Preventable Diseases

by Woods Hutchinson

Obviously, then, this possible realm of suffering in which the mind can operate is very much more limited than was at one time believed. In fact, imaginary diseases might be swept out of existence, and humanity would scarcely know the difference, so little would the total sum of its suffering be reduced.

Another field in which there has been much general misunderstanding and looseness of both thought and statement, which has again led to exaggerated ideas of the direct influence of the mind over the body, is the well-known effect of emotional states, such as fright or anger, upon the ordinary processes of the body. Instances of this relation are, of course, household words,—the man whose "hair turned white in a single night" from grief or terror; the nursing mother who flew into a furious fit of passion and whose child was promptly seized with convulsions and died the next time it was put to the breast; the father who is prostrated by the death or disgrace of a favorite son, and dies within a few weeks of a broken heart. The first thing that is revealed by even a brief study of this subject is that these instances are exceedingly rare, and owe their familiarity in our minds to their striking and dramatic character and the excellent "material" which they make for the dramatist and the gossip. It is even difficult to secure clear and valid proof of the actual occurrence of that sudden blanching of the hair, which has in the minds of most of us been accepted from our earliest recollection.

More fundamental, however, and vital, is the extent to which we have overlooked the precise method in which these violent emotional impressions alter bodily activities, like the secretions. Granting, for the sake of argument, that states of mind, especially of great tension, have some direct and mysterious influence as such, and through means which defy physical recognition and study, it must be remembered that they have a perfectly definite physiological sphere of influence upon vital activities. Indeed, we are already in a position to explain at least two-thirds of these so-called "mental influences" upon purely physical and physiological grounds.

First of all, we must remember that these emotions which we are pleased to term "states of mind" are also states of body. If any man were to stand up before you, for instance, either upon the stage or in private, and inform you that he was "scared within an inch of his life," without tremor in his voice, or paling of his countenance, or widening eyes, or twitching muscles, or preparations either to escape or to fight, you would simply laugh at him. You would readily conclude, either that he was making fun of you and felt no such emotion, or that he was repressing it by an act of miraculous self-control. The man who is frightened and doesn't do anything or look as if he were going to do anything, the man who is angry and makes no movement or even twitching suggesting that fact, is neither angry nor frightened.

An emotional state is, of course, a peculiarly complex affair. First, there is the reception of the sensation, sight, sound, touch, or smell, which terrifies. This terror is a secondary reaction, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is conditioned upon our memory of previous similar objects and their dangerousness, or our recollection of what we have been told about their deadliness. Then instantly, irrepressibly, comes the lightning-flash of horror to our heart, to our muscles, to our lungs, to get ready to meet this emergency. Then, and not till then, do we really feel the emotion. In fact, our most pragmatic philosopher, William James, has gone so far as to declare that emotions are the after-echoes of muscular contractions. By the time an emotion has fairly got us in its grip so that we are really conscious of it, the blood-supply of half the organs in our body has been powerfully altered, and often completely reversed.

To what extent muscular contractions condition emotions, as Professor James has suggested, may be easily tested by a quaint and simple little experiment upon a group of the smallest voluntary muscles in the body, those that move the eyeball. Choose some time when you are sitting quietly in your room, free from all disturbing thoughts and influences. Then stand up and, assuming an easy position, cast the eyes upward and hold them in that position for thirty seconds. Instantly and involuntarily you will be conscious of a tendency toward reverential, devotional, contemplative ideas and thoughts. Then turn the eyes sideways, glancing directly to the right or to the left, through half-closed lids. Within thirty seconds images of suspicion, of uneasiness, or of dislike, will rise unbidden in the mind. Turn the eyes to one side and slightly downward, and suggestions of jealousy or coquetry will be apt to spring unbidden. Direct your gaze downward toward the floor, and you are likely to go off into a fit of reverie or of abstraction.

In fact, as Darwin long ago remarked, quoting in part from Bain: "Most of our emotions [he should have said all] are so closely connected with their expression that they hardly exist if the body remains passive. As Louis XVI, facing a mob, exclaimed, 'Afraid? Feel my pulse!' so a man may intensely hate another, but until his bodily frame is affected he can hardly be said to be enraged."

And, a little later, from Maudsley:—

"The specific muscular action is not merely an exponent of passion, but truly an essential part of it. If we try, while the features are fixed in the expression of one passion, to call up in the mind a different one, we shall find it impossible to do so."

It will also be recollected what an important part in the production of hypnosis and the trance state, fixed and strained positions of these same ocular muscles have always been made to play. Many hypnotists can bring their subjects under their influence solely by having them gaze fixedly at some bright object like a mirror, or into a crystal sphere, for a few minutes or even seconds.