OF THE TESTES AND SEMINAL FLUIDS. 879 



own times, have all worked to the same end, and have all been alike suc- 

 cessful. It is unquestionable that, in all such cases, the benefit derived is in 

 direct proportion to the faith of the sufferer in the means employed ; and 

 thus we see that a couple of bread pills will produce copious purgation, and 

 a dose of red poppy syrup will serve as a powerful narcotic, if the patient 

 have entertained a sufficiently confident expectation of such results. 1 



726. This state of confident expectation, however, may operate for evil, 

 no less than for good. A fixed belief that a mortal disease had seized upon 

 the frame, or that a particular operation or system of treatment would prove 

 unsuccessful, has been in numerous instances (there is no reason to doubt) 

 the direct cause of a fatal result. Thus M. Ridard relates the case of a man, 

 thirty years of age, who was affected with stone in the bladder, and who saw 

 a patient die by his side, after being operated upon for the same complaint. 

 The man's imagination became excited ; his thoughts were constantly fixed 

 upon the operation which he himself expected to undergo, and upon the 

 probable death that would follow ; and, in fact, without any operation at 

 all, he died at the end of a month, affected with gangrene both of penis and 

 scrotum. Hence also it is, that the morbid feelings of the Hypochondriac, 

 who is constantly directing his attention to his own fancied ailments, tend to 

 induce real disorder in the action of the organs which are supposed to be 

 affected. In the same category, too, may be placed those instances (to which 

 alone any value is to be attached), wherein a strong and persistent impression 

 upon the mind of a Mother, has appeared to produce a corresponding effect 

 upon the development of the foetus in utero. In this case, the effect (if ad- 

 mitted to be really exerted ) must be produced upon the maternal blood, and 

 transmitted through it to the foetus ; since there is no nervous communica- 

 tion between the parent and the offspring. There is no difficulty, however, 

 in understanding how this may occur, after what has been already stated 

 ( 219) of the influence of minute alterations in the Blood in determining 

 local alterations of nutrition. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



OF GENERATION. 



1. General Character of the Function. 



727. HAVING now passed in review the various operations which are con- 

 cerned in maintaining the life of the individual, we have next to proceed to 

 those which are destined to the perpetuation of the race by the production 

 of successive generations of similar beings. The question of the occurrence 

 of spontaneous generation is one that has received great attention during 

 the last few years, but the opinions that have been expressed both for and 

 against it are still subjudice. No doubt can be entertained that under all 

 ordinary circumstances fluids containing organic substances in solution or 

 suspension when exposed to temperatures between 40 and 100 or 110 F., 

 and more rapidly as the mean temperatures of 70 and 80 are approxi- 



1 A remarkable and thoroughly well-attested case of the cure of a fistula lachry- 

 rnalis which had advanced so far as to involve disease of the bones of the nose, is 

 recorded in the History of the Portroyalists. 



