VAGARIES OF THE IMAGINATION.
"Fancy it burgundy," said Boniface of his ale, "only fancy it, and it is worth a guinea a quart!" Boniface was a philosopher: fancy can do much more than that. Those who fancy themselves laboring under an affection of the heart are not slow in verifying the apprehension: the uneasy and constant watching of its pulsations soon disturbs the circulation, and malady may ensue beyond the power of medicine. Some physicians believe that inflammation can be induced in any part of the body by a fearful attention being continually directed toward it; indeed it has been a question with some whether the stigmata (the marks of the wounds of our Saviour) may not have been produced on the devotee by the influences of an excited imagination. The hypochondriac has been known to expire when forced to pass through a door which he fancied too narrow to admit his person. The story of the criminal who, unconscious of the arrival of the reprieve, died under the stroke of a wet handkerchief, believing it to be the ax, is well known. Paracelsus held, "that there is in man an imagination which really effects and brings to pass the things that did not before exist; for a man by imagination willing to move his body moves it in fact, and by his imagination and the commerce of invisible powers he may also move another body." Paracelsus would not have been surprised at the feats of electro-biology. He exhorts his patients to have "a good faith, a strong imagination, and they shall find the effects. All doubt," he says, "destroys work, and leaves it imperfect in the wise designs of nature; it is from faith that imagination draws its strength, it is by faith it becomes complete and realized; he who believeth in nature will obtain from nature to the extent of his faith, and let the object of this faith be real or imaginary, he nevertheless reaps similar results—and hence the cause of superstition."
So early as 1462, Pomponatus of Mantua came to the conclusion, in his work on incantation, that all the arts of sorcery and witchcraft were the result of natural operations. He conceived that it was not improbable that external means, called into action by the soul, might relieve our sufferings, and that there did, moreover, exist individuals endowed with salutary properties; so it might, therefore, be easily conceived that marvelous effects should be produced by the imagination and by confidence, more especially when these are reciprocal between the patient and the person who assists his recovery. Two years after, the same opinion was advanced by Agrippa in Cologne. "The soul," he said, "if inflamed by a fervent imagination, could dispense health and disease, not only in the individual himself, but in other bodies." However absurd these opinions may have been considered, or looked on as enthusiastic, the time has come when they will be gravely examined.
That medical professors have at all times believed the imagination to possess a strange and powerful influence over mind and body is proved by their writings, by some of their prescriptions, and by their oft-repeated direction in the sick-chamber to divert the patient's mind from dwelling on his own state and from attending to the symptoms of his complaint. They consider the reading of medical books which accurately describe the symptoms of various complaints as likely to have an injurious effect, not only on the delicate but on persons in full health; and they are conscious how many died during the time of the plague and cholera, not only of these diseases but from the dread of them, which brought on all the fatal symptoms. So evident was the effect produced by the detailed accounts of the cholera in the public papers in the year 1849, that it was found absolutely necessary to restrain the publications on the subject. The illusions under which vast numbers acted and suffered have gone, indeed, to the most extravagant extent: individuals, not merely singly but in communities, have actually believed in their own transformation. A nobleman of the court of Louis XIV. fancied himself a dog, and would pop his head out of the window to bark at the passengers; while the barking disease at the camp-meetings of the Methodists of North America has been described as "extravagant beyond belief." Rollin and Hecquet have recorded a malady by which the inmates of an extensive convent near Paris were attacked simultaneously every day at the same hour, when they believed themselves transformed into cats, and a universal mewing was kept up throughout the convent for some hours. But of all dreadful forms which this strange hallucination took, none was so terrible as that of the lycanthropy, which at one period spread through Europe; in which the unhappy sufferers, believing themselves wolves, went prowling about the forests, uttering the most terrific howlings, carrying off lambs from the flocks, and gnawing dead bodies in their graves.
While every day's experience adds some new proof of the influence possessed by the imagination over the body, the supposed effect of contagion has become a question of doubt. Lately, at a meeting in Edinburgh, Professor Dick gave it as his opinion that there was no such thing as hydrophobia in the lower animals: "what went properly by that name was simply an inflammation of the brain; and the disease, in the case of human beings, was caused by an over-excited imagination, worked upon by the popular delusion on the effects of a bite by rabid animals." The following paragraph from the "Curiosities of Medicine" appears to justify this now common enough opinion:—"Several persons had been bitten by a rabid dog in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and three of them had died in our hospital. A report, however, was prevalent that we kept a mixture which would effectually prevent the fatal termination; and no less than six applicants who had been bitten were served with a draught of colored water, and in no one instance did hydrophobia ensue."
