Suppression of Reaction.—This side of the influence of the mind on the body is so interesting that its effects have often been noted and studied. While we do not quite understand the mechanism by which it accomplishes its marvels of anesthesia and even of motility under apparently impossible conditions, there is no doubt that severe pain may utterly fail to reach the consciousness, though the nervous system is uninterruptedly carrying the messages just as it did before. The lack of attention suppresses the ordinary effect upon the personality. Evidently the messages originate and are carried to the nerve centers, but find no attention available for them, and so pass unnoticed. The study of phases of this phenomenon of suppression of reaction forms a good basis for the use of mental influence, and shows its marvelous power to overcome disturbing physical factors.
Amputation Stump Aches.—An interesting example of the influence of mind over body, when circumstances favor its exercise or emphasize it, and at the same time a striking illustration of the potency of suggestion in the cure of discomfort, is found in the stories that are so common of cases of pains in amputation stumps. Any number of weird tales are told of men who complain of feeling cramps in the toes of an amputated limb after this portion of their body had been buried. The discomfort is common enough. In the special stories, however, the limbs have been dug up, the toes straightened out—according to the story, they were always found cramped in some way—and then the patient is at once restored to ease. In the good old times they probably believed in some direct connection between the straightening out of the toes of the amputated member and subsequent relief of pain. For us it is but an example of the power of suggestion. It is not the sort of suggestion that one likes to think of employing, though it has a certain dramatic quality which adds efficiency to suggestion.
The Mind and Motility.—We have spoken thus far almost exclusively of painful conditions as relieved by suggestion or mental influence, but disturbance of motor function may also be favorably affected. There are any number of cases on record in which patients who had been utterly unable to walk were restored to motility by a shock. Many such patients have, in the midst of the excitement of a fire, or the scare caused by the presence of a burglar, got up and walked quite as well as ever, though sometimes they have been for years previously confined to bed. The San Francisco earthquake is said to have exerted such an effect on a number of patients, and, while such unusual disturbances cannot often be provided for the cure of these ailments, there can be no doubt at all of the power of a shock to the mind to overcome functional incapacity that has resisted every possible form of treatment.
Ailments of this kind, which involve inability of the will to control, or rather to initiate, movements of the body, receive their best explanation on the neuron or neuroglia theory. ([See the chapter on the Mechanism of Suggestion.]) The central neurons become either quite separated from certain of the peripheral neurons, or at least the connections are not made with that nice adjustment necessary for the proper passage of nerve impulses. The shock communicated to the nervous system by fright is sufficient, however, to restore these connections, and consequently to enable the patient once more to exercise motor functions that have been in abeyance for some time.
Astasia-abasia.—Any one who has had to deal with the cases for which the French have invented the rather impressive Greek name of astasia-abasia—how much better it would be to call the condition simply what we know it to be, nervous inability to stand or walk!—appreciates how almost a miracle is needed to improve them. The incapacity for station or movement to which the disease owes its name is so complete in many cases, and the patients' lack of confidence in self so absolute, that no ordinary remedial measure is capable of doing any good. These cases are usually a severe trial to the patients' friends. Indeed, the patients themselves maintain their nutrition so well and, as a rule, enjoy such good health, or, as has been said, enjoy their bad health so well, that it is for their attendants the physician feels most commiseration. Yet generally he is quite unable to do anything. It is certain, however, that with care and authoritative suggestion there would not need to be an earthquake, or a fire, or even a burglary, as a therapeutic measure in these cases. As a matter of fact, their cure when it occurs is always brought about by some strong mental influence.
Mental Influence on Organs.—The Heart.—The influence of mind can be noted on practically every organ of the body in a concrete way. It might be thought that the heart, the first living thing in the animal being, the pulsations of which begin before there is any sign of the nervous system, might be free from this influence. On the contrary, the heart is so readily affected by mental states that, taking effect for cause, the old popular, and even scientific idea with regard to it, was that it was the organ of the emotions. The heart is stimulated more by favoring circumstances, and suffers more from depression, than almost any other organ. In the melancholic states it usually beats less frequently and is sluggish. When individuals are tired out and the heart has become weakened in its action, new courage will first be noted as having its effect upon the heart action. As the whole muscular system is much influenced by the mental state and, as the control of the arterial system depends on the muscles in the arteries, it is easy to understand how much the general bodily condition may by mental influence be modified for good and ill.
Digestive Tract.—The stomach and intestines, though their functions might be presumed to be dependent entirely on physical conditions, are almost completely under the control of the mental state. At moments of depression, just after bad news has been received, the appetite is absent, or is very slight and digestion itself proceeds slowly and unsatisfactorily. On the other hand, when there is mental good feeling appetite is vigorous and digestion is usually quite capable of disposing of all that is eaten. If after a period of rejoicing in the midst of which food is taken abundantly bad news is brought, the mental influence on digestion can be seen very well. It is not alone that depression interferes with digestive processes, but apparently some favorable factors for digestion consequent upon the previous state of mind are withdrawn, and now what would have been a proper amount of food proves to be an excess and the digestive organs find it difficult to deal with it.
Nervous Inhibition.—The mind can actually inhibit certain of the involuntary processes of the body by thinking about them, and, above all, by dwelling on the thought that they are going wrong. This becomes easier to understand when we recall how, in the same way, we may disturb many habitual and more or less unconscious actions that we have grown accustomed to. There [{88}] are any number of actions requiring careful attention to details which become so habitual that we do not have to think of them at all. Not infrequently it happens when we try to explain to others how we do them, we disturb the facility of performance and have to repeat the acts several times before we succeed in performing successfully what a moment before we did without any thought. The story of the centipede who was asked how he walked with all his hundred legs, and who tried to describe how easy it was and got so mixed up that he was unable to move at all, is a whimsical symbol of conscious attention disturbing actions which go on quite well of themselves if only we do not allow ourselves to think consciously of each and every phase of them.
How much the mind may influence the body under certain conditions when trance-like states either assert themselves or are brought on, has often been noted. Lombroso in his book "After Death What?" [Footnote 11] says of Eusapia Paladino the "medium," that "when she is about to enter the trance state the frequency of the respiratory movements is lessened just as is the case with the Indian fakirs. Before the trance she will have been breathing eighteen to twenty times a minute; as the trance begins the number of respirations is gradually reduced to fifteen; when the trance is fully developed she breathes twelve times a minute or less. On the other hand, at the same time the heart beats increase. Normally her pulse is about seventy, but during the early trance stage it rises to ninety, while during the course of a deep trance, it may go as high even as one hundred and twenty. The passing from a more or less rigid state to that of active somnambulism is marked by yawns and sobs and spontaneous perspiration on the forehead." The observation of these phenomena is, of course, entirely apart from any theory one may hold with regard to mediumistic manifestations, and it provides evidence of mental influence that is very striking.