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

MENTAL HEALING IN THE RENAISSANCE

What is exemplified in medieval medicine in this matter remains true during the Renaissance. In the fifteenth century Petrus Pomponatius, well known as a thinker and writer on borderland subjects related to medicine, came to the conclusion that men might very well be cured of certain ailments [{15}] by influence from the minds of others, and that such treatment, undertaken by physicians appropriately endowed, produced wonderful effects. He said:

Some men are specially endowed with eminently curative faculties; the effects produced by their touch are wonderful: but even touch is not always necessary; their glances, their mere intention of doing good are efficient for the restoration of health. The results, however, are due to natural causes.