Frank F. Moore, in “A Journalist’s Note Book” tells the following amusing and significant story of the influence of imagination upon health. “A young civil servant in India, feeling fagged from the excessive heat and from long hours of work consulted the best doctor within reach. The doctor looked him over, sounded his heart and lungs, and then said gravely: ‘I will write you tomorrow.’ The next day the young man received a letter telling him that his left lung was gone and his heart seriously affected, and advising him to lose no time in adjusting his business affairs. ‘Of course, you may live for weeks,’ the latter said, ‘but you had best not leave important matters undecided.’ Naturally the young official was dismayed by so dark a prognosis—nothing less than a death warrant. Within twenty-four hours he was having difficulty with his respiration, and was seized with an acute pain in the region of the heart. He took to his bed with the feeling that he should never rise from it. During the night he became so much worse that his servant sent for the doctor. ‘What on earth have you been doing to yourself?’ demanded the doctor. ‘There were no indications of this sort when I saw you yesterday?’ ‘It is my heart, I suppose,’ weakly answered the patient. ‘Your heart!’ repeated the doctor. ‘Your heart was all right yesterday.’ ‘My lungs, then.’ ‘What is the matter with you, man? You don’t seem to have been drinking?’ ‘Your letter,’ gasped the patient. ‘You said I had only a few weeks to live.’ ‘Are you crazy?’ said the doctor. ‘I wrote you to take a few weeks vacation in the hills, and you would be all right.’ For reply the patient drew the letter from under the bedclothes and gave it to the doctor. ‘Heavens!’ cried that gentleman as he glanced at it. ‘This was meant for another man! My assistant has mixed up the letters.’ The young man at once sat up in bed and made a rapid recovery. And what of the patient for whom the direful prognosis was intended? Delighted with the report that a sojourn in the hills would set him right, he started at once, and five years later was alive and in fair health.”
The following is clipped from a medical journal: “Some physician makes use of this suggestive phrase—‘the dynamic power of an idea,’ and, as an illustration of what is meant by this expression, the following incident is related. Not long ago a man in taking medicine was suddenly possessed by the notion that he had by mistake taken arsenic. His wife insisted to the contrary, but he proceeded to manifest all the peculiar symptoms of arsenical poisoning, and finally died. So certain was his wife that he had not taken arsenic that an autopsy was held, when not an atom of the poison could be found. Of what did this man die? Arsenic? No, of the dynamic power of an idea or arsenic. Happily for humanity this dynamic power of ideas works constructively no less certainly than it does destructively, and an idea of health fixed in the consciousness and persistently adhered to would tend to bring the best results. Over a hundred years ago, old John Hunter said, ‘As the state of mind is capable of producing disease, another state of it may effect a cure.’”
Dr. William C. Prime relates the following case in his book “Among the Northern Hills.” “The judge was summoned in a hurry to see an old lady who had managed her farm for forty years since her husband’s death. She had two sons, and a stepson, John, who was not an admirable person. After a long drive on a stormy night the judge found the old lady apparently just alive, and was told by the doctor in attendance to hurry, as his patient was very weak. The judge brought paper and ink with him. He found a stand and a candle, placed them at the head of the bed, and after saying a few words to the woman, told her he was ready to prepare the will if she would go on and tell him what she wanted him to do. He wrote the introductory phrase rapidly, and leaning over toward her said, ‘Now, go on, Mrs. Norton.’
“Her voice was quite faint, and she seemed to speak with an effort. She said: ‘First of all, I want to give the farm to my sons, Harry and James. Just put that down.’ ‘But,’ said the judge, ‘you can’t do that, Mrs. Norton. The farm isn’t yours to give away.’ ‘The farm isn’t mine?’ she said in a voice decidedly stronger than before. ‘No, the farm isn’t yours. You have only a life interest in it.’ ‘This farm that I’ve run for goin’ on forty-three year next spring isn’t mine to do with what I please with it? Why not, Judge I’d like to know what you mean!’ ‘Why, Mr. Norton, your husband, gave you a life estate in all his property, and on your death the farm goes to his son, John, and your children get the village houses. I have explained that to you very often before.’ ‘And when I die, John Norton is to have this house and farm whether I will or not?’ ‘Just so. It will be his.’ ‘Then I ain’t goin’ to die!’ said the old woman, in a clear and decidedly ringing and healthy voice. And so saying, she threw her feet over the front of the bed, sat up, gathered a blanket and coverlet about her, straightened her gaunt form, walked across the room and sat down in a great chair before the fire.
“The doctor and the judge went home. That was fifteen years ago. The old lady is alive to-day. And she accomplished her intent, She beat John after all. He died four years ago.”
CHAPTER VIII
BELIEF AND SUGGESTION
The writer has been informed by a prominent physician of Chicago, that for many years he has been in the habit of administering hypodermic injections of distilled water, accompanying the same by the statement that he is injecting morphine. He states that in every case, he has succeeded in inducing a quiet, peaceful sleep, and a cessation of pain after the injection, which can be attributed only to the belief of the patient. The same physician also relates the case of a woman who believed that she had taken strychnine by mistake. When the doctor was called he found the woman manifesting every symptom of strychnine poisoning, even down to the most minute details, and he is of the opinion that death would have ensued in a short time had he not proceeded to administer the regular antidotes and restorative treatment. After the woman was brought out of the condition, it was discovered that the supposed strychnine was nothing but a harmless powder. In relating the case, the physician always adds that the woman had witnessed the death struggles of a dog which had been poisoned by strychnine several months previous, which might have had some effect in enabling her to unconsciously counterfeit the symptoms.