases, and even here there may be serious abuse. Many of the men who work late at night eventually get into habits that seriously impair their sleep. This system of rest prevents such a strain from being put upon the physical organs underlying attention as will prevent them from promptly relaxing when the call upon them has ceased.

There are, of course, men for whom no such rules as these seem to be needed, because they apparently thrive on work. These are exceptions, however, that prove the rule. They will usually be found on investigation to have been men who lived very simply and permitted themselves very little excitement. There is great danger in imitating them because most of them had a superabundant vitality which expressed itself in longevity as well as in a noteworthy capacity for work. They had superabundant brain power to run their business (even though it was deeply intellectual), but then, too, these men were careful not to throw extra burdens upon their digestive organs, nor to abuse stimulants, nor to permit a regular routine of work to be disturbed. When symptoms of nerve weakness begin to show themselves, even the exceptional men must be warned of the danger. The causes of the exhaustion of nervous vitality should be pointed out, and an improvement of habits insisted upon.

Amusement and the Mind.—The theater, as it is at the present time, affords very little opportunity for mental relaxation. Most of our theatricals are mere show that occupies the eye but does not seriously catch the attention, especially after a certain number of types of these performances have been attended. The humor of the comedians of our musical comedy may, for [{228}] a certain number of people, mean something as a diversion of mind, but it does not last. Unfortunately, practically all their humor runs along the same line, most of it is extremely superficial, much of it is borrowed and wears signs of its origin, not a little of it is mere horse-play, which may divert children but not grown men, and so the theater as a mental relaxation has lost nearly all of its effect. Other diversions are sometimes more hopeful. For baseball enthusiasts, attendance at a game may be such a complete occupation of mind as to furnish thorough relaxation.

The kind of work that provides mental relaxation for others often proves exhausting to those who do it. Humorists, especially those who have to grind out paragraphs or columns of humor every day or every week, are usually melancholy men. The story of Grimaldi illustrates how serious may be the effect of work that seems mere play if pursued too singly. This humorist on one occasion consulted a specialist in mental diseases, for certain symptoms of nervous breakdown and depression that were causing him much annoyance and even more solicitude. The specialist believed in diversion of mind, and, having been to see Grimaldi the night before and enjoyed him hugely, though he did not recognize him off the stage, counseled him to go and see that humorist and have his "blue devils" banished for good. "If Grimaldi won't cure you of your depression," he added, "I don't know anything that will." "My God!" the humorist said, "then don't leave me in despair. Man, I am Grimaldi!"

Sports.—Unfortunately in our modern life we have to a great extent lost the idea of sport. The conventional make-shifts of life in a camp that is really a luxurious country house, or on a luxurious yacht, do not replace the complete diversions that came with real camping, hunting, fishing, sailing and the like. People now go to the country, but take the city with them. They live in country hotels and make five changes of clothing in the day, if not more. If men are interested in hunting and fishing and can go into the forest (unfortunately even the Adirondacks can scarcely be so designated now and we have to go into the Canadian wilderness to get away from the pall of regular life and civilization), complete recreation is secured. This makes a real vacation which does not mean absolute freedom of mind, but freedom from other cares so that one may with complete absorption apply himself to something different. During the year sports for grown-ups are difficult to obtain. Some men continue well on in middle life to play tennis, hand-ball, and certain other games, O fortunati nimium, that make the best kind of diversion. Fortunately, in recent years golf has become a favorite and for many makes a genuine diversion.

Children's Diversions.—In recent years we have so interfered with the normal natural development of the child that there is need to emphasize certain details in this matter. The modern child is apt to be precociously occupied with books and adult interests, because he is brought so much into the foreground of family interests. True play for some city-bred children is almost an anomaly. Exercise and air they get. They are conducted solemnly to the park by a nursemaid, who is instructed to see that they do not play with other children unless quite as well dressed as they are themselves, and their dress is often so elaborate that it is quite impossible for them to think of any real play. There is absolutely no recreation for the child in this procedure: on [{229}] the contrary, a new effort of will is required to walk with the stately propriety that is expected of it. Then the child is preoccupied with the thought of its clothes. Relaxation of mind is often quite out of the question, and yet we wonder why children are nervous and do not sleep well, why they have night terrors and do not digest their food properly, while all the time they are living unnatural lives that give no proper outlet for their energies and little diversion for their mind.

Games are important, but their true spirit has gone out in recent years. There are still a few young people who play for the sake of the sport, but everything now seems to be a preparation for some sort of contest. Only those are engaged in these contests and the preparation for them whose muscular development is such as to suggest that they will help to win. Winning, and not sport, has become the purpose of our games. This makes the participants worry about the games and associate them with dread of errors and ill chances. It is true that the interest for the contestants during the game is sufficient to make up for this and make the game valuable as relaxation; but those who need such relaxation most—the boys and girls who are underdeveloped muscularly—must sit and watch the contests, and this, after one has become accustomed to it, like newspaper reading and the theater, constitutes a poor apology for the complete relaxation of mind and diversion of brain-cell energy that used to come with sports when they were freely indulged, for the sake of the sport and not for the sake of winning.

