[Footnote 12: Paris, Maloine, 1804.]
They brought to the prison infirmary one day an old burglar, an incorrigible offender, who was undergoing a long sentence. He was suffering from cancer of the stomach, and was already in a very advanced stage of the affection. The poor devil seemed to realize his condition very well, and felt that it was only a question of a short time until he should die. He had made up his mind to that with the [{91}] resignation which so often characterizes people of this kind. Only one thing put him out very much, and that was the fear of dying in prison.
"I know well that I have to pass in my checks," he said over and over again; "but I do not want to die here. I do not want to be cut up after I am dead."
He still had two months of his sentence to undergo. Every day the disease made notable progress. His cachexia became more profound. Life was passing from him drop by drop. At the end of five weeks he was scarcely more than a living skeleton. Every morning we expected to find him dead, or at least in his last agony. Nevertheless, every morning, by an effort, he was able to recognize me and a little life shone out of his sharp, small eyes that seemed like those of a bird of prey.
One morning he said to me: "Oh! you need not watch me. You shall not have my carcass. I do not want to die in prison. I shall not die here." He lived on till the end of his sentence. The morning of his freedom he said to me, "I told you that I did not want to die here, and that I would not die here."
By an effort of his will he aroused himself enough so that his friends were able to take him out of the prison. It was the last bit of energy he had, however. His will power was at an end. A few hours after his arrival in the house of his son he went off into a profound depression, and would not talk even to his own. Then his death agony came on, and he died that same evening. The strange and surprising struggle of this man against death, the marvelous force of physiological resistance which the fear of autopsy, if he died, gave him, struck me vividly at the time. What intimate and mysterious bond connects mind and matter that the one is able to react in so much energy upon the other. How wonderful to think that the fear, lest his abandoned body should be cut up, should actually keep body and mind together until after the danger of that dreaded event was passed.
Suggestion and Death.—On the other hand, there are many stories that show us how the giving up of hope of life seems to even hasten death. We have many stories of the death on the same day of husband and wife, or of brothers and sisters who thought very much of each other. Some of these are mere coincidences, but there are too many to be all explained on the score of coincidence. It seems clear that the living one, on hearing of the death of the other, feels that now there is nothing more to live for, and gives up the struggle. Hence the important rule in medical practice that a seriously ill patient should not be told of an accident, and, above all, of the death of a near relative.
On the other hand, strong expectation of death at a definite time, especially if accompanied by suggestions with some physical signs, may bring about actual dissolution. We have a number of well authenticated stories to illustrate this.
Renewal of Hope.—How much energy even the slightest hope may furnish, when apparently all power of effort is exhausted, is well illustrated by what happens to men who are lost at sea or in a desert. After the lapse of a certain length of time human nature seems utterly incapable of further effort and they sink down exhausted. The appearance of a light at a distance, a hail, any communication that gives them even the slightest hope will renew their energy and enable them to draw on unsuspected stores of vitality after the end seemed inevitable. It may be said that the exhaustion in these cases is more apparent than real, that discouragement prevents the release of even the energy that is present, and might be used under more favorable circumstances, but that is exactly the argument which favors the deliberate employment of psychotherapeutic motives to enable patients to use the energies which they possess. In the midst of disease, or the struggle for life, when vitality is [{92}] being sapped, hope is lost or obscured, just as it is when a man is alone in the desert or struggling far from help on the ocean. If we can prevent this discouragement from sapping his powers there will always be a prolongation of life, and often this will be sufficient to enable vital resistance to overcome exhausting disease.
Law of Reserve Energy.—Prof. William James [Footnote 13] called particular attention to the law of reserve energy which recent studies in psychology have emphasized. This law of reserve energy is a conclusion from certain facts which are very familiar to men and have been observed as long as the memory of man runs, yet the full significance of which has never been read quite aright. Applied to a very limited range of actions, it has been applied only half-heartedly in ordinary life, and to its full extent only under the pressure of absolute necessity. This law holds out the best promise to psychotherapy. It shows that there are reservoirs of surplus energy in man which, if they can be successfully tapped, present possibilities of resistance to fatigue—and fatigue in many more ways than we used to think resembles disease. Besides, this law represents a very wonderful capacity for withstanding pains and aches and conquering disinclination that would otherwise seem impossible. If it can be made to apply to ordinary life as well as it does to extraordinary events, then the conscious deliberate use of psychotherapy or mental suggestion should prove to have wonderful remedial power. Prof. James said:
[Footnote 13: American Magazine, Sept., 1908.]
Everyone knows what it is to start a piece of work, either intellectual or muscular, feeling stale—or "cold," as an Adirondack guide once put it to me. And everybody knows what it is to warm up to his job. The process of warming up gets particularly striking in the phenomena known as second wind. On usual occasions we make a practice of stopping an occupation as soon as we meet the first effective layer (so to call it) of fatigue. We have then walked, played, or worked enough, so we desist. That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction on this side of which our usual life is cast.
But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and fourth wind may supervene. Mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own—sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points.
He then states what has come to be called the law of reserve energy.
It is evident that our organism has stored up reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon, but that may be called upon; deeper and deeper strata of combustion or explosible material, discontinuously arranged, but ready for use for any one who probes so deep, and repairing themselves by rest as well as do the superficial strata.