Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

A person who is troubled with dyspepsia cannot get well if he thinks of nothing but an acid or sour stomach, or feels the food disagreeing with him before he has it in his mouth. He must have thoughts quite remote from these, and the chances are nine out of ten he will not feel what he eats. There is the same state of mind about “catching cold.” Some persons are forever on the alert to catch a cold, and why should they not, when they are always watching out for it? If you dress so that you do not sweat, and do not use too thick bedcovering, and are not constantly on the catch or lookout, I assure you you will not catch cold, nor will it catch you.

Terror or fright causes or cures diseases. Dr. Toad reports the case of a boy, in Tuke’s work, nine years of age, who was frightened into chorea, or St. Vitus’ dance, by his sister, who had covered herself with a white sheet and appeared before him unexpectedly, while he was in bed. I know, also, a case of functional bladder weakness of a child who wet his bed at night during sleep. There appeared no signs of any local disease, nor was any remedy which I employed of the slightest advantage. The father of the child, becoming exasperated, gave the child a severe thrashing one morning. The mother remonstrated at what she considered cruel and useless chastisement. But, strange yet true, that child never wet the bed after that; it was entirely cured by fright.

Sympathy will often make persons sick; of this I had in my own experience an opportunity for a very interesting observation. It was the husband of a woman who had been retching and vomiting incident to the early months of her pregnancy. So great was the sympathy of her husband that he retched and vomited exactly like his wife, not only when in her presence, but when separated from her, the impressions or thought exciting the excito-motor nerves of the stomach. This sympathetic sickness lasted as long as that of his wife.

Dr. H. C. Sawyer, author of “Nerve Waste,” has kindly shown the writer another form of functional or hysterical disorder, which was, or is even yet, considered by many general practitioners a scrofulous enlargement of the joints; but the doctor discovered the peculiarity of metastasis, which means a sudden or complete removal of a disease from one part to another. This gave the disease what he termed a hysterical or functional character. It would be the swelling of the elbow of one arm and the knee of the opposite side at one time; and in the course of a few weeks or months these would feel and appear entirely well, while the disease had located itself in other joints. This case the doctor considered could be only reached through the mind, or some faith cure. He further believed that many of these enlarged and swollen joints among the wealthier classes were due to a nervous trouble. Indeed, it would be an easy matter to cite case after case, from my own experience, or quote cases from the highest medical authorities, illustrating in every conceivable manner how the mind, the imagination, the emotions, or the different passions, are continually causing disease and suffering.

It must naturally follow that what is potent to induce diseases will, under different conditions, be a means of curing them.

A serious question now arises with reference to the selection of cases suitable to mind-cure treatment. Bigoted fanaticism is quite incompetent, so are the great majority of spiritual healers, owing to their absolute ignorance of the scientific aspects of disease. The first prerequisite for intelligent and proper treatment is to establish the precise nature of the disease under consideration. It must be distinctly grouped or classed, whether it be a functional or hysterical disease, or a zymotic or contagious affection.

In diphtheria or typhoid fever mind cure subserves no purpose; the treatment must be avowedly antiseptic and stimulating.

If it be a physical injury, say a fractured bone, it must be treated on mechanical principles.

A woman suffering in the pangs of labor, which is being delayed from some abnormal position or some other physical obstruction, can only be delivered through mechanical methods; and here the enthusiastic mind healer may commit serious errors, sacrificing limb and life by unnecessary delay. So I would lay down this broad maxim, that the mind healer must either be a competent, educated physician, or a physician should be a competent metaphysician.

Note.—In the year 1887 Mrs. A. C. Hurrell was a healthy, middle-aged woman and the mother of two children. When the youngest was ten months old she contracted a severe cold. The coughing spells “took her breath,” and from these exaggerated expiratory paroxysms she drifted into spasmodic asthma, at least that was the diagnosis of prominent medical men of Sacramento and of this city. Change of climate was advised and tried, so were also the different drugs which experience had taught to be useful, even operations were performed on her nasal passages by enterprising specialists, but all to no purpose. Morphine was prescribed by the first medical attendant, and when her suffering became unbearable she had to fall back on this drug for relief. In May, 1890, I was consulted, but a most careful examination revealed nothing which I could assign as a cause and upon which to base a hopeful treatment.