A remarkable cure through a similar aid of the imagination took place in a patient of Dr. Beddoes, who was at the time very sanguine about the effect of nitrous acid gas in paralytic cases. Anxious that it should be imbibed by one of his patients, he sent an invalid to Sir Humphry Davy, with a request that he would administer the gas. Sir Humphry put the bulb of the thermometer under the tongue of the paralytic, to ascertain the temperature of the body, that he might be sure whether it would be affected at all by the inhalation of the gas. The patient, full of faith from what the enthusiastic physician had assured him would be the result, and believing that the thermometer was what was to effect the cure, exclaimed at once that he felt better. Sir Humphry, anxious to see what imagination would do in such a case, did not attempt to undeceive the man, but saying that he had done enough for him that day, desired him to be with him the next morning. The thermometer was then applied as it had been the day before, and for every day during a fortnight—at the end of which time the patient was perfectly cured.
Perhaps there is nothing on record more curious of this kind than the cures unwittingly performed by Chief-justice Holt. It seems that for a youthful frolic he and his companions had put up at a country inn; they, however, found themselves without the means of defraying their expenses, and were at a loss to know what they should do in such an emergency. Holt, however, perceived that the innkeeper's daughter looked very ill, and on inquiring what was the matter, learned that she had the ague; when, passing himself off for a medical student, he said that he had an infallible cure for the complaint. He then collected a number of plants, mixed them up with various ceremonies, and inclosed them in parchment, on which he scrawled divers cabalistic characters. When all was completed, he suspended the amulet round the neck of the young woman, and, strange to say, the ague left her and never returned. The landlord, grateful for the restoration of his daughter, not only declined receiving any payment from the youths, but pressed them to remain as long as they pleased. Many years after, when Holt was on the bench, a woman was brought before him, charged with witchcraft: she was accused of curing the ague by charms. All she said in defense was, that she did possess a ball which was a sovereign remedy in the complaint. The charm was produced and handed to the judge, who recognized the very ball which he had himself compounded in his boyish days, when out of mere fun he had assumed the character of a medical practitioner.
Many distinguished physicians have candidly confessed that they preferred confidence to art. Faith in the remedy is often not only half the cure, but the whole cure. Madame de Genlis tells of a girl who had lost the use of her leg for five years, and could only move with the help of crutches, while her back had to be supported: she was in such a pitiable state of weakness, the physicians had pronounced her case incurable. She, however, took it into her head that if she was taken to Notre Dame de Liesse she would certainly recover. It was fifteen leagues from Carlepont where she lived. She was placed in a cart which her father drove, while her sister sat by her supporting her back. The moment the steeple of Notre Dame de Liesse was in sight she uttered an exclamation, and said that her leg was getting well. She alighted from the car without assistance, and no longer requiring the help of her crutches, she ran into the church. When she returned home the villagers gathered about her, scarcely believing that it was indeed the girl who had left them in such a wretched state, now they saw her running and bounding along, no longer a cripple, but as active as any among them.
Not less extraordinary are the cures which are effected by some sudden agitation. An alarm of fire has been known to restore a patient entirely or for a time, from a tedious illness: it is no uncommon thing to hear of the victim of a severe fit of the gout, whose feet have been utterly powerless, running nimbly away from some approaching danger. Poor Grimaldi in his declining years had almost quite lost the use of his limbs owing to the most hopeless debility. As he sat one day by the bed side of his wife, who was ill, word was brought to him that a friend waited below to see him. He got down to the parlor with extreme difficulty. His friend was the bearer of heavy news which he dreaded to communicate: it was the death of Grimaldi's son, who, though reckless and worthless, was fondly loved by the poor father. The intelligence was broken as gently as such a sad event could be: but in an instant Grimaldi sprung from his chair—his lassitude and debility were gone, his breathing, which had for a long time been difficult, became perfectly easy—he was hardly a moment in bounding up the stairs which but a quarter of an hour before he had passed with extreme difficulty in ten minutes; he reached the bed-side, and told his wife that their son was dead; and as she burst into an agony of grief he flung himself into a chair, and became again instantaneously, as it has been touchingly described, "an enfeebled and crippled old man."
