Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery

by Robert Means Lawrence

In one of our great hospitals here it has been the custom for a long time to use for treatment by suggestion a tuning-fork which is known at that hospital as a magnet. It is not a magnet; it is merely an ordinary, plain, rather large tuning-fork. But people have, as you know, a very curious superstition about the action of magnets, and believing this tuning-fork to be a magnet, they attribute occult and wonderful powers to it. When placed upon a supposedly paralyzed limb or on the throat of a person who thinks he cannot speak, it has wonderful powers just because it is supposed to be a magnet, when in fact it is a tuning-fork. I remonstrated once with the gentleman who uses this tuning-fork because, so far as I could see, it was a lie, like all other forms of quackery; but he said, "Why, no, it does a great deal of good; it cures the patients." I replied that I had no doubt of that. So does skunk oil and Omega oil; so does the magic handkerchief which Francis Truth has touched; so does the magic ring, the electric belt, and the porous plaster. They all cure, but they all deceive people, in so far as one supposes that something is going on which is not revealed, something like imaginary electricity in the ring, something like the supposed medical activity in the porous plaster. In another great hospital in this city electricity is used in the same way. Electricity has medical action of course, in some cases, but it is used also in a great number of cases where it is not supposed to have any medical action because it has so strong a psychical action. When one sees a brass instrument that looks like a trident approaching one's body, and feels long crackling sparks shoot out of its prongs against one's body, it naturally makes a very strong impression upon one's mind.

How psychological methods may be employed in everyday life was the subject of an address by Professor Hugo Münsterberg, of Harvard University, before the Commercial Club of Chicago, December 13, 1908. The success of these methods in the field of medicine is attested by the constantly increasing number of cures of nervous and other affections. "There is no magic fluid," he said, "no mysterious power afloat; it is just a state of mind. Every one can suggest something to every one else. It is the idea that is strong enough to overcome the idea in another mind that produces the effects wondered at. Hypnotism is only reënforced suggestion. It is a tool which no physician should be without."

Psychological knowledge, according to the same authority,[58:1] is gradually leaking into the world of medicine. The power of suggestion, with its varied methods, is slowly becoming a most important therapeutic agent in the hands of reputable practitioners. The time has arrived when medical students, about to enter upon professional life, should be equipped with a knowledge of scientific psychology. Physicians do not now deserve sympathy, if they are dumfounded when quacks and pretenders are successful where their own attempts at curing have failed. It is evident, however, that reform in this field is at hand, and it may be admitted that even those knights-errant have helped, after many centuries, to direct the public interest to the paramount importance of psychology in medicine.

We may cite the invocations of the Egyptian priests to obtain a cure from each god for those submitted to his influence; the magic formulas, which taught the use of herbs against disease; the medicine of Esculapius's descendants, the Asclepiads, an order of Greek physicians, who practised medicine under the reputed inspiration of that deity, and were bound by oath not to reveal the secrets of their art. Is it necessary to speak of the king's touch, of the miraculous cures at the tomb of the French ascetic priest, François Paris (1690-1727), and especially of Lourdes, and other noted pilgrimage resorts? Many professional healers may be mentioned, "of whom some were honest and believed themselves to be endowed with supernatural powers like certain magnetisers, and who used suggestion without knowing it, as for example the Irishman Greatrakes (1628-1700), the German priest Gassner (1727-1779), and many others whose fame does not extend beyond the region where they exercised their mysterious power."[59:1]

In the same category, as regards their modus operandi, may be classed medical charms and healing-spells. These serve also to inspire hope, or the expectation of cure, in the patient's mind, and thus act as tonics; they may also be useful as a means of diverting the mind of a hypochondriac, and changing the current of his thoughts, in which sense they may be classed as mental alteratives.

Allusion has been made to the magical spells, of ancient repute among the Hindus, which are known as mantras. They are available for sending an evil spirit into a man, and for driving it out; for inspiring love or hatred; and for causing disease or curing it. The Hindus do not repose confidence in a physician, unless he knows, or assumes to know, the proper mantra for the cure of any ailment. And this is the reason why European practitioners, who are not addicted to the use of spells, do not find favor among them. The medical men who pretend to be versed in occult lore, whether charlatans or magicians, are ready to furnish suitable mantras at short notice, whether for healing, for the recovery of stolen property, or for any other conceivable purpose.[60:1] The ethics of quackery are probably on the same plane everywhere; and not only are the spells forthcoming, if sufficient compensation be assured, but they are also more or less effective, through the power of suggestion, as therapeutic agents.

In nervous affections, where the imagination is especially active, amulets and healing-spells exert their maximum effect.[60:2] No one, however cultured or learned, is wholly unsusceptible to the physical influence of this faculty of the mind; and it has been well said that everybody would probably be benefited by the occasional administration of a bread-pill at the hand of a trusted medical adviser.[61:1] But faith on the patient's part is essential. Pettigrew, in his work on "Medical Superstitions," illustrates this by an example whose pertinence is not lessened by a dash of humor. A physician, who numbered among his patients his own father and his wife's mother, was asked why his treatment in the former case had been more successful than in the latter. His reply was that his mother-in-law had not as much confidence in him as his father had, and therefore had failed to receive as much benefit. Similarly, if a verbal charm is to cure a physical ailment, the patient must first form a mental conception of the cure, and believe in the charm's efficacy. But faith in healing-spells of human devising is sometimes cruelly misplaced, as is shown in the following anecdote, taken from the writings of Godescalc de Rozemonde, a Belgian theologian. A woman, suffering from a painful affection of the eyes, applied to a student for a magical writing to charm away the trouble, and promised him a new coat as a recompense. The student, nothing loath, wrote a sentence on a piece of paper, which he rolled in some rags and gave to the woman, telling her to carry the charm always about her, and on no account to read the writing. The woman gladly complied, was cured of her eye-trouble, and loaned the charm to another woman, similarly affected, who also soon experienced relief. Thereupon a natural curiosity prompted them to examine the mystic spell, and this is what they read: "May the Devil pluck out thine eyes, and replace them with mud!"

In "Folk-Lore," for September, 1900, there is an interesting article, giving an account of popular beliefs current in a remote village of Wiltshire, England, where medicines are usually regarded as charms. A man who had pleurisy was told by his doctor to apply a plaster to his chest. On the doctor's next visit, he was informed that his patient was much better and that the plaster had given great relief. Failing, however, on examination of the man's chest, to find any sign of counter-irritation of the skin, he was somewhat puzzled; but he soon learned from the mistress of the house, that having no chest at hand, she had clapped the plaster on a large box in the corner of the sick-chamber.

Dr. Edward Jorden (1569-1632), an English physician, wrote regarding the oftentimes successful results of treatment by means of incantations, and leechdoms or medical formulas, that these measures have no inherent supernatural virtue; but in the words of Avicenna, "the confidence of the patient in the means used is oftentimes more available to cure diseases than all other remedies whatsoever."