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HIDDEN SUGGESTION

133

"Here then is the problem which faces every fair-minded man, to apportion to each of these influences its due weight." I

Four of the above list, namely: (d) The power of personal magnetism in the practitioner, (e) Suggestion and auto-suggestion, (ƒ) Faith, (g) Courage, are evidently psychic influences.

While it is difficult to eliminate suggestion from practical therapeutics, and indeed undesirable so to do after having established therapeutic facts, it is easy by the placebo to eliminate the drug. The practical man takes things as he finds them and makes the best of them. The majority of one's patients believe in the unlimited efficacy of drugs, so the practical disciple of suggestion will recognize in the placebo a preëxistent vehicle for suggestion.

There should be as much care, and precise instructions given, as tho one were administering toxic medicine. The patient catches from one's manner a suggestion as to the powerfulness of the drug.

The late Prof. J. Heber Smith was accustomed to advise: "Until you have studied your case carefully, use a placebo."

The late Prof. Conrad Wesselhoeft once remarked of a certain high dilutionist, who always said "There" as he flicked the powder on the patient's tongue, "There was more medicine in the 'There' than there was in the powder."

'Boston Med. and Surg. Journal, March 20, 1906.

Dr. Frederick C. Shattuck, professor of clinical medicine, Harvard Medical School, says: "Let us use suggestion as far as is necessary to subserve the best interest of our patients; but let us strive without ceasing to separate in our own minds mere suggestion from actual drug action. Few are capable of either imparting or receiving a suggestion strong enough to prevent a hypodermic of apomorphia from producing active emesis, or zinc sulphate given by the mouth for that matter. But we have all seen cases in which the patient was relieved by a hypodermic of plain water, which he or she believed to contain morphia.”

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CONCLUSIONS

The psychic element is present in all therapeutics, even in surgery, refraction, electrotherapy, and massage.

It is the therapeutic element in Christian Science, mental healing, etc.

It and not the drug is probably the active agent in most cures by quack medicines.

It and not the drug is probably the active agent in many medicines prescribed by qualified physicians.

It is impossible to eliminate it from any form of therapeutics.

-The majority of humanity is so constituted that

'Boston Med. and Surg. Journal, March 20, 1906. The Value of Drugs in Therapeutics.

PATENT MEDICINES

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- the "placebo" is the most feasible form of admin

istering suggestion.

There is another side, however, to the placebo question. Dr. Richard C. Cabot, instructor in medicine, Harvard Medical School, has stated the case very forcibly.

"Drug therapeutics in cases in which drugs do no good represent either mental fatigue or mental myopia on the part of the physician: sometimes mental fatigue, because the easiest thing one can do for a patient when tired is to write a prescription; sometimes mental myopia, which prevents the physician from seeing that the habit of giving placebos and of prescribing a medicine for every symptom leads straight to the 'patent medicine' habit.

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Why do people take 'patent medicines' and expect us to give them a drug for every symptom? They were not born with a desire for nauseous mixtures. They acquired it under instruction, ultimately our instruction. From the patient's point of view the net result of the doctor's expensive visits is too often a row of medicine bottles on the shelf. The thrifty patient thinks he sees a way to get the net result of the doctor's efforts without so much expense. Why not save the middleman, he says to himself, and get the goods direct? So arises the habit of going to the apothecaries or to the 'patent medicine' vendors for a cure. When we stop giving placebos, cease acting as middlemen for drug

makers, and admit to their rightful place the nonmedicinal branches of therapeutics, we shall deal a powerful blow at the 'patent medicine' evil.” I

Plato says: "Beauty we love best because we see her clearest. Wisdom with bodily eyes we cannot see or terrible had been the loves she had inspired."

1 Journal of the American Medical Association, June 2, 1906.

THE END.

Bibliography

BELLOWS, PROF. HOWARD P.: The Test Drug Proving of the O. O. and L. Society.

BERNHEIM, H., M. D.: Suggestive Therapeutics, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

BRAMWELL, J. MILNE: Hypnotism, Its History, Practice, and Theory, J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia.

DOLBEAR, A. E., Ph. D.: Matter, Ether, and Motion, Lee & Shepard, Boston.

DONALDSON, HENRY HERBERT: The Growth of the Brain, Walter Scott, London.

DUBOIS, PROF. PAUL: The Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders, Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York and London.

FISKE, JOHN: Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Houghton, Mifflin Co.

FOSTER, M., M. A., M. D., LL, D., F. R. S. E.: A Text Book of Physiology, Lea Bros. & Co., Philadelphia.

GREGORY, WILLIAM, M. D., F. R. S. E.: Animal Magnetism, William H. Harrison, London, 1887.

HUDSON, THOMAS J., LL. D.: The Law of Mental Medicine, A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.

JAMES, PROF. WILLIAM, LL. D.: Psychology, Henry Holt & Co., New York.

LE CONTE, JOSEPH, LL. D.: Sight, D. Appleton & Co., New York.

MARTIN, H. NEWELL, D. Sc., M. D., M. A., F. R. S.: The Human Body, Henry Holt & Co., New York.

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