The imagination, which is remarkable for its ungovernable influence, comes into action on some occasions periodically with the most precise regularity. A friend once told us of a young relation who was subject to nervous attacks: she was spending some time at the sea-side for change of air, but the evening-gun, fired from the vessel in the bay at eight o'clock, was always the signal for a nervous attack: the instant the report was heard she fell back insensible, as if she had been shot. Those about her endeavored if possible to withdraw her thoughts from the expected moment: at length one evening they succeeded, and while she was engaged in an interesting conversation the evening-gun was unnoticed. By-and-by she asked the hour, and appeared uneasy when she found the time had passed. The next evening it was evident that she would not let her attention be withdrawn: the gun fired, and she swooned away: and when revived, another fainting fit succeeded, as if it were to make up for the omission of the preceding evening! It is told of the great tragic actress Clairon, who had been the innocent cause of the suicide of a man who destroyed himself by a pistol-shot, that ever after, at the exact moment when the fatal deed had been perpetrated—one o'clock in the morning—she heard the shot. If asleep, it awakened her; if engaged in conversation, it interrupted her; in solitude or in company, at home or traveling, in the midst of revelry or at her devotions, she was sure to hear it to the very moment.
The same indelible impression has been made in hundreds of cases, and on persons of every variety of temperament and every pursuit, whether engaged in business, science, or art, or rapt in holy contemplation. On one occasion Pascal had been thrown down on a bridge which had no parapet, and his imagination was so haunted forever after by the danger, that he always fancied himself on the brink of a steep precipice overhanging an abyss ready to engulf him. This illusion had taken such possession of his mind that the friends who came to converse with him were obliged to place the chairs on which they seated themselves between him and the fancied danger. But the effects of terror are the best known of all the vagaries of imagination.
A very remarkable case of the influence of imagination occurred between sixty and seventy years since in Dublin, connected with the celebrated frolics of Dalkey Island. It is said Curran and his gay companions delighted to spend a day there, and that with them originated the frolic of electing "a king of Dalkey and the adjacent islands," and appointing his chancellor and all the officers of state. A man in the middle rank of life, universally respected, and remarkable alike for kindly and generous feelings and a convivial spirit, was unanimously elected to fill the throne. He entered with his whole heart into all the humors of the pastime, in which the citizens of Dublin so long delighted. A journal was kept, called the "Dalkey Gazette," in which all public proceedings were inserted, and it afforded great amusement to its conductors. But the mock pageantry, the affected loyalty, and the pretended homage of his subjects, at length began to excite the imagination of "King John," as he was called. Fiction at length became with him reality, and he fancied himself "every inch a king." His family and friends perceived with dismay and deep sorrow the strange delusion which nothing could shake: he would speak on no subject save the kingdom of Dalkey and its government, and he loved to dwell on the various projects he had in contemplation for the benefit of his people, and boasted of his high prerogative: he never could conceive himself divested for one moment of his royal powers, and exacted the most profound deference to his kingly authority. The last year and a half of his life were spent in Swift's hospital for lunatics. He felt his last hours approaching, but no gleam of returning reason marked the parting scene: to the very last instant he believed himself a king, and all his cares and anxieties were for his people. He spoke in high terms of his chancellor, his attorney-general, and all his officers of state, and of the dignitaries of the church: he recommended them to his kingdom, and trusted they might all retain the high offices which they now held. He spoke on the subject with a dignified calmness well becoming the solemn leave-taking of a monarch; but when he came to speak of the crown he was about to relinquish forever his feelings were quite overcome, and the tears rolled down his cheeks: "I leave it," said he, "to my people, and to him whom they may elect as my successor!" This remarkable scene is recorded in some of the notices of deaths for the year 1788. The delusion, though most painful to his friends, was far from an unhappy one to its victim: his feelings were gratified to the last while thinking he was occupied with the good of his fellow-creatures—an occupation best suited to his benevolent disposition.