told to go thru a leg exercise mentally, not really moving a muscle, the center goes toward the feet, showing the mental control of the blood supply.

The possibility of either raising or lowering the rate of the heart by suggestion to the hypnotized individual has been previously mentioned in the chapter on the "Phenomena of Hypnosis." If the trophic and nutritional centers are under the control of the subconscious, one is not justified in concluding, a priori, that regenerative effects organic diseases are beyond the possibilities of psychotherapeutics.

Psychotherapeutics is not a panacea. - The The question as to what extent the physician should make use of this valuable accessory to his armamentarium must be left entirely to his individual judgment and experience. The same statement applies as to how much surgery he should do. It takes courage and self-reliance openly to advocate and practise it. One will undoubtedly be misunderstood by many of his professional brethren and by many of his patients. He may gain an unenviable reputation of having discarded all physico-therapy.

On the other hand, the reputation of being versed in the methods of mental healing may save one many a patient who would otherwise seek his psychotherapy elsewhere. Had the profession taken a more friendly attitude toward the subject the metaphysician" would have less reason for exist

ence.

While it is unwise and an encroachment upon individual liberty to attempt by legislation to prevent the various forms of mental healers from practising, it would certainly be conducive to public welfare if the healing art in all its branches were confined to properly educated and licensed practitioners of medicine. Those who know its limitations would not waste valuable time in futile attempts at psychotherapy, while the disease was passing beyond the curable or operable stage.

There is a class of physicians to-day which reiterates the verdict of the French Academy, "all due to the imagination," with a sneer of contempt: Granting this therapeutic power of the imagination, does it not behoove the profession to make of it an ally, instead of allowing it "to go about seeking whom it may devour?" Is our success so universal with old chronic cases that any means known to be curative can be ignored?

CHAPTER IX

SUMMARY

The psychic element in the practise of medicine. — The personality of the physician. - Genuine good-will. - Healthful suggestions. Suggestions adverse to health. Diet. - Suggestion present in all forms of therapeutics: in surgery, in refraction, in electrotherapy, in massage, in materia medica. The hidden suggestion. — Popular belief in efficacy of drugs. "Post hoc ergo propter hoc.". "It cured me." - Profession not given to critical analysis. — Responsible for erroneous theories. Shattuck: "Some of our patients get well." Flint's law, the natural history of disease. Percy: eight therapeutic influences: (a) Natural history of the morbid processes; (b) The recuperative energies of the organism; (c) The favorable agencies of hygiene; (d) The power of per. sonal magnetism, in the practitioner; (e) Suggestion and autosuggestion; (f) Faith; (g) Courage; (h) Drugs. - Attempt to eliminate suggestion from drug pathogenesis. The reproving by the Am. Hom. O. O. and L. Soc. The placebo, a vehicle of suggestion.

THE PSYCHIC ELEMENT IN THE PRACTISE OF MEDICINE

PERHAPS the most potent means of giving healthful suggestion is the personality of the physician himself. How often one hears a patient remark of his beloved physician: "It does me good to see him come in."

Learning and medical skill are certainly desirable qualities, but unless optimism and geniality are part

of his equipment one had better confine himself to laboratory and didactic medicine.

Brilliant scholarship never made a successful practitioner. Genuine good nature, a hopeful manner, and an honest desire to relieve suffering humanity should be cultivated to their fullest degree. If the study of mental physiology does nothing more than to inculcate this principle into the very fiber of one's being, it will have served no mean purpose. The selection of a certain physician presupposes a special confidence in his skill. Whether the means employed be drugs, surgery, or orthopedics, a lack of this confidence seriously cripples his efforts.

On the wall of a sanitarium near Boston is the following stanza :

"Talk Health, the dreary, never ending tale

Of mortal maladies is worn and stale,

You cannot charm or interest or please
By harping on the minor chord — disease.
Say you are well, or all is well with you,

And God shall hear the words and make them true to you."

The author has changed the last two lines as follows:

When asked if well, if not too ill, say "yes,"

And haply, e'en this slight untruth may bless. The stanza is printed on a small card which is frequently given to a patient inclined to hypochondria, with the suggestion that he take it home. It sometimes occasions a smile, but I firmly believe that great good is accomplished.

SUGGESTIONS ADVERSE TO HEALTH 127

Hudson, in "Law of Mental Medicine," shows how nearly all our articles of diet, one after another, have come to be regarded as unhealthful. The physician is prone to assume that the particular food which causes indigestion in himself must therefore be harmful to others, and warns all his patients and friends against eating it. There is a widespread failure to realize that "one man's meat is another's poison." When two or three happen to agree upon the indigestibleness of anything, and repeat their fears to one who indulges it, the suggestion is apt to be accepted by the subliminal consciousness, and the normal secretion of the digestive ferments may be inhibited, and another witness against the innocent offender is gained.

Conning over the symptoms of disease often leads to a morbid introspection, which is a veritable looking for trouble. The quack advertiser is keen enough to use this method of malevolent suggestion, and thus lures his victim, at least, into the symptomatology of a chronic disease.

Interwoven with all forms of physical therapeutics are the threads of suggestions. These are obtained from the direct statements of the physician, from his manner whether hopeful or discouraged, and also from the preconceived ideas of the patient.

The recovery from morbid symptoms which frequently follows a simple anesthetizing with pretended surgical interference, or simply exploratory incision, is so well recognized that we are apt to