BODILY CONDITIONS MENTAL STATES. 47 



diagnosis, I sought an interview with this lady and explained my views 

 to her. In plain language I told her that she was holding the arm 

 down by direct though unconscious volition, and that all she had to do 

 was to let go her mental hold on the muscles controlling the movements 

 of the affected shoulder. At first she was a little startled, but I told 

 her to think of it overnight and tell me in the morning if, with the aid 

 of my explanations and the facts of her own and other cases which I 

 related to her, she would not arrive at the same conclusion. She re- 

 turned the next day, saying that she was convinced that I was right ; 

 that she was sure that, through dread of the pain which she anticipated, 

 if she allowed the shoulder-joint to move, she was holding it by main 

 force. She knew and believed all this, but still she had not the power 

 to relax her mental hold on the muscles of the shoulder. To assist her 

 in this I adopted the following plan : I caused her to recline in an easy 

 position, while I stood behind her and took both her hands, the arms 

 bending at the elbows. I made not the least traction on the hands, but 

 simply held them for the purpose of directing and controlling her atten- 

 tion. My requirement was to raise both arms into the upright position, 

 that is, to extend the arms over the head, but not to raise the right, 

 which was free, any faster than she did the left, which she was holding 

 down in close contact with the body. The object was to cause her to 

 give her attention to and absorb her thoughts and interest in the right 

 and unaffected arm, so as to enable her to relax her hold on the left and 

 affected shoulder. The expedient was successful. She did let go her 

 arm, and within a week she had entirely relaxed the muscles about the 

 left shoulder, and regained complete use and control of the previously 

 rigid joint. 



I have seen every joint in the body relaxed or stiffened by mental 

 influence, often disastrously so when no aid came to them sometimes 

 relaxed and stiffened by turns ; but I introduce illustrations from cases 

 where these peculiar manifestations have happened at the shoulder, first 

 because they are typical cases, and secondly because I fancy they might 

 be more likely to escape the possible suggestion that, after all, there 

 might have been some organic lesion involved in the cases. We cer- 

 tainly do have the same mental influences complicating organic diseases 

 of the joints. But my object, at this time, is to exclude such cases as 

 can justly be subject to such an imputation. Of course, after once un- 

 derstanding the true condition of things, it is easy to see that the only 

 influence of the respective operations of force brisee, in these cases, was 

 on the patient's mind. In the first case, while she was lying weak and 

 prostrate from the effects of the anaesthetic, she forgot her shoulder and 

 simply let go of it. That was all. In the next operation, three years 

 afterward, on the other shoulder, there was less novelty calculated to 

 engage and keep her attention, and the rupturing of the adhesions which 

 had sprung up in consequence of prolonged loss of motion was sufficient 

 to maintain her interest in the joint, so that her attention failed to be 