CHAPTER VII
HABIT

Few people realize how powerful a factor for physical, as well as moral, good and evil is habit. The old expression that habit is second nature is amply illustrated in the most familiar experiences. The child, unable at the beginning to make any but the most ill-directed movements, learns during its first two years to make the most complex co-ordinated movements—first with difficulty, then with ease, and finally with such facility that there is no need for it to pay any but the most perfunctory attention to their execution. Walking requires the co-ordination of a large number of muscles so that the absolute position of every muscle in both the legs and in the trunk, at least as far as the shoulders, must be definitely known and their activity properly directed. Perhaps nothing brings out more clearly the difficulty of walking, though it depends on only one factor, the co-ordination of the two sides of the body, than the story of the Italian Tozzi twins. They were born with two heads and shoulders and with only one pair of legs. It was found that each head ruled the leg on its own side of the body. It was impossible for the creatures to walk. They lived to adolescent life, yet never succeeded in walking. The intimate association of the lower parts of their trunk and the long years of companionship of their brains, did not enable them to accomplish what seems to us so commonplace a co-ordination of movement as walking.

Formation of Habits.—The co-ordination of the two limbs is after all only a small portion of walking. The body must be held erect, the curve of [{230}] the spine must be managed so that the center of gravity is kept well within the base, and gluteal and femoral and calf muscles must all be co-ordinated with one another. In a few months a child learns to do all this, and in a couple of years it executes all the co-ordinate motions with such certainty that walking becomes not only an easy matter but an absolutely unconscious accomplishment that can be carried on while the mind is occupied with something else or while it becomes so abstracted that surrounding objects are not noticed.

A far more difficult co-ordination is required for talking. It is only when we analyze how nicely adjusted must be every movement, in order to pronounce consonants and vowels properly and to combine them in various ways, that we realize how complex is the mechanism of talking. A difference of a hundredth of an inch in the movement of the tongue, or less than that in the movements of various muscles of the larynx, makes all the differences between clear articulation and a defect of speech. In the course of the years up to seven, the child learns this wonderful co-ordination apparently without difficulty, but really at the cost of constant well-directed effort. There is no time in human existence when the child really learns so much as during the first four years of its existence, even if it learns nothing else except to walk and to talk. The foolishness of obtruding other things, information and study of various kinds, on the child's attention at this time should be manifest.

Unconscious Regulation of Muscles.—What is thus prefigured in early life invades every activity in later years. The boy who learns to ride a bicycle must at first devote all his attention to it, but after a while rides it quite unconsciously, his muscles having learned by habit to accommodate themselves automatically to all the varying positions of his machine. Anything well learned by habit is never forgotten. How hard it is to learn to swim, yet, after years away from the practice of it, the art comes back at once. The same is true of skating, and of the nice adjustments of muscles required in various games. Such is the influence of habit in forming a second nature. It is no wonder that Reid, the Scotch philosopher, should have written:

As without instinct the infant could not live to become a man, so without habit man would remain an infant through life, and would be as helpless, as unhandy, as speechless, and as much a child in understanding at threescore as at three.

Commenting on this Prof. J. P. Gordy, in his "New Psychology," [Footnote 26] says:

[Footnote 26: "New Psychology," by J. P. Gordy, New York, 1898.]

Strong as this statement seems, it is probably an understatement of the truth. Without habit, we should rather say, a man would be as helpless, as speechless, as unhandy at three-score as at birth. Habit is the architect that builds the feeble rudimentary powers of the child into the strong, developed powers of the full-grown man. If a child's vague, purposeless movements give place to definite movements performed for definite purposes, if his sensations become more definite, if his perceptions become clearer, if his memory becomes more accurate, if he reasons more and more correctly and logically, it is because of habit.

Law of Habit.—The law of habit is that every time we perform any action, mental or physical, or allow ourselves to be affected in any way, we have more proneness to, and greater facility in the performance of that action or in [{231}] experiencing that affection under similar circumstances, than we had before. In the [chapter on Tics], I call attention to the fact that all the curious gestures by which we are individualized, are due to the law of habit. It is infinitely amusing to watch a group of people and note the endlessly different habits of which they have become the victims. There are tricks of speech and tricks of gesture eminently characteristic and often quite laughably individualistic. We imitate, especially those of whom we think much. Sometimes it is only when a father's attention is called to them in his sons that he realizes the ludicrousness, or at least laughableness, of some of the things he does, and he proceeds to correct both generations of their faults.